“That’s not one of the shirts I bought you.” She had to say something. He had done some serious damage, but just stood there. Calmly. Izzie climbed to her feet, ignoring how every sore muscle in her body twinged.
He shook his head. “No. It’s one of Logan’s he’d had at his parents’ place. I grabbed it out of his closet while you were asleep in my car.”
“Let me look at it.”
“The shirt?” He gave her a wicked grin, but she didn’t miss the pain. She almost rolled her eyes at him.
He could be a real butt sometimes. “Don’t be a butt.”
“If I be good will you take care of me, Nurse Izadora?”
The shirt was too small, the shoulders too tight. Even though Dr. Lanning had been a good-sized man—he hadn’t held a candle to this one. Allen slipped it off and tossed it aside.
Izzie stepped closer, eyes trained on the blood dripping down his shoulder and pec. “How did you even do this? It doesn’t seem possible.”
Izzie had seen quite a few things in the ER that the normal person wouldn’t think was possible. Three days before Allen had absconded with her, she’d helped Cage extract a screwdriver out of a man’s armpit.
“I think I’m a bit too big to fit under the van.”
“No kidding. You’ll be lucky not to get tetanus and die, and leave me to drive this thing back to Finley Creek one handed. Alone.” She pulled in a breath. Time to get it together and get things taken care of. She could do this, even one-handed. “I take it you had a booster after Henedy got us both? I know I did. It’ll have to be cleaned.”
She’d have to be the one to do it. There was no way he’d be able to reach the back of his shoulder.
Izzie followed him up the small step into the van. Once inside, she turned on the sink to warm the water and washed her hand quickly. There was a first aid kit. That wasn’t something she would ever think Allen would be without. The man believed in being prepared for anything. That had become more than abundantly clear.
Izzie definitely respected that.
She worked in silence to prepare everything they’d need. “Let’s get it taken care of, then.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She pulled in a breath. “Sit down.” She motioned to the dinette. He obeyed. The man absolutely dwarfed the van at times. This was one of them. “It’s pretty deep. It may need to be stitched.”
“Is that something you are comfortable doing? If not, sterile strips will work.”
No. They wouldn’t. He hadn’t been able to see the back of the wound as well as she could.
“I’ve done some. In class. Never at the hospital. At least my dominant hand is free. You got lucky there.”
“I’m not risking us being recognized by going to an ER. Not for this. Time for trial by fire, Izadora.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Honey, I don’t think you’ll do anything permanent to damage me. There’s plenty of lidocaine there, thanks to Nikkie Jean. She prepared us for a total zombie apocalypse with her first aid supplies.”
“That woman believes in being prepared for anything.” There it was. Lidocaine and a three pack of syringes, sterile needles, and different gauges of nylon thread, antibiotic creams, everything. This was something she’d done thousands of times too. It helped center her, at least. “I’m not sure of this.”
Suturing wasn’t a part of her job description.
“Slow and steady. You’ll do fine.”
It took twenty minutes, him guiding her through the process, so calm and steady that her own nerves evened out, before they were both satisfied with her efforts.
Izzie felt sick to her stomach when she finished. He looked pretty green around the gills himself.
“You did fine. I told you that you would. Once you’re finished with your degree, you’ll be one hell of a CNP.”
“If I finish, you mean.” It was surprisingly easy to tell him what she hadn’t told anyone else yet. Probably because her world had shrunk, narrowed only to him.
Her dreams of becoming a nurse practitioner were done.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“What Henedy did screwed with my entire life. It depleted my savings and made classes impossible right now, and I’ve only made the first payment on the hospital bills. I don’t know when I’ll be able to save up again. Especially after this latest adventure means I’m off even longer.” She shrugged. It hurt. She was starting to accept it a little more than she had. Izzie was used to pivoting when things in life went sideways.
Her life had gone quite a bit sideways in recent months.
“You should go back. Find a way. Hell, sue that bastard for every penny he has. You’re entitled to that much. I may sue him myself. I wasn’t able to work for three weeks until the arm fully healed. I’ll sue him, too. You can have the proceeds, use it as a scholarship.” His hands slipped around her waist.
Before she could respond, she found herself sitting smack dab in the middle of the man’s lap, her hip pressed into the edge of the dinette table and her cheek pressed to his strong, hot chest. Oh boy.
A handful of kisses hadn’t prepared her for this. “What exactly are you doing?”
“You looked so green I thought you might need a hug.”
Yeah, right. Allen wasn’t the type to go around hugging women. Even women he was stuck in an RV with. No, the man wanted something more.
Izzie knew what he was ultimately after.
The man was attracted to her, and he wanted her. It had been in the way his storm-gray eyes had looked at her throughout the day.
She had to decide if she was going to let him…well…have her.
In all the ways he wanted.
For the first time in her life, she was seriously contemplating an affair with a man she worked with, a physician at that. Everything really had gone sideways. There was no denying that.
“Do I?”
“I vomited the first time I cut open a living being. It’s not something I’ll ever forget. Nikkie Jean still gets squeamish whenever she handles the stitching. Every single time. She thinks we don’t know, but it’s written on her face. I think you did fine. You still look a little queasy. I can’t hug Nikkie Jean—she jumps like a scalded cat every time anyone tries—but I can hug you.”
“Yeah, right. You’re a big teddy bear, aren’t you? You should keep your arm still for a while, at least. Not be lifting me around.” Why wasn’t she climbing off his lap? That was the million-dollar question.
All that sun-kissed male muscle was right there next to her, practically at her fingertips. The fingers of her hand curled. He had very little chest hair, making his muscles practically gleam in the light from the sunroof above them.
Izzie most definitely wanted to touch.
The urge was almost irresistible. What she should do was hop off of his lap and head for the hills. Before she did something that would change everything between them forever.
“Have you tried for any scholarships? I know FCU offers a lot of financial aid,” he asked. It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about.
She finally wrapped her head around it, and was able to come up with a somewhat cohesive answer. “I could. Most of the ones I’d qualify for require you to be a full-time student. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to be full-time, even living with Jake. Annie and I worked our way through school. She decided not to go on after she took on the three boys. We started off working as CNAs together at County Gen.”
“I’m sorry.” His hands tightened around her waist. The captain’s chair was not meant for two, but Izzie wasn’t exactly in a hurry to move. “I thought about it.”
“About what?” His skin was warm against her, attesting to his time out in the afternoon sun. Izzie wanted to press her cheek against his shoulder and breathe him in.
Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful. If Nikkie Jean and Annie had felt like this, it was no wonder they’d tumbled right off the cliff with Caine and Turner.
Well, Izzie had more self-control than those dorks. Maybe.
She might be stuck with him for now, but she was not going to do something stupid with him. She wasn’t going to fall for him.
She didn’t need that right now. When she did find someone to fall in love with—it would be permanent. Real.
She was tired of feeling invisible. When she did fall for someone, she wanted him to look at her the way Caine looked at Nikkie Jean or Turner looked at Annie. She wanted to know that she was the center of his world, like he would be hers.
That was not what Allen would ever want. He had a crowd of nurses behind him that proved that. The man probably had no staying power in that regard. She had no doubt he’d be loyal during the time of the affair, but…he had a reputation she couldn’t forget.
“Starting a scholarship fund. Not a huge one. Something to help others offset the cost of medical school—or nursing. That would be one way to make Logan’s life…mean something.”
“Don’t scholarships have to be funded yearly?” She had no real idea how the legalities of it would work. “Why would you start one?”
“Logan left me everything. All of his financial resources. Those he’d inherited, and those he had built himself. He was a hell of an investor. Like his mother. Logan owned four medical patents. I can retire now on what I inherited from him. He left me his money—and my sister his properties and possessions. She’s trying to determine what to do with that now. She will once the TSP finally releases everything to her. They have stonewalled over the past year. She’s not big on fighting.” His mouth pulled down, expressing his displeasure with that. “Especially with the TSP.”
“He had no one else?” She realized how that sounded and winced. “I mean…not that you and your sister—”
“He had no family, if that’s what you mean. He had two much younger brothers, but they died from genetic heart conditions before reaching their teens. One when Logan was in high school, the other our first year of med school. Logan was instrumental in pioneering a surgical technique that repaired that condition in infants. He…left his mark. Saved so many kids just in the short time. It was a passion of his, why he went into surgery in the first place. He was a hell of a surgeon.”
“No one doubted that.” His grief was so real she could almost touch it. It had her resting her head on his shoulder after all.
Somehow, she had a feeling they both needed it now.
“He went from having a close, happy family, with two younger brothers to a man with two grieving parents. Then they went within a year of each other. He was alone. When he was shot, he was already more mentally fragile than people realized.”
“I’ve said it before, but I do mean it. I am sorry that you lost him. I don’t want to even imagine losing Annie or Nikkie Jean or anyone else like that.”
“I like your hair back here.” His hand slipped up her spine; he toyed with her hair for a moment. She looked at him, not sure what to say. “Your hair is like silk. Like the rest of you, I suspect.”
“Allen…” She practically squeaked his name.
“It still hurts to talk about him.” Allen shifted her even closer. Even it didn’t seem physically possible. “Not that many people are willing to listen to anything positive about him. He’s the villain now. To everyone.”
“I can understand that.” Logan Lanning had never been a nice man. He’d been cold, harsh, critical, and cutting to everyone at the hospital. That had been when he’d been in a pleasant mood. Izzie had done her best to avoid him. Even before what Dr. Daniels had tried with her. To hear Allen talk, the man had been far more nuanced than that. “I didn’t like him. You know that. I can’t lie. It makes me uncomfortable to talk about him considering what he did—”
“To you? I’ve never understood exactly what happened. I have heard Nikkie Jean and Lacy say that something did.” His hands shifted her, just a little. Until they were almost nose to nose. “I know he had a habit of bullying nurses. I learned about it later. What did he do to you specifically?”
She hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to give him details. “He was good friends with Dr. Daniels.”
“Dr. Daniels was first cousin to Logan’s mother. He also lost a son to the same heart condition as Logan’s brothers when the boy was around eleven. They worked in conjunction on finding that cure. Logan trusted him and valued him. He was the only family Logan really had at the time of his death.”
“I can understand that. Daniels…he was grabby. With a lot of the younger members of the staff. Nurses and CNAs mostly. Interns. He tried with Lacy once, and she almost emasculated him in the elevator. It was bad. Especially when he was drunk.”
“He had a drinking problem after he lost his son. It had already been noted at the time.”
“When we told him no, he could be vindictive. I don’t know what lies he told Dr. Lanning, but for a while there, Dr. Lanning was on my case over everything. Things got difficult at the hospital, between him and Dr. Daniels—I never had a day when one of them wasn’t there. Making trouble for me, with the other nurses, with my supervisors. I had only been on first shift for a month when it started, so I had no real clout. I was at the point of filing harassment complaints. Not just with HR, but with the board itself. I was going to go higher up if I had to. Fin was preparing to help me; he didn’t know she’d witnessed what he’d done one day and pried it out of me. Then my hours were cut to five a week. Annie told Jake what was happening. Jake started looking into Daniels outside the hospital. That’s when they found the prostitution charges. Daniels was arrested. Dr. Lanning blamed me for what had happened. It got even more difficult. He was very vindictive. So I asked to be switched to thirds. That worked, for the most part. Although, it was hard enough. Even with just Dr. Lanning left. I had put in my resignation when Lacy…Wanda asked me to stay after.”
“I didn’t know. Had I known, I would have stopped it.”
She shrugged. She didn’t believe that. He wouldn’t have believed her back then. Very few people had at all. “Would you have? Or would you have listened to him? I didn’t even bother coming to you after Daniels was arrested. There wasn’t any point; you were such good friends with Dr. Lanning that I would have had very little credibility. It would have been pointless. Everyone involved knew that.”
Izzie wasn’t unwise to the way the world worked, after all. She’d long ago lost that bit of naivete.
“I’m the one who is sorry. I am sorry I never did anything to let people know that I was different than they were. I was in a bubble for a while, a bit blind to the goings on at FCGH. That’s my fault. You can come to me with anything now, Izadora MacNamara. I hope you realize that. Forever.”
She didn’t get a chance to respond. His mouth was on hers.
Maybe.
It may have been hers that was on his. She couldn’t really tell.
But now he was kissing her. Differently than he ever had before.