Vincent (Diver Downeast #5)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Vincent leaned his head back against the wall of the hospital hallway, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

This was hard. A lot harder than he’d ever imagined. When his brothers had dared him to put his money where his mouth was, he hadn’t hesitated. But now…

He wanted to laugh at the irony. If anyone saw him at present, dressed up like a happy-go-lucky clown, but hanging onto his shit for dear life, they wouldn’t recognize him.

Known for letting things roll off his large shoulders, Vincent had always poked fun in the direst of circumstances. He consistently found mirth in just about everything. Nothing got him down for very long. He’d learned to school any negative reactions.

But not here. Not now. No matter how deeply he dug, Vincent couldn’t find it in himself to conjure anything that remotely resembled humor.

These kids…

He’d gone into the chemotherapy unit with every intention of acting goofy, doing a few parlor tricks, and earning laughs before sashaying back out the door. How difficult could it be to entertain a munchkin audience?

Not too, as it had turned out. The kids had laughed, alright.

Vince was the one who hadn’t been able to find anything funny in the situation. To him, what he’d witnessed was nothing short of heart-wrenching.

“You okay, there, Bozo?” someone asked.

Vincent’s lids snapped open. “Yeah. Yeah. Fine,” he demurred. “Just having a rest between performances.”

The guy in scrubs wasn’t having it.

“It takes some getting used to,” he told Vince gently. “Don’t beat yourself up. When I started my rotation here last year, I went home every day and cried.”

Wow. A young doctor admitting to those emotions was saying a lot. From Vince’s experience with field medics and health facilitators in the Navy, doctors were some of the toughest sons-of-bitches he’d ever met.

“Why do you do it?” Vincent eventually rasped.

The doctor shrugged modestly. “If we don’t, who will? And we have it lucky these days. Things are a lot better than they used to be. Thanks to all the research and medical advancements, cancer survival rates for these kids currently stands between eighty and eighty-five percent.”

Vincent still wanted to puke. The children with whom he’d just interacted were all cute as hell and plucky beyond their years. One in particular, he couldn’t get out of his mind. She’d been funny and engaging, reminding Vince of himself when faced with adversity.

He shook his head.

Vince simply couldn’t fathom losing two out of every ten of these brave cherubs. He just couldn’t.

“People like you, coming in today, make it more bearable,” the young doctor continued. “Keep them laughing. Make them forget their troubles for a while. Let them know they aren’t dealing with this alone.” He spun to go, then turned back. “Thank you for caring.”

The words “you’re welcome” got stuck in Vincent’s throat. He sure didn’t feel like he was doing much. A few parlor tricks, at best. And if he couldn’t get his shit together, he wasn’t going to be able to go back in there and do even that.

Waving the doctor off with a forced half-grin, Vincent stood for a few moments longer, talking himself through a litany of calming exercises.

Since when was he such a wimp? He could do this.

After twenty years as a Navy SEAL, he’d seen some really heinous things—a number of those having been shoved to the recesses of his brain—and the whole point here today was to bring some kind of joy to these children. Which meant…failure wasn’t an option.

Closing his eyes again, he sent up a quick prayer for strength, then pushed off the wall and turned.

“Ooof!”

What the…?

Vincent’s eyes popped open and his hands flew automatically to the shoulders of the slender woman he’d bumped into, keeping her from doing an ass-plant.

She was a tiny thing. Wearing scrubs and a surgical cap, she seemed to weigh no more than a feather.

Still, by her posture, Vince could tell there was an underlying core of strength inside her.

Of course there was.

With her mode of dress, she was either a doctor, a nurse, or a clinician, and all three of those professions constantly dealt with the kind of gut-churning things Vincent had seen today.

Things that had torn the shit out of him.

And he’d only just scratched the surface, nearly losing his lunch over the realities that had punched him in the solar-plexus.

People like this woman sure had some fucking huge cojones.

“Damn. I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

She regarded his face with large, warm brown eyes, accepting his contrition with a small upward twitch of her lips. “Entertaining the kids?” she asked huskily.

“Yeah,” he snorted, still feeling off kilter. “Or at least I’m trying to,” he joked, doing his best Groucho impression. He didn’t let his hands drop from her shoulders. He felt an odd need to maintain their connection.

She didn’t back away, but his humor fell flat as she simply blinked her huge eyes up at him again and shook her head.

Vince sighed.

“See? I can’t even make you laugh. I’m doing a really lousy job of being funny for anybody today,” he admitted.

“How do you figure?” she asked. Not in a way that had him feeling like she was making small talk, but in a manner that suggested real interest.

“I…”

Dammit. Vincent did not expect the tears that gathered in his eyes again. He was stronger than that. He blinked them back, squared his shoulders, and cleared his throat.

“I’m having such a hard time in there,” he finally admitted, although why he was opening up to a stranger was confusing.

“It’s so freaking tough to see these kids undergoing their treatments.

I…” He finally released his grip on the woman and lifted a hand to run agitated fingers back through his hair…

finding the strands of his red wig, instead.

Gah. Vince dropped his digits. He couldn’t even work out his frustration properly.

“I don’t know how you do it,” he grimaced.

She blinked. Twice.

“Uh, what other choice is there?” she asked pragmatically. “It’s treatment or…” she trailed off.

“Yeah. Yeah. I know,” he concurred. “But it takes a lot of strength to face this shit every day.”

“Luck of the draw, I guess.” She shrugged.

That was a funny way to put it. Wasn’t she part of the oncology department? Huh. Maybe this wasn’t her normal rotation? Perhaps she predominantly worked in another wing?

Vincent took a closer look at his new acquaintance. There were dark circles under the woman’s eyes and her skin was pretty pale. She looked…beyond tired. If he were to guess, he’d say that she was filling in for a colleague and was near the end of at least a double shift.

Vincent could commiserate. He didn’t miss those times as a SEAL where he’d sometimes gone days without sleep. Talk about a zombie. And here he was monopolizing her time.

“I should, uh, let you get back to it,” Vince said apologetically, backing off a step, even though he didn’t want to.

“Yeah. I need to do that,” she agreed.

Still neither one of them moved.

“Will you…be here, next time I come in?” Vince didn’t know why he asked. Hell, he hadn’t even planned a second visit before he’d opened his mouth. But there was something about this woman that drew him in; made him want to see her again.

She gave a semi-humorous sniff. “That depends on my schedule.”

Duh. He was an idiot. Of course most doctors didn’t have regular, nine-to-five schedules.

“I’m sure it does. I’m sorry. That was a stupid question.” And now that he’d said that, he could clearly see her trying to find a way to extricate herself from the situation.

Obviously, she needed to get on with her job, but….

Maybe a quick introduction?

“I’m Vince, by the way, the pediatric-visiting clown, at your service.” He swept a bow, while at the same time pulling a fake flower from his sleeve, which he then flourished in front of her.

She gave her first, real smile, and actually chuckled, an adorable sound that hit his ears like music.

“Cute,” she said, and Vince could almost imagine she was looking at him, not the flower, when she said it.

“I’m Lace,” she told him, clearly taking pity. “Pleased to meet you.”

She stuck out a hand, and when Vince took it, he was immediately aware of an interesting dichotomy.

For someone who looked like a stiff wind would blow her away, Lace’s shake was firm, her grip solid, and her palm slightly callused.

It seemed that whatever her medical specialty, she didn’t shy away from hard work.

“Lace, as in Lacy?” he asked.

“Vince as in Vincenzo?” she countered with a smirk.

Vince laughed. “Vincent,” he corrected, “but I have been thinking of adopting a clown handle like Vincenzo because it sounds more…showmanshipy.”

He liked the sound of that made up word.

“Something like Cenzo the Clown, or Enzo the Extraordinaire,” he speculated. “What do you think?”

“I think the kids will come up with something, and that’s what will stick,” she countered, giving him another lopsided grin.

Vince wanted to keep earning those.

“So…Lace as in Lacy?” he repeated.

“No.” She shook her head. “Lace, as in Solace.”

Vincent hummed his appreciation. “That’s pretty. Unusual, but pretty. Do I sense a story behind it?”

Lace shuffled a bit uncomfortably and glanced down the hallway. “Uh, maybe another time. I really have to go.”

“Oh, sorry. Right.”

Once again, in his enthusiasm, it had slipped Vincent’s mind that she had to be on a tight schedule, or maybe even heading home to get some much-needed sleep.

But the operative in him noted there was also an odd reluctance that had dropped over Lace when he’d asked his question.

And now she wanted to end their interaction.

That was a shame. Vincent wanted nothing more than to continue their conversation.

She stepped back as if to walk away, but before she did, she lifted her chin and gifted him with another slight smile. “It was nice meeting you, Vincent.”