AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1?/?
dakota
“Got a GSW in bed two,” said a brisk voice from behind me.
I cringed at the mere sound of that voice, then cringed harder when I realized the glossy black privacy screen on my computer might as well have been a mirror from his angle.
“Yeah, rare for around here,” Doctor Dummy, as I not-so-affectionately referred to him, muttered.
He likely thought I made that face about the gunshot victim, butoh, no. That cringe was all for him.
Wordlessly, I got up and stepped out of the nurse’s station, grateful for the chance to put more than a few feet between me and the worst mistake I’d made in my nursing career thus far. I blamedGrey’s Anatomy.Have a secret relationship with a coworker, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.
It wasn’t fun.
Well, it was until it wasn’t.
But all thoughts of my relationship drama turned off the second I neared the hullabaloo in bed two. That familiar rush of adrenaline took over, and I focused on one goal: helping the patient.
“Hey, Kota. Got a good one for you,” Bailey said with a wink, her usual no-nonsense expression softened by that rare glint of humor.
I frowned at the paramedic, her dark ponytail bouncing as she stepped back from the gurney. Was Bailey making light of a gunshot wound?
Nah. She couldn’t be. While many of us had a certain dark humor when it came to this stuff… Bailey didn’t. Not after what she—and her husband, the paramedic currently blocking my view of the patient—had been through when they were combat medics in the Navy.
“A good one?” I asked, sure I hadn’t heard her right. I tried and failed to see around Jackson’s large form again, but he was basically a navy blue wall, the back of his medic uniform completely obscuring my view. “Thought it was a gunshot vic.”
“Oh, it is. But he’s a…” She trailed off, tilting her head. “Well, how would your mom describe him? A ‘real peach?’ But she’d say it in that sarcastic,bless-his-heartkinda way.”
I chuckled at her impression of my momma. Bailey wasn’t from our small Tennessee town of Charlotte Oaks, so unlike most of my family and friends, she didn’t have the accent or our love of colorful sayings. She joked about needing a translator “around these parts,” and I didn’t blame her one bit.
But if this patient would be described likethatby my momma, now I understood why he was a good one.
“I got this,” I assured her with a wink. “I love peaches.”
Bailey laughed, and as she and Jackson prepared to wheel their gurney out and take off, I finally got a look at our patient.
The best colorful saying Bailey wouldn’t understand for this moment?Knock me down and steal my teeth.
Had I just hallucinated that entire conversation with Bailey, or had she actually warned me about this walking, talking furnace of a man? Because holy smokes, the guy in front of mewas the hottest thing I’d ever laid eyes on—and not in the ‘he’ll warm your hands’ kinda way, but more like ‘he’ll burn down your entire life if you’re not careful.’
And to be honest… I’d never been very careful.
Surely, she’d given me a heads-up about all that and not warned me about his attitude, right?
The man stretched out before me was almost too handsome, even covered in blood. And yes, it wasn’t lost on me how wrong that thought was. His brown hair was tousled, and the scruff along his strong jawline only added to the rugged vibe. When paired with his expression, the whole thing made him seem like the kind of guy who could just as easily break your heart or protect it, depending on the day. Or his mood.
And speaking of jawlines, even with the short beard, I could still tell it’d been chiseled from granite—strong, solid, and likely unmovable. Which I bet went hand-in-hand with his personality.
He was lying on his side, his muscular arms inked with tattoos that peeked out from beneath a bloodstained white t-shirt, his lower half hidden beneath a sheet. He had a scowl firmly in place as if someone had dared to inconvenience him by saving his life. Thick, dark lashes framed eyes so intense that—despite the murderous glare—I found myself wondering what color they were. Something about those eyes felt… different, like they held a secret I needed to unlock, but I'd have to get closer to figure out exactly what it was.
He had to be at least 6’5", and that hospital bed? It looked like a dollhouse accessory beneath him. But when that piercing gaze landed on me, my urge to laugh at how small he made the hospital bed look slithered into my gut and hid.
“Dakota,” Doctor Dummy said from my right, making me jump. It sounded like he’d been trying to get my attention for a minute.
Oops.
I tore my gaze from the patient and looked up at the doc.
