We All Sleep Alone

by Calle J. Brookes

  “Something like that.” He reached over her and pulled the seat belt across her lap. His arm brushed her breasts. Awareness shot through her. She fought a shiver.

  Well, hell. That was unexpected.

  She should club herself with the still-wet cast and put herself out of her stupidity before she let herself even think something…well…stupid with him.

  Both of them paused. Izzie just looked at him.

  Really looked at him.

  Allen Jacobson was male perfection. Kind of hard to deny that.

  He had that whole hot All-American successful doctor thing going on that so many women at FCGH fawned all over. Practically had a harem with the doofy nurse brigade from first shift.

  She was starting to understand why.

  Now, he had a broken poet look in his eyes most of the time. A look many of the women at FCGH found even more irresistible.

  Not her. She’d always rolled her eyes when the man’s name had come up in the sighing, stupid conversations. She’d tried to ignore the whole idea of him as a sexy male creature.

  Now, though, that wasn’t exactly going to be easy.

  Even in her head, Izzie came up short at a brick wall where her thoughts were going.

  No, no, no. She was not going to see him as a man. Not going to happen. It seemed like she couldn’t work a single shift without rubbing up against him the wrong way.

  That brought the wrong images to mind. The completely wrong images.

  She wasn’t about to do any rubbing up against Allen Jacobson. Ever.

  Izzie blamed the sedative.

  It was the only answer for these sudden thoughts. Why she had let him swoop her off her feet and take control of her like a hero in a terribly cheesy romance novel.

  Well.

  Izzie never had gone for the take-charge, overly masculine kind of man. This wasn’t any different. Once her head cleared, she’d let the man know that in no uncertain terms.

  She sat there like an idiot while he rounded the van and unlocked the driver’s side. Once he was inside and fastened in, she finally took a look in the back.

  Horror filled her. No way. Oh, just no way.

  Talk about a shaggin’ wagon. Right there in the back.

  It was like a honeymoon suite on wheels. All it needed was rose petals strewn over the gray silk. Gray the exact color of Allen’s eyes.

  “Oh no. No way.”

  “What?”

  “We are not sharing this thing. Not together. It’s not going to happen.”

  There was only one bed. A thick mattress with what looked like a silk duvet in silver gray and very expensive pillows encased in silk a shade lighter.

  All it needed was red roses and expensive chocolates and wine to be a mobile bordello. Perfect for a doctor on the make.

  It looked barely big enough for him, let alone oceans wide like she’d need for her to ever consider climbing in next to her sworn enemy.

  He’d literally just become her sworn-enemy number one.

  The only other place possible for someone to sleep in was the seat in which she sat. With how she felt right now—that was not an option.

  A massive part of her wanted to climb into that bed and sleep for a month. Let him drive her anywhere. She literally didn’t care at the moment.

  The idea of giving him that kind of control was all that had her not doing that. “This van is so not going to work. Not even for one night.”

  “We’ll have to make it work. It’s not registered in my name, it’s private, and it can go about anywhere a regular van can go. Relax. It’s a luxury RV, even if it is in a van. There are two slide-out walls. It’ll expand to give us much more room once we get to where we’ll park. Look at this like a vacation, and I’m the bus driver. We can go just about anywhere this side of the Mexican border.”

  “Where are you going to sleep, Jacobson? I have a concussion; I’m supposed to sleep and take it easy for a few days, remember? How long am I going to be your hostage? You’re going to have to let me go sometime.”

  The look he shot her was clear exasperation as he hit buttons on a remote that had the garage door opening and the engine starting on the RV. It purred like a contented—but caged—tiger.

  She was in the belly of the beast. Either that—or about to become a certain beast’s dinner.

  The vibration went straight up her spine.

  Izzie took a better look around.

  It really was fancy. Her apartment that she shared with Jake wasn’t anywhere near as high-end as this…van with a bed. “Where did you get this again?”

  “Logan Lanning.”

  Her stomach clenched at the name. It shouldn’t. He’d been dead for a while now.

  “Great. Logan Lanning’s Shaggin’ Wagon. Am I still asleep? Drugged and in room 403 with the Cursed Nurse possessing me?”

  “It was actually his parents’, Izzie. He inherited it from them, but never used it because of what happened with Lacy. When he was hurt, he had decided to sell everything that had belonged to his parents. When he died, it went as part of his estate. To my sister. He left me all of his bank accounts and my sister all of his worldly possessions, including his parents’ house and his condo. She lives there now. He didn’t have anyone else, besides his parents. They were going to travel the country in their retirement, but unfortunately, they didn’t live long enough to enjoy it. He died a year before Logan, and she was four months before her son. She didn’t feel like going on after she lost her husband. They were good people. Always made me feel welcome. Shelby was particularly close to his mother.”

  “I see. I didn’t realize you actually knew his family.” She winced at how rude she had been. There had been grief, real grief in his words. So he’d lost his girlfriend, his best friend, another close friend, and Lanning’s parents—all within a few years’ time. She’d heard from his sister herself that they’d lost their parents ten years ago, too.

  He seemed really alone. That…had to hurt him still. That kind of loss, it would change a person’s soul.

  “I did. I had known them for years. They were unofficial godparents to my sister once I had her.”

  “I’m so sorry, then. For your loss.”

  “They were some of my closest friends. They helped me give Shelby some semblance of normalcy after our parents died. I’ll always respect them for that, be indebted for Shelby’s sake. I’m glad they weren’t here to see what Logan did. Maybe…losing them had something to do with his mental state at the time. The way he was the year before he died.”

  “Let’s not talk about Logan Lanning. Ever.” Those were memories she was just too vulnerable to deal with right now. There was still pain in his voice over the loss of the Lanning family.

  No wonder, too. Just to hear about it was sobering.

  An entire family, gone. In the space of a year and a half. That idea saddened her more than she wanted to think about. She might not have liked Dr. Lanning, but she wouldn’t have wished that on anyone. “Where exactly are you abducting me to?”

  “I’m not abducting you to anywhere. I’m whisking you away in a daring rescue. It’s all in how you look at things. Perspective, Nurse Izadora.”

  “I still don’t know why you. You’re not exactly my Galahad, or anything like that.” Well. Technically he’d rescued her like Caine had rescued Nikkie Jean and the mayor had rescued Annie.

  A few times now. A few really huge times now.

  It wasn’t something romantic like it had been with Turner and Caine. It had mostly been circumstances. Rotten luck. Karma getting back at Izzie for some small slight she didn’t even remember. Maybe for something Izzie had done in a past life or something.

  There was no way Izzie wanted romantic with the man next to her. The very idea had the habitual hives she’d had all her life flaring again.

  No. This was not happening now.

  56

  Izzie wasn’t afraid of Allen. Nor was she going doofy over him anytime soon. On any level. She’d figured
him out pretty early on—the man he’d been three years ago when she’d first started working at FCGH stuck out in her mind. He’d been one of the elite, the entitled, the men who thought they were better than all the little people—especially the nurses, assistants, and others who were just entering the medical fields—and arrogant.

  Oh, he had walked around, thinking he was the king back then. Izzie had seen that from the very beginning.

  Allen and his best buddy, Logan, had been beyond arrogant. They had never called anyone by name. Just, “Nurse, do this or that.”

  She and Annie and Jillian had laughed about that so many times in those early years on second and third shift together. Even though they had all known that Allen certainly remembered Jillian’s name after about a year.

  Izzie had thought it was a matter of time before they’d hooked up.

  He sure didn’t look like he had back then, though. Not now. In the jeans and long-sleeve shirt, he looked stronger, harder—she’d heard through the Nikkie Jean grapevine that he’d taken to studying martial arts of some sort and lifting weights after Logan Lanning’s death. She could see where that exercise had made him even harder and toned. Whatever skills he’d picked up in martial arts had certainly paid off tonight.

  Apparently, he’d kicked ass just fine. Otherwise, she’d not be sitting there right now.

  He was hard as a rock. Big. Strong.

  Physically, there was no way she would ever be able to win against him—especially with both arms in casts and a knee that burned every time she shifted her weight.

  She considered it. She wouldn’t deny that she considered it for a long moment.

  He watched her out of those eyes of his—and waited.

  It was probably better to not even try. Tonight. He could pick her up and put her wherever he wanted her.

  That would lead to things Izzie was not going to think about.

  Like the two of them wrestling around on gray silk or something.

  She’d thought about nothing else since they’d started driving through the long, rainy night. Until she’d drifted off, thoughts of him and her and that bed twisting her dreams like crazy.

  She’d slept the last several hours, too. While he’d driven. She’d not wakened until he’d pulled into where here actually was.

  Through the night. Through the storm. After being in a fight with three attackers.

  Hell, he probably was tired. Not to mention that he was doing this to protect her. Nikkie Jean had asked him to. He hadn’t had to agree. Hadn’t had to upend his entire life—for her.

  Hard to get past that.

  Izzie didn’t have much of a choice. If she kept fighting him, wouldn’t that make her an evil, ungrateful bitch?

  That was the last thing she wanted to be.

  For some reason, Allen somehow brought out the worst in her. With the way they’d been twisted together in her dreams earlier, she was starting to suspect why.

  Maybe she was as bad as the doofy first-shifters who did nothing but drool over the hottest doctors in the building. There was even a secret Top Ten of FCGH going around in text messages.

  She’d been sent it fourteen times already.

  Izzie hated social media.

  Allen had been ranked #2—right after Rafe.

  She can so see that. Although, honestly, she thought Allen was more traditionally handsome than the chief of medicine. She wasn’t ever going to tell him that.

  “Fine, but you stay on top of the blankets. Your hands stay in your own bubble.” Yeah, Dr. Magic-Hands likely knew exactly how to use those hands of his in all the right ways. There was a reason those doofy nurses were so…doofy…over him. The man had a reputation after all.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t like thorns. Or stingers.” He handed her a small clear travel bag. A tiny tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush were visible. “Good hygiene, please, if we’re going to be all crammed up against each other. Courtesy of Nikkie Jean. There’s deodorant in there, too.”

  She grabbed the bag instead of kicking him like she wanted.

  She wanted to kick him—but she wanted that toothbrush even more.

  His laughter followed her around the sardine can they were stuck in as she closed the small accordion door to the wet bath to block him out.

  After a few minutes, she felt at least a little normal again, even if it was the most plastic bathroom she’d ever seen. There were luxury washcloths in a tiny cabinet next to a plastic toilet.

  She’d never been in an RV this small—or this expensive. She felt extremely out of place. Izzie stepped out of the wet bath and there he was. Big, strong, broody.

  Half naked.

  Shirt off and in sweatpants now. The man was built like a god.

  She gawked again—ok, she hadn’t imagined him looking like that without the starched button-downs he usually wore at FCGH.

  Allen Jacobson was in prime physical shape. Complete with a six-pack. He might even be more well-defined than Caine and Rafe—two of the most beautiful men in the world that she’d seen without shirts, anyway—when they’d been helping Annie move recently.

  Wow.

  Izzie wasn’t blind. She liked the look of a beautiful man when she saw one—that didn’t mean she had to act on it.

  She turned away and almost scurried to the rear of the van.

  She had to climb to get onto the mattress. It wasn’t super-long. She suspected the jerk’s feet were going to hang off the end. Good. He deserved it for thinking he was the one in charge here. All bossy and arrogant, and “you’ll do what you’re told, woman” all of a sudden.

  She never had taken direction well. Especially from arrogant men who thought they were in charge. Even if they did it in an entirely too hot kind of way.

  That pissed her off even more. Jake, she could deal with him making decisions for her when she was incapable of making them for herself—and unfortunately that situation had happened to her before. Annie and Nikkie Jean, too. Even Lacy and Jillian and Cherise to some extent. But Allen Jacobson?

  He had no right.

  In that moment, Izzie didn’t think she had much choice.

  She jerked back the duvet awkwardly with her least-injured right hand—the duvet was pure silk, she’d bet her next paycheck on it—and hurried beneath it.

  It felt like snuggling into a cloud, and her aching body thanked her for it. Yes, this was exactly where she wanted to be right now—physically.

  Her mind wasn’t quite on board, though.

  She deliberately faced away from him, feeling like a pouting child.

  He laughed as he slipped into the wet bath and closed the door. She hoped he drowned in the tiny plastic toilet. The man deserved it.

  If he did, she’d be honor-bound to give him mouth-to-mouth.

  Izzie barely fought the urge to growl.

  She needed to think.

  Izzie needed to quit using her battle with Allen as a way to avoid dealing with what had really almost happened tonight.

  She had almost died tonight. Again.

  Someone had tried to either abduct or kill her tonight. That was the big thing right there. That she was relatively safe—even with Allen—was a minor miracle.

  One she owed directly to him.

  She supposed being stuck with Allen wasn’t as bad as it could have been. She could be seriously injured or dead. Or stuck with someone she couldn’t stand at all.

  She’d get through the next day or two, call Jake or Nikkie Jean, and then find out when she could go home.

  This definitely couldn’t last for too long.

  He finally came out of the wet bath a few minutes later. Izzie flipped over. She was going to watch him, make sure he was keeping to his side of the deal. She didn’t trust him. They both knew that.

  She’d probably never trust him on a male-female level. She wasn’t interested in being one of a crowd. His weight caused the bed to shift. He pulled the covers tightly. “You have enough room?”

  He’d practically pu
rred it.

  Izzie resisted the urge to yelp and scurry away.

  She had more backbone than that. “I’m good, but are you even going to fit?”

  “It’ll be tight, but I’ll fit.”

  Only after he’d sent her a wicked grin did she realize what she’d said.

  Heat hit her cheeks. “Great. I’m stuck with a pervert. Why does that not surprise me? Your reputation and all.”

  “My reputation, Nurse Izzie, is greatly exaggerated.”

  “Uh-huh. I saw you on the roof once, Jacobson. So don’t lie.” He’d been wrapped up around that evil pharmacy tech of his. “Most women don’t like to be one of the crowd, you know.”

  He hadn’t even known Izzie was there. But Jess had. She’d shot Izzie a hateful smirk over Jacobson’s shoulder. Then tracked Izzie down to remind her to keep her mouth shut about what she’d seen. She’d dug her nails into Izzie’s arm hard enough to draw blood.

  Izzie had grabbed those fingers and bent them back in a move her uncle had taught her years ago. Jake had spent years teaching self-defense classes to women. Especially Izzie and Annie.

  Not that it had done much good for her tonight.

  What Jess and Allen had been doing on that roof hadn’t been Izzie’s business. She wasn’t a gossip. Izzie had made it clear to Jess to stay out of her face or she would spill her guts. On everything she’d ever seen Jess do.

  She and Jess had circled each other a lot after that. It hadn’t degenerated into a hair-pulling catfight between them, but it had been close.

  She wasn’t glad Jess was dead, but she was glad the truth about that woman had come out.

  It had hurt him, though. Everyone had seen that. That and the way Logan Lanning had died. Allen hadn’t deserved that. Compassion had her softening toward him. A little.

  Izzie handed him a pillow. “Stick to your side. Hopefully, we’ll be going home tomorrow, and I’ll never have to sleep with you again.”