What I Fight For: A Bad Boy Military Romance (Easy Team Book 1) (3 page)

“Wanna say thanks to the doc for cleaning you up?” I said, giving him a warning look.

The man shrugged then sneered. “Why? All she did was give me a towel. It’s not like she cured cancer here,” he said ungratefully.

Why that little fucker, I was going—

“Nevermind,” the doctor said, rising to her feet. “That’s always the way it is in emergency cases. Nobody ever—”

Without warning but with the grace of a swan, the doctor’s eyes rolled back and she fell forward. I caught her easily in my arms.

With all that alcohol she had consumed, it was no wonder she had passed out. I was amazed she had had enough presence of mind to clean up the wounded man. It was obvious this woman was a competent and well trained doctor.

I was about to take her back towards the bar when a petite little nurse ran into the bar.

Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of the broken chairs and the groaning men. But her face practically blanched as she saw her friend unconscious in my arms, blood soaking the hem of her scrubs.

“Emilia!” she cried as she ran towards me.

Emilia.

So that was her name. It suited her. Beautiful and feminine but full of promise.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” I said reassuringly. “The blood’s not hers. She’s fine. Just got a little dizzy from all that booze.”

The nurse didn’t look any less worried but she nodded. She ran a hand over Emilia’s face, brushing back a few caramel colored locks.

I looked over at the bar. “Hey, Reg,” I called out. “Do you happen to have a pen or a marker on you?”

Reggie raised a brow before reaching below and pulling out a black marker.

I carried Emilia over to the bar and grabbed the marker. Then turning to the little nurse who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, I said, “Tell me where your car is and I’ll help you get her seated.”

She nodded and I followed her out.

After carefully getting her settled inside the car, I belted her in and brushed a hand over her cheek, settling her head carefully against the headrest.

The nurse looked over at me from the driver’s seat. “Thank you for the help,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” I said before slapping the roof of the car in goodbye.

I watched as the little tidy sedan drove off into the night, carrying precious cargo.

I couldn’t help but grin to myself. It was dumb to hope. Stupid, really. But I had a good feeling about her. And I couldn’t stop myself from looking forward to the next time I would see her again. Emilia was special. She was one of those girls worth looking forward to.

But before I could turn and head back into the bar, I felt my phone buzz. And it wasn’t my sleek civilian smartphone that I only carried when I was home, off duty. It was the sturdy black flip phone that only rang for one purpose and one purpose only.

I sighed before picking it up.

“Hawk here,” I said.

“Captain, we’re to report in for a new assignment.”

I looked up at the smoggy LA night air.
Of course there was a new assignment.
There always was.

“Do you know for how long this time?”

“It’s looking to be about a four month assignment this time.”

I gave a wry snort. It
had
been dumb to hope.

As a mercenary soldier, I lived most of the year out on the field on missions in every part of the planet imaginable.

There was no way a man like me would ever have a moment of normalcy to pursue a woman like Emilia.

But maybe that was for the best. It seemed like she was already reeling from a bad heartbreak. Well, mercenaries and heartbreak went hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly.

She didn’t need a life filled with the kinds of danger that followed me around. She needed a man who would be dependable and reliable and most of all,
there
when you needed him.

And I was not that man.

“Alright,” I said, silently saying goodbye to the woman I hardly knew and the future we might’ve had. “Brief me.”

Chapter
Three
Emilia

              “Oh my god,” I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut as I rolled over in bed. “Just kill me now, merciful lord.”

              My head pulsed like a nightclub. Every inch of my skull felt like it was being pounded on by fifty drummers. How much had I had to drink last night? However much it was, it was too much by about eighty glasses.

              I rolled onto my side, snuggling closer to my pillow when my eyes sprang open in surprise. I immediately groaned in pain as light flooded my senses but not before seeing the inside of my bedroom.

              I was home and in bed. How had that happened?

              I closed my eyes and tried to put the pieces back together.              

              Everyone had taken me out after I had heard the worst news of my life. We had gone to Reggie’s.

              I gagged a little as I remembered all the shots I had had.

              Then my memory began to grow a little foggier. We had gotten paged. I remembered that. And then…had we all left then? No, that couldn’t be. I couldn't have worked in the condition that I had been in.

              Slowly, I remembered the outline of a strong arm, holding me in the confines of my chair. I remembered a clean, spicy masculine scent that had surrounded me, providing me with an inexplicable sense of security and protection.

             
“It’s dangerous to be sleeping in a place like this.”

              His deep voice laced with concern and amusement rang through my hazy memories.

             
“Every time you see a stupid man—and trust me, whoever did this to you
is
a stupid man—it’s God’s way of showing you that evolution is real. Man had to come from apes and you just met one.”

              I snorted.
Funny stranger.

              That tall physique with clearly defined muscles that spoke of limitless strength.
Strong stranger.

I remembered how he had instantly caught me as I nearly fell out of my chair and how he had quickly thrown me behind him when the bar fight had broken out.

              The bar fight!

              I opened my eyes in sudden remembrance again and once again, winced as the light hit my pounding head.

              That’s right. There had been a bar fight as well.

I could barely remember it but I remembered the stranger’s strong back as he pushed me into a safe corner. I remembered—

A loud ringing noise pierced my quiet bedroom making me hiss in pain. Why couldn’t the sun take a break today? Didn’t it know that I was about to throw up in nausea?

Keeping my eyes closed, I reached around the expanse of the bed before my fingers felt the hard edge of my phone.

With my eyes closed, I answered the call, not even checking to see who it was.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“Oh you’re alive!” Margie sighed in relief on the other end.

“Debatable,” I said, feeling like I my brain was swimming in a pool of pudding.

“Well, you’re breathing,” Margie corrected herself wryly. “I’m glad Tammy was able to get you home okay. I was worried but she texted me after she dropped you off and got you tucked up in bed.”

“Tammy took me home?” I asked in surprise. My tiny little nurse friend looked like she could hardly lift a Chihuahua let alone me when I was passed out drunk. But then again, she was a nurse. And nurses had incredible stores of strength when needed.

              Margie clucked in judgment. “Still a lightweight, aren’t we, Dr. Lyon?”

              “That’ll do, nurse,” I grumbled. “Anyway, what’s with the wake up call?”

              “I wanted to make sure you remembered the morning meeting today.”

              “The morning meet—”

              That was right. Normally we only had meetings once a week for the heads of departments and lead doctors to touch bases. But yesterday, after watching Edward get congratulated left and right on his engagement, we had been told there would be another special meeting the next morning and that we would all be required to attend.

              “Oh god, that’s right,” I groaned. “Crap.”

              “Right,” Margie said not without sympathy. “So get your little tushy up and get down here as soon as you can. And make sure you put on a little extra make up. Something tells me you’ll need it today.”

              “Thank you, nurse,” I said in annoyance before hanging up. Ah dependable Margie. The hospital would fall apart without her.

              But she was right. I’m sure I looked awful and the last thing I wanted to do was look how I felt in front of Edward. I needed enough time to get ready.

              Cracking my lids open, I looked up at my phone for the time. But instead of the time, I saw something black smeared across my forearm.

              “What the—”

              I sat up and pulled back the covers. Down the length of my right forearm was writing in what looked like black Sharpie. It was a little smeared around the edges but still readable.

             
Make sure you drink a lot of water and take some an aspirin or two if you can, Doc. And if you feel like testing the waters with a man instead of a monkey, why don’t you give this number a try.

              And below that was a phone number and a crude drawing of a monkey smiling at me.

              My heartbeat sped up suddenly. It was as if I could feel his arms around me again. I breathed in deeply, almost able to smell his spicy scent again.

              So that hadn’t been some kind of weird drunk hallucination. This man had been real and if he was half as engaging and charming sober as he was when I was drunk, I’d be crazy enough to fall in love with the man.

              And crazy it would be. My heart was still shattered into jagged pieces from Edward and the pain still resonated within me. But this number and this man made the pain a little less sharp.

              And I didn’t even know his name.

              I traced a finger over the smudged letters. When had he written this? I could feel a smile tugging at my lips. He certainly was no monkey, that was for sure.

              After carefully copying down the phone number onto a piece of paper, I tottered towards the bathroom to quickly clean up and get ready for the meeting. I needed all the psych up time I could get. I had to face Edward as an engaged man and no matter how many drunken nights or mystery men I met, it would always be a painful challenge for me.

              With a deep breath, I slipped into the shower.

***

              “Dr. Lyon, don’t you look…well,” Dr. Stevenson of pediatrics said, giving me an odd look.

              I smiled at him. “Thank you,” I said, trying to look winsome and casual and not at all like my skull was trying to implode within my head.

              I found Doc Jones trying to hold back an amused smirk and sat down next to him.

              “What?” I said immediately.

              “You look like you’re about to go clubbing in Reno with a retired showgirl as your gal pal,” Doc replied colorfully. He looked over my face carefully. Maybe I had gone a bit too heavy on the make up. Normally all I did was throw on a few swipes of mascara and called it a day. So putting on anything more than that always perplexed me a little.

              “Wanted to come prepared for battle, eh?” Doc said with a sympathetic gaze. No matter his dry humor or sarcastic comments, Doc Jones had a soft side and it peeked through now and again.

              I gave a small smile and said. “But maybe I put on a little too much armor,” I said.

              Doc huffed a laugh.

              I was about to make another comment when I saw Edward walk into the room. Lean and sleek, Edward always looked like he was about to go to a yachting party, no matter how many white coats he wore. And it made sense. His family was from a modest but well established fortune and he came from a long line of bankers and investors.

              The only reason why Edward was a doctor was because he wanted to rebel against old family traditions. That’s the kind of family he came from where rebelling meant med school.

              But that’s all Edward wanted from medical school—a sign of differentiating himself from his father and older brother. He was also gifted in medicine but Edward could hardly care less. He liked the status symbol of being a doctor more than anything else. He liked the attention he got from colleagues and the gratitude he received from patients.

              When a surgery went poorly, he wasn’t upset that the patient suffered; he was upset that his perfect surgical record had been tarnished.

              There were so many signs of how wrong he was for me but after having spent so much time together, I just felt like we were
meant
to be together. Like it was destined. So I ignored the signs and waited for the moment when he would finally and whole-heartedly pick me as his one and only.

              Of course that moment never came.

              I watched as Edward took a seat near the head of the table. He was keeping his gaze averted from my end of the table. My heart clenched a little as I heard Dr. Stevenson give a belated congratulations towards Edward’s engagement.

              “I’m a lucky man,” I heard Edward reply with a smile.

              My hands clenched into fists. This had to be what the seventh circle of hell felt like—being trapped in a room with your ex-boyfriend as he basks in happy engaged bliss with the woman he cheated on you with.

              I started as Doc Jones gave one of my fists a quick pat. I looked up at the older man and he gave me a stern look that clearly said,
buck up. Show him some of that armor.

              I straightened up in my seat and pasted a smile onto my face just as Eric Listrom, head of the hospital, entered the meeting room.

As soon as Mr. Listrom entered, the room fell quiet as we waited for the meeting to start. There was another man in a white polo and loose cargo pants standing behind him. He stood out in the room full of professionally dressed or scrubbed doctors and hospital administrators. His face was round and weather beaten but friendly looking. He stood behind Mr. Listrom, his hands clasped behind him, as he waited for the head of the hospital to speak.

“I’m glad you all are here,” Mr. Listrom said without really looking around the table. He sniffed daintily, straightening a sleeve. He was very particular about how he dressed and looked. Whenever he was inspecting a part of the hospital, Mr. Listrom was always careful he never touched anything lest he contaminate himself.

“I’ve called you all in for a special opportunity that has been presented to us,” he continued.

Everyone in the room tensed. ‘Opportunity’ usually meant some kind of forced voluntary overtime. And none of us wanted to be the sucker who got pulled in. Last time an opportunity came around, a group of us were rounded up into a team that had to come up with a fun song and dance for a medical crediting bureau conference that was holding a “fun” talent competition. No man had ever sung Randy Newman as angrily and as grumpily as Doc Jones had that day.

Next to me, I felt Doc’s spine stiffen as he narrowed his eyes towards Mr. Listrom, clearly remembering the song and dance number from hell.

Mr. Listrom, unaware or unconcerned with the tension in the room, gestured towards the man behind him. “This is Mr. Thomas Carew. He’s here with Unchartered Relief Aid, an international medical charity that helps provide medical aid and care to regions that have recently been devastated by natural or civil disaster.” Mr. Carew stepped up and nodded at us, an open and friendly smile warming his lined face.

“And he has come to us and our hospital to seek out a new team of doctors and staff members to head over to Qunar on a humanitarian mission,” Mr. Listrom finished.

Qunar? Everyone stared at Mr. Carew in surprise. No wonder the man looked as worn out as he did if he had just come from Qunar!

The small Middle Eastern country was suffering from the affects of its neighboring country’s civil war. A devastating civil war in Pakresh was sending hundreds of thousands of refugees into Qunar. This was putting a tremendous strain on the tiny nation as it tried to house and feed all these refugees. Many of them were coming injured, having been hurt from one of the many bombings.

But this was a dangerous mission to be invited to. Along with the many refugees, there were some Pakresh activists sneaking in with the masses, causing bombings in some of the refugee camps.

I had no doubt the situation was dire there. Dire and terrifying.

I stared at Mr. Listrom. This was more than just a song and dance number in some hotel ballroom. This was potentially risking our lives.

Mr. Listrom cleared his throat and gave each of us a meaningful stare. “A team of doctors from our hospital participating in an Unchartered Relief Aid mission would not only help the refugees in Qunar but also provide this hospital with a fair amount of publicity. The attention we would receive for our humanitarian work could help us attract some investors who could expand our hospital and add a new wing or two.”