On the other hand, I didn’t even have legit reason to be upset with Kylie. She had every right to call me out on my mistakes because she was one-hundred percent right. If something had been overlooked with that patient, the blame would have ultimately been on me. Yet, this realization did nothing to alleviate my conflicted feelings about her.
And it was just barely past noon. Dammit.
With a sigh, I drank the last of my coffee and tried to mentally prepare myself for the long hours ahead.
CHAPTER 3
Kylie
In the break room, I drank the last of my water and threw the plastic bottle into the recycle bin just as Megan walked in.
“Long day,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Are you okay?” She tilted her head in concern. “You seem a little annoyed.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m fine.”
She pursed her lips and folded her arms. Megan had known me for a long time, and we had started working as military nurses in Savage, CO within a week from each other. We went through our adjustment phase together, and both of us had been mentored by Dr. Nehru. Hence, she knew me well enough to know when I was bluffing or hiding my frustration.
“You in a hurry, Megan?”
She placed a finger on her plump chin. “Hmm…At home, I have a tall, dark, and handsome stranger waiting for me. But he’s on my DVR, so I guess he can wait.” She smiled. “What’s up?”
Together, we took seats at the table.
“I guess I’m just worried about Dr. Nehru. Do you know where she is? She hasn’t left us, has she?”
A wrinkle appeared in Megan’s brow. “Honestly, I’m not sure. Maybe she’s just taking some time off, you know? It can’t be anything serious, otherwise, I’m sure we would have heard something. She’s a busy woman, and she’s been working at military hospitals for only God knows how long. Just look at what we have to deal with on a daily basis. Can you imagine all that she’s seen in this field by now? She deserves some time off. Hopefully she’s on an island somewhere with a big fruity drink in her hand and some handsome company.”
I laughed, though the word ‘handsome’ immediately sprung thoughts of Dr. Lewis into my mind. I supposed it showed on my face too, considering the way Megan narrowed her eyes at me. I tried to rearrange my expression into something more neutral, but it was pointless. Sometimes I was sure Megan was psychic.
Although Megan and I had started working at nearly the same time, she was at least fifteen years older than me. She often felt like a cross between a big sister and a surrogate mother. She had a few children of her own, so her maternal instincts were strong. I presumed that had to be why she was so good at reading nonverbal cues.
I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice as nonchalant as possible. “So, do you have any idea if we’ll be stuck working with Dr. Lewis until Nehru gets back? Or was this just for today?”
“Stuck working with him?” she said with a smirk. “I’m not sure the other young nurses around here would describe it that way. They all seem pretty pleased to have him around.” She laughed.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, well…” my voice trailed off, momentarily not knowing what else to say.
“I do believe he will be filling in for Dr. Nehru for however long she’s on break, or wherever she is. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged my shoulders again. “No reason, really.”
“Oh honey, you are such a terrible liar! That’s why you’ve got to meet my kids. They’ll give you some pointers.”
All I could do was shake my head and laugh.
“Handsome, isn’t he?” Megan said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“He’s all right,” I said. But the words even felt dishonest to my own tongue. The accurate words to describe Dr. Lewis’s looks were ‘perfection personified.’ ‘Drop dead gorgeous’ worked as well. My heart had practically stopped when I first laid eyes on him.
“Just all right, eh?” Megan said. “Maybe you need your eyes checked. Honey, Lord knows if I was at least ten years younger!” She sighed.
“Okay. So he may be decent eye-candy, but his personality leaves a lot to be desired.”
Megan nodded. “Yeah well, you can’t always have it all.”
“How much do you know about him? Have you ever worked with him before? How come this is my first time seeing him?”
“He typically works the night shift. Every once in a while, I work the night shift, so I’ve encountered him a few times.”
“Is he always so careless and uptight?”
Megan shook her head. “Not at all. I think you just got the wrong impression of him, really. He’s a nice and decent man, from as far as I can tell. Give him another chance. I think the daylight hours just have him a little discombobulated.”
I huffed. “What do you mean, ‘give him a chance’? I’m not looking to date him or anything. I was just asking a question that’s all.”
“Uh huh.” Megan paused for a moment. “So, just how are things going in your dating life, missy?”
I fought hard not to roll my eyes. “I don’t have time. I’m—”
“Dedicated to your work,” she finished for me.
“Well, it’s true.”
“And you know what that’s going to get you? A whole bunch of loneliness.”
“I’m not lonely. I have Lulu.”
“Lulu is great, but she’s not as handsome as Max.”
“Max?”
“Just rolls easily off your tongue, doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t change the fact that he seems like a jerk.”
“I don’t think he means to come off that way. He really does care a lot about his job and his patients. His personality just seems a bit—what’s the word? Strict? I’m sure it has to do with his background though.”
“What’s his background?”
“He was a soldier before he became a doctor.”
“Ahh,” I said, nodding. “Yeah, that makes sense. I’ve known quite a few military types. Had some in my family. They can be a bit rigid, but that never made them outright rude.”
Megan chuckled. “I think you just caught him off guard. You know how doctor egos can be. Not all of them are Dr. Nehru.” She leaned forward and whispered, “They can’t always handle it when we’re smarter than them.”
I laughed. Suddenly, my day felt a lot better.
“Well, I don’t know about you, Kylie, but I’m going to get on out of here. My presence inside these walls is no longer contributing to my bank account at this hour.”
“All right, Megan. See you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 4
Kylie
“Hey there, girl! How’s my girl?”
Lulu eagerly greeted me with a wagging tail as I walked through the door to my home. Lulu was a pit bull with a heart of gold who I had adopted from a local animal shelter four years ago despite everyone trying to talk me out of it.
“Do you know how dangerous pit bulls are?”
“That’s no dog for a pretty young woman like you. Get something a little classier, like a poodle or a Yorkie.”
“Pit bulls are a lot to handle. Do you plan on having children someday? Do you want to bring them into a household with an aggressive animal?”
And on and on the criticism went. Yet, I couldn’t be deterred. From the moment I laid eyes with Lulu, whose eyes were nearly the same shade of blue as mine, I knew she was my doggy soulmate. Once the papers were signed, and I brought her into my home, she had been nothing but a bundle of love and joy. And although she can be protective when necessary, I had yet to have any serious aggression problems with her. Lulu was living proof, as far as I was concerned, that with proper love and care, there was no such thing as a bad dog. The worst she had ever done was chew up a couple pairs of my old sneakers when she’d been left in the house too long while I was at work.
After jumping up and down and covering me with doggy kisses, Lulu spun around in a circle exactly three times
before running to the back of the house to retrieve her leash. She seemed particularly eager to go for her run, or perhaps she sensed my need to blow off some steam. The day’s shift at the hospital had not only left me exasperated and irritated, but with plenty of pent-up frustration as well.
“Just give me a second to change clothes, Lulu,” I said, heading for my bedroom. She skipped behind me, her nails clicking on the wooden floor.
I pulled a t-shirt and shorts from my drawer and gratefully shed my hospital scrubs, kicking them into the corner of the room with the rest of my clothes that needed to be washed. Seeing how tall the pile had grown, I felt a twinge of embarrassment. Living alone had changed my habits quite a bit. Back in my younger college days, when I regularly had roommates and occasional booty calls, I wouldn’t have been caught dead with a pile of dirty clothes lying in a visible spot. But now, especially after particularly busy shifts at a military hospital, I would shed my clothes and sometimes could barely muster the energy to kick them into the pile.
While I loved almost everything about being a nurse, the one thing I considered the biggest inconvenience was the surplus of dirty laundry it regularly created. It seemed that wearing scrubs would reduce my laundry pile, but that was not at all my reality. I quickly learned that they were called scrubs for a reason; they needed constant scrubbing. Every week, I was bound to come home with some kind of disgusting mystery fluid dried up somewhere on my clothing. Hence, nursing was not for those with delicate stomachs.
“No, Lulu,” I said, seeing that she had been just moments away from jumping into my ever-growing pile of dirty scrubs. “That’s not lady-like, you know.”
She tilted her head at me as I slid on my jogging sweatshirt. When I stepped into my running shoes, she excitedly jumped up onto her hind legs, knowing it was finally time to go.
“You certainly lack patience sometimes, girl,” I said, giving her a quick scratch behind the ear. “Okay, let’s go.”
CHAPTER 5
Kylie
Lulu and I began our daily run to the park and back. The evening weather was perfect—there was a comfortable breeze in the air and it was neither too warm nor too cool. The only unfortunate thing was that the perfect weather conditions permitted my mind to wander in ways I wished it wouldn’t. And by that, I meant it kept wandering in the direction of Dr. Max Lewis.
Once again, his delicious features drifted through my mind. Unfortunately, they were also accompanied with Megan’s words regarding my less than satisfactory love life.
She was right. Although I loved Lulu dearly, it would have been nice to occasionally have some company of the human male variety. But I’d been so engulfed in my work, I’d dutifully pushed dating off the menu. While I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me—that my decision to remain single was entirely by choice—I knew that deep down, a part of it was because I was still so scarred from my ex. The heartbreak he’d forced me to endure was part of the reason I had wanted a dog in the first place; I had been desperate to find unconditional love in whatever form I could get it.
Troy. He had been good looking too, albeit not as hot as Max Lewis. Nevertheless, I had been so smitten with him that I hadn’t seen, or perhaps had ignored, all the warning signs. Troy had been very charming in the beginning, showering me with roses and chocolate, romantic dinners, and fun outings. And then suddenly, he began to change.
It started because he hadn’t been supportive of my career ambitions. He’d obviously viewed me as the marrying type, but made it quite apparent that if we were going to be together, he fully expected me to give up my dreams and instead become a dedicated house-wife. Now, I know there’s nothing wrong with being a house-wife; raising a family is one of the most important jobs in existence. Many women dedicate their lives to it and I have nothing but respect for them. But that’s just wasn’t the lifestyle I envisioned for myself.
For as long as I could remember, I’ve always wanted to work in the medical field. I was obsessed with hospital-themed television shows and had known since I was a little girl that it was the lifestyle I craved. So when suddenly given an ultimatum between a man and my career, I easily chose my career.
Of course, the choice became a lot easier when Troy turned violent about my decision, deciding to try literally knocking some sense into me. When it happened, the first time, I convinced myself it was an accident and he hadn’t meant it. When it happened, the second time, I figured he was the problem, not me. He was the one who needed help and I had contemplated whether I needed to stick around to ensure he received it. But then one night, I’d had a dream about my grandmother. It was so vivid, I could practically smell her home—a mixture of baked goods and lavender. We’d been sitting at the dining room table, and she’d been giving me the warm smile she always reserved specifically for her grandchildren. Then she reached across the table, took my hand and said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, then I’m the damned fool.”
When I woke up, I knew without a doubt that she was watching over me and trying to send me a message. I knew then that I’d most certainly be a fool if I didn’t take her advice. So I broke up with Troy shortly thereafter.
Oh boy, did he try to win me back. He made every pretty promise in the book—swore he would never lay a hand on me again for as long as he lived. I can still hear his voice pleading with me. “Kylie, baby, I won’t do it again. You know how much I love you. I will never hurt you again, I swear. I swear, baby. I swear. I’m not going to hurt you again, as long as I live.”
I smiled, looked him straight in the eyes and said, “No, you won’t hurt me again for as long as you live because this is the last time you’re going to see me in your pathetic life. Goodbye.”
It was one of the smartest and most satisfying decisions I had ever made. Sometimes, I still shudder at the thought of what my life would have been like if I hadn’t left him. I would have probably been living behind a white-picket fence with an unhappy household full of kids—all of us afraid and terrified each night when Daddy came home. I had certainly dodged a bullet by leaving Troy.
Nevertheless, I’d become lonely in the aftermath. There hadn’t been a single man to catch my eye though. Not until Dr. Max Lewis. Yet, something told me he had caught my eye for all the wrong reasons.
The thought of him coincided with a random man in a parked car catcalling at me. At the sound of his whistle, Lulu growled.
“Good girl,” I said. “Let’s go.” We were halfway to the park.
Looks. Just like the creep who’d just whistled at me, my attraction to Dr. Lewis was all about looks because I hardly knew anything about him. And the little I did know about him hadn’t exactly been flattering. I could still recall his haughty tone in the way he had chastised me while working on the gunshot patient. The mere memory still made my blood boil. It was people like Dr. Lewis that gave doctors a bad name.
As we reached the park, I looked around, checking to see that the area was empty, as it usually was during this time of evening. Seeing that no one else was near, I unhooked Lulu from her leash so that she could walk around freely and do her business.
“There you go, girl,” I said. She wagged her tail and happily trotted off, while I took a seat on the bench, careful to keep my eye on her nonetheless, just in case someone happened to cross our path.
Although Megan had claimed I’d just gotten the wrong impression of Dr. Lewis, I wasn’t so sure. She had blamed his biting personality on the fact that he was ex-military, but that excuse didn’t work for me. I had an uncle who’d been in the army which was part of what made me want to become a military nurse in the first place. My uncle was rigid, but stoic and noble; I had a hard time imagining those traits in Dr. Lewis.
I sighed, already not liking how much of my mind Dr. Lewis was occupying after just one day of knowing him. I hated people judging me for my looks, so it certainly didn’t sit well with me that I was being such a sucker for a handsome face. Yet, even as that thought
crossed my mind, I recalled how it had appeared that Dr. Lewis hadn’t been able to resist peeking at my chest. The thought brought a flush to my face.
Right on time, Lulu trotted back to me. I hooked her leash back on and we set off for our run back home. I even managed to push thoughts of Dr. Lewis from my mind, at least until I went back home to take a shower where I unfortunately started imagining him in there with me…
“Kylie, you seriously need help,” I told myself in the foggy bathroom mirror.
Or to at least think about what Megan said and give him another chance, a voice in my head counter-argued. Everyone is prone to having a bad day every once in a while.
CHAPTER 6
Max
If I’d thought day two of working the day shift was going to get easier, I was terribly mistaken, which became evident when the gaze of a seven-year-old girl made me sweat. I squirmed in my chair as she unflinchingly stared at me.
Her mom had stepped out to take a phone call that was lasting far too long. I didn’t have kids of my own, so I tried to refrain from judging parents too harshly. Yet, some of them really threw me for a loop. This little girl was sick and had a terrible fever, yet her mother saw it more important to put me on hold so that she could run her mouth on the phone. Not only was this rude, for I could be needed for another patient at any moment, but it also seemed careless. I drummed my fingers on my knee as the girl continued to stare at me.
“What’s your name again?” I asked.
The girl blinked with her peaky eyes. “Raya.”
“Raya. Right. Such a pretty name.”
“Then how come you couldn’t remember it?”
It was my turn to blink. Little smart-ass, I thought to myself. I forced a smile. “Because it’s really early and I should still be sleeping.”
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