Trent swallowed. The patients rested on gurneys in a line. Used to seeing the dark umber skin tone of the residents, it shocked him to see so many gray faces.
Pushing past his unease, Trent stepped up next to the attendant. “Excuse me. I’m looking for the American, Dr. Klein?”
The woman behind the workstation nodded toward the closed door beyond the patients. “He’s in surgery.”
Trent ran a hand over his neck and glanced around the room. “I’m supposed to be escorting a nurse to Port Lucia.”
The woman shrugged and returned to the work.
Disturbing the doctor didn’t seem wise so Trent twisted around and moved back through the hospital. He found the sleeping nurse and stood over her.
As he debated waking the woman, someone behind him beat him to it.
Hearing a patient’s groan, the nurse shot to attention, her gaze disconnected from the world. Her eyes moved around the room, panic clouded her face before she realized he stood over her.
“Oh, God… I fell asleep.”
He couldn’t imagine the exhaustion she must be experiencing. “It was quiet when I walked through a moment ago.”
She moved to her feet and the clipboard in her lap fell to the floor. Trent moved to pick it up for her. A coy smile passed her lips.
“Thanks.”
“S’OK. Listen. I’m supposed to pick up a nurse to take to Port Lucia. Do you know who she is?”
The brunette shook her head. “Not me. Monica ducked out a few hours ago. Said she was being moved somewhere east.”
Trent felt his lips pulling into a smile. “Where will I find her?”
The nurse pointed in the opposite direction. “They set up a small room for us to rest. Go through four sets of doors, up a stairway one flight, and take a left. There’s a doctors’ lounge. Girls on the right, boys on the left.”
“Thanks,” Trent uttered as he turned and walked away.
Four sets of doors opened to rooms filled with misery. He kept his sunglasses on, though the sun wasn’t out and it certainly didn’t filter into the rooms. If he could block out all the images around him he would.
The stairway up to the lounge was quiet and void of anyone. He stood outside the door and wondered if he should knock. If there were nurses sleeping, he might wake all of them instead of the only one. He took a gamble, inched the door open, and peeked inside.
Sure enough, there were a few cots in the small space, all of them filled. A quick assessment brought his gaze to Monica. She’d fallen asleep fully clothed with a hand tossed over her head. Her blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders, the tight lines in her face from the day before were erased while she slept.
Trent stepped over a duffel bag and avoided a cot before he stood over his passenger. He had no idea how long she’d slept and felt awful for waking her.
He knelt down to her level and whispered her name. “Monica?”
Nothing.
“Monica?” he said a little louder.
Her hand drifted off her forehead.
The other women in the room hadn’t stirred.
“Monica?” He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave a gentle shake.
She shot up so fast Trent didn’t have time to move back. Her head collided with his bringing gasps from both of them.
“Ouch!” she yelled, waking everyone in the room. She blinked several times while staring at him. “What the…”
Trent stood and rubbed his head. “I was trying to wake you without disturbing everyone.”
“Too late,” someone said before rolling over and going back to sleep.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“What time is it?” Her voice was rough with sleep.
“Almost seven.”
Monica flopped back down to her cot. “You’re driving me to Port Lucia?”
“Yeah.”
She rubbed both hands over her face and pushed her legs off the bed. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”
Trent took her words as his cue to leave the room. His wait in the hall took less than ten minutes. Monica emerged with her hair pulled back in the same ponytail he’d seen the day before. He liked her hair down, he decided. Why his mind would travel to how this woman wore her hair, he didn’t know.
But he did. He was attracted. The curling in his gut wasn’t something he could ignore.
She hid a yawn behind her hand and closed the door quietly behind her.
As she started to hike her bag onto her shoulder, Trent moved forward and reached for it. “Let me,” he said.
“I got it.” She pulled the strap higher on her arm.
He reached for her bag again. “I wasn’t raised to let a woman carry a bag while I’m empty-handed.”
She cocked her head to the side as if she’d argue with him. Instead, she shrugged the bag down her arm and handed it to him.
“I wouldn’t want to be responsible for blowing your mother’s good intentions.”
The memory of his mother repeatedly telling him to grab a bag or hold a door for a woman filtered past his mind. “My mother would thank you.”
He took her surprisingly heavy bag in one hand and encouraged her to walk in front of him down the stairs.
The gentle sway of her ass caught his attention as he followed her. She wore scrubs, and loose cotton hid most of her petite figure. Most, but not all of it. The cotton shirt covered her slim waist, but there was no mistaking her delicate neck and full breasts.
Monica turned when she opened the door at the bottom of the stairs. Good thing his sunglasses disguised his eyes. He held the door and let her pass. She waited for him to walk beside her as she spoke.
“So, Trent. It is Trent, right?”
“As much as I liked Barefoot, my name is Trent.”
She smiled. “Sorry about that. I didn’t catch your name on the flight over.”
“I’ve been called worse.” He stepped around a man sleeping on the floor and urged Monica out the door.
Monica glanced up at the gray skies and frowned. “So, Trent,” she began again. “Are you the only one shuffling the foreign medical staff around the island?”
He shook his head. “There are a few others. Why?”
He kept his eyes on where he walked and avoided her questioning gaze.
“Just wondering.”
He didn’t buy that. “Just wondering?”
“Seems like anyone could drive me to the clinic.”
He walked her behind the hospital and up a short path to where his helicopter waited. “Anyone could drive you.”
She hesitated when she saw her ride. “I thought you said you were driving me.”
“I am. After a short flight to where my car is parked.”
She turned a full circle. “Can’t we just drive?”
Trent moved in front of her and removed his sunglasses. “It’s a short flight back to the airport, then a thirty-minute drive. That’s if the roads are cleared.”
“Can’t we just—” Her ice blue eyes never left his.
“I didn’t kill you the first time, Monica. I won’t this time either.”
She swallowed.
“It was better thinking you volunteered to take me instead of being the only person capable of it.”
Actual fear hid behind her eyes. “Why’s that?”
“I prefer flirting to flying.”
A slow easy smile met his lips. He knew then, irrevocably, that Monica thought about him at some point during her short stint on the island.
He replaced his sunglasses and reached for her hand. “How about a little of both?”
“Damn,” she mumbled as she let him drag her to the aircraft. He opened the door on the passenger side and quickly shoved her bag in the back.
Inside, he reached across her body and latched the passenger door. “I could have done that,” she said.
He caught her eyes over the rim of his sunglasses and winked. “That would be the flirting portion of our flight.”
She
laughed then. A nervous laugh that seemed to surprise her as the sound escaped.
He handed her the extra headset and buckled in.
Once her ears were in place he could hear the quickening of her breath. He powered up and switched his radio to air traffic control.
“This is Bravo Papa one.”
“I hear you, Bravo Papa one, over.”
“I’m en route to you. Can I get a weather reading? Over.”
Trent listened to the wind report and received an all clear of the fog lifting.
The hum of the helicopter wrapped around him with a warm welcome. He glanced over to see Monica’s fists clenched in her lap.
“Do you want to copilot?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I fell for that once, Barefoot. I’m not that gullible twice.”
So he was Barefoot again. “Took your mind off the flight the first time.” He removed a stick of gum from its pack and handed it to her.
“And what, gum is going to do it this time?” She took the gum and unwrapped it.
“No, but it helps the ear popping.”
She placed the gum in her mouth and took a deep breath.
“Ready?”
She shook her head. “You sure we can’t drive?”
He patted her knee as he would a child. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve been flying since I was fourteen. Two solid years longer than I’ve been driving.”
“I’m not sure that helps.”
He smiled, and lifted the aircraft off the ground. Once he was above the trees, he turned the chopper around and headed toward the airport.
Her white knuckles were not a sign of his flying, he reminded himself. “How long have you been a nurse?” he asked, hoping to calm her down.
“Three years… almost four.”
He would have thought it was much longer based on what he’d witnessed the day before.
“Did you follow in your mother’s footsteps?”
She sputtered a laugh. “Not hardly.”
That’s a loaded answer. “She’s not a nurse?”
“She’s not anything. Go nowhere jobs. Go nowhere husbands.”
As in plural.
“What about you? Is your dad a pilot?”
“He was one of the best.”
“He doesn’t fly anymore?”
“He passed away.”
Trent felt her eyes on him. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Some dads teach their kids how to ride a bike or throw a ball. My dad taught us how to fly.”
“I’ll bet your friends were insane with jealousy.”
Trent had always been thankful for his parents’ desire for him and his brothers to fly. He glanced over and noticed Monica’s hands resting loosely in her lap. Their conversation was distracting her. Trent did something he almost never did. He talked about his past. “On my eighteenth birthday a buddy of mine convinced me to go for a joyride.”
“A joyride? In one of these?” Her voice rose with alarm.
“We took a couple of girls up. I thought I’d show off my skills.”
“Strut for the ladies?”
“Some guys show off their cars. I showed off my dad’s helicopter.”
She glanced out the window as if noticing that she was still in the air. “Did you stay this close to the ground on the joyride?”
“No. It was a clear fall day.”
“Clear fall days allow you to fly higher? Or are you staying close to the ground to keep me from freaking out?”
“Is staying low keeping you from freaking?”
“No,” she said laughing.
“Staying low is necessary today.” He didn’t want to worry her about flying conditions and kept his explanations simple. “Not on my eighteenth birthday.”
“So what happened? Did your skills get you lucky?”
There was an innocence about discussing one’s youth with a virtual stranger. “It almost landed me in jail.”
“Seriously?”
“Security at the private airstrip notified my father that his bird was missing. After he found and quizzed my older brothers, he assumed someone had stolen it. It never occurred to him that I’d take it.”
“You weren’t a wild child?”
Oh, he was wild. His parents had very little idea of how wild. “I wasn’t bad.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Her tone teased and when he looked over he noticed her slow steady breaths pushing her breasts against her clothing.
“Anyway. When we landed, the police were there and put us all in handcuffs. My parents were livid,” he told her, taking his eyes off her chest.
“I can’t imagine why. Did you ever see the girl again?”
The lights of the airstrip appeared in the distance. “Her parents forbid it.”
“That doesn’t usually stop teens from anything.”
Trent banked the chopper in a wide turn. “I think it was the handcuffs that turned her off.”
Monica smiled. “Handcuffs wouldn’t bode well for a second date. Unless the girl is into that sort of thing.”
Trent turned to stare at her and had to erase the thought of Monica in handcuffs… the fuzzy kind, in order to swallow.
Chapter Five
Shameless flirt! Monica shook her head and chastised herself as she exited Trent’s helicopter for the second time. She had to admit, this flight had been much better than the first. Maybe the key to kicking her fear of heights was sexual tension. That and talk of handcuffs. Oh, she’d read her share of those books, but never once acted on them. The penetrating stare coming from the pilot’s seat had been worth the snark and innuendo. The stress of the past thirty hours didn’t weigh on her nearly as much as it had before she’d gone to sleep the night before, well, the morning before. She hadn’t fallen into her cot until after one.
She followed Trent off the helicopter pad and toward a parking lot. His confident strides and sexy li’l smile made her wish she knew what was going on inside his head.
Monica matched his stride and kept up her side of the conversation. “So after your joyriding youth you decided to fly helicopters for a living?”
“You could say that.”
His two-door Jeep had one of those half tops on it that covered your head but left the back open to the air. Trent tossed her bag in the backseat and opened her door.
He waited for her to climb in before shutting her in. Yeah, his mother taught him well. “Did you ever consider a different line of work?” she asked once he was inside.
“I worked in business administration for a while.”
“I can’t see you wearing a suit, tie, and dress shoes.”
His shoulders buckled in with a laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“My older brother, Jason, says he has a hard time picturing me wearing shorts and flip-flops every day.” He started the engine and put the car in gear with the same finesse as he did his helicopter. He waved at a group of people standing by what looked like a guard shack before pulling onto the road.
“Are you and your brother close?”
“We watch out for each other.”
Monica thought of Jessie. She and her sister had been inseparable before Jessie married Jack. Jessie lived in Texas but still flew out all the time to visit. Easily accomplished when your husband owned his own plane.
Except Jack didn’t fly it. He had pilots to do that.
“What about you? Siblings?”
“My sister, Jessie. She was worried when I told her I was coming here.”
The small road leading from the airport was hardly large enough for one car, let alone two. Yet a few compact models hugged the edges as they passed.
“It takes a lot of courage to dive into this mess.”
Monica shrugged. “Sometimes leaving your personal life behind for a heavy dose of reality reminds us of the important things.” Damn, where had that come from? She settled into the words that had come from her lips and realized how true they were.
&nb
sp; “Most people come to the island to escape their lives.”
Was that him? Was Trent hiding from real life?
“Not this week.”
Another small car passed them. “Good God this is a narrow road.”
“You get used to it.”
Where they were on the island was free of any flood damage left behind from the tsunami. A few rocks had obviously come loose and Trent swerved between them. “How was the damage from the quake here?”
“Many lost their homes. I think once everyone is accounted for, the reality of what it’s going to take to rebuild will be enormous.”
“What about your home? Did it fall?”
He shook his head. “New construction. Almost makes me feel guilty for having a home when so many don’t.”
She watched the passing trees while rain started to fall again. “A version of survivor’s guilt. That’s normal.”
“So, what? You’re a psychiatrist and a nurse?” The question could have been sarcastic, but it sounded a lot like admiration.
“Half my job is psychological, calming patients, families. Keeping a cool head when everything is going bat-shit crazy.” Some of the staff back home called her the Ice Queen, or Queenie. At first, it had to do with how she’d turned down the guys in the department when they asked her out. But now she liked to think it was because she kept an icy grip on her emotions when everything exploded.
Monica noticed Trent watching her from behind his glasses. “Do you ever lose it?”
“No.” Her answer was quick. After a deep breath, she said, “But this place is already testing me.”
“Oh?”
She considered what she was driving into. It would be worse than the day before. At least in the main hospital there were other doctors and nurses she could grab to help. Donald had asked her to go into a war zone virtually empty-handed. “I don’t know what I’m headed into and I’m doing it without coffee on board or even a shower. The lack of sleep doesn’t even need to be mentioned.”
“Isn’t there a doctor following you out here?”
“Not right away.”
“Damn.”
“I know, right? I have two hands and one brain. I can only do so much.” The more she thought about it the less she liked the idea of being at Port Lucia without a doctor.
Not Quite Enough (Not Quite series) Page 5