by Reina Torres
It was at that moment that Pilar realized she wasn’t just on the graveyard shift, she was in a late-night TV movie. Only instead of Godzilla and Mothra, she was in between a drunk groom and his not-so-righteous indignation.
It didn’t matter what the man thought Russell had done to his fiancé. There was no time to clear up whatever misconception he had. The groom wanted a piece of Russell.
Well, he wasn’t going to get it.
The man crossed the room in a heartbeat, launching himself at Russell.
The firefighter was a gentleman, but she wasn’t about to let him take a hit he didn’t deserve.
The groom’s weak left hook was fouled up by his foot catching on one of the overturned chairs and he caught Pilar under the chin, snapping her head back before he collapsed to his knees and then on his face.
Pilar reached over and felt for a pulse. Strong but a bit fast. She checked his eyes. Unfocused.
He was out like a light, drooling onto the hardwood floor.
Russell tried to take a look at her chin, but it was already hurting like crazy. She held up her hands in surrender, urging him to back off.
Blessedly, he did.
The next person to approach her was Patrick McGillis, the manager. He held out a bar cloth wrapped around an almost-flat rectangular object.
“What’s this?”
The older man shrugged and gave her an awkward smile. “Something my wife does for the kids at home. It’s a sponge filled with water and frozen in a baggie.” His voice had a soft nasal quality to it. Mixed with the ghost of an Irish accent, his voice matched his quirky character. “It’s better than a baggie of ice that’s all bumpy and lumpy.”
She took it from him and touched it to the lower edge of her jaw. It was crazy how perfectly it covered the whole area that was hurting. “Thanks, Mr. McGillis.”
“Patrick,” he told her with a lift of his chin. “You bleed in my bar, you call me Patrick.”
“And you can call me-”
“Pilar,” he gave a genial wink. “I know. Vitalia told me about you. I’m going to have to ask that you two let me know when you’re out on the town together.”
Pilar hissed as she moved the ice sponge to a new place on her jaw. “Why?”
The older man rolled his eyes and sighed. “The two of you ladies on the loose? At the same time? I’ll be hiding away in my basement, hunkered down until the storm passes.”
Pilar saw Vitalia lean on the bar and wave. Waving back at her friend, the two shared a look. Pilar knew she was going to need a night out, soon.
Pilar looked up at the clock over the nurse’s station. There was still a couple of hours until the end of their shift. “We’re wasting time.”
The look on Crois’ face told her exactly how far her argument was getting with him.
Nowhere.
He was still in a mood after what had happened at Ciro’s. She’d already told him that she hadn’t ‘allowed’ herself to get hit. She had intended to just move Russell out of the way, but the awkward punch had been as ill-timed as it was lucky. She just hadn’t expected how fast a drunk man could fall down on his face.
It wasn’t like she planned to get hurt.
Looking through the sliver of space in the exam area’s curtains, Pilar fixed her gaze back on the clock. If she was in the ER much longer their Sergeant was going to end up stopping by, or Pilar was going to find a way to slip out unnoticed and continue on their patrol.
A huff of sound reached her from the end of the bed and she heard a soft jingle of metal. Turning her head in that direction, she saw all six foot two of her partner, dangling the keys of their cruiser from his fingers. “Don’t think I don’t know how to read that look on your face.”
“What look?” She shot back before lifting her arm to point to her face. “This? This is my ‘resting bitch face.’ Nothing unusual.”
“That,” he nodded at her before dropping the keyring into his left-breast pocket, “is your ‘I’m almost feral, let me out of this joint’ expression. Try again. We’re not going anywhere until someone looks at your face and patches you up. If we’re lucky, they’ll send down a psych consult and give you a few days of vacation. Or a good stiff drink to relax you.”
“I’m not crazy!” She bit the words off and felt her heart squeeze tight in her chest. She knew Crois was just being Crois, but she didn’t like the particular buttons he liked to push.
Did she want to leave? Of course!
She couldn’t help people if she was waiting for medical attention. She didn’t want to sit around waiting for a doctor when she could’ve just asked one of the nurses for a couple of butterfly bandages and gone on her way.
“It’s all just to get under your skin,” he gave her a wink. “You've got to loosen up a bit-”
“A bit?” She couldn’t stop the frustrated huff of sound that passed her lips.
“If I can’t get you to ease up a little on yourself, I’m going to call in the big guns.”
“You mean the Sergeant? Did you call her when we got here to the hospital?”
“Maybe.” Crois shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. “I plead the fifth.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and dropped her voice down to barely a whisper. “Don’t be an ass.”
The curtain pushed back and a disturbingly familiar face entered her line of sight. “You want me to throw him out?”
There should be a law about doctors looking the way that Dr. Roan Ashley did. Tall, dark, and the way his scrubs fell on his body should be illegal. Or at least banned in Cole Medical. Imagine all the law suits from people passing out from light-headed swoons or rapid heartbeats? Yeah, she was being stupid, but staring at Roan made her that way. Stupid enough to wonder if she’d make a fool out of herself if she asked him out.
“Hey, you can’t toss me out,” Crois pushed back. “I’m her partner.”
“Then why,” she turned her attention to Crois, grateful for the interruption from the thoughts in her head, “do you act like a bossy older brother?”
Crois didn’t lose a beat. “You have enough of those. I’m just trying to keep you alive. Do you have any idea the kind of paperwork I would have to do if you got yourself killed? The kind of time it took to break you in and sand off all the rough spots?”
“I’d be happy to break you in a few places, Crois.”
The taller man huffed out a laugh. “You could try, Bravo. You. Could. Try.”
She didn’t have to turn to see Roan’s reaction. He dropped his chin and gave Crois a look that ended his laughter and jerked a thumb toward the curtains.
Crois waved it off, but shouldered his way through an opening in the curtains. Then popped his head back in. “I’ll be at the nurse’s station when you’re ready… when the doctor says you’re good to go.”
He disappeared a moment later as if the fabric divider had swallowed him whole. Wishful thinking on her part.
“It seems like your partner thinks that laughter is the best medicine.”
She wanted to tell Roan that her partner was being an ass because he was joking with her, but she knew Crois better than that. He’d already had a talk with her warning her that he was going to call her on her shit. Sure, he called it that, but he was just being overly sensitive because she was a woman.
And short to boot.
“And I think he’s happy that he’s not the one on the exam table.”
Pilar looked up at Roan with a tentative smile of her own. “Like I said, I could break something of his. Maybe now you’ll just give me a few butterfly bandages and some antibiotic cream and let me go back to work?”
“Funny, Bravo. Very funny.” Roan gave her a look that said he was on to her too. Men could be so damn frustrating.
“So, how do we make this as fast as possible. It’s crazy out there.”
He gave her another look and read the intake form. “You were punched by a drunk groom.”
She sighed, a little too loud for her o
wn liking. “It wasn’t at a wedding. It was at a bar. The bride got a bit handsy with some firefighters. I had to separate them, but one of the bridesmaids texted the groom and the rest is drunk, full moon history.”
“So, what hurts?”
She clenched her jaw and winced at the pain, lifting the still cold bar towel with its iced sponge inside. Pilar probed the wound. “It’s just my jaw. It wasn’t even a punch so much as a scratch. He had a ring on his hand and I think one of the prongs might be loose.”
“All right.” He took the fabric wrapped bundle from her hand and set it on the rolling table near the foot of the bed. “Let’s get a good look at this.”
She tilted her head back so he could look under her chin, and heard the snap as he finished putting on his glove. Drawing in a slow, steadying breath, she waited.
He touched her skin and she fought off the urge to lean into it.
‘Breathe,’ she told herself, ‘breathe.’
Heaven help her. Roan Ashley’s hands were tender and gentle. And every touch along the underside of her jaw felt like a caress.
She was going to lose her mind and do something decidedly girly.
Like flirt.
Or bat her eyelashes.
Not that he could see her eye lashes.
“You won’t need any stitches.”
“Hmm?”
She heard the soft chuckle in his voice and managed to pry her eyes open.
“There you are.” He smiled and reached out to sweep his thumb along her jaw, “I was afraid you were falling asleep on me.”
It had to be her imagination. The sound of his voice, the warmth in his expression. The idea she had swirling around in her head. Curling up against him, her head on his shoulder, her arm around his middle. None of that was at all upsetting, other than the fact that she really wanted it to happen.
But there was a whole canyon between passing acquaintances where he’d patch up her scrapes and soothe her bruises. No, what she wanted was a world away.
“I’m fine,” she managed a grin. “Thanks for your help. I’m going to find Crois and get us back on the street.” Slipping off the side of the gurney, Pilar picked up the iced sponge and turned to leave. “Thanks again, Roan.”
“Pilar?”
He caught her in the curtain opening.
Turning around with a hesitant smile, she looked up at him. “Yes?”
He peeled off one glove and then the other, dropping them on the tray. “Are you moved in to your apartment, yet?”
The question caught her by surprise. “Basically. I only had a few boxes of things that I brought with me. If it wasn’t for the bed that was already in there, I’d be sleeping on one of those camp cots that Lia’s dad has in his basement.”
Nodding, Roan took a slow step closer. “I might have heard that you’re off on Saturday. So am I. I was wondering if you’d need any help looking for furniture or other things for your apartment.”
“And you,” she was trying to wrap her head around what he was saying, “want to go with me? To shop?”
He shrugged. “Sure. I could help carry things. Or,” his smile tugged up at one corner, “grab things from a top shelf.”
She resisted the urge to fling the bar towel at him and make a big dark spot on the front of his blue-green scrubs.
He leaned back against the gurney and folded his arms across his chest. “Okay, so maybe that wasn’t funny, but I meant it. I mean, I’d like to help you, but I’d also like to spend some time with you.”
“You mean,” she could feel herself losing her balance, teetering over the cliff of self-control, but she certainly couldn’t seem to stop it, “like a date?”
It took him only a second to answer, but it felt like a year.
“Exactly like a date.”
Wow. She was not expecting that.
“Sure.” She felt ten feet tall and that was saying something. “I have to go find Crois, but I should probably ask if you need my number?”
His smile held more than his share of boyish charm. “I have it. I should have called you before now, but I admit knowing that you could take me down in seconds makes a man want to know he has consent.”
She almost started laughing, but the pain in her jaw made her soften the sound.
“I’ll text you on my break so you have mine too.” He reached up a hand and mussed up his hair accidentally. “Maybe you can text me when you get home. Just,” his smile relaxed along with his shoulders and Pilar knew she’d never seen a man that gorgeous before, “so I know you got home safely.”
Her lips felt full, tight, and she ran her tongue over both as she gathered her thoughts together. It didn’t help that his eyes seemed to focus on her lips.
Oh, goodness, she was in trouble.
“Hey,” Crois appeared and gave her a reason to pull herself together, “you ready to go, or is the doctor here going to send you for a psyche consul- ouch!” Crois rubbed his belly. “Did I really deserve an elbow? That was almost below the belt!”
She gave her partner a look. “Next time it will be lower.” Backing out of the exam area, she gave Roan a wave. “Later.”
Crois caught up to her a moment later. “Hey, did I interrupt something back there?”
When she didn’t answer, he continued.
“It felt like I interrupted something. But I don’t know what.”
“Crois?”
He stopped and gave a hopeful smile. “What? What was it?”
“Shut up, give me the keys.”
“Why?” He didn’t really argue since he took them out of his breast pocket and set the keyring in her hand.
“I’m driving, and you are going to keep your thoughts to yourself.”
She walked down the hallway toward the exit doors of the E.R. and heard Crois grumbling behind her.
“So, I did interrupt something.”
6
One text wasn’t enough in the early hours of the morning.
PILAR: I’m home
Roan stopped at the nurse’s station to turn in the last report for his shift.
ROAN: In one piece?
He swore he could almost see her face as the three little dots jumped up on the screen.
Nurse Jenni Foster stepped up and took the folder from him. “All done for the night?”
He nodded. He’d just seen Doctor Callen Webb come in. While Doctor Webb was an administrator and a neurosurgeon at Cole Medical Center, he still worked shifts in the different sections of the hospital to make sure he understood the current needs of each and make sure that he knew the people working for the Medical Center. Roan was free to leave now that Doctor Webb was signed in. He just had to change his clothes first.
His phone beeped at the incoming message.
PILAR: Sorry for the delay, I lost a finger in the parking lot. Oops.
Smiling at his phone, he typed out a response.
ROAN: Sorry to hear that.
ROAN: I can prob
ably find a spare around here to sew on if you need one.
It didn’t take long for her to reply.
PILAR: That’s gross
ROAN: Just trying to help
ROAN: Anyone ever tell you that you’re hard to please?
PILAR: Nope… Just you
ROAN: I’m willing to work on it
PILAR: On what?
ROAN: Pleasing you
The moment after he sent the message, he realized two important things.
One. He had no way of knowing how she was going to take that text.
Two. He meant every word.
He hadn’t felt like that in a long time. And if he was really honest with himself, he’d never felt a connection this strong with any woman before.
Turning away from the nurse’s station, he started to walk toward the locker room, but stopped when Jenni called after him. “Doctor Ashley?”
He walked back and leaned against the counter. “Did you need something?”
She shook her head a
nd the butterfly clips in her hair glittered in the fluorescent lights. “I just wanted to say that whoever it is that you’re talking with,” she gestured at the phone in his hand, “she really makes you smile.”
He looked down at the screen and saw the three dots again. He grinned and Jenni giggled.
“See? You look really happy.”
As she returned to her work he continued to walk toward the locker room, lifting up the phone when it chimed again. Pushing the door inward, he stepped into the relative peace of the unoccupied room. Someone had left the TV on in the corner, but the sound was so low it didn’t bother him. Her message did.
PILAR: Still on for Saturday? I’m looking forward to that.
He should have just left it alone, but he didn’t. She was just home after a long shift and so was he, but there was something he just couldn’t shake. Something he couldn’t let go of.
ROAN: What if I didn’t want to wait until Saturday?
This time the screen remained blank.
Wondering if he’d stepped over a line, he set his phone down on the bench and opened his locker. He’d gotten his shoes untied and dropped them into the bottom of the locker and had his shirt off a moment later. He was reaching for the ties at his waist when his phone beeped.
PILAR: What did you have in mind?
There was no way that he was going to tell her what popped into his head at that moment. It was in technicolor and widescreen, involving a lot of bare skin on her sheets. It didn’t help that he was almost painfully hard with just a few seconds of his imagination heating things up.
But he couldn’t just stand there thinking about rolling her under him. That wasn’t going to help anyone.
He had to answer her and soon.
