A Fairfield Romance Box Set 1

by Lydia Reeves

  Which meant that after a case of kidney stones, a bad dog bite, two cases of the flu, one of strep throat, and an elderly lady with chest pain, coupled with the fact that I’d eaten nothing more than peanut butter crackers since my shift started over ten hours ago, I was understandably tired and grumpy.

  It hadn’t helped that Dr. Ashvale had been on duty when I’d arrived, and he’d been in rare form too, full of barked orders and scathing comments. At least he was off shift now.

  “You’re all good to go,” I told my chest pain patient, who I had just spend the last ten minutes walking through how to take her medication and what to do if her symptoms persisted, and handed her discharge papers across to where she sat perched on the bed. She gingerly took them, making an obvious effort not to make contact with my tattoo-covered hands, as if the decoration might be catching. I suppressed both an eye roll and a scathing comment, and left her there to head back to the nurses station, where I sank gratefully into a chair. The change in hospital policy to allow visible tattoos was recent, and fortunate, as I wouldn’t have been offered the job otherwise, but I had forgotten how close-minded small towns could be.

  “Will this day ever end?”

  My coworker, Claire, threw herself down next to me and slouched dramatically. “I swear, you’d think it was Friday the thirteenth, and a Monday, and a full moon all rolled into one!”

  I snorted. “Friday and Monday at the same time; that’d be something else. Besides,” I nudged her shoulder. “You’ve only been here for two hours.”

  “Yeah, well, it feels like a million,” she said through a yawn. A second later she sat up, squinting at the camera set into the desk which showed a view of the hallway leading from triage. “Uh-oh.”

  I glanced at the screen and sighed in commiseration. It looked like there was no reprieve to be found just yet. We both watched the hunched figure in the wheelchair, rolling down the hallway with the guidance of Kristen, the charge nurse. I rolled my shoulders and tilted my head to the side, cracking my neck. Only just over an hour to go, I reminded myself.

  Claire, who had been leaning over my shoulder just moments before, seemed to have conveniently disappeared by the time Kristen had escorted the hunched figure into a room and came out to assign his care. I schooled my glower into a resigned shrug, accepting her answering apologetic grimace, then squared my shoulders and headed toward the room.

  Mr. Templeton was one of the small handful of patients the nurses tended to refer to as “frequent fliers.” I couldn’t even count how many times he’d been in to the emergency department already this year, and it was only going to increase as the weather got colder. It was a tricky situation. On one hand, he took staff and resources away from other patients, tying up rooms and often wasting the staff’s time. But on the other hand, November in Indiana was no joke when you were homeless. And it would only get colder from here.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he grumbled in his gravelly voice as I pulled back the curtain and entered his room. He looked me over with his trademark sneer, his milky eyes catching on my tattoos. “You know that skin came from God. You insult Him when you deface it.”

  The effort it took to keep my face pleasant was monumental. Probably deserving of an award. I consulted his chart. “What seems to be the problem today, Mr. Templeton?”

  As if I didn’t already know.

  “My back is killing me. I need something for the pain.”

  “Well, let me check your vitals and we’ll get the doctor in here to see what he can do for you.”

  Mr. Templeton was in rare form that morning. He cursed at me and called me names as I checked his pulse (“Degenerate! Blue hair is unnatural!”), spit out the thermometer (“Useless untrained idiot wasting my time!”), and knocked the blood pressure cuff out of my hands twice before I was able to wrap it around his scrawny arm and get a reading (“You look like a felon!”). As usual, all his stats were normal, and aside from the nearly overwhelming stench of alcohol wafting from his pores, which was nothing new, he seemed to be in reasonably good condition for a sixty-something-year-old homeless alcoholic.

  I closed my ears to his insults and was only shaking a little by the time I finally made my way out to the nurses station. I leaned over the desk and took a few deep breaths. It’s nothing new, I reminded myself. I’d heard it all before, from him and many others.

  And it was true. I’d been hearing it for years. Ever since I’d moved back to small town Indiana after years in the city. Even though I’d grown up here—not in Fairfield, but another small Hoosier town not far away, nearly identical in both population size and small-town mindset—it was still a bit of a culture shock moving back again.

  My parents had both grown up in big cities—Chicago for my mom, New York for my dad—and moved to Indiana for my father’s teaching job when I’d been a toddler. Splitting my time between our home in Indiana and visiting grandparents in the cities, I’d learned quickly that I preferred the anonymity and relative cultural freedom of the metropolitan environment.

  The teasing started in middle school. As I grew bigger, my hometown seemed to grow smaller around me, the teasing increasing as the differences between me and the other kids grew, and it wasn’t until I left home for college in Chicago that I began to finally find a group of people I fit in with.

  That was when I’d gotten my first tattoo. It had been on my eighteenth birthday, a tiny rose picked off the wall and applied to my hip, my terrified hand clutching tight to my laughing roommate as I put on a brave face and tried not to pass out.

  I’d laughed when the artist had warned me that tattoos were addictive and people rarely stopped at just one. Not for me, I’d told him. One was all I’d ever need.

  That had lasted less than two months.

  It certainly hadn't helped when my roommate began to date a tattoo artist. And when the tattoos had led into piercings, and then colored hair after that, well, they were all just different forms of self-expression, right? Just new ways for me to feel at home in my skin, something I’d never managed to accomplish before. A collection of beautiful artwork that conveniently covered up my differences.

  Besides, it had never seemed like any big deal at the time. I’d never felt out of place in Chicago. When I came home to visit my parents, they’d just roll their eyes and shake their heads and ask what I’d done this time, and I’d enjoy the ease of their non-judgmental company before escaping back to the city.

  I certainly hadn’t imagined I’d ever end up back in rural Indiana.

  Claire appeared next to me at the nurses station, shaking me out of my reverie, and I reminded myself that not everyone here was as judgmental as Mr. Templeton.

  She sent me an apologetic glance and squeezed my arm. “Sorry I left you with Mr. Templeton. The last time I had him he puked on me.”

  I shuddered in sympathy. “Oh, man. Usually he holds his alcohol better than that.”

  “Yeah. Back pain again?”

  I nodded, and forced myself to think charitable thoughts. “I think last night was the first drop below freezing, too. Poor guy’s probably cold. I might just let him sleep for a bit after Dr. McClimon checks him out.”

  “’Poor guy?’ Have you heard the way he talks to you?” Claire gave me a look. “Besides, we’re not a hotel, you know.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “But we’ve got the room, at least until the next wave comes in. I’ll discharge him when we need the space.”

  We were a small hospital, with an even smaller emergency department, but by some luck the full moon rush seemed to finally be quieting down. At the moment I had two of my assigned beds empty, and my only patients were Mr. Templeton and a new guy who had just been brought in from an ambulance and shown into room five. It couldn’t hurt to let the man rest for a bit before kicking him back out into the cold. Even mean, judgmental people deserved a break, though sometimes it was easier to tell myself that than others.

  I ducked away from Claire’s disapproving look and went to check o
n my new guy. Less than an hour to go now.

  “Geoffrey Ashvale? I’m Bria, your nurse—”

  I was reading the chart to get an overview of the patient as I pushed past the curtain—bad knife wound on his arm, likely needed stitches—and was therefore unprepared for the panicked gasp of the wild eyed, messy-haired young man perched on the edge of the bed as he cut me off mid-sentence.

  “Who’s the doctor on duty?”

  I eyed him strangely. “It’s Dr. McClimon,” I answered, checking him over. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved green t-shirt, one sleeve of which was currently soaked through with blood. He was clutching what appeared to be a dish towel tightly around his forearm, and his eyes were wide and slightly manic. I was just beginning to wonder if I’d need to call for a psych consult, when the man let out a long exhale and sagged back against the bed, closing his eyes.

  “Okay, thank you,” he said in a much calmer voice. “I’m sorry I interrupted you.”

  I waited a beat. “Is…that okay?”

  “Yes, yep, that’s fine. Sorry.”

  What a weirdo. I guess the full moon brought in all types.

  He opened his eyes then, and I saw the moment they landed on me. It was hard to miss the slight double take, especially when you were used to it. I waited. What was it going to be? Insults? Condescension?

  “You have blue hair.”

  Ah. Stating the obvious. Well, that was the least offensive option. Aside from just, you know, treating me like a normal person and not saying anything. But that never happened.

  I ignored his statement, and instead moved around to his uninjured arm, unwinding the tangled cord of the blood pressure cuff from the wall and wrapping it around the arm with possibly slightly more force than was strictly necessary.

  “Sorry, that was rude,” he said after a moment, glancing at me.

  “Mm,” I responded, squeezing the bulb. “Your blood pressure is fine,” I informed him, entering the numbers into my notes.

  “I like it. It suits you,” he said a moment later, still looking at me, and I glanced up in surprise. That was a new one. I eyed him warily. The last thing I needed was a patient hitting on me. But his gaze was apologetic, not flirtatious. He offered me a small smile, and even the slight change in expression seemed to alter the serious set of his face. It was a nice face, the smile infectious.

  To keep myself from smiling back, I held out the thermometer. “Here, put this under your tongue.” As he obeyed, I couldn’t keep myself from taking a closer look. He was tall, fairly slender, but with long, ropy muscles. A body like a runner rather than a weight-lifter, I decided. His messy hair was dark and soft looking, over a face with serious eyes that crinkled when he smiled.

  Reign it in, Bria. Hunger and fatigue must be affecting me more than I thought.

  The thermometer beeped, and I practically snatched it back.

  “You’ve got a tattoo,” he blurted in surprise, and I followed his gaze to where the bold patterns of ink peeked out from under the long-sleeved shirt I wore under my scrubs and ran across the backs of my hands.

  “Are you for real?” I demanded, raising an eyebrow.

  He closed his eyes and held out his injured arm. “I’m sorry. I’m making an ass out of myself. Just cut my arm off so I can get out here.”

  When he opened his eyes again and saw the scissors I was holding, he yanked the arm back out of reach. “I wasn’t serious!”

  I fought to keep my mouth from twitching. Despite his penchant for speaking the obvious and embarrassing himself, I found I liked the guy. He was making my stressful day more entertaining, at any rate.

  “I’m going to cut off your sleeve so I can see your wound,” I informed him in my most patient voice. “Your shirt is ruined anyway. So, tell me what happened.”

  He did as I cleaned out his wound. It turned out he worked in a small downtown bookstore and rented space in a commercial kitchen to make pastries for the bookstore’s cafe. He’d sliced his arm open in the kitchen and, to his great embarrassment, had passed out when he saw all the blood. The wound wasn’t that serious, but he hadn’t realized one of the other chefs there had called for an ambulance until one had shown up.

  As he spoke, I watched him covertly watch me, his eyes taking in the ink on my hands, as well as the thin veins of filigree I knew were visible above the collar of my shirt.

  The words were out before I could bite them back, and I could hear the defensive note in my voice. “They’re just tattoos, you know.”

  Rather than flush, or look away, as I expected, he met my eyes squarely. There was no apology there this time, just a bit of hesitation and a kind of open honesty. For a second, my breath caught as his gaze trapped me in place. “They’re beautiful.”

  Surprised, I cleared my throat and stepped back, feeling both flustered and annoyed at myself for feeling that way. “The doctor will be in to stitch you up, and then we can get you on your way,” I informed him. Then I fled the room before the flush rose in my own cheeks.

  The doctor hadn’t been in to see Mr. Templeton yet, but I headed down the hall to check on him anyway, in an effort to compose myself before I returned to the nurses station. I was pretty sure a patient had never called my tattoos beautiful before. And they had certainly never looked at me with dark soulful eyes while doing so.

  I shook my head to clear away the foolishness as I pulled back Mr. Templeton’s curtain, but the man was gone. He must have checked himself out rather than wait for the doctor. The pity I felt for the old guy, back out in the cold, warred inside me with the relief I felt at not having to deal with him again.

  Claire was leaning against the nurses station when I returned.

  “Were you with Knife Wound Guy? I saw them bring him in. He’s cuuuute,” she said, drawing out the word and waggling her eyebrows as she nodded down the hall in the direction of my patient.

  “He also has no filter,” I replied in a grumble, coming around the desk to join her.

  “Oh no, one of those.” She winced in sympathy. “What did he say?” She affected a low, mocking growl. “’Tattoos are the devil’s mark. You shouldn’t ruin your skin. That’s not very professional.’”

  All things I’d been told before, but I shook my head, feeling my cheeks heat slightly. “He said my hair suits me.” I fingered my shoulder-length locks, black at the roots before transitioning to a brilliant cobalt blue at the tips. “And he said my tattoos were beautiful.” And he looked at me and I couldn’t look away.

  “Ooooh.” Claire’s eyes grew wide. “That’s romantic.”

  “Awkward,” I corrected her, and myself. “It’s awkward. And inappropriate.”

  She winked. “Not when he looks like that it’s not.”

  She had a point. I leaned over the computer, inputting information into his chart, and suddenly his name caught my attention at the top of the screen. I’d seen it on the chart, but it hadn’t registered. Suddenly the guy’s concern over which doctor was on duty made sense.

  “His name’s Geoffrey,” I informed her, pointing to the incriminating words at the top of the screen. “Geoffrey Ashvale.”

  Claire glanced over my shoulder to verify. “Oh no, you don’t think…”

  “Does Dr. Asshole have a son?” I wondered aloud. I pitied any potential relation of the horrible man. He may be an effective ER doctor, but he’d earned the nickname fairly from his staff, who tended to try to avoid interactions with him at all costs. More than one nurse had transferred out of the ER after a handful of shifts with Dr. Ashvale.

  “I dunno. But now that you mention it, they do kind of look a little alike.” She sighed. “Okay, you were right. More awkward than romantic.”

  “It would explain the lack of filter though,” I pointed out, and she nodded.

  “That’s for sure. Well, never mind then. That erases the attractive factor, too.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed with that one, but one thing was true. If Cute Knife Wound guy was Dr. Asshole’s son, he was
best avoided at all costs.

  Chapter 2

  GEOFF

  The morning could hardly get any worse. Some careless knife work and I’d passed out in front of another chef at the commercial kitchen—my squeamishness around blood was not something I liked to admit to people—woken up in the back of an ambulance on the way to the last place on earth I wanted to be, and then made an ass out of myself in front of the nurse. With my day off to such a spectacular start, I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear the familiar voice echoing down the hospital corridor as I tried to make my escape.

  “Geoff?”

  I briefly considered what would happen if I ignored him and kept walking, before letting out an aggrieved sigh and turning around. “Hi, dad. I didn’t think you were working this morning.”

  “I’m not, technically. I came back in for some files.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised; the man practically lived at work. Which usually made it easier to avoid him.

  He frowned at me. “What are you doing here?”

  I gestured vaguely with my newly-stitched-up arm. “Just cut my arm. Not a big deal.”

  His frown deepened. I was pretty sure my father never reached his full frowning potential. There was always another level of frown for him to reach. “Let me see.”

  I pulled my arm back out of reach. “Dr. McClimon already stitched it. It’s fine.”

  “Who was your nurse? Was it properly cleaned?”

  I sighed in exasperation. “I think her name started with a B. Blue hair. She cleaned it out. It’s fine.”

  Another level of frown. “Oh. Bria.”

  I didn’t much like the judgmental way he said her name, and I felt an inexplicable urge to defend her, but I quashed the feeling. Arguing with my dad was a good way to lose an hour better spent on something less awful. Like clawing my eyes out. Besides, I never won.