Phoebe: Book One of Broken Girls Series

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  “I almost didn’t recognize you with your hair up.” His voice stopped as I switched out the dressing and pressed clean squares against the gash in his hand, the only indication of his pain was the wince he gave at how hard I pushed. “You have such beautiful hair.”

  Without asking for permission, my eyebrows involuntarily shot toward my hairline and I forced myself to keep my head down and eyes averted.

  But it was hard.

  Damn hard.

  “Although your name badge should’ve clued me in because I’ve never met a Phoebe before.” He swallowed so loudly, I heard a click before he spoke again. “And it’s spelled with a ‘P-H’ instead of an ‘F’.” He did another deeply-throated swallow, causing my eyes to hit his pale face as I assessed his breathing. “An amazing name for an amazing woman.”

  Jay-sus! How was a girl supposed to work efficiently and professionally with a guy like him saying shit like that? I mean, I’d been hit on in the course of my job by both male and female patients alike. But none of them ever came close to making me feel like Ryker.

  He stopped speaking as he rocked from side to side. “I kinda did a number on my hand, huh?”

  “Yeah, you did.” To my mind, his color looked off and his voice sounded weak which I thought was just a reaction to whatever he’d seen when his eyes drifted to his open wound. “How’d it happen? Or is this just par for the course for maintenance people?”

  When he didn’t answer, I chanced a glance up, only to find him grinning, although in my studied opinion he was about to pass out. “I wish.”

  I hid my answering smile by turning to look at the monitor.

  He sighed. “I was slapping together a sandwich, just cutting a bagel and the knife slipped.”

  Seriously? I’d imagined him doing something more manly. Like scoring drywall or stripping the insulation off a wire. “We see that quite a bit here in ER. Bagel slippage is a really common accident, so much so, the packages of the uncut ones should come with a warning label.”

  Shit! Did I really just say that out loud? ‘Bagel slippage’ wasn’t even a phrase, for god’s sake! But it made Ryker laugh and I decided to forgive myself because of all the laughs I’d ever heard, much less caused, his was the best. The absolute best! Growly and rolling, it came up from somewhere deep inside him until it exited through his full lips. The ones God in all his glory had fashioned for sin.

  And at just the sound, I was fully shoved back into the sex-fog only Ryker could build. Luckily, at that juncture the curtain was yanked aside and Dr. Singh entered the bay with a breezy, “What have we here?”

  As I apprised the doctor of Ryker’s wound and medical status, I made sure to keep my gaze well and truly averted from my patient’s. A look I’d found I habitually got lost in, which absolutely wouldn’t work if I was to follow Dr. Singh’s requests for what was needed in order to stitch the gash in Ryker’s hand.

  “Not one suture tray, Ms. Marquette, but two,” the doctor corrected me. Turning to Ryker, he explained. “The position and depth of the cut needs a double layer of sutures: one in the muscles that control your fingers and another in the surface of your palm. To tell the truth, Mr…uh…”

  “Adams,” Ryker provided, giving me the additional knowledge of his last name.

  “Mr. Adams,” Dr. Singh repeated. “You’re lucky you didn’t sever a tendon although you managed to nick one of the smaller bones.”

  I don’t know if Ryker made a sound or shifted on the bed but something made me look his way only to see him blanch at the doctor’s words; going from golden to gray within seconds. Moving swiftly to the head of the bed, I fully leaned across and went face-to-face with my patient. “It’s okay, Ryker. Don’t think about it. In fact, don’t even look. Just keep your eyes on me while Dr. Singh works on your hand, all right?”

  Ryker performed another long, slow swallow as he stared up into my face before nodding in a jerky fashion. “I’m good.”

  I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. “No you’re not, but you will be when all this is over.”

  Then, apropos of nothing, he said, “I really like your eyes. They’re not just blue, like blue-blue, but the kind of sky-blue in springtime just after the sun creeps over the mountains. Combined with your brown hair, they’re really sexy.”

  What the hell? I blinked wondering if I’d just had an auditory hallucination.

  “They match the background of her scrubs.” Dr. Singh put in his two cents. “I like these Mickey Mouse ones, but my favorites are the ones she wears covered in teddy-bears.”

  I repeat…what the hell?

  Silly me felt the need to justify my choice of uniforms to both my patient and the doctor on call. “I only pick ones that keep patients calm and less afraid. Everyone watches those medical shows and sees the nurses and doctors in plain green or blue scrubs, hustling as they do all sorts of scary things, giving their diagnosis in long, unintelligible words which only adds to a patient’s fear.”

  I glanced behind me to Dr. Singh. Surely he knew what I meant! “Mickey Mouse and teddy-bears aren’t scary.”

  “Our nurse Marquette is as wise as she is beautiful,” Dr. Singh stated firmly, tying off the last of the internal knots and reaching for the second suture tray.

  Turning back to Ryker, his pale face had changed, softened and the look on his face was almost tender before I heard him whisper, “I agree.”

  I know I blinked, but in all actuality I was wondering if Ernest, the security guard stationed just inside the ER doors, carried a gun. One he’d be willing to give up so I could shoot myself. Because everyone knew nobody ever died of embarrassment and I needed to be put out of my misery at the earliest moment. Or in hospital speak: Stat.

  After their ‘let’s fluster the nurse’ episode, neither man said much which gave me a chance to somewhat center myself.

  That is until Dr. Singh noticed the condition of Ryker’s blood-stained t-shirt. “Why don’t you see if we have an extra scrub top that will fit him. Can’t have the man roaming the streets of Grantham looking like a serial killer.”

  I skittered off on my errand, blindingly aware I was going to see Ryker’s chest without clothes even if it was only due to his wound. I mean, seeing naked and unclothed people was a part of my job and something I did all the time. But at that particular moment I realized I not only love-loved my job…I freaking adored it!

  Racing past the reception station in search of the doctor’s lounge and locker room, Rhonda twisted around to follow my trajectory. “Where you going in such a damn hurry?”

  “Ryker needs a scrub top,” I yelled over my shoulder.

  “And I need his I.D. and insurance card!”

  I lifted a hand in acknowledgment that I heard her as I scampered down the left-hand hallway. My heart was racing to beat the band and I didn’t think it was because of the full-out sprint I was employing so I could get back to Ryker at the soonest possible moment. No, my brain was sending out images of what his naked chest might look like, causing everything within me to squee and dance in anticipation.

  Dr. Singh was long gone by the time I arrived back in bay two, Ryker’s head lifting at my entry. He’d shifted position on the gurney, going from lying down to sitting up, although his color was still an alarming shade of washed-out gold.

  “I don’t really need the loan of the shirt,” he continued, waving his good hand towards the scrub I held clutched to my chest. “But I do need to get with that quiet lady manning the front desk. Give her my insurance shit so I don’t have to pay.”

  I scrambled to think who he was talking about before realizing he was speaking of Rhonda who was the furthest thing from a quiet lady as could be. Then sighed at the thought of not having an excuse to view his naked pecs and abs. “Why don’t you take it anyway. You don’t want to get anymore blood in your car, do you?”

  “My uncle drove me,” he corrected, stretching his feet to the floor. “But, you’re right. He’d kill me if I got any blood in his car.
”

  Thank god for tio Jose Verde!

  Ryker used his good hand and reached over his shoulder to grab a handful of tee.

  “Wait a sec,” I cautioned after I surmised his intention to get undressed. “Let me help, so you don’t pull a stitch or something.” It wasn’t like I was panting to get him partially naked or anything, I was just being a good nurse in helping a patient change out of his bloody clothes.

  Liar, liar. Pants on fire, my mind chanted as I steadfastly stared up at him, willing the heat in my cheeks to dissipate.

  Still holding his surprised gaze, I grabbed the hem of Ryker’s t-shirt on either side of his waist and slid the fabric up to his neck. My plan was to help him the same way and with the same level of interest I gave my other patients but, hoo-god! At the first bump of his stomach muscles on the back of my fingers, I faltered when my knees started to shake. Which found me holding my breath.

  Don’t look down, I cautioned myself. Whatever you do, don’t look down.

  “Are you okay?” My mouth moved without my knowledge but within the guidelines of what I’d learned in school.

  “I should ask you the same question,” he quipped on a light note, drawing my gaze upward. His eyes were dancing and his mouth crooked in a half-assed grin. “You seem to be having trouble breathing. Is my shirt that hard to take off?”

  “N-no.”

  And that was the last of the conversation I allowed, somehow knowing he was aware of and knew all that was beating within me. Of the struggle to remain professional as I undressed the very man of my dreams in my place of employment.

  He gained his feet, settling the scrub top around his hips. But our eyes met on a hard collide, much like they’d done over and over again the previous day. And, as if they’d also been trained to respond to such a man, my stomach dipped and knees weakened again.

  I knew it was wrong, me and Ryker standing together, our lips only a foot apart in the curtained off area of bay.

  But it felt too freaking perfect to stop.

  “Why are you trembling?” His voice was so low, so soft I barely heard him.

  “I don’t know.” Which was the god’s honest truth, because although I’d seen and heard of how it could be between two consenting adults, I’d never experienced it first-hand. Had never even had a full, tongue-swabbing-each-other’s-tonsils kind of kiss. So I couldn’t enunciate exactly what Ryker made me feel as our bodies pressed together.

  He leaned into me, dipping his head down and I found myself rising up onto my tiptoes in order to match him move for move. But instead of leaning in, in order to press his mouth to my lips, his forehead pressed against mine as he whispered, “I should probably go.”

  While the forehead-to-forehead contact was a cool move, my disappointment at being denied his kiss could be heard in my voice. “Probably.”

  “But I don’t wanna.”

  I closed my eyes again before popping them open, reminding myself to breathe as my heart raced. “I should get back to work.”

  His good hand skimmed up my back until it met the skin of my neck, lightly trying to force my body into his. “You give good nurse, Phoebe Marquette. Thank you.”

  Oh my sweet, dear, merciful god!

  “You take care and don’t try slicing a bagel alone.” Yeah, it was a weak line but I didn’t know what else to say in our particular circumstance. “Be sure to fill out the forms Rhonda gives you and provide your insurance info, okay?”

  His forehead again dropped to mine and I kept my eyes open only to see his long, dark lashes meet the top of his cheeks. “I will.” Pulling back a bit, his hand loosened from my neck and I slowly raised my face to his.

  “Is this good-bye?” my mouth asked, without any prior approval from my brain.

  He smiled and, as I’d already noticed with Ryker, it wasn’t done with only his mouth, but with his eyes. “No, babe. This is only hasta la vista. Which means, ‘until next time’.”

  Oh sweet merciful heavens.

  Chapter Four

  Ryker went to bed late. Late because his hand fucking hurt and to digest a heaping plate of his mom’s fucking amazing chicken enchiladas. While her cooking was the bomb, it was too rich and the servings too large for the appetite he’d developed while on the inside.

  But if those were the only complaints he could drum up at being back in the real world, he’d take them. Could absolutely take them lying on the twin bed he’d used as a boy, the sheets twisted underneath him, comforter on the floor and the window opened four inches, just enough to catch the occasional breeze. A window with no bars on it, walls and door solid never carrying any sound of booted heels traversing the hall outside.

  The whole of it announcing he was safe.

  Safe enough to sleep in nothing but his boxers, without someone eyeing his crotch or ass in order to consider using him for their sexual release.

  Secure in the knowledge his room wasn’t gonna be trashed or rooted through (not that he had much to be destroyed or discovered) just because some ass-hat got a wild hair about some disrespectful word or look they thought Ryker gave earlier.

  Knowing all that and more, when Ryker finally found his sleep (difficult to do in all the silence—since both juvie and prison were anything but quiet even in the Cinderella hours) he slept hard. So hard, it took shaking the bed to even make his eyelids flutter.

  “Yo! Ry!”

  Recognizing the voice and still in the haze of sleep, Ryker snuggled deeper into the pillow. So deep his voice was muffled when he responded with a gruff, “Wha’?”

  “Get your ass outta bed, man. We got shit to do.”

  Ryker half-rolled from his side to his back and opened one eye to see his middle brother leaning over him. “Seriously? It’s like, what?” He turned to look at the Toy Story bedside clock and blinked. “Shit! Why didn’t Ma wake me?”

  “She along with Therese and Mercy went to breakfast before their canasta-fest.”

  Fuck! He’d forgotten. Every Friday, his mom and her friends played cards at the Grantham Rec Center. Since he was usually at the apartment complex working, he’d never seen her go and only heard about it after the fact.

  In minute detail.

  As in word for word, which he tuned out about three sentences into her story.

  He felt a throb in his left hand and brought it up to his face. He needed to change the dressing and since Cruz was there he’d at least have help doing it. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, Ryker used good hand to scrub at his face, then his hair in order to give his dick time to deflate from its normal morning wood. While he worked himself awake, Cruz moved to the tiny closet and threw open the door.

  “Shit! You didn’t go shopping, didja pendejo?”

  Ryker twisted to look over his shoulder, his glance taking in Cruz’s pissed off stance and the almost empty insides of the closet. Since he only wore t-shirts, jeans and boots and since all of that could be folded and shoved into piles on either the top shelf or the floor, the rod only contained three items: the leather jacket, a dress shirt with a tie looped around the collar and a hoodie that wouldn’t stay folded no matter what.

  Rather than verbalize what his brother already surmised, Ryker shrugged.

  “Fuck me.” Cruz’s voice was low, which Ryker knew meant the man’s temper was high. “I’m here with all the paperwork shit we need to have on file before you start on Monday.”

  “Isn’t that a full week earlier than I was told?” Ryker was slow to wake up but he didn’t think he had the wrong end of the stick of the timeline because his mom had circled his Black Ice start date on the calendar.

  In red.

  And with multiple circles.

  Cruz half-turned to where Ryker was trying to groggily find his feet. “Yeah. But since Jose and Ange fired your ass, Max saw no reason to wait.” His brother’s hazel eyes dropped and then raced back up to his face. “Do you fucking mind not scratching your goddamn balls in my presence?”

  “You wake me up and
get up in my grill first thing in the morning, then you deal with me scratching what itches, homey.” Ryker felt the beginnings of a grin on the edges of his mouth. Bickering with his brother first thing in the morning felt right somehow, as if they were repeating something from the earlier days. He was willing to overlook the how and why he was fired since, with his hand, he really couldn’t help Jose anyway.

  “Wrap your hand in plastic wrap so it doesn’t get wet in the shower. We’ll change the dressing later.” Cruz stated flatly before going down the hall.

  Showered, dressed and with hair combed, Ryker entered the kitchen and found a fresh pot of coffee brewing and his brother working a skillet of chorizo and eggs with cheese. Pouring two cups, Ryker snagged one and left him to it only sparing a glance as Cruz flipped the tortillas over an open flame of the gas stove.

  A plate slid to a stop between his elbows as Cruz dropped to a seat across from him at the dining room table set into a small windowed space at the far end of the narrow kitchen. “I talk. You eat, comprende?”

  Reaching for his brother’s version of a breakfast burrito, Ryker again nodded only just then noticing a thick manila envelope sitting square in the middle of the table.

  “Right then,” Cruz muttered, setting his coffee mug to the side and snagging the envelope emblazoned with the word ‘Ry’ on it. “This top one is your application of employment. Just fill out your name, address, social security number but leave the other shit blank.”

  A form was slid to his side of the table but Ryker didn’t so much as tag it with his gaze because he was focused on the remaining half-inch of papers still clutched in Cruz’s hand.

  “Here’s your W-2 shit. Fill it out but know we file it with the government so you gotta get it right from the get-go.”

  Another paper skimmed over the surface of the table and landed close to the first.

  “Next, we got your insurance stuff.” Cruz finally glanced up. “Max negotiated a sweet deal for all our full time staff, low co-pays for doc visits and any pharmacy crap. Minimum payments done before you get your bi-monthly paycheck.”