The Nurse's Brooding Boss

“Minneapolis’s loss is our gain,” Raine said with a smile.

Raine was pretty enough with her dark red hair and her bright green eyes, but he wasn’t interested in the signals she was sending out. He didn’t date, especially anyone who might be interested in a future. He couldn’t help glancing at his watch, wondering where Elana was.

He wished they could talk. There had to be some way to ease the tension that shimmered between them.

For years he’d longed for a chance to explain. To redeem himself in her eyes if at all possible.

So much for seeking forgiveness. Remembering the banked fury in her dark eyes, he knew there was no chance in hell Elana would give him that option.

He didn’t deserve her forgiveness.

“How much longer?” Elana asked, casting a worried glance at her patient. The young patient’s name was Jamie Edgar, and her blood pressure was starting to slip downward.

“Ten minutes,” the tech assured her.

She increased the flow of the fluids to help maintain Jamie’s blood pressure. Keeping busy was helping her to forget about Brock Madison, who happened to be waiting for them in the trauma bay.

What on earth had she done to deserve this? Why after all these years was it her misfortune to have to work with the man she despised?

She rubbed her aching temple, hearing Chloe admonishing her in her mind. Don’t talk like that, young lady. Brock Madison wasn’t the person at fault in the accident, your sister was. She pulled out right in front of him! It’s certainly not his fault Felicity died.

In some tiny corner of her mind Elana knew Chloe was right. Her sister had pulled out onto the busy highway in front of Brock without warning. But he’d also been speeding, at least according to one of the witnesses on the scene. Brock’s father had been a cop at the time, and everyone thought his dad had pulled strings to cover up the truth.

Including Elana.

Besides, did it matter? The irrevocable fact remained that Brock stole Felicity’s life.

Nothing on earth could change that.

And now she’d be forced to work with the man she detested.

“There, we’re all finished.” The radiology tech broke into her troubled thoughts. “Do you want me to call the ED to let them know you’re on your way back?”

She forced a smile. “Sure, that would be great.”

Jamie’s blood pressure slipped a little further, and Elana quickened her pace, pushing the gurney as fast as she dared, keeping one eye on the monitor and the other on the hallway. Luckily, the radiology department was not far from the emergency department.

“I’m losing her blood pressure,” Elana announced as she entered the trauma bay.

“Hang another unit of O-neg blood. The spine surgeons are on their way down. The radiologist already called me with the CT results. She has a severe compression fracture in her cervical spine. If they can operate quickly, they might be able to minimize the damage to the spinal cord.”

Elana nodded, indicating she’d heard him. Relieved that the spine damage may not be permanent, she made sure Jamie was ready for the OR, taking off her rings and her necklace and putting them into a valuables envelope to be stored in the hospital safe.

The OR team showed up and took over the case, taking Jamie straight up to surgery. Once her patient was gone, Elana felt the all too familiar letdown. She enjoyed trauma nursing, but there was a part of her that had considered moving to the critical care area so that she could follow the trauma cases more closely. She’d miss the thrill of caring for patients coming in right from the scene, but it would also be great to see some of these patients actually recover.

“Elana? Are you all right?”

She glanced at Brock, her stomach knotting with apprehension. How could she be all right with him around? She needed to get away from him. Far, far away. “Of course. Excuse me while I restock the supplies before the next trauma call comes in.”

“I’ll do it,” Raine offered, glancing between Elana and Brock with frank curiosity.

She ground her teeth together, wishing Raine wouldn’t try to be quite so helpful. Since Raine hurried to do the stocking, and Brock simply stood there, watching her with concern, she turned and headed towards the staff lounge. Unfortunately she wasn’t going to get the privacy she needed since Brock was right behind her.

“What do you want?” she asked, spinning around to face him and crossing her arms over her chest defensively.

“First of all, I wanted to say I’m sorry. I had absolutely no idea you worked here.” Brock’s sincere expression didn’t succeed in soothing her annoyance. Maybe she had noticed the shock in his eyes when he’d recognized her, but she was the one who’d lost a sister. “I moved home for family reasons, not to torment you.”

“Doesn’t matter to me where you work,” she said in a stiff, formal tone. “You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and she struggled not to squirm beneath his intense scrutiny. She could see why Raine had called him steamy hot. He wore his chocolate-brown hair a little longer than was fashionable, but with his chiseled jaw and strong chin he was ruggedly attractive. To everyone else, maybe. Not to her. “If that’s what you want. But it might help if we could spend some time talking things through.”

Talk things through? She blinked. Was he serious? The nerve of him acting as though talking things out would somehow bring Felicity back. She curled her fingers into fists, her nails digging into the palm of her hand, and for a moment she relished the tiny flash of pain.

Maybe they had to work together, but, as far as she was concerned, there would never be anything remotely personal between them.

“No. I don’t think so.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“Because there is absolutely nothing you have to say that I want to hear.” With that, she turned, leaving a gaping Brock standing behind her as she walked away.

CHAPTER TWO

FINISHING her shift, while being stuck in the trauma bay with Brock Madison, was the hardest thing Elana had had to do since moving into her first foster home at the tender age of fifteen.

He’d wanted to talk things through.

Yeah. Right. To make himself feel better, no doubt.

Elana swallowed hard, trying without success to keep from ruminating over Brock Madison. Even when he wasn’t in the immediate area, she’d found herself searching for him. If only so she could find a way to stay as far away from him as possible.

Raine was right: Brock was devastatingly attractive. Too much so. In those brief moments when he’d pinned her with his sizzling blue gaze, she’d nearly forgotten how much she hated him.

Brock had matured over the years. She shouldn’t have been surprised; it wasn’t as if she was the same angry and confused fifteen-year-old, either. But for some reason, her brain had always pictured him as the young, reckless college student who’d been speeding down the highway when Felicity pulled out in front of him.

For years she’d railed against the unfairness of it all. Brock had essentially walked away from the crash with only a couple of minor injuries—a broken collarbone and a few cracked ribs—while Felicity had died at the scene.

Enough. She needed to stop wallowing in the past. She threw herself into her work with a vengeance. Elana thought she’d successfully hidden her feelings towards Brock, but at the end of their shift, Raine cornered her in the staff lounge.

“All right, give. What is up with you and Dr Madison?”

Elana raised a brow, trying to keep her expression impassive. “Nothing.”

Raine rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, and I’m Princess Stephanie. Come on, Elana. It’s obvious you two know each other. For one thing, he called you by name before anyone had introduced you. And then he followed you to the staff lounge to talk to you in private. Did the two of you have a relationship in the past or what?”

Relationship? Good Lord, nothing could be further from the truth. “No. I barely know the guy.”

“I don’t believe you.” Raine swiped her badge through the time clock, and Elana followed suit. “I’m not blind. There’s a definite tension between you.”