Ravishing Royals Box Set: Books 1 - 5

by Holly Rayner

  My lower lip was getting sore from all the nervous nibbling. “Okay. Well…” Maybe I’m just trying to convince myself that I don’t like him that much.

  But I couldn’t afford a relationship of any kind right now anyway, especially with someone who was my acting boss.

  “No, you’re…you’re right,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter. I can’t afford to fall for him anyway, not in our circumstances.”

  “That doesn’t mean you haven’t.”

  I firmly shook my head. “It’s really not what you think.” If anything it was far, far more complicated than whatever romantic image that Yvonne had conjured in her dear little head.

  But once we blew out the lamp and settled in for the night, I lay there unable to sleep despite my exhaustion. I could hear Yvonne’s soft breathing shift to light snores. I watched a single beam of moonlight pierce one of the high, hexagonal windows and start its slow travel across the floor.

  Could she be right? I asked myself as I lay there. Is that why I react to everything that Vincenzo says and does so strongly?

  My heart started to beat too fast, and a shiver went through me. Oh, no. Come on, Rose, don’t be stupid. A guy like that may be great in some ways, but he is absolutely not safe to get a crush on. Come on. See reason. You’re not sixteen anymore.

  But despite all of that, deep down, I was slowly realizing that it was too late. Vincenzo had already made his mark on me, and I couldn’t stop my preoccupation with him any more than I could stop needing air.

  Oh, brother. I sighed inwardly as I started slipping off into an exhausted sleep. I guess it is really too late to avoid getting attached.

  And the only thing to do about it was to avoid him until my feelings cooled off.

  Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too long. Otherwise, I would be in deep trouble.

  Chapter 11

  Rose

  I opened my eyes before dawn and discovered that the sounds of fighting had grown closer again. It was normal to hear it off in the distance, like the waves of the nearby coast: rumbles and thuds that rose and fell and rose again. Whenever the sound got louder, it meant a closer battle, and a closer battle meant many more casualties. We were about to get slammed down in the clinic; the local hospital was overfull, and the overflow would be our responsibility again.

  I picked a heck of a time to become a nurse again, I thought then. But there was no helping the timing, especially with Yvonne off her feet.

  “Yvonne,” I hissed.

  “Uh?” she mumbled and rolled over. I couldn’t even see her features in the dark; her face was an indistinct pale oval. “What happened?”

  “Do you hear that?” I didn’t let the apprehension show in my voice as I sat up and reached for my battered suitcase, pulling out a set of scrubs. I had been using them as pajamas off and on, but now it was time to put them to their intended use.

  Yvonne was quiet for a moment, then, “It’s closer.”

  “Yes. Again. The further north it comes, the more likely we’ll get casualties here.”

  I dug for a pair of clean socks. I would have to hand-wash everything again soon. Unfortunately, my bucket had been shattered by the collapsing wall, which meant I had to borrow Yvonne’s when she was finished. And all of that would have to wait until I wasn’t immersed in helping new patients, which was about to happen within a few hours. It always did, when that particular thunder sounded a warning.

  “I’m no use on the ward yet,” she said unhappily as she sat up and dug in her duffel bag for fresh clothes of her own. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s fine, you can still help with processing and triage. I’m standing in as a nurse on duty.”

  The end of my sock tore and my toe emerged. Crap! I yanked it off and rummaged for another, tossing it into the corner in frustration. Now I’m down to four pairs. Not good. It would take at least a month for me to get replacements.

  “I’m glad you are working as a nurse again,” Yvonne said. “Especially since I would not be here if you did not. But…are you ready for a large emergency so soon after regaining your skills?” I could feel her watching me as we dressed in the dark to save lantern fuel.

  “Have you ever been to Miami?” I asked her.

  “No, but I have heard a few stories. Something about large lizards?”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Well, that’s part of it. The other is that Miami General processes more gunshot wound victims in a given weekend than we get sent over here after a skirmish.”

  “Yes, but how large is Miami General’s staff?” she pointed out. “How much better are their equipment and supplies?”

  I pressed my lips together and looked down as I pulled on my scrub tunic. Tiny bubbles of panic bounced around in my gut. “I get what you’re saying. Yes, a hospital in America has a lot more advantages. But the point is, I’ve had some experience with this crap before. I’ll be fine.”

  I hope.

  I was still helping Yvonne down the stairs when the intercom crackled to life.

  “All personnel, we have incoming overflow wounded from the hospital, within twenty minutes. Please prepare yourselves and go to your stations.” The voice almost sounded like Vincenzo, but I couldn’t be sure with all the distortion.

  “Well, here we go,” Yvonne said and sighed. “No time for breakfast.”

  “I’ll run over and grab you something after I get you settled,” I promised as I helped her over to my desk.

  It was strange to settle her into my seat and show her where everything was. Our roles had been almost reversed. But we were both going to be very, very busy today.

  The breakfast line had barely been set up. I grabbed two bottles of filtered water, two wrapped sandwiches, and two apples and hurried back to Yvonne, handing half of my prizes over.

  “Okay, make it last, I don’t even know if we get lunch today. I’ll sweep around to check on you as soon as I can.”

  She nodded and gave me an encouraging smile. “Good luck out there!”

  Yeah, I’ll need it. But probably not for the reasons she was thinking.

  It had been easy to avoid Vincenzo when we had not been flooded with wounded, because he only needed me around when he was treating patients. Most of the time, we had four or five a day, with most people coming in for aid over at the administrative wing instead. Those five were split among four doctors and a dozen nurses. That made it pretty simple to limit my contact with him outside of specific situations at work. I didn’t even talk to him when we were in the meal line together.

  Now, though, there was no way of avoiding him. Once the rush came in, we would work until every last person we could save was patched up. I could be there for the next ten hours, working elbow to elbow with him, constantly haunted by the awkwardness of our last private conversation.

  That sure sounds like fun. My appetite fled; I forced down the water but tucked the rest of the food into my pockets.

  I had barely looked up from filling my pockets when I saw Vincenzo striding up to me from the door that led to the clinic.

  “Scrub up,” he ordered as soon as he saw me. “We have a head wound leading the pack. The young man will die in minutes without aid.”

  I bit back my sarcastic remark at his lack of a greeting and hurried after him instead. I should be grateful that he’s doing his best to be strictly business.

  My mind raced as I tried not to stare too much at his lab coat pulling across his broad shoulders. That feeling—the flutter in my belly, the weakness in my knees whenever I was too close to him—had not gone away. I could force myself to focus on something else, but when he was within eyeshot, every time I had nothing else to do my gaze went right back to him.

  Stop being so magnetic. I blinked. I’m looking at his butt. Cheeks heating up, I focused on the back of his head and hurried after him.

  I scrubbed up at the portable sink once inside and put on my gloves. The pair of us hurried over to the first makeshift operating theater, where I could already se
e two assistants setting up one of our few working gurneys. One of them was pulling a pair of boots off of a pair of feet that looked alarmingly bloodless.

  “That has to be our guy,” Vincenzo said.

  He sucked air as he stepped beyond the screen and got his first look at the soldier beyond it. A few steps behind, I moved into the cubicle and looked down at a man who would have looked dead were it not for his eyelids fluttering.

  He was painfully young, like many of the soldiers and cops that came through, his beard sparse and patchy and his skin so smooth he might have been sixteen still. A bullet had creased his skull on one side, leaving his hair matted and bloody from the gash it had left. His eyes were sunken, his face without color, just like his feet.

  “Looks like a closed skull fracture,” Vincenzo muttered as the assistants finished removing his boots and flak jacket. “One more inch to the left and they would have blown a chunk out of his head.”

  We quickly checked him for other injuries, but he was only bleeding from his head and his neck was stable. No other wounds that needed tending.

  “All right, we have a game plan. Now to get all this blood and hair out of the way,” Vincenzo said.

  I nodded and moved to perform lavage so he could see what he was doing. I washed down the wound gently with one of the squirt bottles of purified saline, careful not to apply too much pressure as I rinsed the blood from the patient’s hair into a towel I held beneath his head. Slowly, the gash emerged more clearly. I shaved around the wound so he could sew it up, cleaning it off multiple times as I went.

  Vincenzo checked beneath each of the patient’s eyelids and shone a flashlight into them. “Pupillary reaction is normal, both pupils are the same size. Doesn’t look like he got any brain bruising.”

  “That’s good at least.” My work slowly revealed the outlines of the fracture. “One of these pieces is slightly depressed.”

  He checked it. “If it’s not causing harm to the brain, we can leave it. Opening the wound further when there’s a bacterial path to the brain right behind it is a bad idea if we can avoid it. Check his ears and nostrils for cerebrospinal fluid.”

  I took the flashlight and checked. “Just some blood on the wound side from a burst eardrum.”

  “Good.” He took the man’s pulse and listened to his breathing. “Healthy as a horse aside from getting kicked in the head by a bullet. We’ll need to debride and close the scalp wound; right now bleeding or infection are his biggest risks. I’ll have to disinfect the whole area around it.”

  I nodded, suddenly a little glad that I hadn’t eaten first. “I’ll shave his whole head then.”

  The man looked even younger and more vulnerable with a bare scalp. The swelling and developing bruises were on full display, as well as the patch of bone that sat perhaps an eighth of an inch lower than its companions. It wasn’t pretty, but if it wasn’t putting pressure on the brain then it was safer to let it sit.

  “I hate doing this with only a local and some sedatives,” he sighed as he finished debriding the scalp wound and started sewing it up. “Any signs of awakening?”

  I checked. “Pulse stronger, a little more movement.”

  “You’ll have to strap him for this last bit. This will be a complicated wound to close.”

  I did so, feeling bad about using the heavy leather straps—until the guy thrashed slightly and only the strap around his forehead kept his head in place.

  “Who do we call about him?” I asked.

  “Nobody. The military still publishes a casualty list. They will handle it. Besides, the phones are out again.”

  I could hear the annoyance in his voice and felt little prickles of anxiety over it. But then he simply sighed.

  “The family will come for him. They always come if they exist and have the means. If not, we will sort it out once we’ve saved the others.”

  The whole time, Vincenzo’s hands kept moving, laying down stitches that were somehow as fine and precise as they were fast. The torn capillaries could not be repaired; the man’s head would likely be one large bruise by tomorrow. But Vincenzo’s steady work slowed the bleeding, then stopped it. I washed the wound again, and this time, it revealed only stitches, and the leaking blood did not replace itself.

  Vincenzo straightened with a sigh and rolled his broad shoulders; I quickly looked away from the distracting sight.

  “Well, that’s it.” Taking off his bloody gloves and disposing of them in the bucket we were using for medical waste, he checked the man’s pulse and then checked his eyes again. “He’s stable. He’s got six weeks of recovery ahead, but most of that should be home-based. Can you handle the plaster?”

  I nodded and changed gloves, then bandaged the man’s wound and covered it with a plaster-wrap skullcap while Vincenzo double-checked for other injuries.

  Seemingly satisfied, he nodded. “Aside from some bruising from when he fell, he just has the one wound to heal.”

  “I’ll go let Yvonne know once we’re done here. She’s covering my desk until she can be on her feet all day again.” I rolled my neck, already tired.

  Vincenzo was quiet. I looked back and saw him staring at me. He blinked, catching himself, and put his smile back on. “How is she doing?”

  “She’s complaining about not being able to walk without help or do nursing work, so I think she’ll be fine.”

  He chuckled and nodded. “All right, then, go and let her know in case our patient’s family comes in. But hurry back. There are at least a dozen wounded waiting.”

  By the time I got back from telling Yvonne about the young soldier with the head injury, the number had swelled to seventeen. Our waiting-room space was packed with stretchers, our few gurneys moving people out one by one, only for someone else to get carried in.

  “Oh, boy,” I said quietly as I joined Vincenzo in bringing another wounded man back to be operated on.

  They kept coming, and we kept working on them. A seemingly endless stream of gunshots, shrapnel wounds, burns. One man was full of knife wounds, but conscious, proudly saying he had won the fight even as we sewed up what would become scars soon enough.

  Yet thanks to Vincenzo’s skill, we didn’t lose any of them. I couldn’t help but admire both his skill and determination, nor could I ignore the effect his warm, imposing physical presence had on me.

  As for me, I amazed myself. I didn’t freeze up. I didn’t falter, even when I got so tired that my temples throbbed and I had to watch my hands to make sure they didn’t fumble anything. Whatever he asked for, I could do. Whatever the patient needed, I could manage. I kept on, just like Vincenzo, until finally, as it drew near late afternoon, the waiting room was cleared.

  Huffing with relief, I leaned against the wall outside the operating theater and struggled to refocus. My scrubs shirt stuck to the small of my back, itching; I fixed it. My stomach ached with hollowness; I finally had a moment to dig in my pocket, find the rather mashed peanut butter sandwich and eat it in a few hasty bites.

  I was still chewing, sighing with contentment as the gnawing inside me receded, when Vincenzo emerged from the operating theater, taking off his hair cover.

  “Oof,” he laughed. “That was a bit of a trial. All successes, however, thanks in no small part to you.”

  “Well thank you,” I said, trying to ignore the tingle of pleasure that went all through me at his words. “You were brilliant as well. I’m just glad everyone made it.”

  He tilted his head slightly. “How does it feel to be back on the job?”

  “Pretty good,” I admitted. “I kept waiting to freeze up, but it simply never happened.”

  “Anxiety over performance problems tends to exacerbate them,” he said kindly enough. “I am just glad that you followed through on the promise you made during our dinner together despite my annoying you.”

  “You didn’t exactly…annoy me?” Kind of, but it was different from that. My indignation had come from discomfort, and my discomfort from embarrassment.
>
  “Oh?” His eyebrows rose. “Does this mean we’re on friendly terms again?”

  “Um…” I swallowed hard and fidgeted in my pockets, feeling for a moment like I was drowning in awkwardness. Then I relaxed and looked up at him. “We were never not, that misunderstanding was just very awkward for me. I’m a shy person, and…I’m sensitive about how you view me.”

  “You are? Well, I’m flattered that you value my opinion. For the record, I view you as a brilliant nurse and an interesting and beautiful woman. I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed when you left that night, as that would be a lie, but that is all.”

  The flash of his smile warmed me further.

  “Can we…take a walk to talk about this?” I asked. “Now that things have settled down.”

  He glanced around and then nodded, shrugging. “I could certainly use some fresh air. But we shouldn’t stray far, in case there’s a fresh crop of casualties.”

  I certainly hoped we wouldn’t get a second wave today, but I nodded. “I’ll keep my nurse’s hat handy.”

  The blinding sunlight and wash of hot desert air stunned me slightly after being inside for so long. I paused a moment, squinting and blinking.

  “Wow,” I said, shading my eyes with a hand.

  “It is a bit overwhelming after that stuffy building, isn’t it?” Vincenzo breezed out past me, munching on an apple. “Still good to get outside. Let’s go around toward the docks where the air’s less dry.”

  “As long as nothing else happens,” I murmured. But it looked all right. People were out and about again, shops open, even a few of the open-air stalls selling fruit and tea. Families helped get their less wounded husbands and sons home, while others milled at the administrative section doorway, waiting to be reunited with their bedridden loved ones. I smiled, knowing almost all of them would be able to do so.