To continue the story of the Frost sisters with the third book of the series, look for…

Holly’s Heart

by

Melinda Sanchez

Here’s how it begins:

Chapter One

Tiny sparkles in the tile reflected light in the dim hallway as I passed between rooms. Numerous vital checks and a dozen doses of medicine later, I welcomed a ten-minute break before I tackled the paperwork—mounds and mounds of paperwork.

The door to the employee lounge expelled a soft gush of air as I entered, looking to quiet my hunger pangs with a stale treat from the vending machine. I peered closely to choose between an apple and a strawberry granola bar, and someone came up from behind and poked me in the ribs. I let out a squeal and spun around to the laughing face of my co-worker, Alice. We cupped our hands over our mouths. If we woke the patients at three o’clock in the morning, we would spend the next several hours getting them all settled again.

“What are you thinking? You’ll get us both fired,” I whispered.

Alice stood half a head shorter than me and her curls bobbed as she stifled her giggle. “You almost jumped a mile.”

“You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Well, you are in the right place for it, anyway. But what are you doing working another night shift, Holly? You work more overtime and late shifts than any nurse I know. You have seniority, you know.”

“There’s such a high demand in pediatrics. They needed someone.”

“Ehh—like I said, you are covering for this shift too much. Maybe you need someone, Holly. Someone at home you don’t want to leave at night.”

I smiled. “My cat? Oh, she’s fine. But seriously, sometimes I want to be here late like this.”

“Yeah, right.” She smirked.

“I do, especially here in pediatrics. The empty quiet is too spooky for some of these kids. Their little whispery voices and soft, pudgy hands get to me. I like giving comfort in the middle of their lonely nights.”

Alice and I both looked over in surprise when someone sat up on the couch in the back of the lounge.

“You need a man, honey. Good—bad—it don’t matter, as long as it’s a man.”

I looked into the plump face and dark eyes of our nurse’s aide, Mrs. Torres, and put my hands on my hips. “I’ve got people sneaking up on me all over in this place. I didn’t know it would be so scary in here.”

She shook her head. “No, honey, you need to hear what I say. You want to give comfort so much? That means you need comfort. You need a man.”

I cleared my throat and pushed the hair that had come loose from my ponytail back behind my ear. “Ha. Well, you may be right. But nowadays I wonder if I’d be better off to forget men altogether.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips. “Oh dear, you got it worse than I feared. You are in love with a man who breaks your heart.” She wiggled to her feet. “I’ve been an aide here a long, long time, and I seen you come and go, come and go all the time. You are too lonely, Miss Holly.”

My words froze for a moment before I opened my mouth to protest again, sure that I’d given her the wrong impression. But she walked up shaking her head and waved her hand in front of my face to shush me.

“You stare in space with those big eyes like that; I know what I see.” She scribbled something on the back of a patient’s menu card someone had left on the coffee table and handed it back to me. “Here is my number. My Pablo is not married. He is going bald and is a little lazy, but he has a good heart.”

The breakroom door closed behind Mrs. Torres when she left, and Alice and I had our hands over our mouths again, stifling a laugh.

“I didn’t know I was so transparent,” I whispered.

Alice’s eyes widened before she headed out of the lounge. “You better watch out; Pablo may show up during your shift with a bouquet of roses one of these days.”

I laughed and shook my head before I turned back to the vending machine. Mrs. Torres loved to mother the young nurses, but at age twenty-eight, I’d certainly learned a few things about my own life and knew my own feelings. There was no way I was “transparent” because of a broken heart. Those days were long gone, sewn up and tossed, wrapped and buried, resolved and finished. Fini, as I’d learned to say in France last year.

I chose the strawberry granola bar and washed it down with bottled water. It hit my stomach in a lump.