Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (42 page)

So, Sal sat poised, ready to take advantage of the storm’s next flash. As the seconds ticked by, though, and the fatigue of the day set in, she steadied her hand against the bed’s railing. The engagement ring on her finger glistened through her glove, surprising her—as it had all month.

Everyone kept telling her that she’d get used to it. But four weeks in, and it was still a strange sight. The diamond seemed tentatively perched on her finger—as if it was trying to decide whether it wanted to alight there or not.

“
So, you getting back up on the horse, or what?”

“
Maria!” Sal scolded her friend, but, in truth, she wasn’t at all surprised by her comment. Maria was way too perceptive for both their sakes.

“
Richard’s picking me up for a date in a couple of minutes.”

“
That’s not what I asked though, was it?”

As she studiously ignored her friend, the rain beat against the windows overhead, pattering out an almost amused beat, laughing along with Maria at Sal’s folly. Even in this dim light, she could see the nurse’s coy Cheshire cat smile.

“
Mr. Kasza, I need you to hold your foot perfectly still,” Sal ordered, even though the patient hadn’t really moved. She just needed to get Maria off the subject of her and Richard.

Unfortunately, her friend wasn’t easily distracted. “So how long has it been, then? A couple of weeks?” When Sal didn’t answer, Maria gasped. “Oh my God! You guys haven’t hit it since the proposal?”

“
I’m sure that Mr. Kasza, here, doesn’t want to hear about my love life.”

“
Au contraire
! This is exactly the type of stuff he pays good money to discuss in adult chat rooms, isn’t it?”

“
Why, I … never …” His stammering confirmed Maria’s suspicion.

For weeks now, Sal been trying to find a way to bring the subject up to her friend. How did you admit to someone, especially Miss Free-Love Maria, that after Richard’s perfectly executed proposal, the fire hadn’t just died between them, but had been shoveled with ash and cemented over?

Sighing, Sal admitted, “No, he and I haven’t …”

“
But you did it that night? After he asked you to marry him, right?” When Sal just squirmed, Maria gasped. “He slipped those fifteen carats onto your finger, and you didn’t put out?”

Sal could feel her cheeks heat up. Where was that damned lightning strike? “It’s only
five
carats and—”

“
Only
five carats? Chica, that’s worth more than I make in a year! Hell, if a guy just gave me the
box
that ring came in, I’d be on my knees.”

After Maria’s reaction, Sal wasn’t about to add that not only was the ring over five carats, but Richard had flown to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas to be absolutely certain he wasn’t buying her a “blood diamond.”

Sal knew her fiancé had paid at least double the going price for such surety.

“
So how’s ‘The Dick’ handling this booty-free engagement?”

It was no use, but Sal corrected her anyway. “
Richard
is very understand
—
”

“
No man is that understanding. Am I right?” the nurse asked Mr. Kasza.

Clearly, their patient didn’t want any part of this conversation either.

“
Is there some kind of time limit before infection sets in?” he asked.

“
Dick’s gay,” Maria said, ignoring the patient. “He’s gotta be.”

Sal’s ears burned. Her friend had gone too far. “Maria, don’t even—”

“
You should be happy! After all the complaining about how I don’t see the two of you as a couple? How you guys don’t click? Now I get it!”

Begging the storm to do something, anything, to stop Maria from telling her what she “got,” Sal stared down at the laceration.

“
Come on,” her friend coaxed. “You’re terrified of real intimacy, and he doesn’t like girl parts. It’s a pitch-perfect match!”

Just as Sal went to stand up for her fiancé, lightning struck, blazing bright as a summer’s day. The darkened ER glowed with a surreal clarity.

No matter her irritation with Maria, Sal was ever the professional with her needle at the ready, only it wouldn’t move. Sal tried. She really tried to force the needle forward, but couldn’t.

The entire ER seemed suspended in time. Frazzled interns halted their “chicken without heads” dance. Instead, they stood like nervous statues.

Maria’s teasing halted, even though her lips curved into a perfect
O
.

The only things that appeared capable of movement were the hairs at the back of her neck. They bristled in a panic. Something was on the move as air brushed past her knee. With effort, she turned her gaze in that direction.

In the near-blinding flash of lightning, a figure lurked, wrapped in shadows that shouldn’t exist. The only clear feature she could make out was a pair of sapphire-blue eyes. Sal tried to focus, to see the face beyond the eyes, but her mind refused to obey.

Then, something glinted.

A knife. Raised above her best friend’s head.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 2

Sal tried to yell. She tried to push Maria out of harm’s way, but found herself bound to her seat.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The claps of thunder hit the doors, rattling the glass against their frames. Charts fell off desks. Vials of antibiotics shattered. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the lightning played itself out, and the ER plunged into darkness.

Finally, Sal’s pent-up energy found a release.

“
Ouch!” Kazsa screamed as she drove the needle into his tender flesh.

“
Maria, move!” Sal yelled, rising and tipping her stool over. The metal chair clanged across the room as she bolted toward her friend.

“
Is this an earthquake?” Kasza wheezed.

Maria apparently thought so as she scrambled out from under a bank of monitors above her head. Once they didn’t come crashing down, Maria breathed a sigh of relief.

“
It’s okay. It wasn’t the Big One. We’re good.”

But it wasn’t good. Not good at all. Although Sal’s fear wasn’t fueled by a seismic event, the terror felt just as big and even more pressing. A threat more personal than tectonic plates chafing against one another.

Sal flicked on her penlight and swept the area in a panicked search. The thin beam jiggled as her hand shook, the silhouette of the knife still sharp in her mind.

“
Didn’t you see him?”

“
See who?” Maria asked.

Sal didn’t have time to answer. She was too busy checking behind the bed and between the oxygen tanks. In the cluttered ER, there were so many places the attacker could hide. He could be anywhere.

“
Isn’t anybody paying attention? That hurt!” Kasza grunted, trying to lean over his bleeding foot. But he couldn’t fold himself that tightly.

With precision, Maria swiped the blood away from the wayward needle prick as if it had never been there. “Yeah, why don’t you remind us what landed you here in the first place?”

Sal barely noticed Kasza’s cheeks become ruddy with embarrassment as she jerked back the curtain of the next bed to find the gurney empty, just as it should be. Everything appeared exactly as it should be, yet the hairs on the back of her neck refused to relax.

“
How could you not have seen him? He was standing right behind you. Over you. With a knife.”

Maria didn’t take the news the way that Sal meant it. “Was he hot?”

“
No,” Sal snapped. Could eyes
really
be that blue? “Well, maybe.”

Kasza propped himself up on one elbow. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I want—”

While Sal flashed her penlight under the EKG machine, futilely searching for the attacker, Maria snorted at Kasza. “Dude, while you were trying to cut your animal-style Double-Double burger in half, you dropped the knife and sliced your pudgy-ass ankle ... I’m sorry, ‘cankle.’ So why don’t you spend your time reassessing both your In-N-Out eating habits and your knife-handling skills while we straighten this out?”

“
I didn’t come to the ER for a life coach,” Kasza grumbled, but lay back in the bed.

Maria helped Sal move a bulky telemetry unit from the wall. Relief that her best friend had finally taken her concern seriously evaporated as Maria nudged her. “Well, was he hot or not?”

Sal loved the nurse beyond social norms, but right now Maria’s playful attitude grated on her frayed nerves. But instead of snapping, Sal just sighed. If she didn’t accurately describe the guy, Maria would never let it go.

“
Look, he was tall ...” That she knew for certain, yet it had taken an incredible effort to dredge even that much up. It was ridiculous. If she couldn’t remember him now, how would she describe him to the police?

“
And?” Maria prompted.

Sal squinted, straining to reshape the memory. “Wide shoulders. And boots. Leather boots.”

“
Dude! That guy can almost stab me anytime.”

Ignoring her friend, Sal tried to cobble those fragmented images into a whole person, but the picture wouldn’t coalesce. No matter how hard she tried, the details stayed fuzzy, incomplete.

“
Um, can I get someone with more experience to finish?” Startled, Sal swung her penlight around, causing Kasza to shield his eyes. “Yeah, I’m definitely going to want a second opinion.”

In her panic, Sal had forgotten she had a patient.

As confusion replaced terror, she went to sit down, but found her stool overturned a good ten feet away. How had it gotten way over there?

“
Seriously,” Kasza said, “I don’t want her anywhere near—”

Luckily, Maria cut the patient off. “Don’t bother looking on your bill for this advice, because it’s free. Any refresher course will cost you, though.”

As the nurse stared down their upset patient, Sal righted her stool and sank down onto the cushion, shaking her head. She came from Welsh and Mexican stock. She should be hardier than this.

Maria continued full speed ahead. “First. Half of an animal-style Double-Double is still a Mr. Big and Tall warehouse full of calories and cholesterol. If you want to give your heart and us a break, take up water aquatics and salads.” Her friend took in a huge breath. “Second. She’s the best you got. The only attending physician who could make it in today is up in the ICU treating actual patients. So butch up.”

Sal couldn’t help but sense that Maria was talking to her as much as to the patient. However, she couldn’t shake this sense of imminent threat. Of what, Sal wasn’t quite sure. Her skin felt cold and clammy, as if she’d just awakened from a nightmare. Her body prepared for mortal danger, but the images that elicited such panic were beyond her grasp. The harder she tried to hold onto the memory of that single terrifying moment, the more slippery it became, like an eel slithering out of her grasp.

“
Are we ready to begin, Dr. Calon?” Maria asked.

Sal couldn’t help but grin. Her friend had invoked the code. Whenever one of them wandered off topic, it snapped them back to professional mode.

“
Why yes, Nurse Roder, I am.”

Maybe she hadn’t seen anyone at all.

Feeling almost normal again, Sal shook off her anxiety. She’d gotten so worked up, and for what? Just a trick of the light played upon eyes weary from working so many hours in the dim ER.

Confidently, Sal patted the patient’s leg. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands. Two more stitches, and we’ll be done.”

Sal flicked her wrist, about to drive the needle in, when the ambulance bay doors burst open. Steel gurney wheels clattered against the tile floor at breakneck speed.

“
Ouch!” Kasza squealed as Sal missed her mark yet again.

“
Frank, we’re closed for traumas!” Maria yelled to the EMT.

“
Tell that to this guy!” he shouted back, as he and his partner pushed the patient full tilt toward Trauma One. “He’s lost at least three liters!”

“
He’s here!” the frail man yelled, thrashing against his restraints.

Sal felt herself stiffen at the hysterical man’s words. They rang of truth, although she was hard-pressed to say why. The guy sounded like every other tweaked-out meth addict they’d seen.

The man’s eyes rolled back in his head. “He comes for us all!”

* * * * *

CHAPTER 3

Sal stood motionless as the gurney hung a sharp right and skidded around the corner toward Trauma One. She should be running after it. Or she should be sewing up Mr. Kasza. Yet, she did neither.

When she didn’t react, Maria shouted to the closest intern, “Clipsham! Finish sewing this guy up.” The nurse turned to Sal. “Come on!”