Lost in the Wind

by Calle J. Brookes

  Watching.

  With tears in her big brown eyes. She’d led Nikkie Jean into the small chapel next to the cafeteria. Nikkie Jean stayed silent until they were alone.

  “He didn’t do well in surgery,” Nikkie Jean said.

  Amy shook her head. “He had an anaphylactic reaction to the anesthesia, Nik. We did everything we could. But we lost him. I’m so sorry.”

  Nikkie Jean’s breath caught. “I—”

  The older woman hugged her lightly. Nikkie Jean resisted the urge to just cling. Amy smelled like her grandmother used to. The same shampoo or laundry soap, or something. Whatever it was, it brought back memories.

  Memories she just wasn’t equipped to deal with right now. She stepped away, not used to physical comfort from someone else any longer.

  Even those times her mother had comforted her had been few and far between. Nikkie Jean had barely tolerated it then, either.

  It was hard to count on something you only had half the time.

  She pulled in a deep breath. She’d lost patients before. She would lose more in the future. It was as inevitable as breathing.

  She tried to tell herself that. Tried to remember that this was what she’d signed up for.

  It didn’t help. All she could see was his face as she’d promised to sit with him after her shift ended. As he’d had hope that she wouldn’t let him down like so many in his life already had.

  Her eyes filled. “Amy…I…”

  “I know, honey. It sucks.” Amy already had tissue ready.

  Nikkie Jean cried. Big, fat tears. Amy just patiently sat with her until she was finished. “Go home, Nikkie Jean. Take a warm bubble bath. Kiss a cute guy. Pet a cat—”

  “I don’t have a cat. Or a cute guy.” She wiped her eyes. Forced herself to breathe again. “I have my house, and that’s it. Other than Annie and Izzie and this place.”

  It was more than she usually shared, but it just slipped out. Nikkie Jean turned away from the compassion in the other woman’s face.

  “Then you go home and take that bubble bath. And remember: there is a time and place for everyone. Young or old. We here don’t get to pick and choose who goes when, understand me? Only God knows when and where, not us.”

  Nikkie Jean found herself nodding. That was a lesson she knew very, very well.

  She stood. She’d have to get her things out of her locker. Then she was getting out of this hospital and doing whatever she had to in order to forget a little boy who hadn’t had a chance to live.

  She went through the motions of gathering her bag, saying goodbye to everyone around her. She just shook her head when Allen asked if she was okay.

  At least, she thought it was Allen. It could have been Virat.

  Nikkie Jean just knew she had to get out of there before the hospital itself suffocated her.

  9

  NIKKIE JEAN DIDN’T KNOW how she’d ended up at the diner. She didn’t remember the drive or the road or the getting into her car. All she remembered was a little boy’s face. Her heart hurt in every way imaginable.

  She just wanted to grab dinner and go home. But she wasn’t all that hungry. If she hadn’t promised Bailey she’d drop off a stack of flyers for W4HAV’s official grand opening, she would have just gone home. Bury her head in her pillow and let it all out. Scream, cry, rage for a while.

  She’d spoken with him before he’d gone under the knife. Promised him chocolate pudding and a vampire role-playing game on her tablet.

  None of it made any sense to her.

  She placed her order and waited on a stool by the counter.

  People passed around her. Some said hello. She smiled or waved, but in general, she just sat there, waiting. Trying not to think. Trying not to remember a sweet little boy who’d deserved better.

  Finally, her order was ready and she stood.

  Her left foot tangled in the edge of the rug. She hadn’t seen it. Nikkie Jean felt herself going down. But it was like she was lost in a cloud and couldn’t stop it from happening.

  Strong hands caught her before she hit the ground. Caught her and lifted her right up off the floor.

  Nikkie Jean blinked at the man holding her as he finally came into focus.

  Caine Alvaro had her caught between his large paws like a rabbit. “Dr. Netorre, how are you tonight?”

  “I’ve had better. Far, far better.” She focused on the dragon tattoo that covered most of his arm. He kept it covered when he worked. The dragon watched her back now. Nikkie Jean just could not look away.

  The dragon looked like he was watching her right now.

  He lowered her to the ground, his hands tightening on her. Then he let her go. “I’m sorry.”

  “I…I…rough day at the office, that’s all. I need to be going.” She paid for her food and then hurried out to the parking lot.

  She just couldn’t deal with people right now. Couldn’t deal with reminders of the hospital or anything resembling it.

  And he definitely resembled her hospital. In a big, Rafael-Holden-Deane-clone kind of way.

  She started across the parking lot, ignoring the rain as it fell down around her.

  An old red truck drove by, splashing her. It barely registered in her mind.

  Nikkie Jean didn’t care. She just kept walking.

  Caine had seen that look before, and he guessed at what had happened. He’d seen plenty of residents and interns with that exact same look in their eyes before—especially overseas.

  And she’d made it clear she lived alone. No one should deal with what she most likely had tonight, not alone.

  Caine paid for his food and followed her outside.

  She’d barely noticed the old red truck, and that told him all he needed to know. The woman didn’t need to be driving—or she faced the threat of ending up in his ER the hard way. The idea of her driving as upset as she was didn’t sit well. At all.

  She hadn’t even chattered at him. That told him all he needed to know. He caught up with her in the midst of the parking lot. “Dr. Netorre.”

  “Don’t call me that tonight. It’s Nikkie Jean. Or Nik. I don’t want to be doctor anything tonight.” She turned toward him, and he knew the drops on her face weren’t just the rain. “I…don’t feel like talking tonight, Alvaro. So just…go away, ok?”

  “I know.”

  She turned back to her girly purple SUV. And moaned. The sound was so unexpected Caine just stared at her.

  Then he looked at the car.

  At the almost completely flat tires on both the rear and front driver’s side. “You have spares?”

  “Spare. Not spares.” She shot a wild look of despair at him that hit him straight in the gut. “I can’t do this. I just can’t do this. Not tonight.”

  She was right on the edge; he could sense it. Caine made a quick decision. “Then don’t. I’ll give you a lift.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” But there was hope in those eyes. A need for him to step in and rescue her. To just fix everything.

  Caine wanted to do just that.

  “But I will.” It would settle their debt. He’d just drop her off at her home, then head on to his. Where he belonged. She could call a friend for a ride in the morning, or something. Caine was used to making split-second decisions. He made one now, with a hand on her elbow to get her where he wanted her.

  It was all too easy to just lead her to his 4x4. She was almost docile. Broken. Going along with him without thought or protest. “Do you need anything out of your car? Is it locked?”

  “My bag is in there. And I didn’t lock it. I forgot.”

  He closed his eyes. One thing he’d learned in the military and in living in larger cities, anything could happen to anyone at any time. It was never a good idea to take chances.

  But he kept the lecture to himself. It wasn’t his place. He’d learned to mind his own business long, long ago.

  Although she had no business just letting him take her home like this. If he hadn’t come alo
ng, what the hell would she have done? He hated to think of the possibilities.

  Anything could have happened to her out here.

  She was still crying when he returned from grabbing her bag from the passenger seat and locking her doors.

  He didn’t say anything until they were on the highway north of Value. “You lost a patient today.”

  He thought she hadn’t heard, but after a moment, she started speaking. The chatter was missing; her tone was flat. “Ten years old. Parental inattention leading to ruptured appendix. He had a reaction to the anesthesia, and by the time they got him back from that…a simple procedure that he should have recovered from easily. He wasn’t even my patient, but I prepped him. Talked to him. Promised him I’d play video games with him once he woke up. I…sat with him from about seven last night until almost midnight. He was afraid…and alone. I called social services. I saw bruises that shouldn’t have been where I saw them. And I knew. He’d been neglected and abused. I…Rafe and I decided together to call last night. The social worker came this morning. She sat with him until it was time for the surgery. And then he was just…gone. I didn’t even know for two hours. It was a known allergy—the foster parent just hadn’t bothered to tell anyone. If he had, that child would have been just fine. And I’d be eating chocolate pudding and chasing vampires. He…everyone let him down, Caine. And I can’t make it better now.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was why he hadn’t gone into pediatrics, sticking with general surgery. And administration.

  There was no way in hell he wanted to do what she did. He’d researched her. A few times since she’d driven him home that night. He’d had a hard time getting her out of his head.

  He hadn’t been that attracted to a woman in over eight years. And never had it been that intense.

  What he’d learned had made him admire her more.

  Nikkie Jean Netorre was one hell of a pediatric surgeon—or she would be in a year or so, once she finished her training under Allen Jacobson. That was another name he recognized.

  Google was full of articles about Dr. Allen Jacobson.

  Top schools, full-ride scholarships, top surgical department in the region—Nikkie Jean Netorre was beyond brilliant. Any hospital would be lucky to have her. Her career was only just beginning.

  When she finished her training, there would be headhunters looking in her direction.

  Yet what she did had an emotional price. It always would. One he knew too well. The toll it could take on a physician personally—he doubted this little elf would ever be strong enough to pay that toll without it leaving some scars. People like her cared just too damned much.

  Caine knew it from personal experience. It took a while for the callouses to grow.

  “He suffered for three days with stomach pains. And his foster father, a cousin on his mother’s side who admitted to me that he took him in for the money, hadn’t even noticed. Ten years old. In immense pain, and no one noticed. Fever of 103. No one noticed. Not the foster parent, anyone. Three days.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry doesn’t seem to cover it.”

  “Sometimes I wish I had picked any other specialty than pediatric surgery.”

  “You could still change your mind.” Somehow he doubted that. You didn’t choose that field without a damned good reason. It wasn’t a choice; it was a calling. “Why did you pick pediatric surgery?”

  “I had surgery. When I was sixteen. The woman who operated—she kept me sane at the time. Got me through the darkest time in my life, and she didn’t have to. When I decided on surgery, I remembered the difference she’d made in my life. And I wanted to do that for others. For the most vulnerable in our world. Kids…they have no real choices. I didn’t. But she… talked to me. Made me see that I wasn’t completely alone. She saved me back then. Emotionally. She was all that did.” Her words trailed off at the end. He wanted to ask more, but didn’t.

  He hated that she was so alone. He had his uncle to help him when needed. He always had had that one lifeline. It had made a difference.

  “Sounds like you are where you are meant to be.” Just like he was. He enjoyed being a physician, but running the hospital felt like a more natural fit than anything else he had ever done.

  He was going to make Barratt County General the best hospital in the state if he could. It would just take him time to get it there.

  “I’m in Finley Creek. That’s where I’m supposed to be. I think I could belong here. Be happy.”

  He had to ask it. “Do you help people?”

  She just stared at him, then nodded. “Most times.”

  “You can’t win every time; we both know that. Sometimes something happens.” And then you lose. Just as simple as that. She gave him directions, and he pulled off McGareth Road north of Value. The road was beginning to wash away, and he swore. She could end up stuck out there. For days. The idea of her so isolated didn’t sit well with him. “Do you have another way in to town tomorrow?”

  “Yes. You go up behind my place and stay on this road until it comes out, past the W-Deane Ranch. A friend of mine’s husband owns that and all the fields between us. He checks on my place every other day or so, she said.”

  She was three miles away from his place if he took a small, little-used country farm road. She was his closest neighbor for three miles. And he was hers. “I’ll come get you in the morning and drive you back to your car.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’ll call Lacy, see if she can give me a ride. We’ve carpooled when we’re on the same schedule. She’s Rafe’s sister-in-law, by the way.”

  “I want to.” He wanted to, so he would; it was as simple as that.

  “Thank you.” She hesitated for a moment. “I shouldn’t have gotten into the car with you tonight. I know that, you know. And I wouldn’t have if you didn’t look like someone I can trust. Stupid, right? You don’t even know Rafe. For all I know, you’re a crazy ax murderer hiding in Rafe’s body.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not.” She shot him a watery smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Maybe it was stupid, but it’s done. So…thanks. I mean that.”

  He pulled into the small cottage that was hers and killed the engine. Her home looked like a damned fairy cottage from one of his children’s books of fairy tales. Perfect for her. He couldn’t have imagined it better. Not for her.

  “Well, this is my stop. Thanks for the lift. Now we’re even.”

  “I’ll walk you to your door.” He wasn’t ready to leave her just yet. Not with that particular look in her eyes. “We can talk for a while.”

  “I’m not certain talking helps.”

  “I am.” Losing a patient was the worst experience a physician could ever go through. That patient being a child was a thousand times worse. “You need someone to talk to tonight, Nikkie Jean. We both know that.”

  She shrugged. “Do we? I’ve lost patients before. He wasn’t even my patient. Not really. I just saw him before I left last night, looking so alone. So I talked to him. Sat with him until he fell asleep. I promised him he’d…he’d be ok.”

  She was hurting so much. He could see it in the way she held herself. And that was why he just could not leave her to face the inevitable storm alone.

  He’d been there too many times himself. The few times he’d tried to talk to April, she had cuttingly told him it was part of the job and to deal with it. Just like she did.

  Unlike Nikkie Jean Netorre, April hadn’t taken her patients to heart at all. It had taken him a while to see that.

  This woman was as opposite from his almost ex-wife had been as a woman could get.

  10

  SHE TRIED NOT TO think about the hospital. Especially considering this was the first man to ever be in her house—while she was there. Lacy’s husband had been there one day while she and Lacy worked, shortly after she’d bought the place from him. He’d been replacing old lightbulbs that she was too short—and ladderless—
to reach.

  Lacy’s husband wasn’t all that frightening. Not so for the dragon next to her now.

  Dr. Alvaro dwarfed her entire house. Admittedly, her house was small—a direct contrast to the towering mansion she’d grown up in—but still. Three-feet-wide shoulders in a 1920s bungalow stood out.

  “You know theoretically that it’s going to happen.” She talked. She always talked when she was truly nervous. Silence—she hated silence. Her father and mother would go silent with each other for days after they’d argue. And they’d often glare at her during the middle of it. Well, her mother would. Her father would just go to work and stay there. For days. Sometimes, Nikkie Jean would go weeks without seeing him. They definitely hadn’t done the family-dinner nights. The only time they’d all four been together was the rare occasions when her father’s hospital would have functions where they’d be trotted out to look pretty and perfect.

  She never wanted to go to a hospital function again.

  She’d been to Jillian’s father’s for a family dinner once. It had somehow just happened when Lacy had car trouble. Nikkie Jean had willingly driven her friend to what Lacy referred to affectionately as “The Compound.” Jillian and Rafe lived next door to her father. And across from Jillian’s older sister. It was a private gated community just for their family. She’d sat at the table with Jillian and her sisters and Rafe and Lacy, and felt completely overwhelmed.

  They had talked all at once. Everyone had an opinion on everything—even the teenage boy who she thought was Ariella and Rafe’s younger brother.

  She’d gone home afterward and cried. From envy, and from the beauty of being a part of that family for even a little while. They’d welcomed her from the moment she’d stepped in the door.

  She had a standing invitation to go there whenever she wanted. But she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  “Yes. You know it. But when it happens…”