Beck shook his head. “Actually, I never got round to it before I joined SWAT.” So Beck had been a military field medic who was now a police officer on the special weapons and tactics team. Who would ever have thought?
“That’s a shame because, from what I’ve heard, you’ve got the knack.” Gavin shifted back to Jan. “I’ve already told him what a great nurse you are.” In a subversively charming way, Gavin smiled. He wasn’t kidding anyone, least of all her. He was merely blowing smoke up her stethoscope to soften her up before he dropped the bomb. “You’ll be assisting him tonight.”
Gulp. She fought back a cough. No way could she work with him.
“Wherever he goes, whatever he needs, you see to it he gets it. I’ve seen Beck work. He doesn’t need me breathing down his neck unless something big comes in.”
Dark brown hair, pale skin, lips ripe for kissing, hazel eyes that could make a girl do something she’d never planned—a face she’d never thought she’d see again.
Her mind drifted back to the couple in the parking lot. The last time she’d been swept off her feet by a kiss had been with Beck. A quick memory popped into her head of how her knees had buckled the first time he’d kissed her, and how he’d had to hold her up by backing her against the lockers in the school hallway. Standing before her was something much more disturbing than the high-school version. Beck had grown into a mature and dangerously attractive man, though he didn’t act as though he knew it.
Her stomach backflipped and stuck the landing with a quick punch of pain.
“Got it?” Gavin challenged.
Jan prayed that thirteen years, a name change, and an extreme make-over might throw Beck off her trail. No longer January Stewart, the popular high-school prom queen, now she was a once-divorced, radically toned-down version of her former self. Everything about her was different, from her last name to bobbed dark blond hair instead of long brash platinum waves cupping her waist. She wore glasses now instead of contacts, and had gained a handful of strategically placed pounds. He really shouldn’t recognize her. Should he?
“Got it,” she mumbled, wiping her nose with a tissue to disguise her face, her voice sounding gravelly from her tickling throat.
“Thanks,” Beck said. “And it’s nice to meet you.” Something flickered in his eyes when he reached for and shook her other hand. Recalling how his eye color could change from day to day depending on what he wore, she quickly looked away before her warming cheeks became too obvious, but not before she’d already noticed they were gray-blue today. His hand felt calloused, as if he was no stranger to hard work. That made sense for the street tough kid who’d always longed for adventure. Legions of awakening nerve endings marched up from her hand to her arm and fanned out across her shoulders.
A fond memory of how secure she’d once felt holding his hand flashed into her mind. She loosened her grip and let her hand slip free, anything to stop the reaction, but her mind refused to shut down.
Never in a million years would she ever have guessed he’d become a police officer. He’d done everything in his power to act like an outlaw in his teens, always getting into fights and not caring what anyone, including teachers, had to say.
Her lips tickled at the edges with the absurdity. But he’d never have dreamed she’d become a nurse, either. “Most likely to be a movie star.” Wasn’t that what her high-school annual had predicted for her? Heck, they’d even inserted a pair of sunglasses over one of her rare candid pictures with the caption, “Bright future. Must wear shades.”
Carmen strode around the ER desk and plopped a clipboard in Gavin’s hand. “Full moon’s apparently already rising. We’ve got a level-one trauma in transit. A gunshot wound. ETA five minutes,” she said with her usual aplomb.
Grateful for the distraction, Jan went on alert.
“Is this gang related?” Dr. Riordan asked.
“Not sure, but he fits the age range and the neighborhood.”
“Notify Security and lock down the ED waiting room just in case.”
“Already have,” Carmen retorted.
Gavin lifted his brows, tilted his head and trained his dark eyes on Beck. “Are you off duty yet?”
“Just about.”
“Then you’d better get changed.”
* * *
Adrenaline pumped through every vein in Beck’s body in the men’s locker room. Wasn’t that what he lived for? The mention of a gunshot wound sent his mind spiraling back to his last tour of duty. Though gunshot wounds had been common, they had been the least of his worries then. What still haunted him were IEDs—improvised explosive devices—and lost body parts and burns, plus the fact you could never easily identify the difference between the enemy and the local allies. To this day he tensed whenever he passed an abandoned car at the side of the road.
Beck forced himself to focus on the job at hand. He’d learned that was all he could ever do. Think of it as another adventure. One more for the file.
Something else butted into his thinking. Why did that nurse seem so familiar? She wasn’t exactly his type, but an odd current had traveled up his arm when they’d shaken hands. She hadn’t looked him in the eyes, and with lightly tinted glasses like those, it had been hard to read her expression. She’d seemed to squirm, and it surprised him. Usually, women reacted much more welcomingly to his touch. He shook his head. He should be focusing on the incoming GSW, yet…there was something very familiar about her.
After stripping and throwing on a pair of thread-worn scrubs, he realized he only had his work boots for shoes. Looking around the room, he spotted some extra-large OR shoe covers and slipped them on over his boots. Tucking in and tying the waistband on his scrubs, he rushed toward Gavin Riordan, the man offering his ER and saving him three weeks’ intensive training in North Carolina. Along with everyone else, he waited at the ambulance entrance for hell to break loose as they all applied personal protective gear.
And there she was again, the nurse, waiting beside Gavin. Her height and oval-shaped face definitely reminded him of his high-school sweetheart. Some sweetheart she’d turned out to be. No sooner had he left for bootcamp then she’d torn his heart out of his chest and stomped on it. Focus, Braxton, focus.
One thing struck him about the ER: it was so much quieter here than in the field. Then, boom, the ambulance entrance doors flew open, and Gavin and the trauma team jumped into action around the gurney.
“Got the call a half hour ago,” the first EMT said.
“It’s a penetrating injury. Gunshot wound to right chest wall with possible pneumothorax,” the second EMT said, while assisting the semi-conscious young patient’s breathing with an ambubag as the team rolled the stretcher down the hall.
Beck remembered the term “the golden hour”, the most important sixty minutes in any trauma patient’s life if he was to survive. Though things might look chaotic, there was, in fact, a planned system by the attending doctor and his team for checking the ABCs—airway, breathing, circulation—and making primary and secondary surveys of the patient.
“No other obvious injuries noted.” The EMT gave them the run-down
