by Lucy Ryder
She straightened her navy shirt and batted her eyelashes in such a blatant attempt at flirting that Nate smiled, despite the pain and fever racking his body. “Here to let me make your dreams come true, sailor?” she asked boldly.
He managed a chuckle and a pointed glance at her wedding band before rasping, “Since you’re already married, my dreams will have to remain unfulfilled.”
“Your loss.” She laughed. “So, what can I help you with, handsome?”
Nate seriously thought about leaving, but reluctantly admitted, “I need to see a doctor.”
Her gaze sharpened and she must have seen something in his face because she instantly came round the counter to take his arm. “Let’s get you into one of the bays and I’ll find you one.”
Unwilling to admit just how wobbly he felt, Nate shook his head and locked his knees. “I’ll wait here.”
After a long searching look, the nurse disappeared, leaving Nate to lean against the counter as a wave of prickly heat and dizziness washed over him. The next thing he knew someone was calling his name and shaking his arm.
“Nate? Nate, what’s wrong? Can you hear me?”
He cracked open his eyes and Paige’s concerned face swam into view. “Nate, are you sick?”
Embarrassed by the display of weakness, he quickly straightened and scrubbed a hand over his face, hoping to clear his head. One minute he was hot and feverish, the next racked with sweaty chills. He’d felt this way only once before in his life, when he’d been in the field, nursing a gunshot wound.
Abruptly aware of their curious audience, Nate lowered his voice. “Can we have some privacy, Doc?” he rasped. “I need…um…” Swaying, he sucked in air and admitted quickly, “I need medical assistance.”
Paige’s eyes widened and quickly flashed over him, probably expecting to see blood. Seeing none, she grabbed his hand and steered him toward the swing doors. “Nancy, which bay is clean?” she called out, practically dragging him along like she was afraid he’d bolt.
Another nurse popped her head out a doorway and straightened when she saw Nate. “Bay Seven is clear. Dr. Reyes is on his way.”
“All right. It’s okay, Nate, we’ve got you,” she said, shoving Nate ahead of her into the unoccupied bay. As she drew the curtains she demanded, “It’s the gunshot wound, isn’t it?”
*
Frankie pulled the ambulance up to the emergency entrance and shoved the vehicle into park before hopping out and hurrying to the rear. Her partner, Dale Franklin, was ready with the collapsible gurney, jumping down the instant she opened the doors.
Grabbing the ventilation bag with one hand and using the other to assist with the dismount, she quickly checked the mobile heart monitor, cursing when she realized their patient was crashing again. It had been like this since they’d arrived at the scene.
She yelled, “He’s crashing again,” as she and Dale took off through the doors. “High-voltage burns to hands and arms. ACLS protocols observed, patient unresponsive and intubated on signs of respiratory muscle paralysis. Fourth-degree burns to right hand, third and second degree to left hand and both forearms. Possible fractures to phalanges and ulna.”
Dale added, “Catheter inserted with no immediate signs of MGB. Kidney function appears to be coping with increased fluid treatment.”
“Cranial and spinal injuries?” Dr. Thornton demanded, striding down the passage toward them as they rushed the patient into the trauma bay.
“He was thrown over twenty feet in an explosion and appears to have a lump on the back of his head,” Frankie reported. “Pupil reflex is normal at this stage but I’m more concerned with tetanic injuries and damage to his heart. We’ve struggled to keep him stable.”
The next fifteen minutes were spent in controlled chaos and shouted instructions. Frankie assisted in the transfer, answering the terse questions quickly and concisely.
They’d arrived on the scene where the patient and his partner had been conducting routine maintenance on the city’s main power supply. As far as she could tell, something had gone wrong with the safety switch, resulting in an arc explosion. It wasn’t clear why he hadn’t been wearing his safety gloves and if his hands had been damp, but he’d been thrown twenty feet in the explosion. His partner had immediately run to his aid and started CPR until other personnel had arrived on the scene. They had cut the smoking coverall fabric away from his hands, which were a mangled mess of burnt flesh and damaged tissue.
He’d been covered with a space blanket and his burned hands wrapped in sections of cut-up space blanket to await the EMS.
Immediately on arrival, Frankie and Dale had activated ACLS, or advanced cardio-life support, and intubated him at signs of respiratory paralysis. They’d then removed the rest of his coveralls to assess the damage, inserting a saphenous IV in his groin instead of a PICC in order to bypass the injured arms and exit wounds on his feet.
Once they’d fitted a neck brace they’d moved him to a spinal board and performed a twelve-lead ECG. He’d gone into cardiac arrest twice, forcing them to use the paddles.
Once Dale could handle him on his own, Frankie—having more advanced driver training—had taken the wheel.
*
After returning the equipment to the ambulance and submitting their procedure report to the ER staff, Frankie headed toward the EMS offices, wishing she didn’t have a ton of paperwork to get through. It had been a really busy afternoon and she was tired, hungry and needed a shower in the worst way.
She also hadn’t been sleeping lately and blamed the heat wave for it because no way would she admit that he was responsible. No way would she admit that the minute she closed her eyes she relived that night over and over and over again until she wanted to scream with frustration that was as much temper as sexual frustration.
She spotted Dale heading toward her, carrying a two-cup tray and stuffing his face with a Boston cream donut. Another donut was perched on top of the cup he held out to her.
She took the cup and tossed him the donut. “How many times do I have to tell you these things will kill you? They’re loaded with sugar, GMOs and trans fats. You’re better off eating cardboard.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, licking cream off his lip as he bit into the second donut. “My liver appreciates your concern but even with my diet of champions I’m likely to live a long life. Even if it’s just to watch you get all bent outta shape over your boyfriend.”
Not willing to discuss her pitiful love life and sound even lamer than she was, Frankie snorted, stepped around him and continued walking. She should have known that Dale wouldn’t take the hint, and within seconds he’d caught up with her.
“An interesting reaction there, Ms. Bryce.”
“Not that interesting,” she said dryly. “Considering I don’t have a boyfriend.” No one knew about Nate or that night and although Paige suspected, she didn’t know for sure. Frankie was all too happy to pretend nothing had happened.
“That’s not what I hear,” he said, casually chewing on the greasy pastry and sending her a curious sideways glance.
“Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” She lowered her voice. “Besides, the only reason I let people think it’s true is to get rid of guys like that,” she added, nodding as the new EMT, Hank, pushed his way through the ER doors.
“New guy been making a nuisance of himself?”
Frankie lifted her coffee to her mouth, making a humming sound of agreement.
“Want me to beat him up?” Dale demanded out loud when, sure enough, the other man swaggered up.
“No.” Frankie chuckled and nudged his shoulder affectionately. “But you know you’re my hero, right?”
“What about me?” Hank demanded with a smirk that often made Frankie want to smack him. “Am I your hero too?”
“There’s only place for one in my life,” she said smoothly. “And that’s my partner.”
Hank sent Dale a dismissive glance before turning back to
Frankie. “Seems like a henpecked husband to me,” he snorted. “If not me, then what about that coastie guy I hear you’re dating?”
“Now, there’s a real hero,” her partner piped up smugly. “He’s an ex-SEAL and probably knows a hundred ways to kill a man and make it look like a natural death.”
“People talk about those guys as though they’re superheroes,” Hank argued, getting a little red in the face. “But I know for a fact that your guy isn’t bulletproof.”
Frankie stiffened. “What does that mean?”
“I’m talking about the fact that he’s been shot.” He laughed. “I heard he even fainted.”
For a moment Frankie’s breath froze in her throat. Her heart lurched in her chest before settling down into a ragged rhythm. “That was last week,” she said as casually as she could, a tremble of relief escaping along with her exhalation. “And he didn’t faint or even pass out then so I can’t see him doing it now.”
Dale’s eyes widened and he quickly grabbed the donut out of his mouth before it fell.
“He got shot? For real?”
She shrugged. “It was just a flesh wound.” He’d come around for some first aid, stayed long enough to rock her world before leaving without saying goodbye, Thanks for rocking my world or even a See ya around, babe.
He seemed to have forgotten everything about her, including where she lived, a point he’d hammered home by not calling, texting or even sending a message in a bottle.
Frankie was smart enough to know what that meant. He was done with her now that he’d done her. Jerk.
“Hmm.”
Hank’s smirk was enough to draw an impatient “What?” from Frankie, in a tone that usually sent people running. But it seemed the other man’s ego kept him from picking up on verbal cues because, instead of backing off, he said, “Just that maybe he isn’t as invincible as you think. Lieutenant Thinks-he’s-a-Badass is in Bay Seven, being fawned over by a bunch of nurses. Your friend Paige is there too, looking suitably concerned.”
What? Nate was here? Frankie’s blood ran cold then hot then cold again.
“It’s Lieutenant Commander,” she snapped. “Why the hell can’t people remember something as simple as a man’s rank?” And before the two men could do anything more than gape at her, Frankie spun on her heel and headed for the ER.
She would not to lose it, she told herself, because losing it meant she cared. And why would she care about someone who thought so little of her?
But she did care, she thought as a strangled sob caught in her throat. More than she wanted to. And the news that he was in the ER, hurt and possibly bleeding to death, had Frankie flying down the passage toward the ER bays, her stomach a ball of dread, her nerves jittering like she’d guzzled a gallon of coffee.
She reached Bay Seven and whipped aside the curtain, only to find it empty.
Spinning in a fast circle, she spied an intern lounging at the nurses’ station and called out, “The guy in Seven. Have you seen him?”
“The gunshot guy?” He looked up with an absent frown. “Gone.”
She halted in her tracks as his words sank in. Gone. There was a buzzing in her ears and her world abruptly tilted on its axis. “Gone?”
“Yeah. Departed.” He must have seen something in her face because he shot to his feet. “I mean not gone gone,” he hurriedly explained. “He left on his own two feet.”
The pressure around her forehead eased. “And you didn’t stop him?”
He gaped at her. “You’re kidding, right? That guy is built like a cyborg. Besides, he was looking…” he narrowed his eyes at her “…kinda like you’re looking right now. Scary. Are you okay?”
“What about the attending physician?” she demanded, barely resisting the urge to head over there and throttle him for making her think that Nate was…well, gone. Permanently.
The intern shrugged apologetically and went back to whatever he’d been doing before she’d interrupted him.
Feeling as though her brain was about to explode, Frankie took another look into the empty bay and decided that since there were no signs of blood, Nate was most likely in one piece.
She expelled the breath she’d been holding. He was okay. He was alive and walking. “Men are stupid,” she muttered to herself, wondering how long ago he’d left and if she would find him passed out in the car park.
A dry feminine voice said behind her, “You won’t get any argument from me,” and Frankie spun around to see an ER nurse pushing a teenager in a wheelchair. He was bruised, bloodied and was hugging both his left arm and a battered skateboard to his skinny chest.
“Alpha flip or pop shuvit?” she asked, hoping to calm her crazy before she found Nate.
The kid’s torn lip curled. “Those are for little kids,” he scoffed. “I was trying the new hospital flip.”
“Guess you tanked it, huh?”
He looked a little sheepish as Nancy shook her head and rolled him into an open bay.
Frankie headed down the passage to the nearest exit and pulled out her phone to call Nate. It went directly to voice mail and with a muttered curse she shoved it into her back pocket just as she rounded a corner and nearly collided with Paige.
“Frankie, did you hear—”
“Yep, and now he’s not answering his phone.” She lifted a hand to the headache blooming into life behind her right eye.
“I’m sorry. I offered to drive him,” Paige admitted, “but he acted like I’d insulted his manhood and stomped off.”
“Idiots,” Frankie muttered, and rubbed her forehead. “Men are such idiots.”
Paige sighed her agreement. “But we still love them, right?”
“Right,” Frankie said dryly, before expelling her breath in a loud whoosh. Not going there, she thought. “Maybe I should go make sure the big oaf doesn’t wrap himself around a tree.”
“Need some help?”
Frankie snorted and strode toward the exit, pretending she wasn’t in a hurry. “Please, like I can’t handle an idiot guy with my hands tied behind my back.”
“You sound just like him, do you know that?” Paige called out, making Frankie feel just a little insulted.
“I am not the idiot that left after passing out in the ER. I just don’t want any witnesses when I kill him for being one.”
“Good luck with that,” Paige snorted. “There’s an entire race of males you’ll have to take on.”
No, there wasn’t, Frankie fumed as she hurried down the ramp toward employee parking. After she’d checked—because that’s what friends did—that he hadn’t passed out behind the wheel of his brand-new truck and smashed into a tree or driven over a cliff, she was done with men. Finished. Kaput.
Especially the ones with hero complexes. The ones who kissed you like you were the missing piece of their soul, like they wanted to consume you one kiss, one greedy bite at a time, gave you a few mind-blowing orgasms—then left without a single word.
Oh, yeah, she was done.
For the rest of freaking eternity.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE SUN WAS dipping low on the horizon when Frankie turned west and headed along the coastal road to Rocky Bay, creatively named because of the many rocks littering the cove. She’d never been to Nate’s house, but knew from Terri that he’d bought a fixer-upper overlooking the small bay.
Turning off Ocean Drive, Frankie had only gone a couple of hundred yards when she came across Nate’s truck, abandoned on the side of the road a good half-mile from his house.
Chest abruptly squeezing, she pulled in behind the truck and shoved her car into park before hopping out to check—half expecting to find glass, crumpled metal and a bleeding unconscious alpha.
She found the vehicle empty and allowed her breath to escape in a loud whoosh. Okay, so no crumpled metal and no unconscious alpha…which was good. Also good, she decided when she tried the door, was the discovery that it was locked. It meant Nate couldn’t have been too out of it if he’d remembered to lock
his precious truck. But then again he was a guy, and guys tended to treat their vehicles better than they treated people.
She tried his phone and heard ringing coming from inside the cab. Cursing, she got back into her car and shoved it into gear. Driving slowly, she craned her neck and squinted into the deepening shadows on both sides of the road for any sign that he’d wandered off and passed out in someone’s yard.
Or fallen into a ditch.
Houses on this side of town were spaced further apart and the forest tended to encroach, which was why she missed Nate’s road and had to reverse before finally locating Gull’s Way. Bouncing over the rough spots, she totally understood why he’d bought the truck.
His house was at the end of the beach access lane, a sprawling log cabin that in the gathering gloom looked like it had been neglected but showed recent signs of renovation.
Light spilled from the neighboring houses but number eight Gull’s Way was in darkness—a fact that set her nerves jangling because it meant he hadn’t made it home.
Where was he?
Working to not go into a total freak-out, she sat, thumbs tapping the steering wheel and nerves jittering at the image of him taking the stairs built into the side of the cliff and tumbling down onto the rocky beach fifty feet below.
Her breath backed up in her throat. Or…what if he’d gone onto the front deck, fainted again and fallen over the railing? What if—
“Stop already,” she snapped, swallowing her heart, which had lodged in her stupid throat. The words, spoken aloud, settled her and she turned into his driveway and pulled up a few yards from the wooden porch.
She shoved the vehicle into park, telling herself that the wide open front door didn’t mean that his place had been burgled and she wasn’t about to walk into a crime scene. It just meant she’d been watching way too many cop shows on TV. Port St. John’s still had that small-town feel and people rarely locked their doors. Besides, bad guys had most likely heard that Nate was an even badder guy than they were and were keeping away.