this year. This second year alone had to be better than the first had been; she couldn’t do that again.
* * *
At the end of her shift, as soon as she could safely see to the handling of her last patient, Belle made her way back to the locker room.
Lyons, which she’d decided to think of him now in an effort to separate him from the feelings she had about McKeag, would be irritated if she made him wait for her.
Even with her new plan of action, the idea of facing him made her nerves tangle.
He’d still been with a patient when she’d exited Emergency so she could have time to test her locker door to be sure it had been fixed before he arrived.
Now all she had to do was get her things from Lyons and try to establish a new tone for their conversation, because his reformation couldn’t hinge entirely on gifts—he needed kind human interaction too. A friend. Or at least someone he had a less contentious relationship with than he seemed to have with all their colleagues. Earlier, she’d been nervous, which could’ve only come across as weakness. He was not a man who appreciated weakness, no question. She hoped that meant he’d be the kind of man who appreciated people trying to better themselves.
She didn’t have to go to medical school to learn more of what she might expect in a busy, big city emergency department and be better prepared. This wasn’t the same as an Urgent Care, and maybe her skills had gotten rusty in those gentle positions.
If she could inspire that in him, maybe it would trickle out to his interactions with everyone else and he’d stop yelling so much and make the department easier for everyone. Even if he wasn’t in charge, he still seemed to see everyone as an underling who continuously disappointed him.
Noelle would’ve told her to be bold, to confront him and tell him that she wouldn’t be pushed around. Noelle had always been the brave one, never afraid of confrontation. The first year she’d been a pilot, she’d had to suffer fools daily who hadn’t thought a woman could safely handle an airplane.
Belle was the introverted twin—which confused her really. The whole nature-or-nurture debate went nuclear when it came to the two of them, people who shared the same DNA and were raised in exactly the same way, but who were closer to two opposite halves of one complete person than identical twins.
Had been.
She was doing it again, dwelling on a subject that always stripped away shreds of her composure until she was a raw mass of emotional hamburger.
The door to the locker room squeaked, and she cleared her throat and swallowed down the unwelcome surge of grief, turning in time to see Lyons rounding the bank of lockers in the middle—in much the same fashion as he’d done this morning in HR: as if it never occurred to him that someone could be in his way. Or wouldn’t move once they saw him.
“Here you are.” His accent was a little more present, she noticed immediately. His words less clipped. Perhaps he’d shouted himself out? Or perhaps it was just her impression of him, and how she was trying to change it.
“You were still with a patient, and I wanted to come up and make certain Maintenance had unstuck my locker.” She crooked a thumb toward the now repaired thing. “So, you won’t have to deal with the clutter of extra clothing tomorrow. Thank you for the loan of your space today.”
He stopped and stared as soon as he saw her face, his brows slamming down above those icy eyes. No words came, he just scowled while searching her face.
Her lashes were damp, she realized. Must’ve not stopped the tears in time to keep him from seeing the piece her memories had freshly ripped out. She’d thought she’d gotten control of herself in time, but even with her tanned skin, her eyebrows and nose had a tendency to go red, even before the actual tears gathered. That was probably the tell.
What surprised her was how long he took deciding what to do, or maybe think, about it.
She willed him not to ask, and, although she had to draw the last ounce of today’s strength reserves, lifted her chin and held his gaze, daring him to bring it up.
It was only a second, and he didn’t so much back down as decide to move on. He opened his locker and began fishing out her belongings. “It was no trouble.”
She didn’t actually snort. At least on the outside.
“I suppose it was less trouble than I was otherwise.” She took the still-packaged scrubs and the tote bag her clothing had been stashed in and began sorting it out for her ride home. Before he answered, she added, “About that, I don’t know if I’ll see that exact situation again, but I’d like to prepare myself better for it. For all this. I was wondering if you had suggestions on texts to read.”
He pulled his top off, leaving the white tee shirt beneath it, and dropped the worn shirt onto the bench in front of his locker. Unfortunately, a snug cotton shirt only made his impressive torso more impressive. The material clung; she could mark the shape of each muscle across the top of his back and shoulders. “Any texts on emergency treatment. Field treatment texts are actually a good start. The Army has a good one available.”
He shook out a nice dress shirt, pulled it on and began buttoning it up.
It was weird to stand there talking while he changed, and she refused to—unlike he-of-the-impressive-shoulders, she didn’t have a tee shirt beneath her scrub top and having him see her in her bra once was plenty.
Without the scrubs, it was easier to see him as Lyons, not Dr. McKeag. It also made her earlier attempts to convince herself he wasn’t really attractive completely ridiculous. He was handsome, but his face was also interesting. A study in angles, juxtaposed with a generous, soft mouth. Noelle could’ve had a field day drawing him—because being a brave warrior for women’s rights hadn’t been enough, her sister had also been able to work magic with a pencil.
The burning returned.
She had to get out of there. Stay on task. This was supposed to be about improving his impression of her and doing whatever she needed to become better equipped at dealing with her new duties, not having an emotional breakdown. She dug her fingers into the side of her thigh to give focus, and asked, “Earlier, what did I miss?”
“His lungs, the crackling in his breath sounds. You were dazzled by the heart,” he answered immediately, finished buttoning his shirt, then turned more fully toward her. “The heart rate was a symptom of pulmonary contusion. They found an embolism that formed where the bruise had nearly collapsed it. So, he had both.”
Yeah, pulmonary contusion, she hadn’t ever seen that, but she couldn’t find fault with his critique. She had been dazzled by the excessively fast heart rate and blinded by her own idea of what internal bleeding would look like.
“Do you know how he’s doing?”
“He is in ICU, still unconscious.”
He’d kept up with the status of a patient who was no longer under his care. That was the sign she’d been hoping for—he was in the profession to help people. Whatever his unpleasant exterior—his demeanor and words—there was goodness there somewhere. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
“His head trauma?”
“That’s the reason he’s still unconscious.” He looked in his locker for a moment, took out a pair of trousers, then hung them on the corner of the locker door, apparently waiting until their conversation was over to finish changing. Bless him. She didn’t need to see more of his impressive parts.
“Diagnosis?”
“Diffuse brain injury,” Lyons answered, and still his voice remained even, almost gentle. This wasn’t just her reframing their interaction; he was more at ease now. “I don’t expect him to wake. He’s on steroids in the hopes of shrinking the swelling, but he’s also vented. We’ll know more in the next couple of days.”
She seemed to have done what she’d planned, now she