Taming Her Navy Doc (5 page)

Shark
.

It was one of the dangers of training in the sea, though attacks were rare.

His first instinct was to run into the fray to help, but he couldn’t step foot into water. His prosthesis had robotic components and it would totally fry his leg. He needed his prosthetic leg to continue his job.

He was useless.

So useless.

He pulled out his phone and called for an ambulance, then ran after Erica, who wasn’t far away.

“Erica!” he shouted, each step causing pain to shoot up his thigh. He hadn’t run in so long. “Commander.”

Erica stopped and turned, her eyes wide and eyebrows arched with curiosity. Without having to ask questions, she looked past him to the
blood in the water and men struggling to bring their friend safely ashore.

She ran straight to them, whipping off her tank top to use as a tourniquet, wading into the surf without hesitation to aid the victim, while all he could do was stand there and watch in envy.

Only for a moment, though, before he shook off that emotion.

He might not be able to help in the same way as Erica, but he’d do everything he could. As soon as they had the man out of the water and on the beach, Thorne dropped down on one knee to survey the damage to the man’s calf.

“What happened?” Thorne asked, not taking his eyes off the wound as Erica tightened the tourniquet made out of her Navy-issue tank top.

“We were swimming back in and Corporal Ryder fell behind. It was then he cried out. We managed to scare the shark off,” one of Corporal Ryder’s comrades responded.

“My leg!” Corporal Ryder screamed. “My leg is gone.”

Thorne’s throat constricted and his phantom leg twinged with agony, which almost caused him to collapse in pain.

You’re fine. Your leg is gone. There is no pain.

“Your leg is there, Corporal,” Erica responded. “You hear me? Your leg is there.”

Corporal Ryder howled in agony and then cursed before going into shock.

“Lie him down, he’s going into shock.” Thorne reached out and helped Erica get Corporal Ryder down.

Erica was helping the other recruits assess Corporal Ryder’s ABCs, the water still lapping against them as they worked on the leg, and Thorne stood there useless because he couldn’t get his prosthetic leg wet; the corporal was still half in the water.

“How bad?” Thorne directed his question to Erica.

“We can probably salvage the leg. We won’t know until we get him into surgery.”

The ambulance from the hospital pulled up in the parking lot. Two paramedics were hurrying down the hill to the beach with a stretcher.

“Well, Commander Griffin, it looks like we’re both scrubbing in. I don’t know how many shark attacks you’ve seen…”

“Enough,” she said, interrupting him, her expression soft. “Thank you for letting me assist you, Captain Wilder.”

Thorne nodded and stood, getting out of the way as the paramedics arrived. “Commander, you go with the paramedics in the ambulance. I’ll be there shortly.”

There was no way he could keep up with the stretcher.

He’d get there in enough time.

Corporal Ryder needed all the help he could get.

Erica nodded and, as the ABCs of the corporal’s condition were completed, he was on the gurney, headed toward the ambulance.

Thorne stayed behind with the other men, his stump throbbing, phantom pain racking him as his own body remembered the trauma he’d suffered.

He needed a moment to get it together.

To lock it all out, so he could be of some use to the corporal and help save that man’s leg, where his own hadn’t been.

“M
ORE SUCTION
.”

Erica glanced up from the corporal’s leg wound, but only briefly, as she carefully suctioned around the artery.

“Thank you, Commander,” Thorne responded.

Their eyes locked across the surgical table. Even though she’d been here two weeks she had yet to operate with Thorne. When he had stitched his own leg, Erica had admired the work, given the condition and the crude tools he’d used. Now, watching him in action in a fully equipped and modern OR was something of beauty. She was so impressed with his surgical skill. There was a fluid grace with his hands, like a fine musician’s, as he worked over the corporal’s calf.

It was a simple wound to the leg, if you could call a shark bite simple. It didn’t need or require two seasoned trauma surgeons, but Thorne had requested she be in there with him.

“You triaged him in the field. You have the right to be there too, Commander.”

Even though she wasn’t needed and it was her day off, Erica went into surgery with Captain Wilder against her better judgment. He’d been accommodating, but she still had a feeling that she was being scrutinized, manipulated, and that one wrong move and he’d send her packing. Well, maybe not personally send her packing, but she was sure he’d expedite it.

He probably wants to make sure you don’t hack off Corporal Ryder’s leg like you did to his.

Erica
tsked
under her breath, annoyed she’d let that thought in.

“Is something wrong, Commander?” Thorne asked.

“No, nothing. Why?”

“I thought you might have been annoyed about working on your day off. I know I’ve been pretty hard on you since you’ve arrived.”

“No, I’m not complaining—far from it.”

“You were huffing.”

Erica glanced up again. Thorne’s blue eyes twinkled slightly in what she could only assume was devilry.

What was that old saying her grandma had had?
Keep away from men who are
de pouille
or who are
possede
. They’re just as bad as
rocachah
.

Or,
keep away from men who are a mess or mischievous children. They’re like beach burrs.
Erica had thought at the time her
mamère
’s advice was a bit nuts, but Captain Seaton certainly had been a
peekon
in her side and Thorne had the look of a
possede
for sure.

Great. I’m now channeling Mamère.

“I wasn’t huffing over the work. The work, I love.”

“Yet something rankled you.”

“Why are you being so
tête dure
?” Then she gasped, realizing some of her Cajun had slipped out.

“So what?” Thorne asked, amused.

“
Tête dure
is stubborn, persistent and hardheaded. I’m from Louisiana.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Don’t judge a bed by its ­blanket.”

“You mean a book by its cover?”

“Whatever.”

“So why are you huffing?”

“Why are you being persistent?” she asked.

“Why not? I am the commanding officer of Trauma. I want to make sure those under my command…” He trailed off and Erica’s stomach
twisted. Was he alluding to her past in Rhode Island again?

Not everyone is out to get you. Just because one commanding officer accused you based on what happened to Dad doesn’t mean they all will. Captain Dayton hadn’t.

Then why did he keeping hinting at it? Maybe it was some kind of psychological warfare. Not that Thorne was at war with her. Perhaps it was some kind of SEAL training? It probably was and she shouldn’t take it personally.

Erica cleared her throat. “If you want to know the reason I’m
tsking
,
which is totally different from huffing, the reason is the wound. He’s pretty mangled.”

Thorne sighed. “His dreams of being in the Special Ops are over.”

“He’s lucky it didn’t sever his femoral artery or we would have lost him on the beach.” Erica continued to work, her hands moving as fast as Thorne’s, working to repair the damage. It was an automatic process, one she didn’t have to think too hard about. “More people die being trampled by hippos than by shark attacks.”

“Hippos, Commander?” There were a few bewildered looks in the OR.

“Twenty-nine-hundred people annually.”

“You’re joking. That can’t be right.”

“It is. Look it up.”

“Hippos?”

Erica chuckled. “I know, right?”

“Do you think the leg is salvageable?” Thorne asked, changing the subject.

“Yes.” Their gaze locked again for a brief instant. The intensity of that shared moment made her think he wanted to ask her why his, which hadn’t been as mangled, hadn’t been saved.

She’d wanted to save his leg, but the infection had been too virulent.

Still, she’d always thought about him. What had happened to him, that gorgeous, brave Navy SEAL who had begged her. Who had called her beautiful.

“Like an angel.”

Erica tried not to let those memories back in, but it was a failure. Hot flames of blood rushed up into her cheeks and she was thankful for the surgical mask. She broke the connection, her pulse racing.

You can’t have this. He’ll turn on you like Seaton did.

“I think Corporal Ryder, barring any post-op infection, will keep his leg,” she said.

“Infection. Yes.” His words were icy. “Well, look at this.”

Erica glanced up and in his forceps there was a milky-colored sharp object, which looked like a bone fragment.

“What is that? Did it come off his femur?”

“It’s a shark’s tooth.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with a smile obscured by his mask. He placed the tooth in the basin. “That will be something the corporal will want to keep.”

“Like a badge of honor,” Erica chuckled.

Thorne laughed quietly. “That, or he’ll be out hunting the shark that ended his career prematurely.”

“You don’t think so?”

Thorne nodded. “Corporal Ryder has it in him. He had a passion to be in Special Ops; he’s going to be annoyed.”

“His life was saved. The animal didn’t do it on ­purpose.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Thorne snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like to be in such an elite force, protecting your country. Nothing else matters. You endure endless hours of torment to train, to make your body ready for the most treacherous conditions, and you gladly do it. You’d gladly lay down your life for a chance to keep your country free.”

“Very patriotic,” Erica said, trying to control her annoyance. “I may not be part of that elite crew, but what I do serves my country as well. I feel the same way.”

“It’s not the same. He’ll have a bone to pick with that shark. You mark my words.”

“So, would you?”

“Would I what?” Thorne asked, not looking at her.

“Go after the person or animal that ruined your ­career.”

Thorne cleared his throat. “I did.”

There was something in his tone which made her shudder, like she was in danger, but probably not in the same kind of danger as the shark.

This was something different. This kind of danger made her heart beat a bit faster, made her skin hot and made her feel like she was already the cornered prey animal with its throat exposed, waiting for the predator to make its kill. She didn’t think Thorne wanted to kill her, far from it—but what he wanted from her, she didn’t know.

Get revenge on her? Bring her to her knees?

She had no idea.

It was the kind of danger which excited her and terrified her.

It was the kind of danger she didn’t run from. It was the kind she stood up to and she was ready for whatever was to come.

* * *

Thorne watched Erica as she checked on Corporal Ryder’s vitals. Ryder had developed a post-op fever and had been in the ICU since
he’d come out of surgery. He hadn’t even fully come out of the anesthetic.

“My leg. My leg. Oh, God. Please, no!”

That was what Ryder had been screaming as they’d pulled him from the water. He’d been screaming at the top of his lungs. Even though they’d all assured Ryder that his leg was still there, that it was attached and could be saved, it was like the young man had made up his mind that it wasn’t going to happen.

Thorne had seen that before—when the spirit just wanted to give up and no amount of modern medicine would help that patient recover. It was like the soul was already trying to escape.

“Hold on, Liam. Just hold on.”

“I can’t, Thorne. Let me go.”

“Why did you step in front of the IED for me?”

Thorne had read his own records, the ones which had been taken by his commanding officer from the USNV. He’d developed a post-op fever, no doubt from the virulent infection coursing through his body.

In his brief memories, when he could recall that moment, he remembered the feeling of slipping away, but something pulling him back.

An angel.

Erica.

Seeing her face hovering above him had grounded him.

Sometimes when the pain was bad, when it felt like the amputated leg was still there and he couldn’t take it any longer, he hated Erica for saving his life.

Then again, after he’d been shot and they’d spent those days holed up in the sewers, he hadn’t thought he was going to get out of there. He’d thought he was going to die in the sewer, which would’ve been better.

One less body in a casket for his mother to weep over.

No, don’t let those memories in.

He didn’t want to think about his twin’s funeral, because when he thought of Liam he inevitably thought about how he’d tried to save his life.

“You’re crushing me, Thorne.”

“I’m applying pressure. I’m the medic, you’re the hero. Remember?”

Liam had smiled weakly.
“I’m past that point. Let me go.”

That moment of clarity, when you felt no pain and your body was just tired of struggling on. You weren’t afraid of death any longer. Death meant rest.

Thorne glanced back at the ICU. He saw that
look of resolution on Corporal Ryder’s face and he hoped the young man would fight.

Ryder still had his leg.

Thorne didn’t and if he hadn’t been in the medical corps of the Navy, if he hadn’t had so many commendations and something to fall back on, he would’ve been discharged.

Ryder has to live.

Thorne clenched his fists to ease the anger he was feeling, because if he marched in there now to do his own assessment of the situation, to ease the guilt and anguish he was feeling over Corporal Ryder, he was likely to take it out on Erica.

The surgeon who had taken his leg. Only, she’d tried to save it. He’d seen the reports. It was the infection from the dirty water he’d been forced to live in.

There was nothing to be done at that point. There had been no one to blame but himself. He was the one who’d decided to step in front of that bullet to protect Tyler.

He didn’t blame Erica—only, maybe, for saving his life.

He’d thought about her countless times, about kissing those lips, touching her face. Of course, those had been fantasies as he’d recovered. He thought those feelings of lust would disappear when he met her in person.

Thorne was positive that he’d built her up in his head. That it was the drugs which had obscured his memories.

No one could be that beautiful.

He was wrong. Even though his memory had been slightly fuzzy, his fantasies about her didn’t do her justice.

When she’d rushed into the fray to give Corporal Ryder first aid on the beach, he knew why she was one of the top trauma surgeons in the medical corps.

The real woman was so much more than his fantasy one. Which was dangerous, because he felt something more than just attraction…

It was dangerous, because he did feel something more than just attraction toward her. He wanted to get to know her, open his heart to her, and that was something he couldn’t do.

He wasn’t going to let in any one else.

There was no room to love. He wouldn’t risk his heart, and if something happened to him, well, he wasn’t going to put any woman through that. He’d seen what had happened to his brother’s wife and children when Liam had died. And, make no mistake, it was his fault Liam had died.

Thorne couldn’t do that to anyone else.

So these emotions Erica was stirring in him scared him.

He’d been alone almost a decade and managed. What he needed to do was get control of himself. Then he could work with her.

No problem.

Yeah. Right.

He headed into the ICU, sliding the isolation door shut behind him. Erica glanced up at him briefly as she continued to write in Ryder’s chart.

“Captain,” she said offhandedly, greeting him.

“Commander,” Thorne acknowledged, moving to the far side of the bed to put a distance between them. “How’s he doing?”

“Stable.” She said the word in a way that made Thorne think being stable was sufficient and in some cases—especially this one, where it wasn’t even as serious as other wounds—stable should’ve been enough.

“Any sign of infection?”

“No.” Her cheeks flushed briefly.

“Well, that’s good. If the wound becomes infected and he doesn’t respond to antibiotics we’ll have to amputate.”

She looked at him. “You have an obsession with ­amputation.”

“Can you blame me?” And even though he knew he shouldn’t, and even though he knew
she already knew his leg was gone, he bent over and rolled up his scrub leg. “Titanium.”

Their gazes locked and his pulse was pounding in his ears. He waited to see if she would admit to it. On one hand, he hoped she would and on the other hand, he hoped she wouldn’t, but how long could they keep up this facade?

“I know,” she said quietly without batting an eyelash, before she turned to her chart.

Thorne was stunned she admitted to it. When they’d first met again here in Okinawa she’d acted like she didn’t remember him, just as he’d pretended he didn’t recall her.

He smoothed down the scrubs over his prosthetic leg and then straightened up. The tension in the room was palpable. Usually, tension never bothered him and he thrived in high-stress situations, but this was different.