by Laura Iding
"Marta, there's a program at Trinity that helps you go back to school to become a nurse, if you work there. It's their response to the nursing shortage. Maybe you should think about it. Even if you only worked in the kitchen or as a runner, you'd be eligible for the program."
"Hmm. I'll check it out," Marta promised.
When Serena kept herself busy, she didn't think about Grant. But alone at night in her wide bed, the memories would come.
She and Grant had been so good together. From the first time she'd met him, she'd felt an instant connection. A magnetic pull that she could only explain as chemistry. Sure, the physical attraction was there, but this was something deeper. Something instinctive. Elemental.
Stop torturing yourself, she told herself firmly. You know he's not the right man for you. Serena turned over and punched a fist into her pillow. Grant Sullivan had no right interrupting her sleep.
After a few days of battling restlessness, though, she couldn't stand it any more. She needed to know Grant was safely on the road to recovery. Serena was scheduled to go into Trinity for a required in-service on new trends in managing trauma. Arriving early, she headed up to Grant's room.
The patient in the bed glanced up when she came in, but the patient was a woman.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Face flushed, Serena quickly backed out of the room. "My mistake."
"No problem," the woman called out.
She headed over to the nurses' station. "Will you, please, tell me where Grant Sullivan is?"
"He went home earlier today." The unit secretary appeared to be drowning in paperwork and didn't look up from her computer. "That's all I know."
"Thanks." Serena headed downstairs for her class.
But while the information on the latest treatment protocols for blunt trauma was interesting, she couldn't concentrate. How had Grant managed to get discharged so quickly? Did he have someone at home to help him out?
Loren perhaps?
An hour and a half later, Serena was thankful to escape Trinity. Once in her car, she found herself driving toward Grant's house.
She didn't know if he still lived in the small bungalow he'd bought before they'd met. But as she slowly drove down the street, she noticed his old familiar rusted blue Chevy was parked in the driveway.
OK, he must still live there because no one else would drive a twenty-year-old car that was so rusted you could hear water sloshing in the trunk when it rained. She circled the block then slowly drove past his house again then admonished herself for being an idiot. She pulled up to the curb and parked.
Bravely she walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Once Grant had given her a key. But that had been a lifetime ago. Feeling foolish, she rang the doorbell.
Muffled sounds could be heard from deep inside the house. Several seconds passed. Was Grant physically unable to make it to the door? Should she walk in?
Or maybe he wasn't alone? Her stomach twisted in a tight knot. She'd just convinced herself to leave when the door swung open.
Grant stood, leaning heavily on the door frame. He looked more like his old self, wearing a pair of baggy sweats and a ragged navy blue Milwaukee Police Department T-shirt. His hair was mussed, his cheeks gaunt.
"Serena." Surprise widened his eyes. "Come on in."
"How are you, Grant?" She stepped over the threshold and glanced around the interior of his living room. He had new furniture, the black leather sofa-love seat combination that he'd always wanted. When they'd been planning their life together, she'd agreed to leather but had begged for any color other than black. There was a blanket and pillow lying on the sofa and Grant headed back there, gesturing for her to sit down.
"I was at the hospital today for an in-service and found out you were discharged." Serena perched on the edge of her seat and clasped her hands in her lap.
"Yeah, it's great to be home." He leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes with a sigh.
His face was flushed and Serena frowned as she leaned forward to examine him more closely. His lips were pale and he appeared exhausted. Just from getting up to answer the door? Didn't seem right.
"Grant, how are you feeling?"
He pried one eye open to peer at her. "Fine. Other than a whopping headache."
The nagging feeling at the back of her neck intensified. She rose from her seat to kneel beside him. Laying a hand on his forehead, she gasped when his skin felt hot to her touch. "You have a fever," she accused. "How on earth did you manage to get discharged with a fever?''
He closed his eye and sighed. "I didn't have a fever this morning."
"This just started in the past few hours?'' Serena sat back on her heels and glanced at her watch. The time was nearly four in the afternoon. "We need to call your doctor."
"No. I'm sure I'll be fine in a few hours."
"Grant, this isn't funny. One of your incisions could be infected. Or maybe your lungs have begun to develop pneumonia." She fought the urge to stroke his chest. Her stethoscope was in her car. She debated running out to grab it.
"So check the incisions if you want." Grant shifted slightly on the sofa, then pulled up his shirt to expose his chest wound.
"I will." Had he thought she wouldn't take him up on his offer? She'd put up with the most arrogant of surgeons. One cranky cop was hardly a challenge. "Hang tight, I'm pulling off the tape."
She eased the dressing away from his skin. The area around the incision was a little red, but the wound appeared clean. No sign of purulent drainage, no foul odors.
"How come that doesn't hurt when you do it?" Grant asked sleepily.
She had no idea what he was babbling about. "This one looks fine." She replaced the dressing, and glanced at his long muscular legs hidden from view beneath the sweatpants. "What about your thigh injury?"
That question made his eyes pop open. "What about it?"
"Could that one be infected?" Serena didn't want to ask him to drop his pants but she refused to leave him in this state. Infections were nothing to mess around with. Too bad if the fact that Grant was wearing clothes rather than the impersonal hospital gown made the setting more intimate than it should have been.
"Forget it." Grant avoided her gaze. "The home health nurse is stopping in tomorrow. She can look at it then."
"I'm not leaving until I've seen the wound for myself." If Grant thought he could beat her at a duel of stubbornness, he was wrong. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, take your pick."
"Oh, yeah? What's the hard way?" Despite his flushed skin and his over-bright eyes, he flashed her a cheeky grin.
Serena felt her lips curve in an answering smile. "Wrestling is the hard way. And, believe me, in your condition it's no contest. I'll win."
"Sure, now you want to wrestle, when I'm as weak as a newborn kitten." Grant grimaced and shifted again. "Damn. My entire body aches too much to give that option a try. I'll give gracefully." His hands reached for his waistband.
Serena found herself holding her breath as he tugged the sweats down then eased the elastic over one hip, low enough to expose the white gauze covering his thigh dressing. She reminded herself that she was a professional and bent to the task at hand. But the firm muscle beneath her hands reminded her that she'd once had the privilege of touching him. Of holding him. Loving him.
The room turned hazy and she realized she was still holding her breath. Calming herself with several long deep breaths, she concentrated on the incision. This one didn't look nearly as neat and tidy, but after careful inspection she deemed there was no sign of infection.
"This looks good, too." She replaced the dressing then stood. "I'll be right back. My stethoscope is in my car."
"Serena, don't..."
She allowed the door to close behind her, cutting off his protest. Stubborn man. There was no way she was just going to leave him lying at home fresh out of the hospital suffering from a fever. How he'd managed to convince Dr. Hardy to let him go in the first place, she had no idea.
Mo
ments later she let herself back in. Grant hadn't moved from his spot on the sofa. "I need you to take your shirt off."
"This just keeps getting better and better." Grant gamely pushed himself upright. "Only my shirt? Maybe you should do a thorough check on all body parts. You know, make sure they're functioning properly."
"Oh? Have you been suffering from a frustrating... problem? There's medication for that now, you know. I can recommend a specialist."
Grant bit back a laugh. This easy bantering had been just one of the many things he'd missed with Serena. She was bright, quick with a comeback when he got out of line. Favoring his right side, he tried to ease his shirt off. The tension on his incision hurt like hell.
"Ouch." He grimaced and lowered his arm, covering the incision site. Pushing off the sofa, he stood. "You'll need to help. I still can't raise this arm very high."
"Here." She grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. A lightning bolt of pain shot through his side and a low groan escaped his lips as he swayed.
Serena quickly placed her hands on his hips to steady him. He glanced down at her at the same moment she tipped her head to look up at him.
Close. They were so close that he could lean down to kiss her with very little effort. Did she taste as potent as he remembered? He ached to find out.
The moment stretched for ever. Good memories rushed back, staggering him with their intensity. The hours they'd spent talking and making love. The sheer joy in her eyes when he'd proposed. The way she'd jumped into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time, planting kisses all over him. The plans they'd made for the small church wedding she'd wanted.
Grant was hardly aware of reaching for her. But in an instant she filled his arms and his mouth crushed hers. Serena melted against him, as if they'd never spent nearly two years apart, her soft lips parting in an invitation he couldn't resist.
He feasted on her, tongue delving deep. Her hands smoothed over his back and he nearly groaned with a sudden spurt of need. The need to possess her almost brought him to his knees. Stroking the soft skin around her neck, his fingers tangled in the wild curls of her hair. Nothing had ever felt so right.
The shrill ring of the phone caused Serena to jerk out of his grasp. He nearly tumbled backward onto the sofa. His answering-machine picked up on the second ring and the caller didn't leave a message, but the moment was lost. Staring at him, she pushed her tangled hair back from her face.
"Grant, I..." She swallowed hard."You shouldn't have done that."
His breath sawed in and out of his lungs, and his knees threatened to buckle. But he couldn't stop himself from tracing a finger over the smattering of freckles across her nose.
"You kissed me back. I've missed you, Serena." God knew that was the truth. As much as he resented the way she'd refused to compromise, he'd never been able to forget her. At odd points during the day he'd think about her, chastising himself afterward. But against his will she'd followed him into his dreams, haunting him with her sweet smile and magical touch.
"I don't think Loren would appreciate hearing that."
He winced with guilt. He didn't know how Serena had found out about Loren but she was right. The friendship line between he and Loren hadn't been crossed, but Loren deserved to know the truth. Wrong or not, he wanted Serena with a desperation that refused to let him go. Why couldn't he feel this way with Loren? Cold reality killed his lingering desire quicker than any icy shower.
Setting her jaw sternly, Serena stepped away and reached for her stethoscope. All business now, she made him take several deep breaths while she listened, moving the drum of the stethoscope around his chest.
"I think you might need to cough and deep breathe more. And push fluids. I'll call your doctor." She rolled the stethoscope in her hands.
''Wait." Grant grasped her arm to prevent her from leaving. "We need to clear something up, Serena. Loren and I are just friends." And he'd call Loren again soon, to tell her exactly that. Stringing her along because he didn't want to hurt her son wasn't fair, to either of them. Not when a single kiss had forced him to realize how much he still ached for Serena. He tried not to sound too defensive. "She's had a tough time. She needed a helping hand. I was there for her, that's all."
"It's OK, Grant. Nothing's changed between us." Serena raised woeful blue eyes to his and his heart squeezed in his chest. "Sex was never the problem, was it? You're still a cop and I'll never love a hero."
"Serena..." Grant sank down on the edge of the sofa, fighting a swell of panic at the bleak expression in her gaze. "Let's talk, OK? Maybe there's a way—''
"I'm glad you found someone," she interrupted with a falsely bright smile. Her hands twisted the black tubing of her stethoscope until it looked like something alien. "Really. You deserve to be happy."
"So do you." Why was she being so stubborn about this? Didn't she know how rare and precious love was? Hell, she couldn't have kissed him like that if she didn't still feel something for him.
Could she?
"Yes, I do deserve to be happy." She surprised him by agreeing. "And that's the problem. I'll never be happy, married to a cop."
Grant absently rubbed the ache in his thigh and fought a shiver. So this was it, then. They'd gone full circle. Back to the beginning of the end. He couldn't deny that the blood of a true-blue, die-hard cop flowed through his veins.
Even now, when his head throbbed with fever, he itched to go through his reports. To search for clues, to examine the ballistics reports and dig into every minute detail surrounding this latest case. He wanted to comb the streets, isolating gang members to discover what was really going on. Who was the one behind the violence? Or were there several? Was this just some weird initiation rite or something far more sinister?
A rookie cop was dead. Everything he lived for, everything he believed in demanded that justice be served. Whoever was responsible needed to be punished.
He couldn't apologize for being who he was.
And there was no way Grant could give up his life, just to make Serena happy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Serena abruptly left Grant on the sofa, heading into the kitchen where she knew she'd find the phone. She set her tangled stethoscope aside. Pressing her palms flat on the counter, she tried to control the shaking. Her lips tingled from his kiss. Dear God, why now? Why had Grant kissed her like that? To remind her of what she'd missed? For eighteen months she'd managed to keep her basic needs in a deep freeze. Why had they once again thawed for the wrong man?
She understood that her feelings toward Grant's career weren't normal. Grant had called them irrational, which had hurt. He didn't seem to understand everything she'd gone through. Some women would have glamorized a cop's life, lured by the element of danger. No way was she one of them.
Her brother Eric had given his life to save a child. After the tragic death of their parents, Eric had been the only family she'd had left in the world. Blackened from smoke, he'd still been wearing his firefighter gear when he'd died in the trauma room at Trinity Medical. She could still envision his soot-streaked face. Eric had given everything he'd had to his job, at her expense.
Grant was the same way. Serena wanted someone to come home to. Someone who would be there for her. Someone to help her raise a family.
The thought of having a family nearly brought tears to her eyes. So much had happened a year and a half ago. And while she'd buried the pain, it had never truly left her. Yet there was nothing to gain by wallowing in self-pity.
Besides, Grant hadn't sat around, waiting for her. He'd found someone who could share his risks when she couldn't. He claimed they were just friends, but she suspected Loren's feelings went far deeper than that. The idea of Loren at Grant's side shot a fresh shaft of regret straight to her heart.
Sadness gave way to anger. What was he thinking, to restart something they couldn't finish? Worse yet, why had she allowed herself to respond? She was smarter than that, wasn't she?
Certain
ly, she refused to be stupid enough to fall for Grant Sullivan's charm once again.
Serena notified Dr. Hardy's office. His nurse practitioner promised to have him return the call. Serena explained the situation but the nurse practitioner hadn't seemed deeply concerned about Grant's fever. Maybe she was overreacting. Slightly mollified, Serena returned to the living room.
Grant had fallen asleep on the sofa. For a moment she simply gazed at him. His sandy brown hair was longer than normal, brushing against his broad forehead. His features were relaxed, although she knew how intense his gaze could get, especially when deeply immersed in a case. His heroic nature was so much a part of him, she honestly understood he'd never change. It was unfair to ask him to.
Yet just like that first night in the hospital, she couldn't quite force herself to leave him. What was it about her that insisted on caring for those in need? Although Grant certainly didn't appear as ill as he had been, she wouldn't be satisfied until he was well on the road to recovery.
She settled down on the comfortable love seat across from him. Thirty minutes later, Dr. Hardy returned her call.
"How high is his fever?"
"Not , too bad, just under 102." Serena glanced through the doorway at Grant. "The rest of his vitals are fine, although his heart rate is understandably higher than normal because of the fever. I examined his surgical sites, they both look really good. His lungs sound a bit coarse and distant in the left lower base."
"Is he taking the antibiotics I prescribed?"
Hmm. Good question. Serena swept her gaze around the kitchen, then craned her neck to peer into the living room. "I don't know for sure, but you can bet I'll find out."
"I also sent him home with a script for pain medication. Apparently, while Detective Sullivan was here, he continually refused to take them. Doesn't surprise me now to find out he isn't coughing and deep breathing as much as he should." Dr. Hardy definitely sounded annoyed.
"I'll talk to him. Anything else I should have him do, other than pushing fluids?'' Serena asked.
"No, but let me know if his fever isn't better by tomorrow."