out year after year as divorced adults rediscovered their first loves at a reunion and wound up finally marrying them.
He’d guffawed at the story when he’d first read it, but something had clicked in the back of his mind. He related to that “imprinted” feeling…with January.
He’d be a total fool to think something like that could happen with her. She’d just made it very clear their time together was ancient history. It was finally time to get over it.
But not before he got even.
Since he’d first hatched the plan, the thought of making her pay had definitely lost its appeal. All he had to do was look at her. Even a few pounds heavier and a lot less glitzy, January had his love-starved brain doing calisthenics. What fool came up with the saying men never made passes at girls who wore glasses? He’d already gotten used to her black, boxy frames. They suited the shape of her face, and even though she probably assumed she looked studious in them, he thought they made her spicier. What he especially liked was how her bob slipped from behind an ear and slanted across one eye. The darker ash blond shade was just as sexy as the old color. And when she used her slender fingers to sweep it away, well, what could he say? It sent an electrical current humming through his body.
To use an old saying, he could kill two birds with one stone. Revenge sex should answer the imprinting question.
After a quiet day on the job on Tuesday, and slipping into scrubs at the hospital, Beck glanced at Jan as she arrived at work. He approached with a broad smile, planning to take another risk and ask her for a date the coming weekend. He wasn’t about to take no for an answer. How else was he going to get into her bed?
Jan hadn’t changed into scrubs yet and she wore straight-legged jeans with copper-colored flats and a matching top. She’d also applied lipstick today, and that small addition made her beach-sky blue eyes nothing less than stunning from behind her heavy framed lenses.
He stalled in mid-stride and swallowed to get himself together.
“You’re just the man I was looking for,” she said, further derailing his train of thought.
“Yeah?” Nothing like snappy repartee to entice a lady.
“Yeah.” She crossed her arms and tapped a foot. “I’ll talk to you after I’ve changed,” she said as she slipped into the ladies’ dressing room.
Maybe she’d changed her mind about seeing him?
Beck hung around, feeling both optimistic and like a fool—a fool with a grudge and a plan to get even.
With a booming voice, Carmen announced an incoming major trauma patient via helicopter, and Gavin appeared at his office door and strode to Beck’s side.
“We’ll do this intake together,” Gavin said.
Jan emerged from the locker room in uniform and Gavin added her to the team. “Jan, show Beck to the roof and transport the patient together.”
She nodded.
As they made their way to the roof, Beck expected Jan to finish what she’d started to say earlier. Instead, he found she’d moved on to the weather and quizzing him about helicopter transports and the military. He didn’t want to be pushy, so he let his curiosity take a back seat and answered her questions.
He’d make time to ask her for a date later.
“You know what this guy is here for, right?” she said.
He nodded.
“Motorcycle accident,” she said, staring him down.
“Yep.”
“Doesn’t it make you wonder how long your luck will hold out?”
“I don’t take risks,” he said.
She sputtered a laugh.
“What?” He innocently raised his hands just as the helicopter came into view. He’d play the charming card until he got what he wanted.
The yellow helicopter circled the hospital. The flapping noise of the rotor blades intensified during the descent until Beck thought his ears would burst. A gale-force blast practically knocked them off their feet while the chopper landed.
Almost the instant the aircraft touched down, the door slid open and the flight EMT and attendant jumped out, lowering the patient, who was strapped onto a stretcher.
Jan led the way with the ER gurney and Beck pushed along behind her. Her hair flipped and flapped against her head, looking like the spinning helicopter blades. Powerful wind pelted his face with sharp pinpricks of sensation. He raised his forearm and elbow to guard against the onslaught, to no avail.
The EMT shouted something at them. Beck couldn’t hear a thing beyond the rhythmic air-chopping beat. The sound threw him back in time to a battlefield and the cries for help, to decisions, right or wrong, that changed soldier’s lives, some for better, others for worse. In a flash, memories of life-threatening times resurfaced, where the tick of the clock hammered down on him. He tensed. Fine perspiration moistened his upper lip.
“Beck!” Jan grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. “Give us a hand.”
He snapped out of his nightmarish thoughts.
The three worked in tandem to transfer the back-boarded, neck-braced, and extremity-splinted twenty-something patient from stretcher to hospital gurney in one smooth move. Though a practiced and swift transfer, the man still cried out in pain.
Both arms and the left leg were broken, according to the previously called-in report. There were also possible head and neck injuries, though the patient appeared to be fairly alert. After the transfer, they pushed the patient toward the locked hospital ER elevator at a quick clip.
Once inside the elevator the emergency medical flight technician gave them more detail. “He went down on the freeway, weaving between cars. Compound fractures of the right femur and left humerus and radius. Crushed tibia and fibula, right side, from passing car. Fractured right humerus. Possible cervical and hip fractures. Peter, can you hear me?” the EMT called out to the semi-conscious patient.
A faint, hoarse voice replied. “Yeah.”
Every bump and joggle of the gurney caused the patient to cry out in pain as they exited the elevator and rolled him closer to the ER. Sadistic as it seemed, Beck was glad to hear them as the man’s cries were a good sign, proving he still had some fight left in him.
“Vital signs stable with elevated blood pressure 155 over 90, pulse 110, and respirations 24, with good oxygen levels.”
Gavin met them at the entrance to the ER and the EMT repeated his information as they speed-walked the patient to an available procedure room. Gavin dismissed a medical student and a first-year ER resident who’d fallen in step with them. “We’ll handle this one.”
After a complete physical assessment of the patient, including a neuro check and a slew of verbal orders, including multiple X-rays, he glanced at Beck. “We need IV access to prep him for surgery and to give pain meds.” He turned back to the patient. “You’re not on blood thinners, are you?”
The guy mouthed, “no.”
Gavin turned back to Beck. “With his compound fractures, he’ll need antibiotic therapy, too.”
Gavin walked Beck to the side of the room and lowered his voice. “You’ve done central venous line insertions, right, Beck?”
Beck turned his head and lowered his voice so the patient couldn’t hear. “Only jugular sticks, and nothing like the procedure you do.”
“You’ve seen me start a few of these babies the last couple of days. What’s that saying? Watch one, do one, teach one?”
Beck raised his brows and nodded.
“That’s what you’re here for, right? To update and enhance your experience?”
“On