Her L.A. Knight

by Lynne Marshall

  “You’re a terrible actress.”

  Looking into his eyes, she saw intensity and longing that matched her own. It frightened her. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t want to leave any more than I want you to.”

  In that instant she knew he intended to kiss her. And, surprisingly, she wanted to kiss him back. Her pulse tripled its beat, and her breathing went haywire.

  He grasped her arms and tugged her close. Now the thought of resisting didn’t cross her mind. An odd excitement sent a shiver to her bones as his mouth covered hers in a warm, inviting kiss.

  Dear Reader,

  As a registered nurse for over two decades, I consider nurses to be the heart and soul of any hospital. Over the years I have experienced a broad range of medical heroes, many of whom weren’t doctors, but were everyday hospital personnel. These are the people I wanted to spotlight in my stories, the hardworking folks I admire, and there is no place better to find them than in my fictitious Los Angeles Mercy Hospital.

  Sometimes the mistakes we make in our teens can haunt us the rest of our lives. To prove my point I created a crusading nurse, China Seabury, who is so busy atoning for her past that she overlooks life’s daily blessings.

  E.R. charmer Rick Morell needs to prove his worth. As a physician’s assistant, both liked and admired by his peers, he has failed to earn his doctor father’s respect. When China asks Rick to be the spokesperson for her latest crusade, he jumps at the chance for a selfish reason.

  Did you know that only three countries train and license physicians’ assistants? They are the U.S.A., China and Russia. These skilled, physician-trained professionals are invaluable members of the medical team in both busy urban and isolated rural settings. In my first U.S. release, Her L.A. Knight, I felt it was fitting to make my hero a PA searching for his due respect, and my heroine an emotionally and physically wounded nurse who, along with the help of the hero, finds her way to self-forgiveness. Maybe together they’ll learn the meaning of unconditional love.

  Please join me in the L.A. Mercy Hospital Emergency Department. I’d love to hear from you! Drop by and say hello at www.lynnemarshallweb.com.

  My very best wishes,

  Lynne

  Her L.A. Knight

  Lynne Marshall

  To Deanne Avner,

  good friend, terrific writer,

  and all-around peach of a lady

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  “INCOMING,” China Seabury announced, hanging up the mobile field-unit phone at the workstation. After five years on the job, she still felt a burst of adrenaline each time someone’s life depended on the emergency room.

  She shook old memories out of her head, hoping she could remain objective and useful for the patient’s sake.

  Knowing the ambulance was on its way, and that her window of opportunity to corner Rick Morell would be over in another few seconds, she jogged across the nurses’ station to catch up with him. Matching his long-legged strides, she accompanied him down the hallway.

  “Hey, Rick,” she said, trying not to sound breathless.

  Normally she went out of her way to avoid the over-confident, totally full of himself physician’s assistant. He looked surprised to find her tagging along.

  “What’s up, China?”

  “You know that fundraiser I’ve organized next month?”

  He lifted a dark brow. “The one you never quit talking about?”

  A student nurse appeared out of nowhere, blushing and practically gushing as she handed him a chart. “Can you sign off your orders, please?”

  “Sure.” After making his scribble, he looked up and smiled at the young nurse. The big blue eyes staring back at him practically melted.

  Oh, come on.

  The student nurse walked away as if floating on a cloud. Why was it that women threw themselves at his feet? China was hard-pressed to figure it out.

  He turned his attention back to her, looking expectant.

  “Yeah,” China said dryly. “The charity event I never quit talking about, because it’s for a good cause.”

  His masculine gait shifted into a swagger as he got closer to the ambulance entrance. A siren could be heard in the vicinity. He grabbed a bag of normal saline and some IV tubing from the supply cart and, not missing a step, tossed them to her before she could tell him exactly what was on her mind. She caught them deftly.

  He cocked his head. “The fundraiser for the teen drivers?”

  “Yes. You know exactly what I’m talking about, so quit playing dense.”

  She juggled the items and stopped abruptly. The thin ER scrubs showcased his broad shoulders and powerful chest. Damn, he’d caught her checking him out. She wished she hadn’t noticed, and was damned if she would let him intimidate her. But why couldn’t he wear his white coat like all the other PAs?

  “I need a master of ceremonies.”

  His usual confidence changed to downright cocky, a trait she particularly despised, and it almost made her wish she hadn’t asked him. How was she going to manage to pull this off without throwing up?

  A pleased smile spread across his rugged face. “And I’m your first choice, I presume?”

  Oh, yeah, she was definitely going to gag, but she needed his help, and the charity was more important than her pride. She grit her teeth and smiled back. “Would you be interested?”

  He rubbed his jaw. “A high profile at the charity auction next month would be great PR.”

  He kept walking.

  She stopped in mid-step. So the rumors she’d heard were true. He planned on applying for the ER supervisor job again.

  Vintage Rick with the “what’s in it for me?” factor, confirming everything she’d come to know and loathe about him. Why didn’t anyone else see him for what he was?

  “I’d be glad to, honey.” He glanced over his shoulder with a smug grin.

  “Rick?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Don’t ever call me ‘honey’ again.”

  The emergency room doors blasted open. Two EMTs rolled in a gurney with the motor vehicle accident patient strapped on a backboard and a cervical neck collar in place. They started their report while China and Rick met them.

  “Found her car wrapped around a pole on Sunset Boulevard,” the first EMT said, pushing through the hall.

  “No airway obstruction,” said the other, following along. “She’s got multiple lacerations and contusions of the face.”

  China quelled the urge to run screaming out of the ER. It had been ten years—would her post-trauma terrors ever subside?

  The patient wailed, and Rick restrained her wrists, lightly wrestling them to her sides.

  “We’ll take good care of you, miss. You’re in good hands.” The patient settled at his quiet voice and calm demeanor. Rick helped the men roll the gurney into room three. “The worst is over. Just hang in there.”

  Oddly, his words helped China control her anxiety. The one positive point about Rick that she would concede was his great bedside manner.

  The EMTs transferred the patient to the ER bed, board and all. The patient whimpered with the movement.

  “Easy does it. Take a deep breath,” Rick said.

  China assisted by applying the blood-pressure cuff and monitor leads. She hung the IV bag, which had already been started en route, to the hook above the bed, and noted it wasn’t infiltrated at the site of insertion. She threaded it
into the intravenous infusion machine and set it at 150 cc per hour.

  Blood caked in the patient’s blond, tri-color highlighted hair. Her face was a bloody mess, and her nose was obviously broken. China winced at the thought of the pain she must have experienced, flashing back to her own indescribable agony many years before.

  “Get stat protocol labs and a portable cross-table lateral cervical spine X-ray,” Rick said, stopping abruptly. “Are you OK, China?”

  She nodded and swallowed the dry lump in her throat. His gaze lingered, and concern crossed his brow, but not for long. Focusing back on his patient and her needs, he flashed his penlight into her eyes. The patient moaned and blinked. “It’s OK,” he said. “I’m just looking for glass. You’ve got a deep cut above your left eyebrow, and another good gash along your right cheek.”

  He examined her closely and picked a tiny sliver from one of her brows with a tender touch. She looked appreciatively at him.

  Back on track, China switched the oxygen cannula from the portable tank to the connection on the wall and did a quick assessment of the patient’s body. No obvious sign of broken bones; her chest lifted and dropped evenly with each breath, with no evidence of flail chest. But who knew what internal damage a steering-wheel or an airbag may have caused? Only X-rays would tell for sure.

  Once a cervical fracture was ruled out, they’d stabilize her in the ER, remove the protective collar, and send her to Radiology for a full spinal series, along with chest and abdominal X-rays.

  The monitor above the bed, besides showing a normal sinus heart rhythm, reported good oxygen saturation from the pulse oximeter she’d slipped on the patient’s finger. Maybe the internal damage would be minimal, and she’d be OK, after all.

  Taking a deep breath, China rushed out of the room to the phone to order the labs, and paged the X-ray technician. She grabbed the paperwork to enter the patient’s identity into the computer and, for the first time, noticed the patient’s name. Brianna Cummings.

  The teenage actress?

  China glanced through the glass wall of the patient’s room. She looked so tiny on the ER gurney, nothing like a television star. At her bedside, Rick hovered and listened to her lungs through a stethoscope. A few seconds later, he stuck his head out the door. “Draw up a hundred of Demerol.”

  She nodded. “Who’s got the narcotics keys?”

  The charge nurse flung them at her. China caught the keys and hustled to the medicine room.

  After China had given the intramuscular shot, Rick caught her on the way out the door. “Do you realize who she is?” he whispered.

  China nodded. He followed her back to the medicine room where she double-checked that she’d signed out for the narcotics. He towered over her.

  “I’m paging the on-call plastic surgeon to stitch up her face, but I think it’s going to take more than skill and a bottomless pit of cash to get her ready for her close-ups again,” he said. “Hollywood’s a fickle place when it comes to beauty.”

  She gathered what she needed to clean the patient’s facial wounds, somberly shaking her head at the prospect of a young career potentially finished before it had peaked.

  “What a waste of a pretty face,” he said, and tossed his gloves into the trash.

  His impeccable bedside manner had almost fooled her. The man was completely superficial. China came to a halt. “You know, Rick, life isn’t all about good looks.”

  Without missing a beat, as though shooting a basketball, he tossed her a package of sterile four by fours. Slam dunk. The slick ER PA only appeared to care about the plight of the young actress.

  He started to walk away. “No, China, you’re right. Life isn’t just about good looks. It’s all about appearances.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Rick slapped the X-ray over the reading lights on the ER wall. He squinted and carefully studied the cervical spine.

  His mind drifted to the nurse who had managed to squirm her way into his mind far too often lately. Finally, she’d come to him for something, and all he’d managed to do had been to irritate her.

  How many times had he gotten off on the wrong foot with China? He knew what it was like to be an outcast, but preferred not to let on. He also suspected that China’s status was self-imposed, which only made her all the more interesting. Though she was completely different from his usual taste in women, he felt drawn to her. Turning thirty had made him re-evaluate his dating game. Maybe it was time to get serious, and she was the type of woman he should pursue.

  He chuckled. She couldn’t stand him.

  The funny thing was, he admired her on many different levels—her dedication, her skill as a nurse, and her passion for her cause. So why did he go out of his way to bother her? Bottom line, he liked giving her a hard time.

  Someone needed to lighten her up and teach her that a bright smile always outperformed a grim approach. He’d learned that the hard way. Just keep smiling. Never let them know how you really feel.

  Her tenacity had been the example he’d needed when he’d heard about the ER supervisor job. He’d already been passed over once the previous year, but this time he intended to get hired, and he’d do everything in his power to make sure he got the job.

  There was no evidence of a fracture on the X-rays, and for a change he looked forward to being the bearer of good news.

  Snapping the X-rays down and replacing them in the folder, he decided that before next month, when he was the master of ceremonies at China’s fundraiser, he’d find out everything he could about the topic. And since he couldn’t seem to impress China Seabury with ER heroics, he’d try another tack, and this time it would be just cold hard teenage driving statistics.

  CHAPTER TWO

  One month later.

  CHINA HAD TO RUN them over. There was no getting around it. Zooming down the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles, closed in on both sides by cars traveling no less than seventy-five miles an hour, the runaway balloons couldn’t be avoided.

  Her hands tightened on the wheel. Fear crushed through her chest. What if she swerved? She might sideswipe another car. Oh, God, she didn’t want to do that.

  She had no choice but to hit and run. Fighting the urge to close her eyes, she kept her foot on the gas and plowed full speed ahead.

  It wasn’t a clean drive-over. No. The air flow from the cars on each outside lane whipped up and off the road, and she hit the balloons at an angle, a cluster of deflating party balloons, complete with bright ribbons, and instead of popping, they hooked onto her front bumper.

  The black and silver, over-the-hill, thick-skinned-helium balloons meant for someone else flopped and thumped against her windshield, blocking her vision. They were a sad commentary on how her big day had been going.

  Her heart rapped against her chest. The last thing she needed was to have an accident on her way to a fundraiser for safe driving.

  China slowed down a bit and, reaching between her seat and the inside of the car door, adjusted the bucket seat position. Maybe then she could see around the balloons until she had a chance to exit the freeway.

  Nothing changed, at least not inside the car. Having pulled the wrong lever, the trunk of her car flew open. Now not only was her front vision impaired, but the view out the back was, too.

  She gripped the steering-wheel tighter and let up a little more on the accelerator. She didn’t want to die on her twenty-seventh birthday.

  Above the flapping trunk, a red light flashed in her eyes.

  She shook her head. Hell.

  Strangely relieved, she took her first breath, not having been aware she’d been holding it. Traffic parted in her path. She steered the car to the shoulder of the road and waited for the highway patrol officer to approach. Hopefully, he’d offer a sympathetic ear.

  After fishing out her car registration from the glove compartment, China checked her rear-view mirror. She caught a glimpse of herself, once again shocked at how short her bangs were, and rolled her eyes.

  How had she let her ha
irdresser talk her into it? Not once in her life had she ever aspired to look like Cleopatra. Yet here she was, sitting on the side of the 405 Freeway, about to get a moving violation ticket while dressed in a black velvet toga-style dress, looking like the old asp-handling seductress herself.

  Sheesh.

  She couldn’t think of one single day in her life that sucked worse than today.

  Memory wouldn’t let the lie take hold. No, that wasn’t true. Even with her lousy hairdo, the half-dead balloons stuck on her car, the imminent ticket, and yet another birthday without a date, today hadn’t come close to the worst day of her life ten years earlier.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw the twisted metal, heard the cacophony of screams and horns, and felt the molten daggers of pain, on the day that had changed her for ever.

  Shaking off the recurring nightmarish memory, China put the balloon incident into perspective.

  It didn’t even come close.

  She waited for the highway patrolman to finish his paperwork.

  Thankful to be alive, she watched cars whiz past. The officer walked to the front of her automobile, unhooked the droopy balloons, held them like a sad bouquet, and strolled toward her window.

  Wincing with embarrassment, she held out hope he’d see her side of the story.

  The reticent officer took the license and registration she handed him through the window, glanced at them and, with a deadpan face, handed her the deflating balloons and said, “Happy Birthday, Ms. Seabury.”

  Grateful for the kindness of the amused-looking highway patrol officer who hadn’t given her a ticket, China only arrived fifteen minutes late for the charity dinner. She parked her car in the reserved spot, something she’d earned for working endless hours putting the whole event together. Gathering her skirt, she ran like a girlie-girl in fancy high-heeled shoes toward the entrance.

  She flung the auditorium doors wide to expose a noisy, chattering crowd. The open bar and general festivities had already begun at the hundred-dollar-a-plate event.