went, he’d gained more than he’d expected, although it was less than he’d wanted. What really felt good, though, was finally seeing Leah with her normal spark instead of appearing as if all the life had been sucked out of her.
“Fine,” she said a trifle waspishly, “but I’m adding a condition, too. You’ll stay until he releases you.”
“Okay, but he will release me tomorrow morning.” He glanced at his colleague. “Won’t you, Jeff?”
Jeff appeared more interested in the tug-of-war between Leah and Gabe than in Gabe’s capitulation. “If nothing horrible shows up on your cultures and you don’t spike any fevers, then you have my word you’ll be out of here in twenty-four hours.”
Gabe leaned his head against the pillows, too exhausted to complain about how their final agreement had as many exemptions as a bill before Congress. He’d face those scenarios when and if he had to. “I want to know everything the minute you do.”
“I wouldn’t expect otherwise.” Jeff addressed Leah. “In the meantime, good luck with your patient.”
Gabe tried not to be jealous of how easily she smiled at his colleague—his divorced, single colleague—the same divorced colleague who’d probably been more than happy to comfort Leah during the past year, especially during the month after he’d been presumed dead. However, jealousy was a good thing, he decided, because it gave him added incentive to win her back again.
“Not to worry,” she said airily. “If he misbehaves, I have a sedative with his name on it.”
“I’d rather eat a steak, medium-well, with baked potato,” Gabe said as he eyed the tray of food Leah had organized from the unit’s kitchenette.
A steaming bowl of chicken broth with assorted crackers, strawberry and lime gelatin squares, and chocolate pudding were the result of her raid.
“Maybe you’ll get those for dinner tonight,” Leah said lightly, knowing he wouldn’t. As much as she’d like to reverse his weight loss as quickly as possible, his digestive system needed to acclimate first. “This is just a snack until then.”
“There’s nothing here for a man to sink his teeth into.”
She ignored his grumbling as she studied his skin tone with clinical detachment. Now that he’d scraped off his beard with the disposable razor she’d provided, he was paler than she’d like. His face, although still handsome with his straight nose and strong chin, was thinner and his cheekbones more pronounced than the last time she’d seen him.
“For good reason,” she answered. “You hardly have the strength to chew.”
“I can find the energy if it’s worth my while,” he said. “A cheeseburger, fries and a milkshake would—”
“Come up as fast as they went down. Would you rather hug the toilet for a few hours? Now, just try this,” she wheedled. “If your system can handle this without any problems, I’ll personally deliver a greasy cheeseburger from your favorite fast-food restaurant later on.”
His sigh was loud enough to be heard in the hallway, but he picked up a package of crackers. After struggling unsuccessfully to tear the Cellophane, he finally gave up and tossed the packet of crumbs onto the tray in disgust.
“Would you like me to open it?” she asked, reaching for the mangled package.
Hating to admit his weakness, he grimaced. “I changed my mind. A fellow can do that, can’t he?”
“Of course you can,” she soothed, aware of the hit the tiny packet had leveled against his dignity. It was also clear that her time in the kitchen would be wasted if she didn’t take matters into her own hands, so she picked up the spoon and began feeding him soup.
“I can do this myself,” he protested between swallows.
She doubted it. He was clearly exhausted from the poking and prodding, the round of X-rays and his stint in the shower, but for some reason he refused to sleep. Maybe a full stomach would work for him as well as it did for babies.
“I know,” she agreed, “but I’m trying to earn my pay. I am your nurse, remember?”
It still rankled how Jeff had marched into the nursing vice president’s office and when he’d come out again, it was official. Leah was assigned to one patient and one patient only—Gabriel Montgomery.
“This is all so pointless,” she had railed at the emergency physician. “Gabe doesn’t need nursing care. He only needs someone to fetch and carry and help him in and out of bed, and anyone can do that. He doesn’t need me and I can’t believe you agreed to this. We have a date coming up!”
“I did it because of our date,” Jeff had told her kindly. “You’ve been riding an emotional roller coaster for the past few weeks. Now that he’s back, you need to rethink exactly what you want—”
“I know what I want,” she’d interrupted.
“You think you know what you want,” he’d corrected, “but having Gabe return from the dead changes everything.”
“It doesn’t,” she’d insisted, trying to convince herself as much as him.
Jeff had smiled benevolently at her. “It may not, but you owe it to yourself, and to me, to be absolutely certain of what you’re looking for in a relationship. But I’ll be honest,” he’d said as he’d squeezed her shoulder. “As much as I respect Gabe, I won’t be rooting for him.”
And so she’d accepted the inevitable, even though she believed her skills were being wasted and that she knew her own mind when it came to her broken marriage.
Yet, after it had taken all of her concentration to reel her thoughts in far enough to figure out the microwave controls to heat his broth, she had to admit that perhaps she shouldn’t be working in the ED right now. While she felt guilty over leaving her department short-handed, she shuddered to think of how ineffective she’d be in handling a trauma victim when a life hung in the balance. To her utter disgust, feeding Gabe seemed to be the only task her jumbled mind could handle.
“Are you ready to try the gelatin?” she asked, spooning a red cube into his mouth before he could refuse.
He swallowed. “Do you work with Jeff often?”
“Usually. Like I said, I normally work in Emergency.”
His brow furrowed. “Don’t PRN nurses work everywhere in the hospital?”
She spooned another bite into his mouth. “Some do, some don’t. I haven’t since I completed my advanced trauma nursing coursework six months ago.”
His brow furrowed. “I didn’t know that.”
“You didn’t notice the nursing textbooks on the coffee table before I moved out?”
“I did, but I thought you were boning up because you’d accepted this relief position.”
“I was. Then I decided to take the next step.” She hesitated, realizing that while he could have asked, she also should have volunteered the information. Now
