Breathe Again

by Bonnie R. Paulson

  Breathe Again

  By Bonnie R. Paulson

  Maggie Lachlan is struggling to get over the death of her husband. After being overcome by emotion during a shift in the E.R., she’s suspended indefinitely. Making things worse, she needs a place to stay after the quick sale of the house she shared with her late husband.

  Fortunately, her friend Ryan Stewart offers her a room while she gets her life in order, much to the chagrin of his brother and housemate, Brodan Steele. Brodan doesn’t want to like Maggie, not when he knows Ryan has feelings for her too. But it’s hard to deny the attraction he feels for her when she’s sleeping under the same roof.

  Being so close to Brodan awakens something in Maggie, something she never felt during her marriage. But as long as she’s haunted by the past, she can’t open herself up to the future…

  59,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I feel as though it was just last week I was attending 2010 conferences and telling authors and readers who were wondering what was next for Carina Press, “we’ve only been publishing books for four months, give us time” and now, here it is, a year later. Carina Press has been bringing you quality romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy and more for over twelve months. This just boggles my mind.

  But though we’re celebrating our one-year anniversary (with champagne and chocolate, of course) we’re not slowing down. Every week brings something new for us, and we continue to look for ways to grow, expand and improve. This summer, we’ll continue to bring you new genres, new authors and new niches—and we plan to publish the unexpected for years to come.

  So whether you’re reading this in the middle of a summer heat wave, looking to escape from the hot summer nights and sultry afternoons, or whether you’re reading this in the dead of winter, searching for a respite from the cold, months after I’ve written it, you can be assured that our promise to take you on new adventures, bring you great stories and discover new talent remains the same.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to generalinquiries@carinapress.com. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  My husband—my other half. Thank you for your support and inspiring me. I love you.

  Mallory—Thank you for caring enough to make the story even better.

  Mom—you always support everything I do. Ty.

  Tracey—You kept me going.

  Connie, Kristin and Kelsey—Your input was invaluable.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Code fifty-five. Code fifty-five. Trauma team to ER twelve. ETA ten.”

  One single moment defines me.

  “Code fifty-five. Trauma ETA five.”

  I blocked out the announcement’s significance.

  “Mag, you’re trauma tech this week. You goin’ down?” My boss, awkward in his role as delegator, patted my shoulder.

  “I’m already there, Jim.” I dropped my book on the countertop, longing to remain on my protective stool with the trendy mystery. Where I’d be left in peace. Instead, I grabbed two fourteen-by-seventeen-inch cassettes and an armful of ten-by-twelves.

  “You got it?” Trauma equaled panic to Jim. He also avoided black cats and ladders. Foolish man, he should be more worried that my luck would rub off on him.

  “Yep. I’m going.” Irritated, I slammed the cassettes in the lean-to bucket of the portable X-ray machine. Trauma. I’d seen trauma and while it didn’t fill me with anxiety, I could appreciate that someone out there felt its urgency.

  I unplugged the gray machine from the wall. The cord hissed, recoiling under the control tower. I grasped the lawnmower-style handle and the portable rolled forward with a hum. We had a love-hate relationship—I loved to hate it. Yet the portable was steady, comfortable, and I always needed comforting these days

  An EKG technician and a phlebotomist waited at the elevator. I avoided facing them. For ten months I’d done my best to smother any friendships or overtures sent my way. People opted to ignore me rather than brave the empty stare they received in response.

  Affecting disinterest wasn’t a stretch, but I coated it on a bit more just in case the women couldn’t take a hint. I leaned against the portable. The cold metal post chilled my back through the thin blue hospital scrubs. Everyone was required to wear them, except the NICU nurses. Those spoiled women dressed in adorable pinks and yellows with cartoons splashed all over. Add the babies they cared for day in and day out, and I had nothing but envy for them.

  “Did you hear what happened?” The woman glanced in my direction, glee spilling from her voice. Like she relished being the first to spread the gossip.

  People like her were on my avoid-at-all-costs list. The type who relished drama, fed on it.

  Ding-ding. The elevator opened. I followed them in. Both women lounged against the rear wall, forcing me to park my machine near the front. I rolled my eyes and crammed into the boom-box-sized space facing the control panel.

  Their request for the first-floor button exacerbated my simmering irritation. The emergency department sprawled across the majority of the ground floor. On such a slow day, where else would we all be headed with a code calling over the PA sound system?

  “So, what happened?” I couldn’t tell which one asked, but didn’t care. Probably drama with the boyfriends. So high school. Willing the elevator to go faster, I fingered the red film marker stuck to my name tag like a talisman.

  “The dispatcher called it over. I guess it’s a woman…about thirty-eight. She shot herself in the head.”

  A black cloud descended, separating me from any more sound. The walls closed in around me. I grasped the handle of the machine and yanked back. The large bumper shoved against my legs. I winced but barely registered the pain. I needed out. My finger slammed onto the button marked with a two.

  Usually recalcitrant, the aged lift responded to my distress and its doors opened. Fighting tunnel vision, I clung to the handle of the portable—all but dragging it behind me.

  Hold it together. Hold it together. Fully out of the coffin, I spun the machine in a half circle. I don’t know who pushed and who followed away from the gaping doors.

  My heart argued against beating. My lungs burned. I turned the corner into the inpatient ward.

  One single moment defines me. Haunts me. Inescapable.

  I’d never survive going down there. The first darkened room on my right served as an escape. Parking outside the doorway, I ducked inside C26U and shut the door with a soft click.

  Silence held me. Stationed beside the sink, I slumped into a square chair. Sobs consumed me, racking my body. Tears fell to my scrubs, leaving dark blue circles to track my pain.

  Dean. The moment, ten months ago, tormented me. I gasped, but my lungs refused to hold in the air. How in the world was I supposed to take X-rays of the new trauma patient with a gunshot wound to her head? Coding. It didn’t apply to the patient, it applied to me.

  Logically, I understood. Documentation is the name of the game these days. But my heart c
ouldn’t comprehend seeing the horror again, different person or not, logical or not.

  “Dean. Why?” The never-ending question.

  The splotches of red, lumps of gray and shards of white formed a macabre art fest in my memory. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and choked back the bile climbing up my throat.

  A groan from across the room straightened me in the chair. I clutched the armrests, my fingers strangling the vinyl-covered wood.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Who’s there?” My voice threaded weakly with my intruder’s croak.

  Apprehension filled the air while we waited for the other to break the silence.

  The room suddenly lost its comfort. I hadn’t noticed the subtle buzzing from ICU equipment or the scent from overused sanitizer when I ducked inside. Where were the balloons and flowers present in nearly every other patient’s room?

  He hadn’t seen me yet. I stood, planning make a run for the door. Then winced as the chair scraped across gray-blue linoleum. The rasp cut through the silence like a chain saw. Son of a—.

  “Brodan? Why’re you sitting over there? Come here.” He coughed. I dropped my chin to my chest in defeat, spared the need to answer right away by his attack. Through deep wheezing, the patient gasped, “Brod, grab some water, will ya?”

  I glanced once more at the door and through the side window at my parked tube. Maybe I could have made a mad dash to the stairs and thrown the machine and myself over the rail rather than die of embarrassment in front of a patient. On second thought, no way in Hades would I be able to lift the monstrosity.

  I dragged my feet to the gray, stiff curtain. With my dignity left in dust balls under the vacant seat, I knocked on the textured wall, but that was the extent of my courtesy. He struggled for air and I was dying to get out of there. I drew the drape without his invitation.

  Skin creaky from tears, I forced a smile. “Did you say you needed water, sir?” A dusky pink pitcher flagged me down from his side table with a bent straw poking from its top.

  Looking everywhere but at the witness to my breakdown, I grabbed the container and escaped to the sink.

  A hush fell behind me. I must have scared the poor guy. At least the absence of a flattened beep reassured me I hadn’t given him a heart attack. Sure, bedside manner had fallen to the wayside, but never so far as scaring the life out of a patient. Now, that would’ve been a first.

  The water reached the top of the pitcher fast, way too fast. I dumped it out, a justified necessary rinse, acceptable even, with his coughing calming to a sporadic tempo. I gripped the pink handle with one hand and turned off the faucet with the other, dragging out my time away as long as possible.

  But we weren’t kids playing a game of hide-and-seek and eventually I had to confront the man I’d intruded upon. Brushing past the gaudy material hung up for curtains, I placed the refreshed water on his right.

  Awkward and still avoiding his face, I stood near the foot of the bed and waited for directions from someone, anyone.

  His need for assistance held the real world at bay—the trauma, supervisors, everything and anything. I wouldn’t get in trouble for helping him out in the middle of a coughing fit. How would it look if I’d abandoned a living patient for a dying one?

  Delicate, long-tapered fingers reached for the water. The light from the hall spilled into the room through the glass window and an inkling of courage mixed with curiosity urged me to lift my gaze.

  Shadowed eyes regarded me from under a cap of unruly sandy-blond hair. His face, lean and pale, appeared youthful—couldn’t be older than mid-twenties. Full lips were pinched in pain, his badge for entry into the ICU. He pulled from the straw. Relaxing his mouth after the drink, the man sighed. He set the pitcher down.

  The sheet, clutched in a crumpled choke hold, failed to hide his bare chest beneath it. Heart-monitoring probes stuck to his skin in color-coded design. Freckles dusted his cheeks, along his nose and marked the tops of his shoulders, taking years off his already young appearance.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you need anything else?”

  The man looked from me to the door and then back at me. “This might sound silly, but…who are you?” Though still gruff, his voice had gained a bit more strength after the drink of water. He squinted through the lackluster light at my name tag. “I don’t mean to be rude, uh—”

  “Maggie. My name’s Maggie.” The situation grew worse and worse. I flipped the tag around to hide my department. The last thing I needed was more complaints from patients.

  “Maggie.” He wheezed, then paused to take a shallow breath. “Are you my nurse?”

  “Heavens, no.” I shook my head frantically. “I’m sorry that sounded horrible. No, I’m not your nurse.”

  He glanced at his lap. The orange light from the street lamps outside glinted off his hair. A strange mix of fluorescence from the hall, the night outside and within his room unnerved me. In one angle, his features were highlighted clearly. The next, shadows creased in the slight hollow beneath his cheekbones.

  Unsure what my next action should be, I asked, “Do you want me to call your nurse for you?” I pointed toward the oxygen line connected to the port in the wall. “Sounds like that needs to be upped.”

  “No. No. Don’t bother her with just a coughing spell.” He looked at the markers on my name tag. Self-consciously, I grasped them. Were I Catholic, they’d be a cross. His gaze lifted to meet mine. “Can I ask you a question, Maggie?”

  I forced a smile. “Of course.” Anything. I’d answer any question if only to escape faster.

  His whisper tore across the short space between us. “Who made you cry?”

  Anything but that. Heat crept up my back and rushed my face. The smile disappeared from my mouth. I spun around, fleeing the room. Tortured by the slow speed of the X-ray machine, I looked around the hall for any witnesses to my exchange with the patient.

  Reaching the elevator, I pressed the button to go up and sighed. Surely the ER had called someone else to cover the trauma by now.

  “Radiology code fifty-five. Radiology code fifty-five.”

  “Oh, come on!” My luck was holding steady in the crappy zone. I jabbed the Down button with my thumb. As if waiting for me, the elevator opened its doors with a double ding. Going down? The portable bounced onto the platform. I followed. The panels closed. The night stretched out before me. Headed to the trauma, I leaned against the chipped wall, shut my eyes, and then snapped them open again.

  Gray and red lurked behind my lids. After this trauma patient there would be no escape from the pictures.

  The elevator arrived before I’d devised a plan to save my sanity. With a sigh, I stationed myself behind the portable against the doors. Motoring my feet with thoughts of duty and “I think I can,” I exited backward and walked straight into the on-duty trauma physician.

  Dr. Litmer turned, midstep, and bellowed, “Someone call Radiology and tell them to get another tech here, STAT.” He spun back to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Mag, go on upstairs. You don’t need to see this.” He commandeered my machine and reversed it into the elevator, simultaneously shoving me in as well.

  The physician stepped into the doorway of the lift. “Mag, it isn’t pretty. The trauma—well, it’s too similar to what happened…to you. They didn’t announce it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t know you were on today. I’m sorry.”

  His kindness overwhelmed me and tears welled up once more. Dr. Litmer smiled but positioned himself between me and the ER, in case something came into view.

  I shook my head. “I just found out, that’s why I’m late. I needed to—” I swallowed.

  “Gather your bearings. I get it. Send someone else down if you get up there before the NAC calls, please. The patient didn’t make it, so it’s not an emergency anymore.”

  Bitterness spilled over my tongue. Of course she didn’t survive. I nodded and offered another smile. Pressing three, I held my breath while the s
warming ER vanished behind the doors. Protection from the gruesome reality in the trauma room.

  Jim met me when I walked into the department. “Mag, I’m sorry. I had no idea it was, uh, well, that the patient had…” He cleared his throat.

  “It’s fine. I didn’t either.”

  Work at night. Sleep during the day. Or rather, attempt to escape my nightmares by sleeping when it was still light out. The method hadn’t worked in almost a year, and the close call at work only made things worse. The ceiling in the guest bedroom—now my room—was a blank canvas for the pictures to reel across my mind. No matter what I did, the images played over and over.

  I’d never get any sleep. Brain matter and blood decorated the ceiling, the wall, my pillow, the sheets and the headboard. I rolled over on my side, my stomach, my back. No matter which way I looked, there it lurked.

  Chapter Two

  It’s cruel and unusual punishment to work in an environment of beds with large pillows surrounded in peace and quiet. So tired. After hours of staring at the walls in my house, I found myself back for the shift change. The quiet of the night belied the hectic activity shoved into my hand.

  I’d escaped the complaints swarming from the mouths of the swing shift by waving my stack of portable invoices at anyone trying to catch my attention.

  Ditching the department, I paused. Leaning against the wall gave me a moment to rest while my brain pulsed violently in my skull. The stack of orders called to me from my hand and I groaned. Get going, Mags.

  Heavy, my head dipped forward. I just want to sleep. Rifling through the papers, twenty-three total, I separated them into first-floor and second-floor patients. An almost even split with twelve in the emergency room and eleven in ICU.

  I led the X-ray machine to the elevator. Hopefully, the night would stay busy enough that I wouldn’t fall asleep in some quiet corner. Downstairs, I stopped in the ER core to verify the X-rays for each person. Not surprisingly, the CPA at the desk handed me an additional six requisitions without glancing up from her computer.