Turbulent Desires (Billionaire Aviators Book 2)

by Melody Anne

  “Guess you didn’t exactly wow her in the bedroom, huh? She go running away screaming?” Coop said with a laugh.

  “Oh, I wowed her all right. It was the best night of either of our lives. She’s running scared.”

  Maverick wanted to instantly take it back, but it was out there in the open now. He expected a joke from his brother, but his face got all serious as he looked at Mav like he was something on a slide under a microscope. Mav didn’t like that look at all.

  “Hmm. You’re really serious about this girl, aren’t you?” Coop said.

  “No! I mean, I’m just trying to help her, that’s all,” Mav said, running his hand through his hair as he began to pace on the wide deck.

  “I don’t think so, Mav. I remember this feeling when I knew I couldn’t live another day without Stormy. You’ve been hit, brother, and the only way to ease the pain is to just accept what you’re feeling,” Coop told him.

  “I don’t know what in the hell you’re going on about. We’ve only been dating for a short while and there’s a time limit on it. I’ve been on a mission to help her,” Mav told him.

  Cooper laughed—actually laughed at him, which made Maverick glare at his brother. Normally, he enjoyed Cooper’s company.

  “Oh my poor, unfortunate brother. Love isn’t a mission. It’s also not something that can be stopped. And it looks like you’re officially on this ride whether you want to be or not,” Cooper said.

  “This is nonsense. Love has nothing to do with how I feel about this girl. Sure, I enjoy being with her, and I definitely want to help her, and we do have passion, but that doesn’t add up to love,” Mav insisted.

  “Yeah, I thought that, too,” Coop said with a laugh.

  “It’s a lot different with me and Lins than it was with you and Stormy. Any fool could see you were head over heels for that woman.”

  “It’s okay. It will take you time to see what’s happening.”

  “Whatever,” Maverick said before sending another withering look his brother’s way. “Where’s Lins?” He was done talking to Cooper.

  “She took an extra shift at the hospital. She’s been doing that quite a bit the past few days. I don’t know, though—today she seemed more nervous than usual. You might want to go and check in on her,” Coop said.

  Maverick was moving away before he even thought about it. He didn’t bother saying good-bye to his brother. He needed to go and check on Lindsey, make sure she was okay. His stress was through the roof as he jumped in his truck and gunned the engine. If Lindsey was upset, then he needed to be there for her.

  On the other hand, what if it really was just him wanting her to need him? What if she was perfectly fine on her own and that wasn’t something he could accept? Maybe all of this was one-sided and he was too infatuated with the girl to notice. Whatever it was didn’t matter, though. He had to go see the girl and nothing was going to stop him from doing just that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Avoidance seemed to be something Lindsey was too capable of. When the going got tough, she fled as fast as she could. Her feelings for Maverick were too strong, so the best cure for that was a heck of a lot of work.

  Lindsey was examining her patient when the new attending came rushing into the room, looking at the man’s chart, not bothering to even peek at the person on the table.

  “Patient needs a cardiac panel, EKG, and Cath UA. Splint the right arm, and get that wound in the right leg secured. Move it!”

  “Umm, Dr. Cullen,” Lindsey said as she tried to get the doctor’s attention. He cut her off.

  “Stop speaking and get on this,” he thundered.

  Grrr. Attitude. She hated the new attending. “Heard you loud and clear, but—” Again she was interrupted. Sometimes it was difficult to keep her patience. Today apparently was one of those days. Hotshot doctors with attitudes didn’t amuse her.

  “You will listen when I give an order. You are the nurse and I’m the MD. Do you know how to do your damn job? Or did you just slide your way through nursing school and then forget it all while on vacation?”

  Lindsey saw red, but somehow managed to keep from screaming at the new doctor. Yes, she’d taken a few months off, but she was sure he hadn’t bothered to find out a thing about her or why she’d needed to take leave. He probably thought she was right out of nursing school with zero brains in her head.

  “As I was saying,” she said with such authority, it actually stopped the man for two seconds. “The labs and EKG were done before you came in. The resident has already sutured the lacerations and the splint is on. If you bothered to look at the patient, you could have saved us both critical time.”

  The doctor’s eyes narrowed as he tried to decide what to say. His next words didn’t get much better. “You should have told me as soon as I came in the room.” Of course he was turning the blame on her. She had to count to ten before speaking again, or she just might get fired before she was ready to leave the hospital she’d already decided she wouldn’t stay at forever.

  “I was trying to tell you, but none of that matters right now,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ve been with him for the past fifteen minutes and he looks like he’s going into respiratory failure. We need to address the internal injuries now.”

  The doctor pushed on the patient’s abdomen and looked at him for all of ten seconds. “You’re overreacting. We have more patients in here that need our care. This one is fine.”

  He began to turn away. Lindsey was furious. She chose to stand her ground. Turning to the resident, who was looking at the two of them, his head whipping back and forth, Lindsey spoke to him instead.

  “Get ready to intubate. He’s about to crash.”

  “Lindsey!” the doctor shouted, turning back around.

  “Trust me. I know how to do my job,” she said as the monitors began going off.

  The doctor never said another word as they intubated the patient and rushed him off for surgery. He was too much of an arrogant ass to admit he’d been wrong.

  Lindsey dragged herself to the break room and made a cup of coffee, giving herself a few minutes until the next patient arrived. The entire shift had been one of those days.

  She got in only a few sips of coffee before her pager went off and she had to leave her drink as she rushed back to the ER. A large man was being brought in, apparently an overdose. Panic closed Lindsey’s chest, but she couldn’t let it win.

  This wasn’t the same man who’d attacked her, even if he was similar in appearance. He was a patient, and no matter who he was or what was wrong, he had a right to medical treatment.

  The paramedic spoke fast. “We have a forty-two-year-old male, approximately two hundred fifty pounds. Apparent heroin drug OD per his roommate, as well as multiple unidentified pills. He was found down in his living room with a needle in his arm, unresponsive. We gave him Narcan en route and he woke up hard and fast, so I recommend using caution with the next dose. I was about to give a second dose, but arrived at your ED before I could administer. We have two eighteen-gauge IVs started and his blood sugar is one eighty-four.”

  The nurses were already at work assessing lines and placing a tube down his nose and into his stomach so they could administer the necessary medication to counteract the pills he’d taken.

  “Let’s get some charcoal down him ASAP, and draw a tox screen.” Dr. Cullen was giving orders for tasks that had already been done, especially since the nurses had handled patients like this one so many times they could do it with their eyes shut. But no one said anything as they continued working on the man.

  “Where is the Narcan?” the MD yelled, apparently wanting the nurses to grow more hands and do everything at once.

  “What’s Narcan?” one of the new lab techs asked Lindsey.

  “It’s a med that instantly reverses the effects of opiates like heroin, but it has to be given slowly or the patient can wake up wild and swinging.

  “We don’t want that to happen,” the young gu
y said just as Lindsey was leaning over the patient to check his monitor leads.

  “Never mind, I’ll give the medicine myself,” she heard Dr. Cullen snap.

  Before she could utter a sound, Dr. Cullen slammed the medication into the patient’s IV.

  Suddenly the man’s hand came out of nowhere, grabbing her by the throat. He freed his other arm and began pulling out his IVs and nasogastric tube. Blood and charcoal went spraying everywhere, but it didn’t even matter to Lindsey because the room was closing in on her as the patient continued squeezing his fat fingers into her throat.

  “Get away from me, you murderous bastards. Stop poking me!” he screamed as his free hand batted at the doctors and staff.

  Pure terror was rushing through her, and though she was scratching at the man’s hand, it wasn’t budging. This was too similar, too soon. Yes, she’d had patients go ballistic before, but her head had always been in the game. She’d never been so afraid.

  He turned his head and looked at her as if finally noticing her, even though he’d been gripping her throat for what felt an eternity. “Get me out of here, bitch, now!” he thundered.

  “Stop him,” the MD yelled as the patient threw Lindsey across the room and onto the emergency crash cart. Her rib cage was screaming in pain as she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.

  She hardly had time to notice her own pain before security and staff were jumping over to restrain the patient to the bed. Although he continued fighting them, the Narcan was wearing off, so the drugs in his system were slowly taking him under once more.

  “I want five mg Versed IM in him now,” Dr. Cullen shouted.

  “You’re not giving me anything,” the patient yelled, though it was much more muted than a few seconds before.

  Although the rest of the staff worked quickly and efficiently, they couldn’t help but shoot a nasty glare the doctor’s way. He shouldn’t have shot that medicine so quickly into the patient’s IV in the first place.

  Finally, the patient’s eyes rolled back and his body relaxed. The security staff got him strapped to the bed. It was a police matter now.

  The patient was secured and Lindsey was done. She was grateful for the helping hand that lifted her off the ground and out of the pool of blood that had saturated her scrubs. After thanking the nurse, she walked from the ER, too spooked to stay and watch them fix the damage the patient had caused himself.

  “Lindsey!” Turning, she found Maverick standing in front of her with a look of worry in his eyes. “What happened? Where did all the blood come from?”

  For a moment she didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she looked down and saw that her scrubs looked as if she’d just come from a battle—which, in fact, she had.

  “It was an unruly patient. He ripped out his IV,” she said as she changed directions and headed to the nurse’s lounge where she could get out of the scrubs. Tears were close to breaking, but she didn’t want to let them fall. She’d cried enough already.

  “Are you okay?” Maverick was right beside her, his hand on her back.

  “It just shook me up a little,” she admitted.

  “I’m sorry.” He stopped her and made her face him. She couldn’t look into his eyes. If she did, surely she would fall apart.

  “I’m okay, Mav. Just—just go home. I still have a few hours left,” she said as she reached the door to the locker room.

  “I’m not going anywhere. Your face is white, your clothes are bloody, and you’re in shock. Let’s get you cleaned up and get some coffee. I’m sure the staff will understand if you need to leave,” he told her.

  She stopped inside the locker room, which was blessedly empty. She refused to look at him. He refused to let her shut him out. His fingers slipped beneath her chin and he raised her face to his. Then she was looking into his panicked eyes.

  It was odd, really, but seeing the wild look on his face seemed to ground her. It was nice to know someone was out there who cared so much about her that seeing her like this was sending him off the deep end a little.

  She couldn’t smile, but she tried to make her voice reassuring as she spoke.

  “I can’t keep running every time I get scared. This is the job. Things happen. But I really need to get cleaned up,” she told him.

  He was silent as he looked at her, and then she saw something else in his eyes that nearly had her reeling. She didn’t want to analyze it, didn’t want to focus on what she was seeing. She pulled away from him. She was finding it difficult to breathe.

  “You’re so damn strong, Lins. I’m proud of you.”

  His words were spoken almost reverently. It was giving her more and more strength. This man made her feel stronger and more capable. What was she doing continually running from him?

  “I really do need to clean up,” she said, her voice almost pleading.

  “Okay, sug.”

  He didn’t say anything else, just took her into the shower room and began pulling off her clothes. She was trembling in his arms, but the more she thought about what had just occurred, the more she felt like she couldn’t speak.

  She knew she should say something—do something, but she couldn’t.

  Soon, the bloodied clothes were off her, and she was standing beneath the warm spray not understanding how she’d gotten there. And she wasn’t alone.

  Maverick was with her, his chest pressed to her back as he ran his hands through her hair and down her body, getting every last trace of blood off her. Not knowing when the tears started, she just stood there slumped against him as he took care of her.

  “I’m here, Lindsey, right here,” he whispered as he rinsed soap from her hair before he pulled her from the shower and wrapped one towel around her while using another to dry her body.

  He kept whispering soothing words, and soon the tears dried and she managed to dress herself before the two of them exited the changing area. It all was such a blur, the only thing to focus on was his voice, and the strength of his hands as they’d washed her, taking away the filth that man had left on her. Simply having Mav there, being so kind, being her rock, gave her the sense of peace and security she needed to let go of the terror that had been consuming her.

  His faith in her was terrifying, but her need for him was even worse. She knew she couldn’t think that way. It only added to the chaos of her life.

  “I have to finish my shift, Mav,” she said as he walked her outside the building for a breath of fresh air.

  He stopped in his tracks, a look of disbelief on his face.

  “I think they can give you a pass, Lins. You were attacked.”

  “If I run now, I might never come back in again, Maverick. I can’t run anymore. I’m afraid of what will happen if I do,” she told him, praying he wouldn’t push the issue. If he did, she wouldn’t be able to resist, and then all would be lost.

  He tugged her into his arms.

  “I don’t like this one bit, but I’m in awe of the person you are. Let’s at least grab a cup of coffee. You deserve a break before going back into that room,” he insisted.

  “I can concede to that,” she told him.

  He held her a few moments longer and then they walked side by side to the small dining area.

  The caffeine helped tremendously, and she was able to go back to work. It wasn’t exactly with bells on, but it was a start. It seemed that if she just focused on the small stuff, life was so much easier to handle. If she started looking at the bigger picture, that’s when she felt like she was spinning out of control.

  So she was going to just take it a day at a time. No, not even that. She was going to take it a moment at a time, and then an hour, and work herself up to days, weeks, and months. She wouldn’t even think about years yet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Maverick hated hospitals. Really hated them. They smelled bad, and were incredibly noisy. He’d spent a fair amount of time in ERs. That’s what happened when you liked to live your life fast and hard.

  But nothi
ng was going to pull him away from the ER waiting room on this particular night. When he’d seen Lindsey come out of the trauma room covered in blood, her face white with red and purple bruising around her neck in the shape of fingerprints, he’d nearly lost it.

  He should have been there sooner. Maybe he could have prevented it. Logically, he knew he couldn’t have done anything. How could he when he didn’t know what was going on behind those doors? And as much power as he had around town, he still couldn’t get into the sterile area without a reason.

  Hell, maybe it was time to break another bone just so he could get back there. He would do that for this woman. That was a humbling thought. Shaking his head, he just had to face up to the fact that he was protective of Lindsey, and he hated that something terrible had happened to her.

  Still, he wasn’t leaving the hospital without her. Glancing at the clock for the fiftieth time, he sighed with relief. Her shift was over in ten minutes. He’d already sweet-talked one of the nurses to find out where the staff exited at the end of their day.

  He didn’t trust Lindsey not to try to sneak off without him. And he needed to be with her tonight. He was afraid that a lot of their progress had just been smashed in a several-hour period.

  It was okay if that were the case, though, because he was going to be there for her to help pick up these new pieces. He had plans to help her decompress after a trying day at work.

  Getting up, he smiled at the nurse who had helped him and was rewarded by her nervous giggle. Why couldn’t Lindsey be so easy to mesmerize? His life would be much smoother if she were.

  Leaning against the wall near the employee exit, Maverick smiled when he spotted Lins coming out, suspiciously looking around, and then making a dash toward her car. She was trying to sneak off.

  “My truck is over that way,” he called, making her whip around.

  “You scared me,” she exclaimed, holding her hand up to her heart.

  “If you hadn’t been trying to sneak away, you wouldn’t have gotten frightened,” he pointed out.

  “I wasn’t trying to sneak off. I just didn’t know the exact plans. I need to go home and shower and . . . stuff,” she said as she began moving toward her car again.