Their Forever Family

“Amanda, I’m Dr. McFee, and you’re in the ER. Do you remember what happened?” Amanda kept her eyes closed and frowned.

“Eric? What about Eric?” She opened eyes that appeared to have no memory of the recent events in the parking lot. Not unusual. The brain provided wonderful coping mechanisms to assist in dealing with emotionally painful situations. None of them were going to help her now.

“You were on the way to work and what happened?”

“What do you mean? I parked and came into work like I always do.” She focused more on Duncan and glared. “Why are you asking about Eric? Did the daycare call?”

“No, ma’am…” Duncan interrupted the officer with a glare. He clenched his jaw, not wanting to verbally castigate the officer when he had a patient on his hands. “No. Daycare didn’t call.”

“I was…No. Is Eric okay? What’s happened?” She tried to sit up. “What’s going on?”

Rebel stepped forward and glanced with hesitation at Duncan. He didn’t know her, had never worked with her before, so he had no reason to trust her or her abilities as a nurse. Then again, he had no reason not to trust her. He nodded.

Rebel placed her hand over Amanda’s with a gentle touch. Compassionate energy pooled around Rebel in such waves that Duncan felt them. This woman was made of tough stuff. So far turning out to be a damned good ER nurse. Gorgeous and smart. Hard combination to find.

“I’m Rebel, one of the nurses. I…discovered Eric…in the back of your car.”

“No, you didn’t.” Amanda shook her head in denial and jerked her hand away from Rebel. “He’s at daycare.” Amanda placed a trembling hand over her mouth and tears spilled from her eyes as trickles of the truth emerged from her subconscious. “You’re scaring me now.” Amanda looked around the room, at the glaring overhead lights, at the medical equipment, at the IV in her arm. Then she took a deep breath.

The wail that followed emerged straight from her soul.

The hair on Duncan’s neck twitched in reaction to the agonizing cry no amount of comfort could touch. He looked at his newest coworker.

Tears overflowed Rebel’s eyes as she stood with hands clenched in front of her. Even the cop turned away.

“N-o-o-o. No. No. No.” She hopped off the gurney, her eyes wild. “You people are crazy! His dad always drops him off.” Her breathing came hard and fast.

“Amanda. Think back to this morning. Was there a change in your routine? Did you deviate…?” Rebel asked questions designed to trigger her memory.

“No!” She pointed a finger at Rebel. “Wait till I call my husband. He’s a lawyer, and he’ll…My husband…is…sick…today.” Amanda collapsed to her knees. Sobs croaked out of her in an unrelenting torrent of realization.

Rebel knelt beside her. “What happened? Can you tell me?”

“His office has daycare.” She huffed in a few breaths. “He always takes Eric. Always.”

“And he’s home sick today?”

Amanda nodded, then slumped over onto the floor. “I killed my son! Oh, God, I killed my son.”

“Eric is alive, Amanda. He’s not dead.”

Amanda sat up and grabbed Rebel by the shoulders. “You found him in time?” She hauled Rebel into an exuberant hug. “Oh, my God.” Now, sobs of relief overflowed. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

Rebel placed her arms around Amanda and looked at Duncan. Those beautiful green eyes of hers pleaded for his help and something inside him emerged. Whether it was the trained physician in him, the male protector of women and children, or he was just reacting to the pain in Rebel’s face, he didn’t know. He just knew he had to respond.

“Amanda, sit up. I’ll tell you about Eric, then we’ll take you to see him.” He assisted her to her feet, protecting Rebel from being overwhelmed. He offered a hand down to Rebel and brought her by his side. His instinct was to place his arm around her waist, to shield her from the pain they both knew was yet to come, knowing the story before it was even told. Instead, he took Rebel’s hand and led her to a chair. She was pale and her hand was clammy. Though she didn’t look it on the outside, he knew she was having great difficulty with this situation. Officially she wasn’t even an employee, and she’d gone above and beyond what was expected of her. She could just as easily have walked away, but she hadn’t. What heart she must have.

Duncan placed his hands on the shoulders of the sobbing woman. This was going to bite. “Amanda, pull yourself together. You need to be strong for Eric. Now take a breath and stop crying.”

In a few minutes she’d managed to subdue her emotions. Tears still dribbled from her eyes, but she could look at him. That was a start.

As the noon hour approached, Rebel felt about a hundred years older than her actual thirty. Days like this were why people left healthcare. Some days being a nurse just wasn’t worth it.

She’d been sitting outside the PICU where Eric had been taken. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want to leave just yet. Dr. McHunky had taken the mother inside to see Eric.

Rebel had plopped herself into a chair outside the unit and hadn’t been able to get up. Sitting outside an intensive care unit brought back so many overwhelming memories it shut her down. For years she’d been an unwilling participant in her family’s inherited illness, Huntington’s disease. Watching her brothers struggle to survive had forced her to grow up too quickly, to be too old too soon, to leave childhood behind too early. Events like today sucked her back in time to when she had been a frightened little girl watching her family be taken from her one by one.

The door to the unit swung open, and she shoved aside her past to dive into the present again. That’s what adrenal glands were for, right? Surges of adrenaline kept her going from one crisis to another in the ER, and that ability didn’t fail her now.

“So, how is he, Doctor?”

“It’s Duncan, please.” Though he patted her on the shoulder in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture, he looked as if he needed some comforting himself.

“Okay, Duncan. First tell me how he is then tell me how you are. You look like someone beat you with a hammer.” Lines of what could be grief or fatigue showed on his face. Though it was mid-morning, he looked like he’d been up all night.

A small smile twisted his lips and a little relief appeared in her eyes. Mission accomplished.

“I feel like someone beat me with a hammer.” He looked at his watch. “And it’s not even lunch yet.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a very long sigh. “I’ll be okay. I think. Eric’s critical, on a vent, the works. I’ve never seen so many tubes hooked up to a kid that size, and I thought I’d seen it all.”

“I’m so sorry.” She gave his arm a squeeze, intending to offer him some of the comfort she’d offer to any of her patients and families. His arm beneath her hand was warm and firm. Though this child wasn’t related to either of them, he was special and bonded the two of them together.

Duncan turned his dark-eyed focus fully on her, and she gulped at the intensity of him. When he focused on something, it was something else. His dark, dark eyes seemed to have no pupils. His aura nearly reached out to her, like some invisible cloak trying to cocoon her into its warmth.

“And how are you holding up?”

“I’m okay, I guess.” She shrugged. “Are you ever okay after an event like this?” She’d been through many traumas in her career as an ER nurse and some patient situations stuck with her, no matter how long ago they’d happened.

“You might want to go home. The paperwork for employment can wait until tomorrow.”

“I’m good, really—” Denial had gotten her through many tough situations in life, why not one more?

He gave her such a doctor look, knowing she wasn’t all right, knowing she’d been through the wringer today, and knowing she wasn’t telling the truth, that she actually felt a flash of shame.

“Rebel. We don’t always have time to shake off the vibes from work while in the midst of it. Take the time to relax and shake this off.” Duncan spoke like a man who had been on the front line of healthcare for a long time. That kind of experience didn’t come without a toll on the body and the psyche.

“Thanks. You’re right.” She nodded. “I usually like to meet with the charge nurse the day before I start and introduce myself to see who I’m going to be working with. Stuff like that.”

Duncan gave a snort as the elevator doors whooshed open. “I think you’ve had quite an introduction already. The entire staff knows who you are by now, so just go home. I’ll tell Herm.”

“If you’re sure it’s going to be okay…”

“It’ll be fine.” The elevators took them to the first floor, and they exited. “Today is an admin day for me, so I’m going to do the bare essentials and head to the gym. Always helps me blow off the stress of the day.”

“My apartment complex has a pool. Maybe I’ll take a swim.”

“Good idea. Don’t forget the sunscreen. At this elevation the rays are more intense. See you tomorrow.” He’d hate to see all that luscious skin damaged by the sun. It was beautiful and she obviously worked to keep it that way.

Rebel turned and held out her hand. Duncan took it. “I’d like to say it was a pleasure to meet you, but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to say.” She met his eyes and held his gaze. This was a very interesting man. Unfortunately, she hadn’t come here to be sidetracked by gorgeous doctors. Men and emotional relationships didn’t go with her long-term goals, so there was no use in establishing a short-term one either. Men were fine as friends and the occasional lover. Too many times she’d counted on a man and had been disappointed. She needed to be in control and if she were in a relationship, she lost that. Plain and simple.

“How about ‘See you tomorrow’?”

“Good enough.” They shook hands, and Rebel untangled her sunglasses from on top of her head and walked out into the bright June sunlight, determined to make it to her car before another disaster happened.

Hitching her backpack across one shoulder, she tried not to look at the scene of where they had found Eric. That, like so many other bad memories, already had a permanent place in her brain.

Thoughts of Duncan, however, lingered. How would it be to work side by side with such a dynamic man? She’d worked in many types of hospitals and clinics, and there had been plenty of handsome doctors to be had, but this one was different. Somehow, deep in her gut, she knew something was different about Duncan, and she itched to know what it was. Could it be that the intensity of the situation they’d just been through was making her see things that weren’t there?

She didn’t think so, as she’d been through many tough situations with many doctors in the past. Today, however, made her think more about what it would be like to have a man like that around her more often.

Those dark, dangerous eyes of his remained in her mind.

CHAPTER THREE

THE NEXT DAY dawned as bright and shiny as any she’d ever seen.

Until she arrived just before her morning shift to find the ER in complete chaos. This ER was shaping up to be just like most of the ones she’d worked in. Either it was complete bedlam, or the staff were falling asleep from sheer boredom.

She took a deep breath, shoved her backpack beneath the desk and hurried to the first busy room she found. “I’m your new traveler. Someone give me a job.”

A Hispanic man strode over to her with his glasses perched precariously on top of his graying hair and shoved a clipboard into her hands. “Here. Run the code. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Gulp. Running a code within thirty seconds of arriving. That was a record, but this was something she was fully capable of managing. She squeezed behind staff members who were performing all kinds of tasks around a patient who had been in a traumatic accident.

She looked at the clipboard. Pedestrian. Hit by a high-speed vehicle, thrown forty feet in the air. Possible neck and spine injuries. Probable head injury. Punctured one lung. Blood in the abdomen.

If he survived, he’d spend the next year in rehab all because someone hadn’t looked both ways. She read the cardiac monitor. His heart rate was fast, rhythm good.

“What do you need next, Doctor?” She hadn’t met any of the physicians yet, so she didn’t know who she was working with.

“Glad you’re here, Rebel. Call Radiology. Need a chest X-ray, abdominal films.” She knew the voice and a little bit of her relaxed, and a little of her got excited at the compliment. Although she couldn’t see his face behind the mask and goggles, she knew Duncan was in charge of this case. The sound of his voice was reassuring and made a funny squiggle in the pit of her stomach at the same time. The man had definitely made an impact on her senses yesterday.

“Got it.” She turned to the phone on the wall. Fortunately, there was an extensive phone list posted nearby. After the first call, she checked the monitor again. The heart rhythm had changed. Not looking good.

“Doctor. He’s had a rhythm change.”

Duncan twisted around and looked at it for himself. “Dammit. I was hoping we could get him to the OR before he crashed. Get a chest tube set up.”

She set the clipboard down. “Where are they?”

“There. One of the other nurses pointed to a cabinet right behind Duncan. Rebel squished her way through the bodies in the room to fetch the sterile tray, dropped it onto a portable tray table, opened it, and donned sterile gloves.

“I’m back.” The man who had given her the clipboard returned to take over.

“We’re putting a chest tube in on the left.” Rebel called out the information so he could catch up to where they were in the situation and record it. “Rhythm is V-tach. Rate one-eighty.” She prepared to assist Duncan with the procedure. Duncan removed his gloves, and she held out a new, sterile pair for him. A collapsed lung would be deadly along with all of his other injuries.

After insertion, blood poured through the tubing into the collection container and the heart monitor settled down. Rebel drew a deep breath. Yet another save before eight in the morning by a doctor she was coming to have confidence in very rapidly. “Good going, Doc.”

The only response was a connecting of glances and a nod. The tension of the code dwindled as the patient stabilized and was being prepared for transfer to the operating room for surgery.

“Rebel, right? What a name. I’m Hermano Vega, but call me Herm. I’m the charge nurse in this madhouse for today. You’re with me for orientation. The others can get him upstairs.”

Rebel shook his hand, liking his gentle, fatherly demeanor immediately. “Nice to meet you.”

“Quite the first day, no?” He echoed Duncan’s statement from earlier. “Come on. Let’s get you settled.” He turned and motioned for her to follow. Though she looked back as Duncan removed his protective gear, she went along with Herm. Somehow that man had gotten under her skin, and they’d only met yesterday.

“Great. What sort of torture do you have planned for me this morning?” There was always torture involved at the beginning of a new assignment.

Herm gave her a stern look over his glasses, and her gut twisted a little. Maybe she was being too flip too soon. Eek.

“The evil policy and procedure manual.”

Rebel relaxed. Yep. This was going to be just like every other ER she’d worked in. Torture with orientation material then release her to the wild.

“You’ve got the expedited orientation training to go through for travelers. Fire safety, infection control, HIPPA, etcetera. All online now. I’ll set you up with a computer terminal then we can talk about your schedule.” Schedule. The most important thing to keep staff happy. Aside from payday. And good coffee.

“Got it.” She looked around the station. “Is there by chance a cup of coffee somewhere I could snag first?”

“Oh, sure.” He gave a nod down the hall. “Grab what you need, then back here for the mind-meld the rest of the day. If you get it all done today, you can go home early.”

“Awesome.”

Rebel wandered down the hall to the staff-only area and the crazed energy of the main unit eased a bit until she opened the door to the small lounge. Then her heart fluttered when she saw Duncan in his blue scrubs, coffee in hand, leaning against the counter.

His eyes were closed, and he seemed lost in his thoughts. She paused a moment, uncertain whether or not to disturb him, but the smell of coffee called to her.

“Come in. I know someone’s there. I’m just perfecting my sleeping while standing up technique.”

With a little smile, Rebel entered the lounge. “I thought that’s what you were doing. Maybe you can give me some pointers for the next time I work a stretch of night shifts.”

Duncan opened his eyes a little, glad to hear her voice free of tension. Obviously she’d been able to let the stress of yesterday go. That was a good thing. Today she looked as gorgeous as she had yesterday. But her hair was up in a clip with little strands handing down to tease her face. He had to resist the urge to push some of that mass back behind her ear. Those weren’t the kinds of thoughts he should be having about a new coworker, but he seemed powerless to resist. He cleared his throat. “Not scared off after yesterday and walking into that trauma today?”

“Nope. You?”

“Nah.” His smile was self-deprecating. “I grew up with four sisters, four brothers and twenty-five cousins. I saw more trauma and drama than you’d guess by the time I was twelve.”

“I see. That’s a huge family.” Indeed. Hers had dwindled down to just her mother and herself, with a few cousins in the Mid-West somewhere.

“I’m guessing you didn’t come in here to chat, but need some liquid fortitude to get through the rest of the day Herm has planned for you.” He raised his coffee cup toward her.

“Psychic, too.” She nodded. “I’m impressed by your extensive set of unusual skills.”

Playful and flirtatious, she appealed to his lighter side. Duncan shoved away from the counter and poured her a cup of coffee, then handed it to her. “Additives are over there.” He indicated the powdered creamer and sweetener selection on the counter.

“Sorry, I’m a creamer snob.” She pulled out her own stash of flavored creamer and added it to the mug.

“Good to know.” He grinned.

Rebel noticed that Duncan watched her intently as she prepared her coffee. She wasn’t accustomed to such attention and she was a little uncomfortable with it. She’d spent years avoiding the intimacy of relationships, apart from a very occasional and very brief fling. Right now she wasn’t certain whether she was appreciative of, or offended by, Duncan’s focus.

The silence that hung between them went on for a few seconds too long as she ran out of things to say. Her charm only lasted so long.

“Well, I’d better go before Herm thinks I’ve run off.” She raised her mug. “Thanks.” Dropping her gaze away from him, she headed out to the safety of the unit and the dreariness of orientation.

Rebel sat in a corner of the ER away from the hustle and bustle around her, answering the incessant questions of the computer program. Have you located the fire alarms and fire extinguishers in your area?

She clicked “Yes,” although she was pretty certain she’d just raced by them on the way to the trauma this morning. That counted, didn’t it?

Staff occasionally would give her a wave, but no one stopped to chat. She supposed that was best for the moment. The next three months would give her plenty of time to make friends. These relationships were only temporary, lasting only as long as her assignment, then she moved on, to another hospital, another set of temporary friends, to relive the same life over and over again.

This lifestyle was one she’d chosen after losing most of her family to Huntington’s disease. There had been no hope for her father or three brothers, and they hadn’t even known it. Here, at least, she could save someone once in a while. Like yesterday.

Herm peeked in on her after a few hours. “Had enough yet?”

“Have a barf bag?” Humor in the workplace was a necessity for survival.

“Enough said. Come with me.” Rebel followed him to the nurses’ station and wondered what it was that he had for her to do.

“Am I going to like this job?”

Herm peered at her over his glasses again. A gesture she was coming to associate with him. Kind of like a beloved teacher overlooking his charges.

“Hard to say, but one set of papers is a follow-up from yesterday and then a scavenger hunt.” He handed the papers to her. “The ER is required to follow up on patients to see how successful our efforts have been.”

“I’m not quite getting that.”

“Did the patient survive the first twenty-four hours, any infections, any further injuries as a result of being resuscitated? Those sorts of questions that risk management people love to drool over.”

“Okay, now I’m with you.” She took the paper. It was filled front and back with questions. The flow chart from hell.

“See if you can find these departments without cheating, then you can take lunch. Cafeteria’s pretty good, coffee shop is close by, then come back up here.”

“Got it.”

Rebel didn’t know how, but she knew the instant Duncan approached them. Whether it was his energy, his cologne or some unknown force she was attuned to, she turned slightly, already knowing he would be there. Maybe it was having gone through the situation together yesterday, but she felt a strange connection to him. She was probably imagining things. Men like Duncan didn’t go for women like her. That was for sure. He was too much, too exciting, too dynamic, too over the top for a woman like her.

The same scenario had played out over and over on various travel assignments. Dashing doctor and super-nurse work side by side, saving lives, and one day they discover a new spark that has nothing to do with work and everything to do with the heat crackling between them. She’d seen it dozens of times, but it had never happened to her.

She rolled her shoulders against the twinge of guilt that nestled uncomfortably there. If she was honest with herself, it wasn’t that she hadn’t had opportunities, she’d run from them when someone had wanted to get close to her. Right now, it didn’t matter. Duncan was here to do a job, just like her. It didn’t matter how handsome he was or how much her heart fluttered when she thought of him.

In some dark place deep down inside her, if she was really, really honest, she’d admit that something about Duncan made her want to stop running, to take a chance on a relationship, see if there was a man who could love her despite the problems of her past, someone who would just love her and not worry about the time bomb ticking inside her. Loving someone again who would then reject her because of something inside her would be her worst nightmare.

Looking down into that place scared her. Made her afraid no one would be able to love her the way she needed to be loved. A man like Duncan made her want to take a chance.

CHAPTER FOUR

“OH—HI, DOC. Maybe you can help, too.” Herm included Duncan in the conversation, and Rebel turned toward him. Yes, he was definitely as handsome in scrubs as he was in street clothing. Possibly more, because scrubs had a way of stripping a person down to their basics—no frills or high-priced clothing to hide behind. From her first encounter with Duncan, she’d concluded he certainly had that. He didn’t skimp on his clothing. Not that she minded. She did admire a sharp-dressed man.

“Sure. What is it?” He stepped a little closer, and Rebel’s senses squealed. Oh, the man was too close for comfort. Though she could talk herself out of engaging in any sort of liaison with him, her senses reacted on their own volition.

Duncan looked at Rebel. She was tall, nearly as tall as he, and he could meet her clear green eyes almost head-on. Curious that she didn’t realize how attractive she was. Maybe she’d been burned, just like him. He gave a mental shake. No one had been burned like him. The arguments, the fights. And then the wreck. That was something he’d never get over. Refocusing, he looked away from Rebel.