Shatter (Unbreakable Bonds Series Book 2)

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Shatter (Unbreakable Bonds Series Book 2) Page 3

by Jocelynn Drake


  Jude chuckled. “I’m sure Jordan’s girlfriend is teaching him plenty about that.” Jordan, at seventeen, was already taller than Jude and popular with the girls, but his heart was busy with one girl in particular and he thought she hung the moon. Jude didn’t agree.

  “Just put me out of my misery. Will Carrick be there? Damn, I can’t breathe when I’m around him.”

  He snorted. “I’ll make sure we bring the Albuterol then. Or, I can just tell Carrick to do CPR. He knows how.” Jude had made sure everyone in his family got training. Hell, Jordan had enjoyed the first aid and rescue courses so much, he talked about becoming a doctor. Their mana would love that.

  She groaned, her hands tightening on the wheel. “Your brother giving me mouth to mouth wouldn’t help me breathe, pretty boy.”

  He yanked on the seat belt to loosen it so he could turn to face her. City lights streamed into the cab, illuminating her face as they left the residential blocks for the brightly lit shops of St. Bernard. “You have got to stop calling me that. Someone heard you in the ER the other day and I don’t want that to stick.”

  “Why?” She shot him a wink as they paused at a red light. Taking a quick look at the light flow of cars, she turned right, pulling into traffic that would sweep them onto the highway and back to the hospital. “I’ve never seen a man with such long, thick eyelashes on such big, pretty, black eyes. It fits.”

  Jude shoved a hand through his dark hair, indifferent to the fact that it was likely standing in all chaotic directions. He was torn between amusement and frustration with Rebecca. “Is it your life’s goal to completely emasculate me?”

  “That would be impossible. You’re too damn masculine with the chest hair and that beard you fight to keep off daily.” She waved her right hand in his general direction, motioning toward his body without taking her eyes off the road.

  “Do you know how often you bring that up? I regret ever changing my shirt in front of you.”

  “You could get anyone to do anything for you by taking off your shirt.” She paused and a wicked grin lifted her lips, sending a thread of unease through Jude. “I bet even the surgeon general would lose his rule about fraternizing with hospital staff if you paraded around in all those muscles and sexy, dark hair.”

  Jude closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. She just had to use that doctor as an example.

  “Come on! You don’t think I notice your face turning his direction every time he’s around? Not that I blame you. There’s something sexy about all that barely restrained power, but I have the distinct feeling he’d be the biggest pain in the ass—” A sharp bark of laughter pushed her back in her seat.

  “It’s like working with a teenager,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  “You know it!” She hit the blinker, then smoothly changed lanes. “But seriously, Torres, you might want to point your stick in another direction.”

  He decided to let that one go and change the subject. “Think you can rein in the dick talk if you come to dinner tomorrow night? You’re coming, right? Or are you holding out for tacos yet again?”

  “Don’t knock my tacos. We’re having a mad, passionate love affair.”

  “Yeah, I know. Your breath reminds me every single day. You really should eat some fruit and vegetables.”

  “There are vegetables in tacos.”

  “Lettuce doesn’t have enoug—”

  She took one hand off the wheel and pointed at him. “Tomatoes, too. And don’t forget the salsa. There are more tomatoes, onions, and peppers in that.”

  “Becca, you need things like broccoli and bananas.”

  She shuddered. “Broccoli comes from evil troll trees.”

  “Troll?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Like big, scary trolls? Like massive, monster creatures?”

  “Okay, fairies then.” She snorted and pulled off the exit ramp, leaving the highway and slowing as they entered a residential area. “But they aren’t evil, right? They’re all cute and princess-y.”

  He laughed. “You know nothing. Try reading some real stories about them.” He frowned when a group of teens stepped right in front of the ambulance and smirked at them as they strolled across the street. Some local gangs had been raiding ambulances during traffic accidents lately—stealing drugs and anything else they could grab. Every paramedic was on extra alert these days. “So, dinner with the family?”

  “Fine,” she grumbled, narrowed her eyes on Jude. “But make sure you bring that Albuterol.”

  He grinned, leaned back in his seat, and glanced at his watch. Eleven o’clock. “We still have an hour on our shift. Let’s stop for coffee.”

  ###

  Two hours later, coffee long forgotten, Jude slumped in a hard chair next to the nurse’s station and watched the doctors and nurses scatter as they took over the victims of a multi-car pile-up he and Rebecca had been called to. Rebecca had just gone home. There was nothing more he could do here, but exhaustion and heartbreak weighed him down. A tired delivery truck driver had drifted across several lanes on I-75 near Hopple and hit a bunch of teenagers driving home. Two had died on site. Another person had died in one of the cars behind the teens.

  He rubbed his gritty eyes and tried to will his legs into moving so he could go to his apartment and wash this awful night away. The sounds of suffering surrounded him. Cries that ranged from grief to fear to pain. Grief was always the easiest to recognize because the noise stabbed into the heart and whited out all other emotion. Jude thought of it as the empathy sting—that moment when a person’s feelings perfectly meshed with another’s so fast that everything narrowed down to intense, stinging pain in the middle of the chest. Something similar happened with other types of cries, but that deep down sound of true grief pricked into him like a mass of stabbing forks. Every. Single. Time.

  Dr. Frost’s deep voice drifted from his right. Jude opened his eyes, more than ready for the sight of the surgeon, and frowned at the closed, brown curtain. His low voice came from behind it—a murmur of comfort between intermittent feminine sobs. He’d heard those sobs all the way here in the back of the ambulance and knew hers came from fear. She’d been in one of the cars directly behind the teens. Her little boy had been cut from the mangled ruins of their minivan and taken directly to imaging before surgery. All the pediatric surgeons were busy, so more than likely Dr. Frost would be the one performing the boy’s surgery. He was probably telling her exactly what he’d be doing.

  Jude closed his eyes again and cocked his head so he could hear more. Only a few words were audible. Frost had a surprisingly good bedside manner considering most here thought he was a jerk. Everyone new got the warning about how easy it was to piss the man off, yet they all learned fast that it didn’t matter—he was one of the best. Jude had seen him crack open a patient’s chest within minutes of rolling the guy into the ER and save his life.

  The curtain slid open and those light blue eyes locked with his. His heart stuttered and familiar heat filled his gut. It took everything Jude had to force back a shiver of excitement. Frost had a laser-like stare that made him feel like he could see everything he kept hidden from the world. Ragged scrapes covered his cheek. Jude winced. Looked like road rash. Without a word, the doctor strode off—his long legs eating up the floor fast as he headed to surgery.

  Jude flashed to that boy’s face, the terror in his wide, seven-year-old eyes as he was pulled from the wreck. The mother had stopped sobbing and Jude stood, seeing that she now stared pensively at the wall. Her injuries hadn’t been too bad—possible low-grade concussion that required some monitoring, a fractured wrist, and some additional bruises. He walked to stand next to her bed, then offered her a smile and a hand to hold.

  “Julie? Is there someone I can call for you?”

  She started to shake her head, then grimaced and went perfectly still. “No, it’s just me and Justin. His dad took off. My mother is in a home and would only worry.” She squeezed his hand. “Tell me that doctor is good.”


  “Very. Justin is in great hands.” He smiled. “I’m going to grab a chair and wait with you, okay?”

  She nodded and let go of his hand. Jude snagged one of the chairs and nodded at a nurse who offered him a tired smile. Usually good at remembering names, this time his brain, dull with exhaustion, couldn’t pull up her name for sure. Sandy, he thought. She brought him another cup of coffee.

  “That woman likes you,” Julie whispered when Sandy left. “A lot.”

  He wiggled his brows at Julie, a playful smile teasing his lips. “She’s nice, but she isn’t even close to my type.”

  “Really?” Julie paused, staring at the spot where Sandy had stood just a second ago. “What’s your type then? Dark hair?”

  Jude hesitated, then shrugged, his smile growing wider. “No. Sexy, prematurely graying surgeons who come in to reassure worried mothers before their son’s surgery.” He didn’t normally give away such personal information, particularly when Cincinnati wasn’t known for its overall open-mindedness, but Julie needed the distraction. She needed to think of something other than the fact that the life of her precious little boy was in the hands of a stranger.

  She clued in immediately and thankfully, her grin managed to be wicked despite the wounds on her face. “Yeah, he’s my type, too.” She squeezed his hand again. “Is he gay, too? Have you gone out with him?”

  “He’s gay and no, we’ve never really spoken.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s just say I plan to work on that.” Jude winked and then spent the next two hours trying to keep her mind off her son’s surgery. When she finally passed out, he slumped back in the chair because she hadn’t let go of his hand. The hospital noises blended into a whining drone in the background as the ER grew unusually quiet in those early morning hours. Leaning back, he closed his eyes. Just for a moment, he thought.

  “The nurse said he’s hours past his shift,” a woman said. “He looks too tired to drive home. Maybe you could take him?”

  The low voice and shuffling noises tugged at him, trying to pull him from sleep, but exhaustion rode him so hard, Jude just sort of floated under the words, hardly understanding. A twinge in his neck kept him from succumbing back to sleep completely.

  “He sat with me the whole time,” she continued, her voice closer. “He’s wonderful. Good looking, too, huh?”

  Someone touched his shoulder. He blinked up into blue eyes that held a surprisingly warm look. He’d never seen that expression on the man before. His eyes dropped to the doctor’s lips as he spoke. Jude didn’t hear the words this time, but he did take in the deep groove in the center over his upper lip—one that gave his mouth the sexiest curve. The doctor’s lower lip was fuller. Bite-able. He had another groove in his chin and Jude wanted to put his tongue in it.

  “Beautiful Doc Frost,” he murmured, liking this dream as his heartbeat picked up.

  Blue eyes flared wide.

  A woman chuckled behind the doctor leaning over him. A woman didn’t belong in his sex dreams and for a moment, Jude frowned in confusion. Then he reached up and slid his palm behind the doctor’s neck, pulling him down so it would be only the two of them. “Come on,” he said softly. “We should go to bed. Wanna feel you against me.” He pressed his lips to the doctor’s, opened his mouth and licked along that sexy divot over the doc’s lips. Heat shot through him and a groan rumbled from deep inside.

  Dr. Frost snapped back, his hand going up to his mouth. He touched his lips and those eyes narrowed, filling with so much fire, Jude squirmed in his seat. Then Jude’s cocoon burst as realization came to him. He’d kissed the surgeon general. Fucking licked him. He bit his own lip hard, blinking as he took in the yellow paint on the walls, so different from the plain white or brick of his small apartment. “I’m in the hospital,” he announced, voice flat and rough from sleep. “This isn’t a good sex dream, is it?”

  The woman—Julie, he remembered now—laughed.

  The corner of the doctor’s mouth went up as he fought obvious amusement. “You are and no, it isn’t.” He leaned over him again, looking confused even as he touched his lips and stared harder at Jude.

  The man’s exhaustion had to be making him act out of character as well, but Jude knew desire when he saw it and Frost wanted him back. A spark of hope flared in his chest. Jude could work with that. He breathed him in, making sure not to break their locked gazes and the doctor’s hands tightened into fists. He smelled so damned clean—probably from washing up after surgery. Surgery. Jude sat up, remembering that he’d been in this room with a nervous mother. He leaned around the doc and met Julie’s wide-eyed stare. “Justin?”

  She nodded and smiled. “He’s okay. And if you don’t mind, Dr. Frost, I’d really like to go see him now.”

  Frost straightened once again, then stepped aside. “Her son is fine. Made it through surgery without any complications. I’m about to take Ms. Foster to see him.”

  It was the most the doctor had ever said to Jude. He had a velvety, deep voice when he wasn’t barking out orders. The kind of voice that would brush over Jude’s skin in the dark. He wanted that so badly his hands tightened into fists.

  “I’ll come, too,” he said, unwilling to give up a few more minutes with the doctor. He looked over at Julie, smiling though he felt heat creeping into his cheeks over that damn kiss. “If that’s OK with you?”

  Julie looked tired and a little pained, as if whatever meds she had been given were starting to wear off, but she nodded. “Please.”

  Frost turned and stepped behind the wheelchair. Jude wondered why the doctor was doing this even as he marveled that he’d slept through someone helping Julie into the chair. Jude used to be a light sleeper when he’d still been at home with his mother and brothers—always ready to wake as the man of the house to protect his family. Since he’d moved out, he slept like the dead between shifts. He stood, grimacing at the twinge in his neck from nodding off in a chair.

  The entire time the doctor watched him. It wasn’t Jude’s imagination—there was heat in that stare. And with that recognition, an answering spike shot into his abdomen so hard, he had to swallow a gasp. What the hell was it about this man?

  Julie made an impatient sound. “Not to spoil the show or anything, but again, I’d like to see my little boy.”

  Even Frost looked contrite then and Jude had to smile. Amusement and something like curiosity showed in his expression as he nodded toward the curtain.

  Jude pulled it open and got another whiff of the man as he pushed Julie past him. The amused glance the doctor sent over his shoulder after passing let Jude know he’d been caught. He merely shrugged and lifted an eyebrow, let his intent show in his gaze. Now that he knew the interest was returned, he wasn’t letting this go until he had the man naked. Awareness of the taller man beside him tingled along his skin as they walked through the hospital.

  Justin wasn’t awake. Frost pushed Julie close to the bed and backed into the hallway, stopping next to Jude who looked through the door. The little boy with the sandy blond hair looked thin and frail in the bed surrounded by beeping machines, but a quick glance at the stats flashing across the monitors revealed that he was in good condition. He had better than a fighting chance thanks to the doctor standing beside him.

  “He looks good, Doc,” Jude said, voice low. “You saved him.”

  “Snow,” the man barked out even as he looked surprised by his own word.

  “Huh?”

  “Call me Snow.” He turned and leaned one shoulder against the wall outside the room, gaze once again locked on Jude. “And you’re the one who actually saved him.”

  Shock sent Jude’s eyebrow up. Most of the doctors looked at what they all did as a team effort. Hell, they called themselves family. But Doc Frost, or Snow, had always kept himself apart. It was one of the reasons for his surgeon general nickname. But he hadn’t expected this particular doctor to give a paramedic that sort of credit.

  “Why do you look surprised?”
Snow held his eyes, staring straight at him as if trying to look into his soul. That had always struck Jude when it came to Snow. When he spoke, he always looked a person in the eye, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation might become. There was no escaping him. “You handle trauma. You handle people who are involved in trauma. That first stint of medical help saves lives. Do you love what you do?”

  “Very much.” Jude smiled and leaned against the wall. “It’s just that normally that question comes after ‘Why didn’t you become a doctor?’”

  Snow merely shrugged and glanced down the hall as a small group of people shuffled into one of the rooms. “I figured you’d be a doctor if that’s what you wanted.”

  “I like this job and have wanted it since I watched paramedics respond to a call for my grandmother when I was a kid. They came in, helped her, then calmed my mother down, which was probably the most amazing part. I’ve always known it was what I wanted to do.” Jude rubbed the back of his neck, the crick worsening. He always got one when he fell asleep sitting up. He should go home; get a hot shower—or hope there was enough hot water for one. But he couldn’t bring himself to walk away from this chance to talk to Snow. “Did you always want to be a doctor?”

  Snow inclined his head and took a step closer. “What was with the kiss?” he asked abruptly.

  Back to barking things out, it seemed. Heat crept up Jude’s neck and he hoped the scruff that inevitably grew by this time on his face would hide it. Blushing wasn’t something he usually did, but neither was licking the lips of a man he hadn’t spoken to before. When Snow’s gaze flicked down and the corner of his mouth lifted, he knew it hadn’t worked. Damn. This man made him stupid. “I thought I was dreaming. I’d apologize but I’m not sorry.”

  Snow stared at him for what felt like forever before he stepped in even closer. “Funny, neither am I.” He touched Jude’s shoulder. “You keep rubbing your neck. Turn around.”

 

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