Wild: Savannah Heirs

by June, CoraLee

  Wild

  Savannah Heirs

  CoraLee June

  Raven Kennedy

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Thank You For Reading

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Also by Raven Kennedy & CoraLee June

  Copyright © 2019 by CoraLee June and Raven Kennedy

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  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 authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Tanya and Amy. The naughty sex scenes couldn’t have happened without your help.

  Prologue

  Six weeks ago

  Royal

  I hated mosquitos. I hated the smell of bug spray, the feel of gritty sand coating my skin no matter how many times I washed my clothes and kept inside. I hated how the silence and noise simultaneously attacked me in varying degrees of intensity.

  But most of all? I hated this hospital.

  Chamanga, Ecuador, had pretty beaches. But they were still recovering from the tsunami that hit, and it showed. When my granddaddy told me that I’d be coming out here to work with some of his colleagues, I thought it would only be for a few months while they got back on their feet. But it’s been two fucking years. And even though the flyer I got boasted pretty beaches and nights at the casita, I’ve been trapped in this hospital without air conditioning too much to actually enjoy it, despite what my family believed.

  I never wanted this. Never wanted to be a nurse. Never wanted the responsibility of other people’s lives in my hand. It’s not that I lack empathy for the human condition, I just know my strengths and weaknesses, and I was not organized enough for this job.

  I was walking the halls of the makeshift hospital, smacking my gum while planning to empty bedpans and take vitals when my phone buzzed against me. I buried my hand in the pocket of my scrubs and pulled it out, frowning at the screen.

  The service here was pretty much nonexistent, but we had an app that allowed personnel to contact one another through the internet. The problem was, there was only one person who ever contacted me using it, and I didn’t want to hear from him.

  Dr. Aaron Carmichael’s name flashed over the screen, the little app blinking green for non-emergency status. Sighing, I pulled it open to read what he had to say.

  Dr. Carmichael: When are you going to let me into that sweet cunt of yours?

  Heat suffused my cheeks. This thing with Aaron and me was...wrong. And not in the sexy, forbidden kind of way. He’d been hitting on me for almost a year, ever since he got here. He was better than the old doctor we’d had, though, so part of me liked and respected him, but I wished he would set his sights on someone else.

  His advances had gotten crude and more persistent over the last few months. What started as playful and innocent had turned vulgar, and I didn’t know how to proceed. I hadn’t set boundaries in the beginning, and now it was getting out of control.

  It’s not that he wasn’t handsome. He was. Even if he was nearly twenty years older than I am, he had the whole successful, intelligent, sexy silver fox thing going on. Plenty of the other nurses here swooned at him every time he entered the room. But I didn’t hook up with married guys.

  It wasn’t even like his wife wasn’t here in Ecuador with him, because maybe then he might have some excuse for chasing tail. But his wife, Penelope, was the program director, and I saw her every so often going in and out of his office.

  My hands hesitated over the screen before I typed out a quick response.

  Nurse Taylor: Never.

  His response came immediately.

  Dr. Carmichael: When are you going to stop being a tease?

  I rolled my eyes to myself. Aaron was always saying stuff like that, acting like I was leading him on. Maybe in the beginning when I’d first met him, I’d been friendly and flirtatious, but that was just who I was. I liked meeting people, and I wasn’t blind—he was too handsome not to notice. But as soon as I’d found out he was married, I’d backed off, which is more than I can say for some of the other nurses.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t taken the hint.

  Instead of answering him, I exited from the chat. I was probably going to have to deal with him soon. I didn’t like confrontation though, so I tended to try to shove things away and hope the problems faded. I didn’t think I was going to have that luxury this time. He was getting more and more incessant.

  I veered off in the hallway, deciding I’d take a break before finishing up my rounds. I pushed the door open, luckily finding it empty. The breakroom was relatively small, with only a tiny cot, a coffee machine, and a recliner that didn’t recline anymore. There was a TV in the corner, but it only played VHS tapes, and we never had enough spare electricity to run it, so it was basically a glorified end table, with outdated magazines from the states and old paperbacks stacked on top of it. The only entertainment this room saw was when nurses got bored and had sex on the night shift. Dr. Carmichael had invited me multiple times to the breakroom, and I always avoided him.

  I spit out my gum and then poured myself a cup of coffee and downed it, grimacing at the assault on my taste buds. Burnt coffee and old mint gum didn’t make the best combination, but I was going on hour twelve of my shift, and I needed the caffeine.

  Pulling my phone out again, I took advantage of the fact that I had semi-okay internet in this spot and started scrolling through my social media. I had dozens of messages from friends in Savannah and at my old college, but they were all either busy traveling, partying, or getting married. I kept on scrolling without answering any of them.

  I wished I were still in college, sowing my wild oats as Mama would say. College was the first time I really let me be myself, without all the constraints that my family put on me. I partied, I made friends, I hooked up. I probably sowed a little too much, to be honest, but I knew it was my one and only chance. Forced into a nursing program I didn’t want to be in, I knew that my clock was ticking down to have a little freedom, and I took advantage of that.

  My phone dinged, interrupting my thoughts.

  Dr. Carmichael: I want you so bad.

  I gritted my teeth, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He just wouldn’t stop.

  Dr. Carmichael: I want your mouth on my cock, Nurse Taylor.

  My fingers flew over the keys as I typed out a response.

  Me: You need to stop. This is totally inappropriate. I’m sorry, but I’m just not interested.

  Heart pounding, I waited for a response, but minute after minute ticked by. My anxiety was jumping under
my skin, making me feel jittery all over. Finally, his response popped up, but I frowned at the little attachment icon. I clicked on it and then had to wait a ridiculous amount of time for the damn thing to download. When it finally did, my eyes widened in horror.

  It was a photo of me, in the same nurses’ breakroom that I was in now. I was curled up on the cot, and my shirt had ridden up while I slept, revealing my stomach and a hint of my bright yellow bra. The room was dark since I had turned the light off to sleep.

  Chills skated over my skin as I stared at the photo. I knew exactly when this was. It was two weeks ago when I’d been so dead tired that I’d snuck into the breakroom for a nap, even though I shouldn’t have. The fact that Aaron had come in here and watched me while I slept, that he’d taken photos of me...fear was racing through my veins with every pump of my heart.

  Dr. Carmichael: I believe it’s also inappropriate to sleep on the job, Nurse Taylor.

  I swallowed hard at his words. Was he...blackmailing me? Or was he just being a dick and showing off that he’d caught me? What a fucking asshole.

  I shook my head and closed out of the messages, my fear now replaced with anger. So he wanted to prove a point that I was inappropriate at work? Fine. I still wasn’t going to suck his dick, so if he thought that this little power play was going to convince me, he had another thing coming.

  Why was it that I had to continually deny myself the things that I really wanted to do while being simultaneously pressured into doing the things that I didn’t? I was sick of it. I was sick of this hospital, of this job, of my family’s pressure. I wanted to go back to college, where I could feel a sliver of freedom again.

  But even if my family would let me do what I wanted, there was still one thing I wouldn’t let myself have. Or rather, I should say one person.

  Right as I thought about him, a post from him popped up on my feed. It was a pic of him, probably last night, laughing at the bar and hanging out with a group of people. He had a girl on either side of him, both young and beautiful, dressed in short mini dresses and eyelashes so perfect they had to be fake. They were probably not even old enough to be permitted inside the bar, let alone drink, but they got away with it because he owned the damn thing.

  Luis Salvador.

  Bronze skin, black hair, always the life of the party. My brother’s best friend and six years younger than me. He was hot as hell, rich as sin, and there was a wild, energetic air around him that made my mouth water.

  It was wrong.

  It was forbidden.

  But I couldn’t stop.

  Ever since I had gone home to visit last year, I’d been thinking about him. He’d just turned eighteen, and all of a sudden, I noticed these heated stares that he’d cast my way. Suddenly, he wasn’t just my kid brother’s friend. It was like he’d turned into someone else entirely. A prodigal Savannah Heir, muscled, charming, funny, and one hundred percent man.

  I knew it was wrong to watch him. Hell, I knew it was wrong even to be attracted to him. But I couldn’t help myself. I’d found that more and more, while I sweated away in this hospital hellhole, I would steal moments to scroll through his social media. I just wanted to be connected to him, in the only way I could ever allow myself to. I knew it was just a stupid crush. Something I would get over. But for now, Luis Salvador gave me that same feeling of electric excitement that I’d felt back in college.

  Sometimes, he’d even message me. My stomach always did stupid little somersaults when that happened. He was always nice, asking how I was, but it was nothing more than him being a good friend of the family. I was naturally flirtatious, but I forced myself to keep things as innocent as possible, even though I wanted to lick him every time I saw a new pic of him hanging by the pool with his shirt off or working out in the gym.

  I allowed myself one more minute of studying the photo, noting the way everyone was looking at him, drawn into his air as he probably told some funny story or joke. The girls next to him were laughing, and I could see my brother’s dark outline in the background. Their glasses were suspiciously full of clear liquid with little straws in them.

  Forcing myself to turn it off, I gave up on my daydreaming and put my phone away. I drank the rest of my coffee down and tossed the cup in the trash before heading out into the hallway. I was mentally preparing myself for dressing infected wounds and giving sponge baths when a stream of nurses ran by me.

  “We have a code blue in room A48,” one of them shouted.

  A48? That was Señora Almendarez.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, hurrying to catch up.

  Just that small burst of energy had me sweating in this outdated and unmaintained hospital. When funds were scarce, everything went to meds and staff. Things like comfort just weren’t a priority.

  The other nurse working for the Doctors Without Borders program had been here two years longer than I had. But unlike me, she exemplified everything a nurse should be. Tough but caring, smart but down to earth, quick but not a frenzied ball of stress. And most of all? She just fit in ways that I never have. With the patients, the other nurses, the doctors…

  “She’s going into anaphylaxis!” Dr. Carmichael yelled as we entered the room.

  I watched in horror, frozen at the door as her body convulsed. Spit and vomit rolled out of her mouth as her lips turned blue. I had just seen her, hadn’t I? Her vitals were normal. She was on the mend, set to be discharged in just a week. She’d had unmonitored diabetes for the majority of her adult life, which resulted in an emergency foot amputation. I’d noticed a spike in her fever earlier, so I’d given her antibiotics to fight off an infection.

  “Nurse Taylor, check her charts. Has she been exposed to any allergens recently?” Aaron’s voice cut through my shock, and I grabbed her chart hanging up by the door.

  My fingers trembled as I flipped through it. “I gave the patient penicillin at oh nine hundred,” I choked out as more nurses flooded the room.

  Aaron’s dark eyes swiveled over to me as Almendarez continued to vomit and struggle on the bed. “She has a severe penicillin allergy! It was on her charts!” he screamed. I checked again, the blood draining from my face as I read her allergies. He was right. I always double check. With being short staffed, we sometimes had to administer medicine without doctor approval. I didn’t think anything of it, and now she was dying in front of me.

  Time spun out of control as everyone rushed around, trying to fix my mistake.

  But me? I froze.

  Oh, God. What have I done?

  The nurses quickly worked to stabilize her, but I could hear the faint beats of the machine, and I knew her blood pressure was dropping. He airway was closing up.

  “I need oxygen on her—stat. Someone get me epinephrine, and you,” Dr. Carmichael yelled, pointing at me. “Start chest compressions.”

  My feet felt sluggish as I moved towards her. I didn’t want to fuck this up any more than I already had.

  My mind raced through my training, trying to force me into action. CPR was one of the first things you were supposed to learn as a nurse. I started pressing on her chest, feeling weak and clumsy, missing the right beat. I was terrified of pushing too hard or too lightly. My hands shook as I struggled to bear down on her chest while the others rushed into a tracheotomy. My heart was racing too fast for me to feel in control of the situation.

  “You’re fucking it up, move out of the way.”

  Within moments, Dr. Carmichael shoved me aside and started performing CPR, but I knew it was too late. She was fading. Fading so fucking fast that there was nothing I could do but watch her die.

  And it was all. My. Fault.

  I stood in the corner, biting my nails, feeling my chest constrict as she passed. They worked hard long after the straight line of her heart monitor blared through the room. It wasn’t until Dr. Carmichael yelled out a stream of curses that they called it.

  “Time of death?” one of the nurses asked gently. I nearly crumbled to the floor. I coul
d feel their angry stares heavy on my shoulders.

  “0930 hours.”

  * * *

  “Am I going to jail?” I asked in a soft voice.

  Malpractice was a big deal. We had to take an entire class on it in college, and thanks to Dad’s legal practice, I was well aware of the consequences of my actions. I’d spent the last two days waiting for the bomb to drop while crying in my tiny apartment.

  I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t even fucking move without thinking about what I’d done. I’d never felt more terrible in my life. A woman was dead, and it was all my fault.

  Dr. Carmichael’s office was small. His desk took up most of the space, and there were no additional chairs for people to sit in. I stood there, feeling like a scolded child as he stared at me. And stared. And stared.

  I felt his eyes skim over my face before dropping down to my chest. I saw the wheels start to turn through the gleam in his gaze as he silently watched me. I fidgeted nervously, pulling at the hem of my shirt, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “Dr. Carmichael?” I pressed. His eyes narrowed at his title, and my teeth clenched. “Aaron,” I amended, playing his game. He always liked me to call him by his name or sir.

  I just needed to hear what was going to happen to me. Being stuck in this limbo was agonizing, and Dr. Carmichael seemed to like to keep me in suspense. I knew that I was going to have to face the consequences of what I’d done. I knew I’d pretty much ruined my life, not to mention my career. My family would be disgusted with me. That definitely wouldn’t match the perfect image they wanted me to portray. I didn’t even want to think about what my dad would say. But most importantly, I was the reason someone was dead. The knowledge of that sat in the pit of my stomach like an infestation of rot.