Nash

“All righty, then. I’ll steer clear of the ER if I can avoid it because clearly I make you really uncomfortable. I just wanted you to know that I appreciated you reaching out when obviously you would rather poke your own eye out with a dull spoon. You’re a really nice girl, Saint. I’ve always thought you were.”

He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his hat and turned around and walked away from me. Once he was out of sight, I had to put a hand on my pounding heart inside my chest and concentrate on not hyperventilating. He always thought I was nice? Then how could he have encouraged me, urged me to go out of my comfort zone, and then act as though I didn’t exist? Heck, kiss another girl right in front of me when I thought he was there for me? How could he say those hateful things that made me feel ugly and worthless to this day? Pretty boys shouldn’t try to hurt nice girls … at least in a perfect world they shouldn’t.

I didn’t get any more time to dwell on it because one of the nurses came flying around the corner frantically looking for me.

“Crash on the interstate. Four cars involved, multiple injuries coming in. They need at least four rooms prepped, if not more. The ambulances are three minutes out, so it’s all hands on deck.”

I didn’t have time to worry anymore about Nash or the past or how off balance any time I was face-to-face with him made me. I shoved it all aside and settled firmly into the role I was most comfortable in. Here I had no questions, no doubts, I wasn’t shy or hesitant, I was confident and secure. I just went to work and did what I did best … helped other people.

It was a long and grueling shift. I had to stay late because after we had the accident victims taken care of, we had a fire, another accident, and not one, but two gunshot wounds. It was hectic and chaotic, and I appreciated that it gave me the chance to push aside all my emotions from my recent run-ins with Nash and categorize them as trivial and fleeting.

I was walking out, dragging my feet and unwinding my long hair from the tight bun on the top of my head, when I ran into the only person outside of my sister who I considered a friend here in Denver. Sunshine Parker was the assistant nursing director, my boss, and probably the most honest and forthright person I had ever met. She was just a tiny little thing, part Filipino, with jet-black hair and a smile that went on for days. She had made the transition to this emergency unit bearable considering all my weird social hang-ups that often made settling into a new environment challenging. She was a few years older than me, totally dedicated to her career and to helping people in need. I so wanted to follow in her footsteps. She was just like me, only she had no problems talking to people or interacting like a normal person. She also wasn’t struck dumb by simple conversation.

“Hey you. Rough day?”

I was rubbing my fingers hard into my scalp where my hair had been trapped, and had to admit I was exhausted. Today I’d seen an excessive amount of blood and guts, even for an ER, and my short conversation with Nash had worn me out. I felt awful for him and what he was going through, but it also grated on my nerves that I cared at all one way or the other. I wanted to be immune to him. Only that didn’t seem to be an option my hormones were allowing.

“I’ve had better. It was a busy one.”

She tossed her blanket of shiny hair over her shoulder and cocked her head at me.

“You are an amazing nurse, Saint.”

Those kind of compliments I could take. I grinned at her and pulled out my phone as it started to ring. The display showed my sister’s face, so I silenced the call and shoved the phone in my pocket. I loved Faith, hard, but lately the only time she called me was when something was up with our parents, more specifically our mom, and the drama could wait for a second.

“Thanks, Sunny. That’s always nice to hear, and coming from you it means a lot.”

She grinned at me and put a hand on my shoulder, which had to look comical because she was so much shorter than me.

“Right. So believe me when I tell you that you need to find more in your life than this ER, or any ER. This is a job, a career, and yes, it’s an important one, one that requires dedication and sacrifice, but it does not require that you lose yourself in it. You’re a lovely, brilliant woman who has a bright future ahead of her. I see a lot of similarities between the two of us. Believe me when I say none of that means anything if you don’t have anything else.”

I made a confused face at her and shifted my weight so that she had to drop her hand off my shoulder.

“What brought that on, Sunny?”

She gave a little laugh and flipped her long hair over her shoulder again.

“I heard a rumor Dr. Bennet asked you out for drinks the other night, and you turned him down cold. Why would you do that? He’s gorgeous, and you have work in common, so I know you would have things to talk about. Why didn’t you even consider it? It just makes me worry about you. You’ve been here for almost two years, and you never socialize with us, never open up. I like you. I want you to be living the best life possible.”

Dr. Bennet was the hospital’s catch. He was twenty-eight, built like a fitness model, and had wavy black hair and dreamy green eyes that made most of the nurses and any other female whose path he crossed turn to mush. He was a total Lothario, but a seemingly nice guy, and had been hinting around for the last six months that he would like to get to know me better outside of work. Generally, I brushed the attention off. I wasn’t the type of girl doctors wanted to date, and there was no way I was in the market for an office hookup—not when I could hardly act normal as it was. But he had flat-out asked me on a date on Thanksgiving. Instead of responding, or trying to stumble my way through a mumbled excuse, I’d rushed off the moment the Flight for Life info had come in bearing Phil Donovan’s name. I had seen the information on the chart, and I had the single-minded need to find Nash and see what was going on with him. I hadn’t exactly turned the doctor down, but whatever draw Nash still had was just more powerful than getting to know the handsome doctor better.

“Come on, Sunny. I don’t really think I’m Bennet’s type and I don’t go out because I don’t really have time. I work, and you know how crazy things have been with my mom. I do live a good life.”

“A good life is not the same thing as a fulfilled life, Saint. If the man is asking you out, then I would say you are most definitely his type. You need to buy a new mirror, one that accurately shows you what everyone else sees when they look at you. I’ll never understand how you can’t see that you’re pretty much every man’s type.”

I wanted to tell her she was wrong, I did see what everyone else saw, but no amount of spectacular cleavage, a nice hourglass figure, or pretty hair could overcome the fact I had a hard time connecting with people, that trusting someone enough to let go and lighten up was nearly impossible for me, or the fact that trying to make small talk and just act like a typical girl was almost an insurmountable task for me. I was always so worried about saying or doing the wrong thing. I was saved from leveling more excuses, more justification at her, by my phone going off again. I could practically see my sister’s frustrated face on the other end of the call.

“I have to take this, Sunny, but seriously, thank you for looking out for me.”

“Sure thing, my friend. Someone has to … you’re too busy caring for everyone else to care for yourself.”

As if to prove her point, as soon as I cleared the sliding glass doors at the entrance of the hospital, Faith’s voice rang shrill in my ear.

“Are you ignoring my calls?”

Faith and I were close. Since we were only a year apart, we had gone through school together until she graduated. Going away to college on the West Coast had been necessary for me, but it had also been hard to leave her behind. Now she was married to her college sweetheart. They had four kids under the age of seven and were expecting a fifth. She was the primary reason I had come back to Denver even though I loved the beach, missed the hospital and staff from my postgrad job in California, and had a really hard time returning to the town that reminded me of my younger self every day.

“No. I had to work late and got caught up talking to my boss on the way out. What’s up?”

I heard her sigh as one of the kids screamed in the background.

“Did you talk to Mom this week?”

Considering my week had been crazy and spent alternately punishing and berating myself over Nash, no, my mom has not been on my radar.

“No. I was busy. Why, did something happen to her?”

My parents had been married for over thirty years, twenty-five of them happily. At some point, while I was gone and Faith was starting a family, my dad had decided that being home alone with my mother was no fun. Unbeknownst to any of us, he had started seeing his much-younger dental assistant who worked with him at his practice. The marriage had struggled on until my mom couldn’t take the infidelity and insult anymore. As a result a seriously contentious and ugly divorce started two years ago. It was drawn out, filled with hate and bickering, and had turned my parents not only against each other but practically into strangers to Faith and me. That was the other reason I came home. I wanted my mom back.

My mom wanted us to have nothing to do with my dad. She was angry, irrational, and all her focus had been on Faith and the kids. It was driving my sister bananas, and after one too many teary and desperate phone calls, I had applied at Denver Health Medical Center and had come home to help out and try and minimize the damage. My mom was on the brink of a meltdown. I could see it coming like speeding lights at the other end of the tunnel, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to prevent it. She was self-medicating, taking pills and drinking her weight in wine to try and deal with the hurt. It sucked for all of us because even though my dad’s actions hurt us all, it was impossible just to cut him entirely out of our lives, and that drove my mom crazy.

“Yes, something happened. One of the neighbors called me to let me know that the fire department was out at the house. Apparently she went to the backyard and put all the old family photos in the barbecue and decided to burn them.”

I groaned and made my way to the parking lot where my car was.

“Seriously?”

Faith exhaled and I could hear how tired she was. “Yeah. The fire got out of control because of the wind and the amount of lighter fluid she used. It caught part of the backyard on fire. I guess it wouldn’t have been a huge deal if Mom had reacted, tried to put water on it or something, but the neighbor said she just stood there and watched it burn while laughing like a lunatic until the fire department arrived. She could have burned the entire neighborhood down. The homeowners’ association isn’t happy.”

She hollered something at one of the kids and muttered something at her husband while I got in the car and turned on the engine.

“She’s going off the deep end, Saint, and I don’t know how to stop it. She’s going to end up in a mental ward or in jail if we don’t figure something out. She’s gone from a handful to a menace. What if she tries to hurt herself?”

I had to crank the radio off when a Band of Skulls song came blasting out as the car started. I turned up the heat and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel.

“I’m off on Thursday. I’ll go and talk to her.”

“Oh, Saint, don’t. It just makes both of you upset. I just needed to vent to someone. I’m so tired of both of them.”

“This is so sad, Faith. Someone needs to try and talk some sense into her. So she got dumped, it’s not the end of the world. I know she took Dad’s cheating really hard, is having a hell of a time with the new girlfriend, but she really needs to stop it and move on. We did.” I think it had been easier for me because I never really had any expectations of a man ever being able to be faithful to one woman.

Faith snorted and I heard the connection rustle as she shifted the phone from one shoulder to another.

“Says the girl who let one mean boy spoil her on love for the last eight years. Face it, Saint, the women in this family do not deal well with heartache.”

I must have made an involuntary noise because her voice got sharp when she asked, “Did you see him again?”

I blew a breath out between my teeth and closed my eyes and let my head flop back on the seat. I never should have mentioned running into Nash when he came to pick up Rome after that bar fight a few months ago. All I wanted to do was go home, take a hot shower, and wash this day down the drain.

“He has a family member in the oncology unit at the hospital. I’ve run into him a couple times.”

She made a growling noise in the back of her throat that had me chuckling at the protective gesture.

“Did you tell him to go to hell?”

Faith had long thought that I needed to tell Nash off, tell him how horrible his careless words had felt, and leave the damage he had done firmly at his door. She thought he was a thorn in my side that needed to just be yanked out quick and clean.

“No. I pretty much just turn into a mime around him. I just gape at him and stare at him awkwardly until he gets uncomfortable and goes away.”

She laughed a little and I heard her husband ask her a question.

“It really is too bad he didn’t gain a bunch of weight or come down with some weird flesh-eating disease that made him hideous to look at.”

I drew a heart on the fog in the window with my index finger.

“No. He still looks really good, better than he did in high school, just a lot more tattooed … and you know, built.” He was ridiculously handsome, and those eyes … God, those eyes were made to drop panties.

“That sucks and you shouldn’t be noticing that. You should be telling him to eat shit and die. Stay away from him, Saint. For your own good. Look, I have to go. Justin needs me to watch the kids while he finishes dinner.”

“I’ll give you a ring after I talk to Mom.”

“Ugh, all right. I still think that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.” Her confidence was overwhelming, but I needed to make sure my mother hadn’t really gone too far over the edge in her heartbreak.

“Probably, but it has to be done. Kiss the kids for me.”

“I will. Seriously, Saint, steer clear of Nash Donovan. I don’t think your heart ever mended from the first time he stomped on it.”

I told her good-bye and tossed the cell on the passenger seat next to me.

She was right. My heart had never been the same after everything he had put it through. Even if he hadn’t known I had feelings for him, even if he had come across as a nice guy for a few fleeting encounters, the way he had blindly destroyed all that was just unforgivable, even now.

Once I had gone off to college and got out on my own, things had started to change for me. The healthy California lifestyle changed my physical appearance, and the fact that no one out there knew who I was, didn’t know I was a nerd with no friends, made talking to people easier. It also made handling attention from boys not exactly easy, but manageable, and as such I started to date casually. Some of the guys I liked more than others, some I loosened up enough with to let them get past first base and even second, but it wasn’t until I took my first job at a hospital in Los Angeles and met a male nurse named Derek that I was comfortable enough, trusted someone enough, to actually go to bed with him.

We had dated for three months, he was nice, had the same passion for the medical and health-related field and helping others that I did, and he was really, really cute. He seemed to like me, like a lot. He told me over and over that he thought I was funny, smart, pretty, and fun to be around, and he never pushed me. Things had progressed naturally … one thing led to another, and we ended up in bed together. That was where the one and only relationship I had ever attempted to have fell apart. The idea of being naked, stripped down and exposed to anyone, terrified me. The thought of being judged and found lacking had me breaking out in hives and into a cold sweat. There was nothing romantic or sexy about a girl struggling through sex, crying all over you, and bolting for the door as soon as it was over.

But Derek had seemed like a wonderful guy and wanted to stay with me, wanted to work on it, and eventually wore me down to the point that I had agreed to give the entire relationship another try. Only sex never worked the way I wanted it to, really never went the way he wanted it to, and it wasn’t long before I found him in the arms of another one of the nurses on our rotation. Of course she wasn’t crying when I walked in on them at his apartment. The betrayal had stung and it had completely reinforced that I couldn’t really trust a guy, that they would always pick a sure bet over a girl with hang-ups and insecurities any day. Besides, Derek had always been way more into me than I was into him, and frankly, having an excuse to walk away when he seemed so nice and caring was actually a relief. It was exhausting trying to force it, to try and pretend like sex was getting better and more enjoyable … I didn’t blame him for wanting to take a girl that behaved normally to bed.

Moving forward, there had been a guy or two along the way who I had been interested enough in to try it out again with, thinking a one-night stand would be less pressure. I thought that if the guy didn’t know me, didn’t know how I worked, maybe I could keep the irrational fear of rejection and ugly judgment at bay. It never worked. I always felt sick and just wanted it to be over with, so after the second time I was called a frigid tease, I decided to stop trying to make something happen. I stopped thinking ordinary boy-girl stuff was in my future.

I didn’t blame Nash and what he had done entirely for all of my hang-ups. A lot of them were bred into me by simply being me. I was the odd one, the one that didn’t really fit. Faith was tall like I was, she also sported bright red hair, but hers was manageable and I don’t think she ever had a zit in her life. She was cheerful and popular, played volleyball, and was on all kinds of committees and in clubs. She was the perfect mix of both my parents and somehow still managed to be a sweet and delightful girl. No one seemed to know what to do with me, even at home, where I knew I was loved unconditionally. Even with that, in an effort to help, my parents put me on diet after diet, dragged me to dermatologist after dermatologist, and enrolled me in activity after activity, all of which just proved to be waste of money. I knew their intentions were good, that they wanted me to come out of my shell and live a full life, but all they succeeded in doing was making me feel inferior and awkward in my own skin.

Of course none of my issues had been helped when right about the time Derek had proved to me that men were not to be trusted, my dad had decided that he was bored with my mom and that he wanted to trade her in for a newer model. It didn’t matter that we were a loving, caring, rock-solid family unit that helped and supported each other. No, what mattered was a pair of perky boobs and a toothy smile that made him feel ten years younger. He didn’t think twice about breaking our family apart, and I was left with a bone-deep understanding that men always picked the easy choice. If you put a pretty girl, someone that was obtainable and glossy in front of them, their penis was ultimately going to make a choice for them, and that sucked.

Even though I knew he wasn’t for me, I had built an extravagant fantasy around who I thought Nash was back in the day. I liked that he was into art, thought the allure of him painting graffiti and being into tattoos and piercings was dangerous and cool. Most teenage girls did. I thought he was different, thought the way he interacted with me at our lockers made him above the way the rest of the typical teenage boys in our school treated me. When I found out how wrong I was, it had shattered me and just dug the pit where my sense of self and all the shattered pieces of confidence had fallen even deeper. It had taken becoming a nurse, finding a greater purpose, to enable me to go into that deep, dark hole and get all those fragments of myself out. I wasn’t entirely whole, but I was a far sight better off than I had been as a teenager.

Faith was right. Ford women didn’t deal well with heartache, and I was loath to admit that one drunken kiss from Nash had more of an effect on me, got more of a response out of me, than all three months of the gentle wooing Derek had offered me. I was shrewd enough to know that wasn’t good, and I needed to take Faith’s stern warning and steer clear of him. Nash Donovan wasn’t good for my sense of self or good for keeping my life in the neat and orderly, straightforward way it was running now.

CHAPTER 5

Nash

I was running on empty and getting increasingly short-tempered. Instead of working noon to seven, I was having to go in at nine and stay until eight or later to make up for all the people I had screwed over by skipping their appointments in the midst of my mental breakdown the previous week. My appointment book was always pretty full, so trying to reschedule an entire week’s worth of work wasn’t just a nightmare for me, but also had Cora ready to choke me.

I was also trying to spend each lunch break visiting Phil, which meant there wasn’t a moment of downtime in my entire day. He wasn’t doing so great. His lungs had water in them and one of the pain medications they had him on wasn’t agreeing with his stomach, so he was having a hard time keeping anything down. It was hard to see him like that, like he was just wasting away right before my eyes. Seeing him fading away from me had hundreds of questions rattling around in my mind. I really wanted to pin him down and get the story from him. The shock had worn off some and now I wanted answers. I wasn’t scared of his response anymore. There was no way Phil was ashamed or unhappy that I was of his blood.

I could’ve just hounded my mom until she gave the details up, but dealing with her was always a nightmare and I didn’t know that she could be bothered to tell the truth. Cora mentioned that her dad seemed to be privy to the insider information and she was totally open to prying the story out of him if I wanted. Her dad and Phil had been enlisted in the navy together years ago and had maintained a tight bond over the years.

I told her to hold off because I needed to give the people who’d been involved, who’d let me live a lie for so long, the right to explain their decisions. However, if Phil didn’t decide to stop stonewalling me soon, I was going to take her up on the offer and not feel one ounce of guilt over it.

I was the only one in the shop. I had to finish a zombie Hello Kitty tattoo on a girl’s leg. I was so over zombies. Every day it was zombie Elvis, zombie Marilyn, zombie Harry Potter … it was all zombies all the time. I mean I always made sure to give one hundred percent attention and dedication to every tattoo I put on a client. I owed them nothing less considering they would be sporting my artwork forever, but really I wondered if a lot of the younger clientele who ended up in my chair gave any thought to the passing trends. In five years zombie Elvis wasn’t going to seem nearly as cool as it did now, so I had to make sure it was at least an awesomely done tattoo even if the subject matter wouldn’t always be relevant.

I was just finishing up and looking at the clock that sat on the front desk to see if I had time to go to the hospital, and was surprised when the front door to the shop swung open and Rowdy came strolling in. Rowdy St. James looked like a modern-day James Dean. He had a retro-cool vibe that was all his own and he was one of the funniest guys I had ever met. He made the atmosphere in the shop more lighthearted, since Rule could be such a dick and Cora liked to cause drama and be in everybody’s business. I lifted an eyebrow at him and finished wrapping the girl and her zombie up.