One Summer in Santa Fe (10 page)

“Me, either. But at least your eyes didn’t go crossed tonight, right?” he asked, trying to tease a smile out of her.

It worked, and her lips curved upward, but the movement evaporated quickly. “You’re right. I just wish that phone call had come a day later.”

Taylor could imagine. He’d rather have had Piper in his arms all night long while they discovered pleasurable moments. One afternoon of intimacy with her wasn’t going to be enough. She had invaded his day, as well as his night dreams, and he’d woken up in a sweat more than once in the last week. She’d had a more profound effect on him than any other woman he’d been with. Normally, he would have escaped that sort of entanglement quickly, but for now it worked.

“So tell me why she’s leaving school for a man.” He sipped and watched.

Piper heaved out a sigh and focused on the rim of her cup. “She met this guy, Eduardo something-or-another the first day there. He’s got big dreams of having his own restaurant, apparently comes from a family with their own, so he thinks he knows it all already. He’s also abandoned school to jump in with both feet. She must really be smitten to go this far overboard.” Piper covered her face with her hand. “It wasn’t what they wanted.”

Confused, Taylor frowned. “What who wanted?”

“Our parents.” Piper sighed and looked up at him. “I made a promise when they died that I would see Elizabeth through school and set her up where she can be independent, where she’ll have an education and won’t be living in the gutter.”

“You made a promise or they made you promise?”

“I made the promise. They were already dead by then.” She shivered at the power of the memory.

“What happened?” Taylor reached over and placed a hand on her leg in silent support.

“They were killed in a car accident. Eight years ago on the way back from their second honeymoon.” Piper’s lower lip trembled a second as she spoke, then seemed to gain control of herself again.

“I’m so sorry, Piper.” He moved closer to her and placed an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him for a moment, seeming to draw strength from the connection with his body, then straightened.

“So am I.” The pain in her whisper said it all.

“You’ve been the strong one your entire adult life, haven’t you?”

“I’ve had to be. There was just the two of us, three including Aunt Ida.”

“It’s made you stronger than I think you know.”

“Our lives would have been completely different if they hadn’t died then.”

“You’ve been raising your sister this whole time?” That amazed Taylor. Piper couldn’t have been more than a child herself, and then to have that responsibility thrust on her, as well as losing her parents. His respect for Piper jumped several notches. She was one tough woman. Taylor looked at his watch that still ticked down the minutes and seconds of his time with Alex. “I can barely deal with my nephew for six weeks and you’ve had the responsibility of actually raising your sister for, what, eight years now?”

“Me and Aunt Ida. My mom’s sister. We lived with her while Elizabeth was in high school, and I was off on assignments earning money to keep her there and pay the mortgage. My parents didn’t have a guardianship set up, so when they died it fell to me by default as her closest living relative. I was of legal age. Just graduated from nursing school. There was no way I could just
hand my sister over to the state, so for me there was no choice in the matter. Any plans I might have had came to a screeching halt.” All the fears she’d harbored over the years now came flooding back to her. She was older than Elizabeth, she was responsible. She’d had to make something of herself instantly so that her sister could, too. They had only each other as Aunt Ida was aging and would need care herself one day. More responsibility to come. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs, hugging them to her chest. “Maybe I need to go find her, talk to her.”

“Maybe you need to let her cool down and call her tomorrow.”

“How can you say that?” Piper demanded. “She could be endangering herself or trusting the wrong person! I don’t know anything about this man, and she’s going to take off with him to God knows where.”

Taylor tugged at one of her hands until she let him take it. “Piper. She’s over the age of consent. There’s nothing you can do about it legally right now.”

“I have to. I have to try.” She flung away a tear with her other hand. “I have to convince her to stay and not throw her life away.”

“Why? Why is it up to you to live Elizabeth’s life for her? Why can’t she live her own life, have her own adventures like her big sister?”

She tried to snatch her hand away, but he held it fast. “What are you talking about? I never ran off with a man, or abandoned my obligations. I did what I was supposed to do. I had no choice at all.”

“And you resent her for having opportunities to be young and free that you never did?” he asked.

“Taylor! How can you say such a thing? I love my sister—”

“But you don’t want her to have the fun that you were denied at this age?”

“That’s simply not true.” Wasn’t it? A flush of anger pulsed within her, replacing that warm, fuzzy feeling she’d had earlier. So much for the good vibes running between them. “Here she is with opportunities staring her in the face once she finishes school, but she’s going to abandon everything we’ve worked so hard for.”

“Okay, look at it from where she’s sitting. Big sister Piper the breadwinner, the one who’s off on adventures all over the country while she’s left at home with Aunt Ida. How do you think that looks to an impressionable teenager? She’s had stars in her eyes for years thanks to you.”

Piper opened her mouth as she stared at Taylor. “But…but…” As a teenager she had been eager to be out on her own, traveling, learning new things, going places she’d dreamed of for years, something that her parents had encouraged. The memory of that forgotten anticipation washed over her as she looked into Taylor’s face. Her sister had apparently worshiped her the same way that Alex worshiped Taylor. She just hadn’t seen it that way. And she didn’t like it. Alex was a child. Elizabeth certainly wasn’t.

“She wants her own adventures, and may not be as patient as you want her to be for that. How old were you when you graduated nursing school?”

“Nearly twenty-one. But I faced my responsibilities, I didn’t drop everyone and everybody to go do what I wanted.” A sigh huffed out of her. “I did what I had to do because I had no choice in the matter. Putting Elizabeth in the care of another was never a choice.”

“Maybe you’d like to have her nice and safe, learning her trade, but she’s got other ideas, other dreams. Prob
ably always had them, but didn’t share them with you, her superstar sister.” Taylor’s hand snuck over to her neck and began to knead the muscles there.

Tears glistened in her eyes as pressure flooded her chest, the pain enormous. “Then I’ve failed my parents.”

“No, you haven’t. I know a few things about failures and you’re not one of them.”

“How can you know anything about failure, Mister I-Jump-Out-Of-Airplanes? Everything you do is magic.”

Taylor gave a harsh laugh. “It didn’t used to be.” He sighed, not wanting to relive his past, but it seemed he was going to right now. This conversation was supposed to make Piper feel better, but maybe sharing some bit of himself would help her to put things into perspective. “I had an abusive father and a mother who could never stand up to him. There were no arguments. He was military and his word was law. I was never good enough for him. Nothing I ever did was right.”

Taylor took a breath as the past washed over him. “I was really scrawny as a teenager and had little in the way of co-ordination skills, so my father believed I was weak in mind, as well as body. I was continually told I was inadequate, a failure in his eyes, and for a time I believed it, too. It wasn’t until I went to college that I saw things clearly. I wasn’t the one with the problem, my father was.” He paused at the memory. “My uncle was the one who helped me more than anyone. He never had kids, but he was a great uncle, a sounding board when I needed one, helped me do all those things my father should have been doing.” During those teen years, he’d sure needed it.

“That’s terrible, Taylor.” She touched him on the arm, some of her floundering compassion resurfacing for a desperate gasp of air. “Children shouldn’t be treated that way. No one should be.”

“No, they shouldn’t. It’s not something I think about every day, but it is something that happened to me—shaped me, I guess. Gives me a lot more sympathy for people in the same boat.”

“Your sister, too?” she asked.

“Yeah. Caroline had a different kind of experience. Cooking, cleaning, sort of a child-sized servant. Married young to escape, but that turned out to be a mistake. Except for the Alex part. That was the best part of her marriage.”

“She must be a very strong person, too.”

“She is. We kind of banded together to survive.”

“That’s why you’re so close, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Settling into her thoughts, Piper sipped her coffee and tried to make sense of what was happening, why she felt so out of control, why she needed such control over her sister’s life. Didn’t she have enough on her plate to worry about? “I put myself into the role of parent when I could have been a sister, a friend, to Elizabeth. I insisted on having things my way. She went to the schools I chose, we vacationed where I thought was right.” Piper snorted at a memory. “She wanted to go to Jamaica when she graduated from high school, I took her to Disneyland.”

“Those are the small details. Right now, your sister needs your support.”

“How am I supposed to give her my support if I don’t know what she’s doing and the things I do know she’s doing sound outrageous?”

“To you, but not to her. Where is this restaurant going to be opened?”

“I’m not sure. She’s in Phoenix, Arizona. I think Eduardo was from that area, too, so probably there.”

“Why don’t you take a weekend and go spend it with
her, see what she’s up to? Might do you some good to be with her a while. Get to know her as an adult, not the teenager who has grown up on you.” Taylor pressed a kiss to her temple, then rose, pulling her to her feet. “I’ll go home and let you do what you need to do.”

“I’m sorry, Taylor,” Piper said, and escorted him to the door. “This wasn’t the night I had…hoped for.”

“Me, either, but I’ll survive.” He gave a quick smile and a kiss on her nose. “Weather’s supposed to be good, so I think I’ll go jump out of an airplane.”

Piper laughed at his go-with-the-flow attitude, wishing she could be more that way. “Just don’t forget to open the chute,” Piper said, feeling somewhat better having talked to Taylor.

“I won’t.”

“Thank you for listening. I needed it.” She pulled him down for a hug, warmed when his arms wrapped her up for a squeeze and went no further. He was becoming a friend, more important to her than she had anticipated. And that…surprised her, scared her, and made her wonder if there could be anything else between them. As she watched Taylor from the doorway, she wondered if she was deluding herself. A man like Taylor didn’t settle for women like her. Men like him needed more excitement than she was capable of offering. Maybe cooling things between them would be better for both of them, rather than looking for opportunities to heat things up.

Though her time here in Santa Fe was limited, it wasn’t out of the question for her to extend her contract or even take a permanent job in Santa Fe. There were definite possibilities, but she didn’t want to set herself up for heartbreak. Was she asking too much of an affair with Taylor? Could she just take what he had to offer and leave it at that?

Someday she wanted a family. Someday she wanted a relationship that would stand the test of time. Someday she wanted to stay in one place and put down the roots that she hadn’t been able to.

Closing the door, she sighed. Someday was getting closer every day.

P
IPER
returned to work on Monday morning exhausted. She’d spend Saturday and most of Sunday with her sister in Phoenix, returning to Santa Fe late Sunday evening. They’d fought, they’d yelled, they’d cried, they’d made up. She’d let go. Elizabeth was on her own, standing tall beside a man she professed to love, who seemed to adore her, as well. That was more than Piper had in her own life, something she’d put off in order to see Elizabeth cared for. A small thorn of jealousy stuck in her side for the trip back to Santa Fe.

Although she knew that Elizabeth was diving head-first into dangerous waters, Piper finally realized that she had to let her, couldn’t stop her anyway. She wasn’t Elizabeth’s mother or guardian anymore, and as Taylor had said, Elizabeth was of age to make her own decisions, good or bad. She was the one who had to live with the consequences, not Piper. Sighing, Piper had resigned herself to being there to pick up the pieces when Elizabeth’s world came crashing down around her. Maybe after the restaurant venture failed, she’d go back to culinary school the way she was supposed to have done in the first place.

Thirty seconds into Piper’s shift, a cardiac arrest, a
car crash victim and a woman in late labor all arrived in a car, an ambulance and a taxi.

“I’ll take the crash,” Taylor said, steering away from the pregnant woman. “Piper, you’re with me.”

Relieved, she followed Taylor into the trauma room where she forgot everything else except the patient and her work, and the symmetry with which she and Taylor moved together. She removed the ambulance crew’s monitoring equipment and hooked the patient up to the room’s equipment.

Though her hands trembled slightly with the unexpected intensity of the situation, this anxiety was familiar and something she could deal with. Much better than personal trauma any day.

Taylor listened to the man’s lungs, then immediately palpated the man’s throat. “He’s got a deviated trach.”

“Chest tube set-up?” Piper spun around without waiting for Taylor to answer and extracted a large procedure tray from the cupboard, opening it as she turned back.

Taylor whipped off his lab coat and thrust goggles over his face at the same time. As soon as Piper opened the sterile gloves, he shoved his hands into them. “Betadine,” he said, and held out a wad of gauze.

“Yes, Doctor.” Piper squeezed the skin prep solution onto the gauze, then cast a glance at the monitor. “BP and oxygen saturation are okay, but his heart rate is creeping up.”

Arturo, the respiratory therapist, stood at the head of the bed, pumping oxygen into the man’s lungs. “He’s getting a little harder to ventilate, too. Not good, man, not good.” He shook his head as if he knew something was going to happen.

Sweat broke out between Piper’s shoulder blades. A deviated trach indicated tension pneumothorax. If not
corrected immediately, it could lead to further life-threatening problems. As she looked at Taylor, her pulse evened out and her breathing no longer seemed tight. Though he moved quickly, every move had purpose and was extremely efficient. He exuded confidence and absolute certainty in what he was doing. Just watching him calmed Piper. Taylor knew what he was doing, and he was going to save this patient’s life. There was no doubt in her mind.

“Once we get the pressure off his heart, that should improve.” Taylor finished scrubbing the skin on the outside of the patient’s left ribs and tossed the gauze away. Keeping his eyes on the chest, he palpated the ribs with his left hand and held out his right to Piper. “Blade first, then the tube with stylette.”

Piper placed the items into his hands and watched as Taylor nicked the skin with the scalpel blade, then placed the tip of the chest tube in the small opening. With his strong right forearm, he forced the tube through the patient’s ribs and into the pleural sac over the lungs. Piper held her breath as she watched Taylor’s focused motions, knowing this was a painful procedure for the unconscious patient, but a lifesaving one.

As soon as the tube reached its destination, Piper’s breath burst from her lungs. She connected the external end to the chest tube set-up filled with sterile water. “Bubbles. We have bubbles, Doctor.” Piper gave a small smile. The procedure was a success.

“Good.” Taylor nodded and wiped his forearm on his forehead. “Always makes me sweat getting those tubes in.”

“A little sweat saves a life. No problem.” Standing on her toes, she mopped his forehead. Their eyes connected for a brief second and a flash of heat consumed her. Piper moved away, then handed him the suture kit
to secure the tube to the patient’s skin. If the tube became displaced, the patient would be back to critical in seconds.

Taylor palpated the man’s throat again and nodded. “Looks like that did the trick. Everything’s back where it should be.”

“I’m always amazed at what air in the chest cavity can do.”

“Air where it doesn’t belong causes all sorts of problems. Air where it belongs is just fine.” Taylor took the dressing that Piper handed him and applied it to the chest tube site. “Go ahead and call Radiology. We need a head CT, spinal films, probably chest and abdomen, too.”

“Got it.” Piper reached for the phone.

Taylor walked to the sink to scrub and removed his goggles as he listened to Piper’s brisk voice. She knew her stuff, he had to admit that. Casting a glance her way, he wondered how her weekend had gone with her sister. Shrugging, he turned back to the sink. If she wanted to talk, she would. It wasn’t any of his business unless she wanted to make it that way.

Despite his attraction to her, he really needed to cool things off between them. She was such a responsible, conservative person, she didn’t need him in her life. Not that he was irresponsible. He simply didn’t want any romantic entanglements at this point in his life. Sure, he liked her, she’d helped him with Alex, was beautiful, more fun than any woman he’d dated for ages, and…Was he trying to talk himself out of being attracted to Piper? With a frown, he scrubbed at the sink, and tried to keep his mind focused on the work in front of him. They were getting along great right now, but sooner or later their friendship was going to head south. Always did with him. Relationships never
lasted more than a few months with him. Somehow, he always found a reason to move on.

Hours later, Piper handed the patient over to the ICU nurse and gave report. Chest trauma and lacerations were his biggest problems. “Head CT, spinal and abdominal films all negative. Got a pneumo on the left. Chest tube placement confirmed by X-ray.”

She glanced at the man who was now rousing in the bed with his concerned family hovering around him. “He’s darned lucky.”

“Yeah. We don’t see many drunk-driving accidents early Monday mornings. They’re usually the Friday- and Saturday-night types,” the ICU nurse said as they finished report.

Piper returned to the ER and for the rest of the day dealt with the mundane complaints more usual for a Monday. As she wearily slung her bag over her shoulder and headed out the door, she could think of nothing better than filling her tub and her wineglass to the top and diving into both. Which made her think of the hot tub at Taylor’s house and she flushed with the memory. Since he’d adjusted her back, she’d had no stiffness and the cuts and scrapes had healed nicely. Not even on the flight to or back from Phoenix. Though they had been only hour-long flights, seats on commercial flights weren’t known for their great comfort.

Guess the man with the magic hands knew what he was doing there, too.

It seemed that her thoughts conjured him as Taylor walked into her peripheral vision.

“Hi, Piper. Heading out?”

“Yep. Been a long day. You?” She heaved a heavy sigh.

“Yep. Alex stayed after camp for a birthday party, so I’ll pick him up, then head home.”

“How much longer until your sister returns?”

Taylor consulted his watch. “A few weeks.”

“Fabulous. Then what will you do with your free time back?”

They strolled to the parking lot together as staff hurried by on their way home, too.

“Climb mountains, jump out of airplanes and various other super-hero stuff.”

Piper laughed. The sensation felt good in her chest. It seemed that Taylor knew just what to say and when to say it to draw her out of her doldrums. That, she appreciated more than he knew. He was so out there sometimes. She needed her feet firmly on the ground. In that they were polar opposites, but they had somehow made a connection that she was reluctant to see end. After his sister returned, he probably wouldn’t need her help with Alex any longer and then where would they be? The boy had been somewhat of a buffer between them, serving as common ground, something they could talk about if things got uncomfortable between them. Would things be the same between them when life returned to normal? Or would her greatest fears be realized? Her world was so normal and Taylor’s as big as the sky. She had to make a decision.

“So, did you go skydiving over the weekend?” she asked.

“Hang gliding.”

“You lead a dangerous life, Doctor.” Piper shook her head. What an adrenaline junkie he was. Trauma patients, hang gliding, parachuting and helping to raise his nephew. Couldn’t get more dangerous than that.

“It’s not as wild as it seems,” he said, and shifted his position. “At least, not most of the time.”

“Ri-ght.” They arrived at her car, and she leaned against it.

“How’d it go with your sister?” Though he’d told himself to wait, he apparently wasn’t listening to himself.

“Well.” Piper curved her hair around one ear, something he was recognizing as a nervous gesture, something he found endearing. “She’s determined to go through with her plans with Eduardo.” Shaking her head, she looked away from the intensity of Taylor’s eyes. “I met him. They took me to the place they’re opening. They have big plans.”

“How are you doing with all that?” he asked, and took a step closer to her.

“Oh, well, that’s going to take some getting used to.” She finally met Taylor’s gaze. “They certainly think they’re in love and are going to be successful together.”

“They could be.”

“And they could fail miserably.”

“They could. But together they might accomplish more than either of them alone.”

Piper paused a second, staring at Taylor, surprise in her eyes. “That’s exactly what they said.”

“Then maybe they’re smarter than you’re giving them credit for.”

Piper sighed, then stuffed her belongings into her car.

“You look tired.”

“It was a long weekend, then a long day today. I work the next two days, so I don’t think I’ll be catching up on rest until then.”

Taylor started to reach out to her, then clenched a fist and resisted the temptation. She wasn’t his to fix or comfort or anything like that. She was just a nurse he worked with. Just a woman he’d had the most incredible sex with. Just someone who was getting under his
skin in a way he didn’t understand and wasn’t comfortable with. Just someone he was starting to think of as a friend. And more. And he didn’t like it. His idea of a long-term relationship was a four-day weekend at a ski resort when the skiing was bad. Something about Piper was changing that perspective and he resisted, though part of him wanted to embrace what she offered. Something about her resounded inside him, silently melding with the torn and hurt parts buried deep inside him, healing the things he hadn’t even known were broken.

“I’m working those days, too, so I’ll probably see you.”

“I’ll be there for green chile cheese fry day on Wednesday.” Piper gave a small smile. “You’ve got me hooked now. I may have to stay in Santa Fe forever because of those darned fries.”

Taylor smiled. “Good. Green chile is good for all that ails you.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true?” she said with a tired smile.

As she climbed into her car, he squatted down beside the door as she rolled down the window. “I know you’re too tired tonight, but maybe Wednesday after work we can meet up at the park for a run.” Taylor told himself he wasn’t pursuing her, just wanting some company for some exercise. Give himself something to look forward to over the next couple of days. That’s all.

“Just no coyotes, okay?”

“Okay.” He grinned, then stood, and he watched her drive away.

The woman intrigued him. He knew she was all about long term, commitment and loyalty. Those were things that he had taken great pains to avoid in his life, but now they weren’t looking so bad. Maybe he was changing. Maybe being around Piper had changed him.
Maybe he’d had a long day and his defenses were down, and he didn’t know what the hell he was thinking. Maybe a drink with some friends would relieve the loneliness that lived inside him.

Loyalty and commitment were starting to look more appealing than they ever had.