by Alie Garnett
Romancing the Doctor
Alie Garnett
12-153-44 Publishing
Copyright © 2020 by Alie Garnett
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places and incidents either are products of the authors wild imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Thoth Editing
Images © iStock by Getty Images – abezikus & Christine Kohler
Cover Design © Designed with Grace
Created with Vellum
This book is for my husband who puts up with me every day and didn’t bat an eye when I said I wanted to write a book. Then he gave me the time to do just that. Thank you, love you too.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Thank you so much for reading Romancing the Doctor.
About the Author
Chapter 1
Forty hours on her feet: That was what Dylan was going to blame the slight tremor on today. Maybe it was too much caffeine since coffee was the only thing fueling her now. On top of all that, Leah was working with her, and her voice grated against her nerves.
Tying off the last suture, she breathed a sigh of relief as she straightened and all the bones in her back cracked from the strain of being hunched over the young soldier for over three hours. Rolling her aching neck, she turned away, hoping he would survive.
“Vitals are good, Dr. Marquez,” the rough voice stated from the monitors that were keeping track of every important function of the young man's body. There were no monitors to tell them what he was thinking, feeling, or missing, though.
“Thank you, Leah.” She acknowledged her words though she knew that based on the beeping coming from the machines, everything was good. After being at this for over a dozen years, there was little that she wasn’t aware of when she was in the OR. Most of the time, she was more comfortable here than in her own living room—hell, it was all the time.
“Did you want me to talk to his CO, Dr. Marquez?” Elissa was already heading out the door to speak to the commanding officer as she said the words, knowing that Dylan never went out to talk to those who were waiting on the outcome of the mess that was brought to her.
“Yes, please.” Turning back to the kid on her table, she looked at his face for the first time. Her entire concentration had been on his leg for the hours they had been together, or where his leg used to be. Looking at the man or woman wasn’t something she usually did. It didn’t matter—her job was to save his life. Once her job was done, she was never going to see them again; post-op was done by others, or they were sent to better facilities far from the war zone they had been injured at. She just got another mutilated body to rebuild as best she could.
Pulling off her bloody gloves, she turned away from the blond kid whose life was completely different today than it was yesterday. As with everyone she saw, her job wasn’t to deal with minor scratches; it was usually to save a life.
After giving orders for medication and a recommendation as to where he should be sent, she headed to the locker room to clean up. Once the adrenaline was gone, fatigue would set in quickly. Her shift today had run long, and her body knew it.
In the quiet, empty room, she sat heavily on the metal bench. Exhaustion hit hard as her butt hit the seat, like it knew the day was over. Forty hours was too long to be working; she knew that. But when the day was full of maimed and broken soldiers, and the medical staff was short, you did as much as you could.
Resting her hands on her knees, she could see that they were shaking. Not just the slight tremble that had overtaken them in the operating room, but a full-on shake. Squeezing them into tight fists, she demanded that they stop. They were her tools to use, and they did not control her.
“Dylan, the CO wants to talk to you,” Elissa said from the doorway. Had she seen the shaking?
Glancing at her nurse, she was happy she had been assigned the young woman. Bubbly, cheerful, and people-person, Elissa was also top-notch at her job. She would be sent home in a few months, and Dylan would get another nurse but didn’t think she would find one she like as much as Elissa.
Forcing her fists to relax, she asked the blond, “Why?”
It wasn’t an odd question; most of the officers were alright with learning what happened from a nurse. Rarely did they push to actually talk to her, mostly because she had no time to rehash what she had done to one soldier, only to do it again a few minutes later to another.
“Let’s do it then.” Not letting the woman answer, she got up, pushing off sleep for another few minutes. Being so used to sleep deprivation should have bothered her, but she no longer noticed it.
“I can talk to him again,” Elissa suggested. She could probably tell Dylan was about to drop or maybe she saw the tremor in Dylan’s hands. But Elissa had been by her side for nearly the entire forty hours, and she was ready to drop also.
“No, you go home.” Dylan pushed her friend farther into the locker room on her way out.
Not that either would be heading “home” after their shift; they would both head for the barracks that they were housed in during their time in the desert. There was nothing homey about it. It was just a place to go in your off hours as you waited to go home at the end of your tour.
Stepping out into the hallway, she dreaded talking to the officer. It seemed she could never get enough emotion into it. Remembering that the man on her table was a human and not just another patient was hard. Soon she pushed her way into the small and seldom-frequented visitor area. Family never came this close to the war zone. Friends were your best bet, but they couldn’t take time off to be with the injured—they were fighting a war too.
Realizing she was still in her gauzy blue protective layer, she pulled off the top that was still covered in the blood of the friend of whoever she was going to talk to. The material tore easily, and she balled it in her hands, hoping he didn’t notice what it was. Blood was a part of her everyday routine, but not everyone else’s.
From the corner, a man unfolded himself from one of the few uncomfortable chairs in the small room. Nobody else was there, so he must be who she was looking for. He was tall and his presence filled the room, making it seem even smaller.
Taking a moment, she looked him over from his closely shorn head of dark hair to the Army-issue boots that were the exact same as hers and everyone else around. His fatigues fit far better than most, though. Not that she was noticing, she was working after all.
If she hadn’t been awake for nearly two days, she would have thought he
was handsome. He was older than the soldier on her table by close to a decade, and from the weariness in his eyes, most of those years were probably spent here and not with his family back home.
“I’m Major Marquez.” She went straight to him, holding out her hand. She had long stopped saying ‘doctor’ in her introductions—everyone she talked to knew who she was.
His warm hand engulfed hers and sent an odd tingle up her arm. Lack of sleep was making everything feel strange lately. She was too tired to try and examine those feelings but quickly pulled her hand away from his.
“Hello, Major,” his deep cool voice said as he dropped his hand. His eyes were on her, and he actually looked her up and down. Not that he would find anything that exceptional; she was in loose scrubs and was still covered in blue gauze. Even her dark hair was hidden away in a braid, and she half-wondered if there was still a protective hat on her head.
“Private Jackson lost his right leg, just below the knee. He will be transferred—” she started, her usual explanation of the injuries and what she did to them. Then she’d get into what would be happening to the soldier now that she was done with him.
“The nurse told me that already,” he interrupted her. “I wanted to see you.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You’re Jessica Dylannski?” he said a name she barely recognized anymore.
Who had been the last person to call her that name? Right now, she couldn’t even remember. She had been Dylan for fifteen years. Flicking her eyes down his uniform, she read his name, the one she didn’t pay attention to—it usually didn’t matter. Captain Marquez…the same as hers.
“Not in a long time, Captain,” she admitted, probably because her brain was shutting down. This was too much information after no sleep.
“Chase was my older brother,” the man said, making Dylan’s heart stop. It had been years since that name had passed anyone’s lips in her presence.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she recalled Chase talking about his younger brothers. Had there been three of them? Four? She couldn’t remember anymore, but it seemed one had followed his footsteps into the Army. And then found her.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” was all she could say as she turned to leave. There was nothing for them to talk about. She had nothing to say to anyone from Chase’s family, hadn’t in fifteen years.
“I had heard about a Doc Marquez and wanted to see if it was really you. You’ve changed.” His words stopped her.
Turning, she looked at him, trying to find the boy she had loved in his features; they were brothers after all. Seeing nothing, she said, “Have I ever met you?”
Though they had been together for four years, she had never gone home with Chase and was never introduced to his family. Back then, she never wanted to be.
“At the funeral.”
“I didn’t meet anyone that day. You all pretended I didn’t exist, or worse.”
“As I seem to recall, you didn’t do anything to ingratiate yourself with us.”
“I’m sorry, Captain, I should have thought about your feelings that day. I should have just forgotten every awful thing your mother had said to me over the years and forgave everyone for hating me. What was I thinking? Oh yeah! I was burying my fucking husband!” She whirled around on him and stomped from the room.
Suddenly, her hands were shaking for a completely other reason, no longer from fatigue or caffeine or even the burnout she was completely terrified of. Now, it was her past running her down and reminding her that she was nothing and never would be.
Chase Marquez had been the love of her life. Alone and happy, they had said they would love each other until the end of time. A month later, it all came to an end with his death. Since that day, she had pushed herself to become a doctor and then focused everything on her job.
Now she was just short of forty, and her body was starting to fail her. If she lost that, her life was over… She had nothing.
Chapter 2
Old anger rolled through Holden as he watched her storm away from him. Her lower half covered in a blue gauze that was covered in blood still, and her upper in a soft gray scrub top, also with hints of blood on it. Jackson’s blood or someone else’s?
It was true she hadn’t been what he’d expected, but he couldn’t remember much from the funeral of his hero. What little there was held nothing of the woman who they had learned after his brother's death was his wife.
Not that Chase talked much about her the few times he was home, but Holden knew they had been together for four years. Meeting in basic training and falling hard, but Donna Marquez didn’t want her son in the Army and didn’t want him to find love there either. For years she told Chase his choice was not good, which led him to marry Jessica in secret before he deployed for the last time.
Holden’s only actual memory of the woman before the funeral was a snapshot his brother left behind of them together in basic. Arm in arm and smiling, Chase was tall, young, and handsome. His brother had his whole life in front of him and his buddy by his side. She was shorter back then, blond and plumper than he had thought his brother would like, even after all these years.
At the funeral, his mother had taken Chase’s stuff, things that should have gone to his wife, but nobody was about to tell Donna she wasn’t allowed to have her son’s stuff. Jessica had watched her and said nothing. By then, she had grown a few more inches and had lost her plumpness, her hair the dark brown it was today.
When his mother had grabbed the folded flag from Jessica’s arms—the moment it was set there—Jessica had just dropped her arms and let it happen. At the time, he was only sixteen, but even he knew his mother was in the wrong.
After the funeral, he hadn’t seen or heard from her again until three months ago when he started to hear about a Doc J. D. Marquez. It had taken him time to make the connection since his brother had never called her Jessica, always Dylan, a short form of her last name, Dylannski.
After a little research, he found out his brother’s wife had stayed in school and became a doctor. According to the name she went by, she either never remarried or had kept Chase’s name.
Today, his crew had been on a mission that had went south, and Jackson had been taken to the medical center. He was the first of his team to get wounded this badly. The kid had lost a leg; his military career had just started, and now it was over.
When he was told that Dr. Marquez was operating on Jackson, Holden knew he had to see her. Just once. He hadn’t even planned to tell her who he was, but he wanted to talk to her about his brother. It had been so long, and he wanted to know what the man was really like. He had been sixteen when his brother had died, but he had only been twelve when he joined up. The age gap had been enough that Holden hadn’t known his brother well.
Chase joining the Army was a surprise—they were a Navy family, and everyone was expected to join the Navy. Chase, however, wanted to join the Army and become a Ranger. Even though Holden had two other brothers who did join the Navy, he knew that he was going to be a Ranger like his brother.
After leaving the hospital, Holden couldn’t get her blue eyes out his mind. They were blank and cool as she talked about Jackson, just another soldier that she worked on. But those same cool blues had flashed with pain at his brother’s name, even after all these years.
She was right—they should have worked to include her in the family. But as far as he knew, she and Chase had never made a point of visiting or being a part of the family. But he had been a kid and maybe hadn’t known everything going on.
“How’s Jackson?” Luke Gregory asked as soon as Holden got to their group. Everyone was lounging on their beds, waiting for news.
“Alive. Lost a leg, but he’s going home.” He made it sound like it was a good thing, but it was a devastating injury.
“Lucky bastard,” Luke mumbled.
“No, Gregory, he lost a fucking leg!” he yelled at the younger man. Jackson was only lucky that he hadn’t died.
>
“Of course,” Luke replied under his breath, leaving the group in a huff.
“Did you get to see Dr. Sexy Marquez?” Kyle Sanchez asked from his bed, his eyebrows wagging.
“You mean the doctor that saved Jackson’s life? Yes, I saw her.” He sat heavily on his bed.
Kyle had it right about how sexy that woman was. Even with the scars on her chin and jaw, she was striking. His brother had been a lucky man. None of his memories had her as hot as she was, and how his fifteen-year-old self couldn’t see that, he didn’t know.
“Jackson got to have her hands all over him? Luck shit,” Kyle groaned and leaned back against his bunk.
“He was most likely not conscious as it happened.” Holden unbuttoned his shirt, too many layers for the heat.
“Her hands could bring me back from dead.” Kyle looked at his own hands.
“That’s what her job is.” He shook his head at the man. The woman was a doctor; every day, she saved lives.
Kyle rolled on his side to face him since the other guys were mostly not paying attention, saying, “I heard she’s horny as hell.”
“What?” He didn’t want to hear it, but he did. The few minutes he had been with her, she hadn’t sent him that vibe at all, but it might have been tempered by the dark circles under her eyes.
“Rumor has it that she’s an easy lay. Sleeps around quite a bit. But then again, she is a doctor, and they do that around here,” Kyle surmised after his three months of knowledge of desert life.
