Lovers Unmasked: The Complete Series

by Nicole Flockton

  “Are you trying to come up with some elaborate story?”

  • • •

  Andrew laughed at Dawn’s comment. He could see the tiredness in her eyes. The sadness as well. The spark of life and laughter had once shone brightly in her green eyes. That carefree girl was gone now. On the outside she looked the same, her dark hair glossy, even swept back in a loose knot at the base of her neck. A neck he’d spent an inordinate amount of time caressing with his lips. He allowed his eyes to rove down her body, over her breasts, which seemed fuller than he remembered. Lower he went, speculating that he could probably still span her waist with his hands. He glanced to her left hand, noticing she no longer wore her wedding ring. He had no claim to Dawn, but he hadn’t liked it when he’d heard she’d gotten married. He’d had an irrational sense of ownership when it had come to her. An ownership he’d forfeited the day he’d left to follow his dreams and not the dreams she’d thought they were heading towards. Still, he’d felt bad for her when he’d heard through a friend of a friend that her husband and son had died.

  Realizing he hadn’t answered her question, he pulled his attention back to her. “I don’t know why I’m here, to be honest. My shift finished and I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  “Why? We haven’t seen each other in over ten years.”

  She was right, Andrew acknowledged. They hadn’t seen each other in years, but the moment he’d looked up from wheeling in the patient and had seen Dawn standing behind the counter, a sense of rightness had come over him.

  “True, we haven’t seen each other in a while but that doesn’t mean I can’t come back and say hello. We didn’t get a chance to speak earlier.”

  “Because you had just brought in a patient who was in a critical condition.”

  “So how about now? Is now a good time for a catch up? Do you want to go grab a quick coffee?”

  The invitation coming out of his mouth surprised him. That hadn’t been his plan when he’d dropped back into the hospital. His plan had been to say hi, catch up briefly, and then leave. For the rest of his shift, which had been quiet after the accident, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. He should be home in bed as he had another night shift the following evening. But he’d found himself in the hospital parking lot instead.

  “Thanks, but no.”

  Her refusal wasn’t unexpected but it didn’t mean he’d have to accept it. “Why not? We don’t have to go far, just to the hospital cafeteria.”

  He was surprised at the unladylike snort that came out of Dawn. “Have you had hospital coffee? It’s worse than that dinner you tried to cook for me.”

  Her comment about their past surprised him, but he did remember that dinner. He’d tried to make some fancy Italian potato dish. Instead of the potato morsels being light and fluffy, they had been as hard as a rock, and the sauce had been so spicy it had burned her tongue. They had laughed about it as they’d eaten the pizza he’d ordered. Andrew remembered what had followed the pizza — they had made love for the first time.

  “I remember what followed that disastrous dinner,” he said, his voice a few octaves lower than normal. “It was the best night of my life.”

  Andrew watched as a blush stole over Dawn’s face, giving her pale, tired features some color. How he wanted to reach out and sample her lips again. To see if they still tasted as sweet as they had all those years ago. He went to stand, to move to her side. As if sensing his intentions, she got up from the couch she was sitting on and made her way to the door.

  “Yes, well, that was a long time ago and things have changed. I’ve changed. You’ve changed. We were kids back then and now we’re adults.”

  “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be two old friends catching up after not seeing each other for so long.” With her back to the door, he took advantage of her limited means of escape, and did what he’d wanted to do a few minutes ago — he moved into her personal space. He reached out and touched her cheek, her skin as soft as he remembered it being. “So what do you say Dawn, shall we go get a coffee?”

  Andrew stifled a groan as Dawn’s tongue darted out to moisten her lips. His groin tightened, like it remembered what that tongue had done to him. With his thoughts lost on memories and not the present, he wasn’t prepared for the shove when it came. He stumbled back, his arms flailing slightly, trying to get a purchase on the chair he remembered seeing. His arm connected and he gripped the neck rest and regained his balance.

  “The answer is no, Andrew. I don’t want to have a coffee with you. Not tonight, not ever.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I never look back. And you’re my past. So goodbye.”

  She was almost out the door before Andrew sprung into action. He reached out and gripped her arm, halting her departure.

  “It’s never goodbye, Dawn, more like see you around.”

  He watched, dumbfounded, as her eyes appeared to lose all the color and sparkle. They were dull green, instead of the emerald fire he’d seen just seconds ago. She looked so desolate and alone. The look had him releasing his hold on her arm.

  “No.” She spoke the word so softly he had to lean forward. “It is goodbye. It’s always goodbye.”

  Chapter 2

  Dawn placed her fingers to her lips, kissed them, then transferred the kiss to the smiling cement cherub sitting atop the tombstone.

  “Sleep tight, Brody. Mummy loves you.”

  She brushed away a stray leaf, imagining that it was Brody’s baby fine hair. Today it hurt so much more than it had yesterday. Or the day before that. Or the week before that. But today she welcomed the hurt. She was afraid that if she didn’t keep feeling the hurt, she might forget Brody.

  She looked over to the left and saw the name “Tom Granger” engraved on the adjoining black, granite tombstone. The granite so cold and bleak, so unlike the warm person that Tom had been. She should’ve loved him more. If she’d had, then maybe …

  Stop it.

  She wasn’t going to finish that thought. She had loved Tom. Loved his happy, warm personality; he just hadn’t inflamed her like Andrew once had. She had been comfortable in their love and he’d been happy with what she could give him.

  She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. The warmth temporarily filled her soul, taking hold of the places that had felt so cold when she’d left the hospital. She knew, one day, she would feel warm all the time. Today she just needed to accept the grief overcoming her. As she sat there with her eyes closed, she could almost hear Tom and Brody’s giggles as they played at bathtime. She smiled, glad that they had each other and were together. Their bond had been instant. But she’d never felt left out; she’d had her own special bond with Brody.

  Slowly, another face formed in her mind. Andrew. His smiling blue eyes, teasing her. His face so real she could almost reach out and touch it. Dawn shook her head and opened her eyes, the image of Andrew dissipating like steam from a kettle. Looking around, she saw that she was alone in the cemetery.

  Always alone.

  With one last touch, she stood and walked away.

  • • •

  Andrew gripped the handrails of the tricep machine and pulled the bar down. His muscles burned from the exertion of pumping weights for the last half an hour. After finishing his last repetition, he picked up his towel and wiped his face. If only it was that easy to wipe away the memories that haunted him.

  He never thought that seeing Dawn again would unravel him as much as it had. The last words she’d spoken to him before she’d left the waiting room at the hospital held so much pain. A pain he couldn’t help but wonder if he was responsible for. Had him leaving Dawn and their relationship to chase his dream of sailing around the world caused her pain? It didn’t seem likely — he wasn’t the driver of the car that had collided with Dawn’s husband and son. If anything, he
’d done her a favor by leaving. She’d moved on and had found a new love.

  A love that was taken away from her, again. His conscience yelled the words at him.

  “Hey, Holmes, you gonna stand there all day or are you gonna move your ass so someone else can use the machine?”

  The voice of his fellow paramedic and partner pushed the thoughts away. Andrew shifted away from the machine. “It’s all yours, Riggs.”

  As he walked past his colleague, Andrew lightly punched Riggs’s upper arm. “You may wanna adjust the weights, that puny arm can’t handle five pounds, let alone forty.”

  A burst of laughter broke out amongst the crew in the weight room. “Yeah, you’re a real comedian, Holmes.”

  Andrew was still laughing as he made his way to the locker room to have a shower and get ready for his next shift. He wondered if he’d get to see Dawn again. He wasn’t going to wish for someone to get hurt, but if it happened he wouldn’t complain. He wondered what her reaction would be if he turned up in the ER and asked her out for coffee again? He knew it would probably be best if he just let it go, but he couldn’t. He wanted to try and make her smile again.

  • • •

  Dawn stifled another yawn that overtook her. She hadn’t been able to get some decent sleep after her visit to the cemetery. Her dreams had been fragmented with images of Tom, Brody, and Andrew, all mixed up, and in each dream she lost every one of them all over again. It was like she was doomed to lose anyone she loved in her life.

  The phone rang, bringing her back to the surroundings of the ER. She’d decided when she’d left the cemetery she wasn’t going to let her dark thoughts over take her again.

  She picked up the phone when it rang for the third time. “Emergency, this is Dawn.”

  She picked up her pen and made a note of what was being told to her. Behind her she heard the pager of the attending resident go off as well. She welcomed the emergency; it would help her keep her focus on the present and not the past.

  Dawn hung up the phone and went into the treatment rooms. The resident was speaking to some of the other staff in preparation for what was to come in. As she was listening to the doctor, another thought hit her — what if Andrew was one of the paramedics again? No, the odds of that were slim. He might not even be working a night shift. She was the only person that constantly worked nights, much to the relief of a few of the other staff. No one liked nights.

  She took a deep breath as she heard the faint wail of the siren. “Let’s get ready, team.”

  Dawn walked out to her desk again, ready for the new arrivals. The doors opened and relief filled her; it wasn’t Andrew’s crew that was coming in.

  “Hi guys, what do we have?”

  “Hey Dawn, just a fight at a party. Some kids thought they were invincible.”

  “Okay, take him through, Dr. Jones is waiting.”

  As they wheeled the patient past, Dawn could see that he was bleeding profusely from a wound to the head. Once it was cleaned up it probably wouldn’t be as bad is it looked. She checked the notes she’d made from the phone call. The dispatcher had said there was another victim, but maybe they’d gone to another hospital’s emergency department. She dismissed the thought straight away; they’d had a steady flow of patients all night and weren’t running at capacity.

  The doors opened again and Dawn looked up, experiencing a sense of déjà vu. As it had happened last night, in rushed a crew with a patient that appeared to be in a critical condition. Dawn heard the flat-line sound of the heart monitor, and saw a paramedic kneeling over the patient administering CPR.

  “What’s the status?” she asked, rushing up to the crew.

  “Flat-lined as we were pulling him out of the rig,” Andrew’s voice floated over her, momentarily freezing her thoughts. Her body heating up at the sound of his gruff tone, like she’d sunk into a bath of warm water. Unlike the previous evening, she was in better control of her emotions and snapped herself out of her stupor before it was noticed by anyone.

  “Take him straight through to resus one and I’ll call the resident.”

  “No need, I’m right here, Dawn.” The resident looked at her. “Can you help me out?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  She followed at a quick pace as they took the patient into the resus room. She quickly got the crash cart out and switched on the defibrillator, all the while trying to avoid looking at Andrew, who was doing everything in his power to keep the patient alive, his strong arms compressing the chest like it was a plastic bag. There was something primal calling out to her as she watched him fight hard to save the patient. The integral woman-needs-man part of her that had been lying dormant inside of her for so long.

  “What are his injuries?” she asked.

  “Broken wrist and head trauma, witnesses said he hit his head on the pavement after being punched. He was unconscious at the scene, but he regained consciousness while we were treating him. But as we were getting him out of the rig, his eyes rolled back and he flatlined.

  “Dawn, charge to three hundred,” Dr. Jones ordered. The familiar whine of the machine filled the room. “Okay, stop compressions.” Dawn watched Andrew leap off the bed to make way for the doctor. “Clear.”

  Dawn took a step back and the doctor placed the paddles on the patient’s chest. The patient’s body jerked in response to the electric charge coursing through him. His heart didn’t respond to the charge.

  “Recommence compressions and bagging and recharge to three-fifty.”

  Dawn quickly changed the dial on the machine while another nurse manually squeezed the bag that pushed air through the patient’s nose. Andrew once again started pressing down the man’s chest.

  “Clear,” the doctor called, and then hit the patient’s chest with the paddles again.

  This time a comforting beep beep came from the monitor as the heart started again. Dawn heaved a deep sigh of relief, releasing the tension filling her shoulders. She knew it was part of the job, but she hoped that when this patient’s family arrived she could impart positive news instead of devastating news.

  They got the patient stabilized and ready to be transferred to radiology for a scan before being sent to ICU. It looked like the patient was going to make it. It could’ve been much worse if he’d flat-lined en-route to the hospital and not mere yards from the ER.

  She walked out of the resus room after tidying it up and making a note of the supplies needed to restock the room.

  “Ms. Granger, can we have a word please?”

  Dawn looked up and saw a policeman standing in front of her. To his left stood Andrew and his partner. She thought they’d be long gone. Obviously she was wrong.

  “Sure, Officer, what can I help you with?”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions with regards to the patients just brought in.”

  Dawn looked at the officer and then looked at Andrew, as if he could help her understand why she was being questioned.

  “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. I don’t know the patient personally or the circumstances that caused him to be hurt. It might be best if you spoke to the doctor. I’ll just go get him for you.”

  “Thank you,” the officer replied.

  Dawn went and got the resident, thinking that would be the end of her involvement. But she still ended up being questioned by the police. When she came out of the resident’s office she saw Andrew standing by the counter. By himself though, it seemed his partner had disappeared. Why hadn’t he left too? Surely he needed to be back at his station in case they had another call out.

  “Why are you still here, Andrew?” she asked tiredly, thinking about everything she had to do to and hoping another major emergency didn’t come through the doors.

  “I wanted to make sure they didn’t hassle you too much. I thought I told them ever
ything they needed to know.”

  Dawn was surprised to hear the frustration in his voice. “Well, I guess they felt a need to ensure they had their facts straight. I’m sure I only repeated what you said. The doctor may give them more information. They were still talking when I left. Besides, we won’t know if it was the punch to the head or him hitting his head on the pavement that caused the head injury. Only a neurologist will be able to make that sort of determination.”

  “I’ll never get it, throw one punch in the heat of the moment and it could affect so many lives.”

  Dawn knew exactly what he meant. She’d seen a few one-punch deaths. “Yep, so many families affected. People should definitely consider what happens when they have too much to drink.”

  She had firsthand knowledge of the effects of alcohol on a person’s life. Her life had been irrevocably changed by the actions of a drunk driver.

  “I’m sorry, Dawn.”

  Dawn was shocked when in the next instant she found herself wrapped up in Andrew’s embrace. She held herself stiffly for a few seconds before her body recognized the arms that were holding her. She melted into his embrace. For so many years she’d wanted to be held by Andrew again. To wonder if she’d imagined how good it had been. Her memory hadn’t done it justice. Andrew’s arms held the strength of an adult now, not a young man on the cusp of adulthood. She inhaled deeply and her senses filled with the mixture of his musky aftershave and his unique male fragrance. The smell that was essentially him was one she’d never forgotten. She’d only pushed it to the far recesses of her mind. All it had taken was one moment in his arms for the memories to come forward.