Ty closed his eyes. “Four.” But there’d been others, too. Way too many others.
The man let out a shuddery sigh of sympathy. “Here.” He lifted a shaky hand and slid it into his shirt, coming out with a flask. “This helps.”
Mallory chose that very moment to pull back the curtain. “There you are,” she said to Ty, then smiled kindly at the man in the bed. “Better yet, Ryan?”
Ryan, caught red-handed with the flask, didn’t meet her gaze as he gave a jerky nod.
“Why don’t I hold that for you, okay?” Gently, she pried the flask from Ryan’s fingers, confiscating it without another word.
Ty didn’t know what he’d expected from her. Maybe annoyance, or some sign that she resented the duty of caring for a guy who was in here for reasons that had clearly been self-inflicted. But she ran a hand down Ryan’s arm in a comforting gesture, not shying away from touching him.
More than duty, Ty thought. Much more. This was the real deal, she was the real deal, and she cared, deeply.
“I’ve called your daughter,” she told Ryan. “She’ll be here in ten minutes. We’re just going to let the bag do its thing, refilling you up with minerals, potassium, sodium, and other good stuff. You’ll feel better soon.” She patted his forearm as she checked his leads, making physical contact before she looked at Ty, gesturing with her head for him to follow her.
“Is he going to be okay?” Ty asked quietly on the other side of the curtain.
“Soon as he sobers up.”
“He’s on something besides alcohol.”
“Yes.”
“Does he have a place to stay?”
She gave him a long once-over. “Look at you with all the questions.”
“Does he?”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, but you know I can’t discuss his case with you. I can tell you that he’s being taken care of. Does that help?”
Yeah. No. Ty had no idea what the f**king lump the size of a regulation football was doing stuck in his throat or why his heart was pounding. Or why he couldn’t let this go. “He’s a vet,” he said. “He’s having nightmares. He—”
“I know,” she said softly, and reached out to touch him, soothing him as she had Ryan. “And like I said, he’s being taken care of.” She paused, studying him for a disturbingly long beat. “Not everyone would have done that, you know. Gone in there and held a vagrant’s hand and comforted him.”
“I’m not everyone.”
“No kidding.” The phone at her hip vibrated. She looked at the screen and let out a breath. “Wait for me,” she said, pointing to his cubicle. “I’ll be right there.” And then she moved off in the direction of the front desk.
In front of Ty was yet another bed. This curtain was shut but it was suddenly whipped open by a nurse who was talking to the patient sitting on the bed. “Change into the robe,” she was saying. “And I’ll go page your doctor.”
The patient had clearly walked in under his own steam, but he wasn’t looking good. He was a big guy, mid-thirties, dressed in coveralls that had the Public Utilities Department logo on a pec. He was filthy from head to toe, clearly just off the job. As Ty watched, he went from looking bad to worse, and then he gasped, clutching at his chest.
Oh, Christ, Ty thought. Why the hell was he here? He should have left. Instead, he was hurtled back in time, back to the mountain, squinting against the brilliant fireball that had been a plane. He’d sat on the cliff holding Trevor in his arms, Trevor clutching at his crushed chest.
A million miles and four years later, the guy on the hospital bed groaned, dropping the gown he’d been holding. He slithered to the floor, his eyes rolling up in the back of his head.
Ty took a step back and came up against a rolling cart of supplies even as his instincts screamed at him to rush over there and help.
But the cart moved out from behind him, and he staggered on legs that felt like overcooked noodles.
Then suddenly people came out of the woodwork, including Mallory.
“He’s coding,” someone yelled.
And the dance to save the man’s life began. Someone pulled Ty out of the way and back to his cubicle, where he waited for what might have been five minutes, or an hour.
Or a lifetime.
Mallory finally came in. When she found him still standing, she gave him a sharp look. “Sorry about that. You okay?”
“The guy. Is he…?”
“He’s going to make it.” She gestured to the bed. “Sit. You look like you could use it.”
Like hell he did.
“Sit,” she said again, soft steel.
Fine. He sat. On the stool, not the bed. The bed was for patients, and he wasn’t a patient. He was a f**king idiot, but he wasn’t a patient.
“Not a big hospital fan, huh?” she asked wryly.
“No.”
She washed her hands thoroughly. “Personal experience?”
He didn’t answer, wasn’t ready to answer. Apparently okay with that, she pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then opened a couple of drawers. “Are you squeamish?”
He didn’t answer that either. Mostly because only yesterday he’d have given her an emphatic no. Except what had just happened to him in the hallway said otherwise.
He’d changed.
Once upon a time, nothing had gotten to him, but that was no longer true. Case in point was Mallory herself. She got to him, big time.
She lifted a big, fat needle, and he blinked.
She smiled and put the needle down, and he realized she’d been f**king with him to lighten the mood. He heard the surprised laugh rumble out of him, rusty sounding. Muscles long gone unused stretched as he smiled and shook his head. “Guess you owed me that.”
“Guess I did.” After she’d loaded up a tray with what she wanted, she came at him. She set the tray on the bed and perched a hip there as well, letting out an exhale that spelled exhaustion. “If you don’t want to sit here, I sure as hell do.”
He found himself letting out another smile. “Tired?”
“I passed tired about three hours ago.” She soaked a gauze in rubbing alcohol.
“So you’re an RN.”
“Yes,” she said. “I bought my license online yesterday.” She dabbed at the wound over his eyebrow and then opened a suture kit, which he was intimately familiar with. As a medic in the field, he’d gone through a lot of them patching guys up.
“Don’t worry,” she said, picking up a set of tweezers. “I’ve seen a guy do this once.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, stopping her movement.
“I’m kidding,” she said.
“Oh I know. I just don’t want you to be cracking yourself up when you put those things near my eye.”
“Actually, I’m not all that amused right now,” she said.
“What are you, then?”
She hesitated. “Embarrassed,” she finally admitted.
This stopped him cold. That was the last thing he wanted her to be. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “Pick something else, anything else.”
“Like?”
“Mad. Mad would be better.”
“You want me to be mad at you?” she asked, looking confused. “Why? I’m the one who said the ‘here’ and ‘now,’ remember?”
Yeah, he remembered. He’d loved it.
“And I’m the one who wanted a one-time thing,” she said. “No strings attached.”
“So why be embarrassed then?”
She sighed.
“Tell me.”
“Because I’d never done that before.” She lowered her voice to a soft whisper. “Sex without an emotional attachment,” she clarified. “And now…” Her eyes slowly met his. “I’m thinking I should have requested a two-time thing.”
This left him speechless.
She winced, shook her head, then laughed a little at herself. “Never mind.” She leaned in close to look at the stitching. “Nice work. Dr. Scott’s the best,” she said. “But you’ll probably still have a decent scar. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you, women like that sort of thing. Apparently they’ll fall all over themselves to sleep with you.”
Still holding her wrist, he ran his thumb over her pulse. “You didn’t fall all over yourself,” he said quietly.
“Didn’t I?”
“If you did, there were two of us doing the falling.”
Again, her eyes met his, and he watched her struggle to accept that. “Well,” she finally said, pulling her hand free, “as long as there were two of us.” Some of the good humor was now restored in her voice. Which meant she was compassionate, funny, and resilient. His favorite qualities in a woman.
But he wasn’t looking for a woman. He wasn’t looking for anything except to get back to his world where he functioned best.
She leaned in close and used the tweezers to pull up a stitch, which she then snipped with scissors. “A little sting now,” she warned, and pulled out the suture. “So what was it that you said you do?”
Oh, she was good, he thought. Very good. “I didn’t say.”
She pulled out another stitch and then gazed steadily at him.
She had the most amazing eyes. Mostly chocolate brown, but there were specks of gold in there as well. And a sharp wit that stirred him even more than her hot, curvy little bod.
A woman poked her head around the curtain, the same one who’d been at the front desk. Young. Eager. “Need help?” she asked Mallory, her eyes on Ty.
“Nope,” Mallory said. “I’ve got this.”
Her face fell, but she left without further comment.
Two seconds later another nurse appeared, and this one Ty recognized as Mallory’s mother from the night of the auction.
“New arrival,” she said to Mallory, eyeing Ty.
“It’s your turn,” Mallory told her.
Her mom frowned. “Mal.”
“Mother.”
The curtain yanked shut, and they were alone. “She hates when I call her ‘mother.’”
“You work with your mom.”
Mallory took a page from his book and went silent. It made him smile. She made him smile.
“She looked pissed,” he said, fishing. Which was new for him. He never fished. He hated fishing.
“Oh, she is,” Mallory said. She pulled another stitch, and he barely felt it. She had good hands, as he had reason to know.
“Because of me?” he asked.
“Now why would you think that?” she asked. “Because I left my own fundraiser to have sex in a storage room with a man whose name I barely knew?”
“Really great sex,” he corrected. When she slid him a long look, he added, “Imagine what we could do with a bed.”
She let out a short laugh, and he stared at her face, truly fascinated by her in a way that surprised him. She was supposed to be just a woman, a cute nurse in a small town that soon he’d forget the name of.
Except…he wasn’t buying it.
“Hey, Mal.” Yet another woman peeked into the cubicle, this one mid-thirties and wearing a housekeeping outfit. “Need anything?”
“No!”
“Jeez,” she said, insulted. “Fine, you don’t have to take my head off.”
When she vanished, Mallory sighed. “My sister.” She dumped the instruments she’d used into the sink, and still facing away from him, spoke. “What about your leg?”
“What about it?”
“Does it need to be looked at, too?” she asked.
“No.”
She turned to look at him with an expectant air, saying nothing. It made him smile. “You can’t use that silence thing against me. I invented it.”
“What silence thing?” she asked innocently.
“You know what silence thing, where you go all quiet and I’m supposed to feel compelled to fill it in with all my secrets.”
She smiled. “So you admit to having secrets.”
“Many,” he said flatly.
Her smile faded. “You’re engaged. Or worse, you’re married. You have ten kids. Oh my God, tell me you don’t have kids.”
“No. And I’m not engaged or married. I’m not…anything.”
She just looked at him for a long moment. “Some secrets are toxic if you try to keep them inside. You know that, right? Some secrets are meant to be told, before they eat you up.”
Maybe, but not his. In no time, he’d be long gone, back to a very fast-paced, dangerous life that would eventually, probably kill him. But not her. She’d find someone to share her life with, grow old with. “You watch too much Oprah.”
She didn’t take umbrage at this. She pulled off her gloves and tossed them into the trash.
“Does your whole family work here?” he asked, running a finger over the healing cut, now sans stitches. She’d done a good job.
“Just my mom, my sister, and me,” she said. “And I also work at the Health Services Clinic.”
“I didn’t know there was one here.”
“Well, there’s not. Not yet. But if we get approval at the town meeting tomorrow night, it’s a go for a tentative opening this weekend.”
“Is there a need in a town this small?”
“This hospital services the entire county,” she said. “Not just Lucky Harbor. And there’s a huge need. We have a high teenage pregnancy rate, and drug abuse is on the rise as well. So is abuse and homelessness. We need counseling services and advocacy and educational programs. And there’s going to be a weekly health clinic on Saturday for those who can’t afford medical care.”