Nash (9 page)

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