Chapter Two

As soon as this meeting was finished she was going to find a quiet corner to let loose with a primal scream.

Virginia Crawford sat at her desk in her relatively swank office and tried to stay focused on what her new boss, Douglas Bent, was telling her but all she could think of was, “Beckett Sutherland is in my hospital.”

That just couldn’t be true.

Karma wasn’t that cruel. She didn’t kick puppies, was nice to her sister even though she was the bride-zilla from hell right now and was insisting that Virginia wear a peach bridesmaid dress.

Now she was starting her dream job as Director of Operations at a Level One Trauma Hospital and was on her way to climbing the corporate ladder to the fantasy position of CEO. Lost weekends at the office, busting her ass to get her master’s in Hospital Administration while working the grueling hours of an attorney at a big Manhattan firm had paid off. The brass ring was so close she could see her face in its reflection. All she had to do was get through her six-month probationary period…unlike her two predecessors.

And Beckett Sutherland was on the staff at her hospital. Looking as reckless, brash, and sexy as he’d been almost ten years ago. A dangerous man.

She was a cautious woman. A planner. Always in control.

“Ms. Crawford, I think what we saw in the ER is the perfect example of why Dr. Sutherland isn’t the best candidate for the team leader position. To be honest, there are days when I’m not sure he should be at this facility at all.” Mr. Bent pointed toward a file on her desk. “You have his entire personnel record for your review. Once you have completed it, I’m sure you’ll agree with me in spite of the opinion of other interview panel members.”

Mr. Bent flicked a glance at Alex Rifkin, Director of Security, sitting in the chair just opposite her.

Alex maintained his stony expression, ignoring the pointed jab. “I think Virginia’s first task should be to address the theft problem we have here in the hospital. Any issues you have with Beck’s behavior are not my concern unless he suddenly creates a security risk, which has never happened.”

“Well…” Mr. Bent pressed his lips into an even thinner line than they usually were. He was a hard, humorless man, with zero-tolerance for any breach of protocol. She wasn’t sure if she liked him, but she appreciated the clear expectations he set for the job: make him look good and don’t fuck up. Easy enough since she was very good at her job. “Make sure I have a full briefing of what happened today with Dr. Sutherland on my desk by tomorrow morning.”

He left, taking with him some of the tension but not all. Yeah, she was rattled but she had to rein it in.

“Alex.” She opened a folder on her desk that she’d marked earlier with a post-it note. “I’m glad you brought up the thefts from the pharmacy. Bring me up to speed.”

Alex immediately tapped on the screen of the iPad resting on his lap. His dark suit draped over his frame and accented the black hair cut short in a military style and the light blue of his eyes. His résumé didn’t have to tell her about his military background because every inch of his demeanor and skill attested to a high level of training. The daughter of a military man, she could spot one a mile away.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on this since I arrived about six months ago. I’ve noticed a higher incidence of missing Adderall, prescription meth, Opana, and Seroquel. I’ve stepped up security measures and began the process of running background checks again on the staff. My predecessor was a little lax on refreshing credentials so we might have some people to let go, depending on how that all shakes out.”

Virginia nodded, pleased she had such a smart man on this aspect of the job. Risk was the hardest thing to manage and the one that got the most exposure—second only to malpractice.

“Why those drugs? How are they getting to them?” she asked.

“These are the ones that top the list with prescription drug abusers with Seroquel also becoming popular inside prisons as a heroin substitute.” Alex tapped on the screen and turned the tablet to face her. The screen was filled with a man’s hospital ID badge on display. “I fired this guy. Junior Taggert, about three months ago and brought him up on charges of theft. He had some priors but I could only link him to a small grab from the pharmacy so he only got a short sentence. His brother, Bodean, is a local thug. Not a player but he was connected to the late Eddie Wilkes who was about as big a player as you get around here.”

“What happened to Wilkes?” she asked.

“He was shot and killed by his lover a few months ago. Now his position is up for grabs by whatever asshole can claim it. We’ve seen a significant uptick on the number of GSW’s and drug and gang related injuries in the ER.” Alex looked back down at the iPad, tapping away as he continued. “Wilkes was actually brought down by one of Dr. Sutherland’s best friends. It was quite the news around here. His territory is up for grabs and the frontrunner is a local guy named Daniel Vega.”

She looked down at the file, flipping pages as she cruised the information, formulating her strategy. “Take a week, gather the data on where we’re most vulnerable.”

He nodded. “Roger that. I have a tentative plan I think will work.”

“Good. I’d like to execute as soon as possible.”

“You sound just like your dad,” Alex said, sliding his eyes over to the family picture taken at her sister’s engagement party. She didn’t have to turn around to know what he saw—perfect smiles, arms wrapped around each other—just another Hallmark-fucking-moment. Too bad it was as fake as the façade of Disneyland.

“You know him?” Virginia braced herself for what might come next. Her father was a man of many parts. A fine Navy SEAL and Admiral. A terrible husband and a hit-or-miss dad.

“I served two tours under him.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “I know you read my personnel file.”

“I did but it would have been the height of ego to assume you knew who I was.” She shrugged in apology as she closed the file on her desk and this conversation. She didn’t want to talk about her father. “Have you seen Dr. Sutherland? He was supposed to come and brief me on what happened today.”

Alex glanced at his watch as he gathered his stuff and stood. “I know he had to go to the sheriff’s office and give a statement.”

“He should have returned by now.”

“Yeah. My guess is that he’s down in the gym taking out his day on a punching bag.” Alex narrowed his eyes at her again, and she could almost see his brain replaying the scene in the waiting room where she’d first seen Beckett. She knew what was coming next. “You knew him before…how well?”

Straight to the point. She liked it but…didn’t.

“We were together when I was in law school and he was in medical school at the University of Virginia.”

“Together…” He paused. “I take that to mean that you were lovers.”

“Yes. But it ended and we both went our separate ways.”

“Then I won’t have to explain Beck to you. You’ll already know that he’s brilliant, gifted, a force in the ER, and cocky son of a bitch,” Alex said as if they were all compliments.

“And I also know that he’s reckless, brash, not a great follower of rules, and a cocky son of a bitch.” Virginia held her hands out, palms up, inviting him to say differently. But she knew he wouldn’t. One look at Beckett in a choke-hold on the floor of the waiting room told her all she needed to know. Beckett Sutherland hadn’t changed one little bit.

“Yep. You know him,” Alex laughed. “And as Bent pointed out he’s up for ER Team Leader. You’re on the committee along with Mr. Bent and myself. The other candidate for the position is also strong in credentials and kisses Bent’s ass on an hourly basis. It will be a tough decision.”

She couldn’t tell if wanted to ask the next logical question, but she decided to address it anyway. “I can keep my personal opinions out of the hiring process.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He laughed at her raised eyebrow. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Virginia watched the door to her office shut behind him as she reached for the ER Team Leader file on her desk. Beckett’s résumé and personnel file were right on top. His hospital ID photo was quintessential Beckett—hair just a little too long for the ivy league crowd and a mischievous grin that promised all kinds of trouble.

It was the smile that had drawn her in. She was a super serious law student who was too busy proving herself to an absent-but-always-present father to distract herself with such mundane things as living a life. It had taken two weeks of his antics and jokes to train her traitorous eyes to look for him on campus and then another week to make her disappointed when she didn’t see him. Two months in his bed and she’d defied the score on her IQ test and done the stupendously stupid thing and fallen for him. Hard.

The kind of hard that compels you to ask him home with you for the weekend even though you were hard-wired to not let anyone get a look behind that curtain. The kind of hard that was oblivious to all the signs that he wasn’t as into her as she was into him. The kind of hard that almost killed you when he broke up with you and you caught him fucking your roommate.

The kind of hard she would never do again.

Virginia had his number now, and she wouldn’t be fooled again. She was here to do a job and if that included working with her ex from almost ten years ago…well, she was a professional.

Shoving the file away she rose from her desk, grabbing her keys and her own staff ID. Easing out into the hallway, she strode down to the elevator and pushed the button for the employee gym on the basement level. She knew that Mr. Bent would be on her for that briefing first thing tomorrow morning and she was going to get it.

It was almost eight o’clock in the evening and the staff had depleted down to those necessary to attend to patients and keep the infrastructure running. The doors opened on a whoosh that echoed in the nearly deserted hallway as the smell of chlorine from the indoor pool assaulted her eyes, making them water.

Virginia turned left and headed toward the area that contained the gym equipment, the smell of pool chemicals giving way to the combined aromas of gym mats, sweat, and disinfectant. She pulled the door open to the state-of-the-art facility that was touted as a perk to those recruited to work at this hospital. She nodded to the desk attendant, scanned the well-lit room, and let her ears guide her eyes. Sure enough, Alex had been right. All she had to do was follow the sounds of fists hitting a bag and there he wasDr. Beckett Sutherland.

She stood by the edge of the mats, hoping to catch his eye but it wasn’t going to happen. Virginia stooped to remove her heels before stepping on the rubber flooring and making a beeline for him.

He was wholly absorbed in his task, the sounds of his fist impacting violently with the bag and punctuated by grunts of effort expelled on each jab. His longish dark hair hung around his face, wet with the sweat that also ran down his bare torso and disappeared into the waistband of his gym shorts.

Virginia stopped a few feet away and waited for him to notice her, not crazy enough to surprise him within range of his fists. She took the time to continue her catalog of things the past nine years had changed in Beckett Sutherland. The body, always lean and muscled due to his dedication to all things sports and his inability to sit still, was sharper, more predatory in build and size than she remembered. His face, always handsome, was strongera fiercer rendition of his trademark boyish good looks.

The tattoo—a black, red, and orange stylized dragon—covered his right side and that half of his back. When she’d asked about it back when they were lovers he’d replied as he thrust into her slowly that his destiny was to be a dragon slayer and that was his reminder. He’d never offered anything more than that cryptic explanation, and she’d never pushed for more. But the nipple bar piercings were new and her breath caught in an almost painful clutch with the impact of just how sexy they were.

He moved quickly, battering the bag with jabs and thrusts that would make any sane person afraid to get in between his fists and the target. Each move was quicksilver, exploding from different angles with each practiced shift of his body. If you blinked you would miss him and that would be a shame because he was gorgeous. Just simply gorgeous.

But she’d been fooled by the beautiful exterior before. His quick smile and expert seduction hid a man who was selfish and unreliable. People said that a girl always fell for a man like her father, and she’d proven that old wives’ tale true.

As if he heard her silent judgment, Beckett looked up in mid-punch and the force of the gaze translated to her taking a step back on the mat.

He was familiar but completely foreign to her. There was nothing boyish about the Beckett Sutherland in front of her now with his eyes flashing fire and sweat running down his naked chest. She couldn’t believe that this was the same man she’d welcomed into her body and her heart over many hours, nights, and days spent in the small apartment just three blocks off the UVA campus. The usual carefree expression was replaced by a harsh pain—it was etched in every angle of his face and roiled in his eyes. Something inside her responded to it, the visceral urge to rush to him and soothe was so real she lifted a hand to press against her chest as if she could physically force it back to where it lived, hidden deep inside of her.

Virginia stared at him, her mouth as dry as she scrabbled to remind herself that the man she saw in front of her was the same in essentials. Beckett had always been adept at bobbing and weaving to avoid direct hits of any real
emotion, intimacy, truth. He’d never hidden what he wasshe’d just done a damn good job of ignoring it.

“Ginger,” his voice, roughened with the heavy breaths, interrupted her ridiculous visit with the ghosts of stupid decisions past. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s Virginia,” she replied, biting back the urge to cringe at the bitchy tone of her auto-response. No one had ever called her that except Beckett, and it wasn’t a liberty she wanted to encourage. Any distance she could keep between them would be best if for no other reason than Mr. Bent would be watching her to see if she was really cut out for this job.

Beckett watched her, his stillness unnerving since she’d only witnessed it when he slept. Even then it was fleeting, interrupted by dreams and memories that spilled out in jumbled batches of indecipherable words and anger that he refused to acknowledge when he awoke.

“Fine.” He bit out the word before turning to grab the towel draped over the nearby weight stand. His ripped back muscles bunched and elongated with his movements under his tan skin, the scars she remembered tracing with her fingertips were faded even more with the passage of time. “Virginia, what are you doing here?”

She took a breath, letting it out slowly, refusing to let her anger rise. She had a temper, another trait inherited from her father, but she’d learned not to let it control her. “Remain calm even if there is a goddam tsunami raging under the surface” was one of his many colorful instructions to her when he showed up to parent in between deployments.

“You were supposed to report to my office after giving your statement to the sheriff’s office. I came to see why you didn’t follow protocol.” She dropped her hand and stepped closer to him, annoyed that he continued to give her his back. “Mr. Bent is going to expect a full report tomorrow morning.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Bent.”

Now she was annoyed. Suddenly the list of flags in his personnel file made a lot more sense. She didn’t know why she was surprised.

“Dr. Sutherland. You were told to report back to me once you returned to the hospital,” she continued, her voice sharp with her emotion.

Beckett turned to face her, his body crowding her since she’d positioned herself in between him and the punching bag. His face was hard as stone, eyes a matching pool of glacial ice that chilled her the same time his body singed wherever it brushed against her own.

“I wasn’t in any shape to talk to you when I got back. I came down here to work some stuff out.”

“Dr. Sutherland, I don’t care what you thought you needed to do. You were told to report in as soon as you returned to the hospital.”

“I wasn’t fit for public consumption. I figured our debrief could wait.”

She was not backing down from this confrontation. With their past, if she didn’t set the parameters now, she’d never get a second chance. This showdown was to be expectedshe was a former lover, a woman, and she needed to make sure he knew that he wasn’t dealing with the younger woman who’d swallowed his lies nine years ago.

“Why don’t you explain to me why you thought it was more important for you to work out than update me on what happened this afternoon?”

The curl of his lip was the only indication that there was anything going on under the blank slate of stone he projected.

“I spent the afternoon giving my statement to the sheriff, which will apparently be the only testimony against that asshole because Marcus’s mother recanted her story. Then I got back here and was told by the surgeon that he was hurt so badly by that animal, that Marcus will be on a colostomy bag for the forseeable future and maybe forever…if he survives the infection that is already beating the shit out of his weak, immuno-compromised system because in addition to being that dickhead’s personal punching bag he was also denied proper nutrition and medical care.”

Beckett swallowed hard, breaking eye contact for the briefest second but it was long enough for her to get a front-row-seat view of the pain and anger inside him.

When he reconnected with her, the dark depths blazed with a grief so powerful that she immediately wanted to retract the last five minutes.

But she couldn’t. Not with him.

Oh, and wasn’t that the fucking cherry on top? That one look and the urge to reach out, grab him, and make it all better was just shy of a physical compulsion. How many times had she wished that he’d let her see that part of him? Let her in?

Too many. She’d always ended up disappointed.

Beckett moved even closer, his bare chest brushing her own, forcing her to take two steps backward until she was bracketed in by his body and the punching bag suspended from the ceiling. The combination of his heat and the smell of sweat, bare skin, the remnants of his cologne, and his unique scent was heady, seductive and made it difficult for her to concentrate on anything other than him.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it doesn’t excuse your ignoring the protocol. The hospital legal team and management have to know what”

“What happened to you?” His voice, sharp and edged with a darkness that she’d never heard from him back in their days of good times and no strings. “Did they give you an emotional lobotomy when you graduated law school? Take out your heart?”

“My heart has nothing to do with it. This is about you doing your job as a member of the hospital staff in a timely manner.” He was looming over her now, his emotion combining with his natural allure, and it was becoming a problem for her. She wasn’t delusionalBeckett could still get her body to respondbut she was prepared for it and wouldn’t let it cloud her judgment. “I’m here to do a job and dealing with you is part of my duties. Our past is a non-issue.”

“So…what happened between us…” He flicked a glance over her face, his direct gaze testing the resolve behind her words, and she fought to maintain her expression. “…it won’t impact your decision as part of the team leader selection committee?”

Virginia maintained her calm. It was a hard fought battle but she won, only the racing of her heart beneath her designer suit a potential giveaway.

“No. Not at all.”