Only His: A Second Chance Romance (Second Chances Book 2) Read online

  “Dr. O’Collins. This is Carla and Trina.” I smile at both of the nurses and nod. My fingers trace the outline of my stethoscope that I shoved into my pocket at the last moment. “Our resident,” Dr. Howard says to them with a pointed look. What does that look mean? Then he launches back into a detailed care plan for one of the patients in the ER.

  I blink hard, trying to snap myself out of the stupor I’m in from the stressful drive. Is there going to be a chance when I can mention that I just drove six hours, that I’ve been flying since early this morning, that I thought this was only going to be an orientation at most?

  I swallow all the words bursting to jump out of my mouth and direct one hundred percent of my focus to what Dr. Howard is saying. All of that—all of those petty complaints—are bullshit. How long have these nurses been on shift, to begin with? I don’t know what I’m even thinking. My heart picks up the pace. If I’m starting my residency right now, then I’m starting it right now.

  “Follow me,” Dr. Howard says, just as I’m starting to pick up the rhythm of what he’s saying.

  I don’t hesitate. I just follow him.

  By the time we reach the first exam room, there’s a clipboard and pen in my hands, and I have officially started my residency.

  Too late to back out now.

  Dr. Howard doesn’t seem to care that it’s my first day on the job.

  I act like I don’t care, either, but my heart is in my throat for the first two hours.

  It doesn’t occur to me to ask when my shift will end. After three hours, I figure that it will never end, that I’ll be at Lockton Community Hospital forever. That’s when the tension in my lower back finally starts to relax. If I’m going to be here for the rest of my life, then there’s nothing else to worry about except what’s right in front of me.

  I go through the motions of charting for Dr. Howard. Of repeating the exams he does on the patients. Of taking preliminary vitals. I never thought of Lockton as having a busy ER, but it does. By the fourth hour, it’s pretty clear that there aren’t enough nurses or doctors to go around.

  “Test results for Mr. Bahnhoff,” he says, not looking up from the chart in his hands.

  “What test—?” I choke off the question before it’s all the way out of my mouth. Dr. Howard gives me an incredulous look, like he can’t believe I’d even be asking.

  The nurses’ station is where it is.

  I choke back my pride. “Carla.” The middle-aged nurse with curly blonde hair looks up from the computer screen. “Dr. Howard wants me to get the test results for Mr. Bahnhoff.”

  Carla gives me a giant, radiant smile, one like I’ve never seen on another human, and leans in close. “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s your first day. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  I don’t realize I’ve been gritting my teeth until that moment. I can’t help but smile back at Carla. “What test results?”

  “Mr. Bahnhoff had a CT scan earlier today. Here’s where you want to look for these things.” She shows me a plastic folder organizer situated on the desk next to the computer, the digital system where I can double-check results, and a dozen other things that will be absolutely indispensable for me to do the job.

  If I can remember even one of these things by tomorrow, I’ll be all right.

  “Like my husband says,” Carla finishes, “just think of it as one shift at a time.” Then she winks at me. “He misses me when I’m gone.”

  Something in my gut turns over, but I don’t have time to dwell on the fact that nobody misses me. Nobody’s waiting at home. At the home I’ve never been to. I bought it sight unseen two months ago and spent the rest of my time getting packed up and ready to move back to Lockton.

  I return Carla’s smile and grab the test results for Mr. Bahnhoff.

  Nothing else matters.

  Chapter Four

  Crosby

  The hardware store is a damn nightmare.

  People are crammed into the snow removal aisle to grab the last of the shovels, and every single customer seems to have some kind of problem with their credit card or their wallet or remembering what money is, because the line to check out takes forever. I sweat inside my winter coat, the tiles a solid and dead weight in my hands.

  All I want is a beer.

  And then maybe something stronger.

  Maybe three somethings.

  At the end of it, I can go home to my silent house.

  I tell myself for the thousandth time that I love the dead quiet. Then I’m even with the checkout counter.

  The girl working the register, a bubbly blonde, smiles up at me like she wants to take a bite. She reaches across and scans the bar code on the box of tiles without breaking eye contact.

  It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes.

  “You working on these tonight?” she says, punching in a button on the register without looking at it.

  “Yep.”

  “Need any help?” The smile gets wider, more seductive, and it makes me sick. I shift the weight of the tiles to my other hand and yank my wallet out of my back pocket. It hits the countertop with a soft thud.

  “Credit card’s in there. The one right in the front.”

  “All right.” The smile doesn’t flicker. Instead, she narrows her eyes like I’m even better prey. I want to snarl at her that she’s never going to be my type, but even I know I’d be full of shit. Get a few drinks in me later on, and I might even take her home.

  Right now, I just want to get away from her.

  She takes her sweet time ringing me up. So long that I can’t stand it.

  “Listen, I don’t have—”

  “Here’s your wallet,” she chirps, cutting me off, and sets it on top of the tiles, receipt folded neatly underneath. “Come back soon.”

  Since I have no other choice, I will.

  I leave without another word.

  The snow has turned into tiny shards of ice, and I reach up with one hand to pull the hood of my jacket over my head as it pelts against me. The parking lot is coated in it. It’s fucking treacherous. When are they going to put out salt? Jesus.

  I get to my truck and load the tiles into the cab, slamming the door shut behind them.

  “Shit!”

  The word echoes across the parking lot, and I move toward the sound on instinct. One row across, a woman is wrestling an overloaded bag into the back of a Subaru, and it’s slipping. She can’t get her boots to grip on the ice. I don’t know what the hell is in the bag that’s making it so heavy, but I close the gap between us in four steps.

  “I got it,” I bark, and I catch a look at her face. She’s pretty in a round-faced kind of way, pink cheeks, curly auburn hair peeking out from the sides her hat.

  “No, it’s okay—”

  “Let me help.”

  I get my arms under the weight of the bag.

  “Wait—”

  I don’t register what she’s said until I’m already moving it toward the trunk of the Subaru, and she says it again, lower, more urgently.

  “Wait!”

  “What for what?”

  The bag is heavy, but whatever’s inside is mostly just awkward. I want to get the fucking thing out of—

  “My hand—”

  That’s when I feel that her hand is caught between my arm and whatever’s inside the bag. She wrenches it backward. Under any other circumstance, it wouldn’t matter, but the ice on the ground throws us both off balance and the bag falls. The damn bag falls.

  As it tumbles toward the ground, it shifts and turns, and I reach for it, trying to catch it, going down on my knees on the ice, hard. One of my kneecaps slams to the ground—that’ll leave a bruise—and the bag comes down a second later, something crunching inside and cutting straight through the flesh below my thumb. I can’t get a grip after that, and the whole thing crashes down, something ceramic-sounding shattering inside.

  “Fuck.”

  “Oh, no,” murmurs the girl, going down on one knee in front of
me. “Oh, man.”

  “What was that?” The pain arcs through my hand, and hot blood fills my palm. “Shit. Shit.”

  For the first time, the girl glances up from the bag. “Your hand!”

  “It’s cut.” This is the understatement of the year, no contest.

  “I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  She wraps her arms around the bag, scooping it up, and barely manages to get her foot underneath her to stand. The parking lot is a death trap, and I get to my feet like there’s something I can do.

  As usual, there’s nothing I can do, except wrap the sleeve of my jacket around the blood pulsing out of my palm. “Sorry about the bag.”

  I don’t hear her reply. It’s lost in the wind.

  Well, I’m not going back to Mrs. Greaves’ house right now. This is going to need stitches.

  It’s a real bitch to drive to the urgent care just on the outskirts of downtown Lockton, and the minute I pull into the parking lot, I know it was a wasted effort. The windows are dark. I pull in as close as I can to the front doors and squint through the snow to read the sign on the front door. I missed it by five minutes.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” The words mix in with the noise from the radio. I want to slam my hand down onto the steering wheel, but I stop myself at the last second.

  Christ, the last place I want to go is the ER. I’ll be there for hours. I’ll never get to the bar.

  But it’s either that or bleed out.

  I let out a bitter laugh. Wouldn’t that be an entertaining headline? Local Man Dies After Going to the Bar Instead of the Hospital.

  Not for me.

  I back the truck up and turn around, heading for the highway once again. Another wave of blood pulses out of my flesh, and I blink against a wave of dizziness.

  The headline doesn’t seem so funny anymore.

  Chapter Five

  Lacey

  I’m at the nurses’ station, getting a few more pointers from Carla, when the phone rings. She breaks off our conversation mid-sentence and picks up the phone. “ER nurses’ station.” Her voice goes from warm to clipped and professional, and after another few moments, she slams the phone back down into its cradle. She just has time to shout “incoming!” when sirens start blaring at close range.

  Carla takes off, and the three other nurses on duty come flying out of the rooms they’ve been in, heading rapidly toward the ambulance bay.

  And me? I stand there like an idiot. I don’t know what to do. I’m pinned in place by a paralyzing wave of adrenaline.

  This is the first real emergency of the night, and I’m at a loss for what to do.

  Until I’m not.

  Dr. Howard comes sprinting by. “Cover them.” He waves behind him in the general direction of the waiting room and triage station. That’s all it takes. I snap back into the cool professionalism I mastered in med school, but underneath it all, my heart is hammering against my rib cage. If a serious case walks in right at this moment, it’s going to be on me until Dr. Howard is free. The thought rings over and over again in my mind, clear as a bell. This is my first day. This is my first day. This is my first day.

  No. It is not my first day. It is my first day of residency, but I have been working toward this day for eight years. I can handle it.

  And handling it means getting shit done.

  So get shit done, I will.

  I move behind the nurses’ station and pull out the folders for the patients I’ve been monitoring and start writing notes on the charts. Charting, I already know, is a mountain that can never be fully climbed, but we have to keep up with it anyway. Since the triage nurse isn’t bringing anybody through, I have a spare few minutes.

  It’s hard to ignore the urgent voices coming from the bigger suite around the corner, where they’ve taken whoever arrived in the ambulance. I don’t know whether I’d rather be in that room or out here. I’m glad, for once, that I don’t have a choice.

  Notes upon notes, and I’ve only been here for a few hours. I get a glimpse straight into my future—hours and hours of my life devoted to this—and I have to shove the thought deep. It’s all part of the job. It just doesn’t seem to leave room for anything else, like a husband. Or a family.

  My jaw clenches. That doesn’t matter. There’s only one man I’ve ever wanted those things with, and he’s—

  There’s a commotion near the triage station, and I snap my head up to see what it is.

  “Sit down, sit down.” Linda’s voice rings out through the room, then it lowers. I can’t see what’s happening, but it looks like she’s got a patient seated in the chair by her desk. Their voices rise and fall while she takes his information, runs his insurance card through the scanner.

  I finish the notes.

  The next thing I know, she’s leaning across the desk. “Dr. O’Collins?”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve got an urgent case. Room four.”

  I give her a confident smile, while my stomach lurches. “Thanks, Anne.”

  She nods at me and turns back to finish inputting the information into the hospital’s main system.

  I pick up my clipboard and pen, straighten my back, and go to room four without delay, even though I want to run outside, shouting that this is my first day and I don’t know what to do.

  Three quick knocks on the doorframe, and I head through it, ready to greet the patient with something painted on my face that’s between a smile and a look of doctoral wisdom. “Good evening.” I keep my voice even, yet warm. “I’m Dr. O’Collins, and—”

  “Lacey?”

  For the first time, I register the face. I register the cut lines of his jaw, of his cheekbones. I register the dirty blond hair peeking out from underneath a workman’s beanie. I register the hard body underneath the sleek winter jacket.

  My breath stops in my throat. My heart beats once, twice, three times. And heat, so much heat, floods to my cheeks.

  It’s Crosby King.

  He looks up at me from his spot on the bed, his green eyes flashing. My heart restarts itself. I’m not going to pass out on the floor.

  I just need to get my mind back under control. It’s already begun a rapid spin back into the past, back into the first semester of college, back into Crosby standing at my door, jaw tight and hard. We’re over, Lace. Stay the hell away from me.

  You don’t mean it, I’d cried. You can’t mean it.

  And the way he’d growled, I’ve never meant anything more in my life.

  The way that was the last time I saw him until right this minute.

  It comes to a violent halt when I see the way his sleeve is bunched tightly around his palm, and all my instincts from med school take over. I move to the sink, not hesitating a second more, and I turn on the water, hot. “What happened?” I’m all business, even if my heart is going crazy underneath the surface.

  “I cut my hand.” I can feel his eyes on my back, even though I’m facing away. Towel off. Gloves. Then I hook my foot around the base of a wheeled stool and glide over.

  “I’m going to need to take a look.”

  He sticks his hand out from his sleeve, and blood wells out of the cut. I reach for the supply drawer and whip out sterile gauze. It doesn’t begin to keep the blood at bay. It takes another long moment before I feel it: the sheer electricity running between us, even though I’m wearing gloves, even though our skin isn’t touching. And how much—God, how much—I want our skin to be touching.

  “Well, Crosby, you’re going to need some stitches. Luckily, I can help you with that.”

  My voice hardly trembles.

  Chapter Six

  Crosby

  It’s her, standing right in front of me, dressed like a doctor, white coat and everything. My pulse skyrockets. My hand bleeds more. My cock twitches underneath the zipper of my jeans.

  Even through the gloves she’s wearing, the contact against my wrist—her fingers, brushing my skin so lightly—sends f
ire straight up my arm and through my entire torso.

  I blink hard, once, twice.

  Is it really her?

  It’s definitely the woman I saw in the intersection. Her hair is the same. Her face is the same. My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

  Her voice—as low and smooth as it ever was, but a woman’s voice now, not a girl straight out of high school—cuts straight to my damn heart.

  I never saw this coming.

  Even the nurse in the triage room, who didn’t flinch when she saw the gash in my hand, didn’t give me any warning. She said I’d be seeing Dr. Howard.

  This is no Dr. Howard.

  The blood is already seeping through the layer of gauze, so she adds another, pressing it down firmly but with a gentleness that nearly undoes me right there. Then she reaches up and brings my other hand down on top of it, standing up at the same time.

  “Wait right here. I’ll be right back.”

  Then she glides back out into the main ER area, and I slump forward, finally taking a full breath.

  Holy fuck.

  Everything about her lights me up on fire. I don’t know what the hell I imagined all these years—that I’d be able to act like it wasn’t a big deal? I’m barely hanging on by a thread.

  Plus, my hand is bleeding more and more by the second.

  Lacey comes back a minute later with a middle-aged guy in tow, dark hair making him look freakishly young and old at the same time. “Dr. Howard.” He doesn’t try to shake my hand. Smart guy.

  Lacey takes in one deep breath, then starts describing the cut to him. The words flow back and forth between them, but it’s getting hard to focus my eyes.

  Then she’s back on the stool in front of me, Dr. Howard hovering just behind her. What she’s saying comes in bursts like she’s talking through static on an old TV, but her movements are steady, professional.

  “…remove the gauze…local…”

  She applies something to the cut to numb it, and I look down at the white sheet on the bed while she cleans it out, preps for stitches, guides the needle in and out of my skin. Dr. Howard adds minimal commentary. It’s over in ten minutes. Lacey wraps up the hand to protect the stitches, then looks up into my face.