Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (44 page)

Eyes flickering over the dozen monitors and the myriad of tubing, her fiancé gave a resigned sigh. “Just give the word, and we can reschedule.”

“
No,” Sal blurted.

This awkward limbo between them had dragged on long enough. She’d screwed up the courage to talk to Richard tonight, to talk about this huge, stinky, dead elephant in their relationship. It would be too easy to let their schedules get in the way of their lives.

“
I’m just waiting for another R-3 to hit the floor, then I’m off.”

“
What do you mean?” Richard asked, indicating the dim reception desk through the trauma bay window. “Stacy’s here.”

Sal looked across to find the leggy blonde leaning over the nurse’s desk at just the right angle to accentuate her butt. If they’d stayed together, Richard and Stacy could have made the most perfect Aryan babies ever.

She turned to the pale med student. “Get her.”

The young man didn’t seem to hear. Rooted in place, the student stood enthralled by the medical spectacle before him.

Snapping her fingers Maria-style, Sal got his attention. “Tell Dr. Manning to get her buns of steel in here.”

Her tone not only pulled the student out of his stupor, but caused him to turn and literally run out of the room.

“
Sal, there’s no reason to misdirect your frustration onto your co-workers. I’m sure Stacy doesn’t realize how serious this patient’s condition is.”

“
Please,” Sal chided her fiancé as she checked one of the EKG leads to make sure they weren’t missing a faint heartbeat. “Not only does she know the full extent of this man’s injuries, but she’s purposefully delaying coming in here so she that doesn’t have to sign a death certificate.”

“
Clear!” Paul called out before he defibrillated the patient.

The flatline didn’t budge.

“
Even if you were right to assign her motive, it doesn’t look like she could avoid signing one tonight,” Richard commented.

“
Maybe they’ll frame it,” Sal muttered.

Richard gave her that disapproving frown.

“
Okay, that sounded bitter even to me,” she admitted.

They shared a quiet smile. Could it be that they had just taken the first tiny step in repairing their relationship?

Then Dr. Manning walked in.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 6

“
Hogging all the good cases for yourself again, Calon?” Stacy asked, with a mixture of syrupy sweetness and calculated recrimination.

Sal gritted her teeth, refusing to allow her bitterness to rear its ugly head in front of Richard again. This was how Manning worked, somehow always positioning herself as the victim. Worse, her blatant manipulations had made her the favored resident for the attending job next year.

Sighing, Sal tried to imagine what her fiancé would advise in a situation like this. He’d probably recommend that she not allow Manning’s ploy to affect her, to allow Stacy’s words to roll off her back like water rolled off a duck’s. Unfortunately, Richard didn’t seem to understand that it was hard to ignore corrosive, acid rain on your back, but she gave it her best shot.

“
We’re close to replacing his blood loss at the scene, but we’ve had significant subsequent loss …” Sal looked around. “Maria’s not back yet?”

Heads shook all around her. That was weird. Her friend could usually pry the Holy Grail from the pope with a well-timed wink and smile.

“
Have you run a PTT yet?” Manning asked as she very ceremoniously donned a full gown and double gloves. The starry-eyed intern attending her seemed naïve enough to think that the results of a blood coagulation test could somehow change the course of this poor addict’s fate. He was dead. They just needed a signature to make it official.

“
No, but have at it,” Sal answered as she tried to snap her gloves off.

Sal had meant it to be a theatrical gesture to equal Stacy’s gowning spectacle, but her ring got caught, forcing her to awkwardly untangle it. Finally, the glove ripped loudly, turning everyone’s attention to her.

Manning smirked. “Maybe you should leave that big rock at home if you don’t know how to use it.”

A snicker came from behind. Probably from someone who didn’t realize that Stacy coveted the very ring that she mocked. Manning didn’t miss a beat as she held court. “Can anyone tell me the date of the Helsinki experiments that determined cardiac preload statistics of Hetastarch versus Dextran?”

“
See everyone on Tuesday,” Sal said, but she was already forgotten by interns and students alike as they vied to answer Manning.

Then to brighten Sal’s hope for humanity, Paul made the motion as if he were hanging himself. The staff hated these long-drawn-out, flog ’em codes. Unfortunately, they weren’t on the attending selection committee.

Sighing, Sal joined Richard out in the hallway. Surprisingly, he kissed her on the forehead. It was the most romantic contact they’d had in weeks.

“
I know you’re exhausted, but I’m proud of you. It took a lot of courage to ignore Stacy’s bait.”

Glancing up at her fiancé, Sal realized that he must have come straight from his evening swim at the club. The stretch of his London Fog coat showed off his frame, sculpted by hundreds of laps. It almost made her feel guilty about never exercising. His sandy blond hair was slicked back, except for a single lock that curled on his forehead. He always said it looked childish, but Sal felt it gave him a rakish charm.

Between the diamond on her finger, his caring nature, and that ripped body of his, Sal had to consider that maybe there was more to Maria’s accusation than she wanted to admit. Who wouldn’t want to marry Richard?

After her previous tumultuous relationships, with their loud, screaming fights, Sal would have thought that she’d appreciate the fact that she and her fiancé never fought. Actually, Richard’s insistence that they “talk” through their issues felt not only foreign, but torturous. They usually ended up with her fiancé explaining how Sal’s need to feed her ego through work validation impacted his sense of masculine empowerment.

Maybe that was their problem. Never any makeup sex. Deepening intimate communication skills seldom left you hot and sweaty.

Taking his hand, Sal resolved to change all that. And she might have gotten a start if the med student hadn’t stuck his head out the door.

“
Dr. Manning’s asking where the blood is.”

Damn it. What was taking Maria so long? Had the head nurse suddenly lost her mojo? Sal glanced around the dim ER and found an intern heading her way. “Clipsham, could you go down to the blood bank?”

His cheeks blotched as he stammered, “Sorry. I’ve got to get Manning.”

“
You can get the blood first.”

He shook his head almost violently. “You don’t understand. That patient is throwing a tantrum. He’s going to sue me!”

“
You’re going to hear that ten times a shift around here.”

“
I’m calling my lawyer!” Kasza shouted loud enough to be heard all the way across the ER.

Sal looked over her shoulder. Stacy had stepped to the back of the trauma bay, glowering like a master puppeteer controlling her marionettes. So in control. So cool. So aloof. Then Sal glanced at the irate patient.

“
Yeah, you go get Manning,” Sal encouraged. “I’ll get the blood.”

The intern looked relieved, clearly unaware that not only did Stacy hate her dog-and-pony show interruptions, but absolutely despised whiny, difficult patients. If he thought Kasza could throw a tantrum, just wait.

Feeling more satisfied than she should, Sal turned to Richard. “I’ll be right back.”

“
Sal …”

She squeezed his hand. “It’ll be a hell of a lot quicker to help Maria at the blood bank than to talk that patient down.”

They looked over at Kasza, who yelled into his cell phone. Oh yeah, tonight was going to be quite the show.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 7

Trotting down the darkened steps, Sal had to admit that she had an ulterior motive for fetching Maria. Only her best friend could truly commiserate over Stacy’s antics. After having the required conniption fit, Maria would utter some wicked comeback that Sal could use later.

Okay, maybe she had a second motivation. A part of her felt that the thing to reignite her and Richard’s love life was to try something daring, such as the Latvian Splits that Maria kept carrying on about.

Jerking open the door to the basement level, Sal stopped. A thick black greeted her. Even the battery-powered emergency lights had given out. And if they were down, what about the blood bank’s power supply? Maybe that’s what delayed Maria.

Getting out her trusty penlight, Sal swept the hall with the thin beam. The action had started casually, then a snake of fear slithered up her back, hearkening her mind back to the emergency room. The flash of light. The glint of steel. Even though she couldn’t remember what had actually happened, the fragmented images brought a chill to the otherwise humid air.

The basement’s damp, dark ambience almost made her head upstairs to obtain a bigger flashlight and an even bigger security guard. Then Sal laughed. When did she become such a scaredy-cat? Her father, rest his soul, would be ashamed to have his daughter act so timid. She came from hardier stock than that.

Striding with much more confidence, Sal made a fast left. One last corridor, and she’d be at the blood bank. No big deal. Then her penlight gave out. Startled, she dropped it, then jumped when it shattered across the floor. Reaching a hand out, she found the wall and steadied herself. As her breath wheezed loudly, Sal chastised herself.

What could have thrown her off her game so badly? She normally liked the dark. It was soothing. Calm. Safe. Now, though, it held nothing but foreboding. Up ahead, Sal could see the faint pool of light coming from the blood bank’s doorway. Just get down there, already!

Hand against the wall, as if it could offer some emotional support, Sal made her way down the hall. Suddenly, a man burst out of the blood bank.

Not any man, but
the
man.

Taller than even Richard, wide shoulders, and an impossibly square jawline.

How could she forget those flint-blue eyes?

Here, her “trick of the light” stood in the flesh.

A knife in hand.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 8

“
Maria!” Sal yelled, remembering it all. How could she have forgotten that this man had nearly killed her friend?

“
Leave,” he growled.

Despite her body wanting to do exactly the opposite, Sal found her feet turning back toward the stairwell. While she tried to rationalize that it was her desire to get to security, Sal knew that it was his word, his commanding tone, that forced her feet to move. Nothing else mattered but following his edict.

In obeying, Sal’s path brought her past the blood bank’s door. She caught the sight of red. Her feet stopped.

“
No!”

Before her lay a bloodbath. Literally. Two inches of the sticky fluid covered the floor. The blood bags had been ripped to shreds, their contents spilled. And a single body lay in the middle, slashed open, like a wild animal kill. White innards spilled across the crimson sea.

Sal stood stunned, then caught sight of a blonde streak. Blonde bangs against blue-black shorn hair.

Maria!

Her best friend’s eyes were open, glazed over with death. A wrenching nausea threatened to topple Sal, and then his hand was on her shoulder.

His
hand. The man who had done this. The man who’d killed Maria.

Her feet took over, reeling her backwards, propelling her away. She had seen a phone. It was halfway to the stairs. Running, Sal found the phone and jerked it from its hook. “Security!”

But it was dead. Not even a dial tone. She dropped the hand piece and went to run for the stairwell, but a strong hand caught her jacket.

Sal tried to scream, but his hand grabbed her throat, choking her, picking her up off her feet and slamming her back against the wall.

He brought his face so near that stubble raked her cheek. “Hold.”

As much as Sal wanted to squirm from his grasp, she could not. The man lowered her to the ground, and then ever so slightly released the pressure against her trachea. She took in a harsh breath, then coughed.

His grip cut off her windpipe again. “You draw him!”

From under his coat, he drew his knife, the same blade she had seen earlier. The thin steel glistened at its impossibly sharp tip. Sal flailed as the light from the blood bank suddenly extinguished, leaving only inky black.

This was it. She was going to die like Maria.