Chapter 1 Shift Change #2
Then, finally, her new favorite coworker looked up. The sympathy in her eyes was answer enough. “It might be easier to tell you which shifts don’t overlap. I’m so sorry.”
Fuck.
Lynnette straightened. “I’ll just assume it’s all of them, then.
Easier to brace myself that way. Where am I off to now?
” She needed to get to work, to make herself useful, and to lose herself in someone else’s problems for a while.
If she had any luck at all, her patient load would be uncomplicated enough that she wouldn’t need to seek out the presiding doctor unnecessarily.
“Oh, this is some fancy shit,” Lance said, letting a teasing grin split his face when the bucket of colorful crafting supplies was set beside him.
His longtime buddy and fellow forcibly discharged Marine, Jon Johnson, grunted at the joke and dropped to a crouch. “It’s what they had. Unless you want to use something of yours?”
Lance dipped his hand into the tub and pulled up the first faux silk silver ribbon he could grab. “This’ll do fine, thanks. I’ll even leave the sewing kit for you if you’ll answer just one teensy tiny question.”
Jon went for the twine. “No.”
Lance chuckled and reached for the nearest unconscious idiot.
The last thing he’d expected when he’d volunteered to tag along with Jon to Jon’s little hometown in nowhere-Oregon was that they’d walk up on a burglary in progress almost as soon as they were off the bus. Hanging out with Jon was always fun.
Jon set to work tying up the other unconscious idiot, jaw tight, an air of frustration emanating off him.
Lance grabbed a second, different colored ribbon to tie with the first, because of course a cutesy bakery in a small town didn’t carry zip ties, and casually asked, “So, was that the Jenna?”
“I said no.”
He grinned wider and repositioned his unlucky crook against the wall, hands sufficiently tied. “Sounds like a ‘yes’ to me.”
Jon groaned. The flimsy twine shredded, and he was forced to go for something else.
With a nearly inaudible sigh, he grabbed the small box of sewing threads and kept his voice low.
“Yes, jackass, that’s the same Jenna I may have told you about before.
And no, I had no idea she was here. We haven’t kept in touch. ”
Lance hummed. May have told us about my ass.
Jenna was the only girl Jon had ever talked about, and he’d punched out more than one guy for making the wrong off-hand comment.
But Lance had always been good at walking the fine line between too far and just pushing it, so all he said was, “Well, I’ll let you return the crafting stuff, then.
Wouldn’t wanna get in the way of your romantic reunion. ”
Jon rolled his eyes into an upward glare and jerked the thread tight around his poor victim’s wrists.
That guy was gonna have numb hands when he woke up, no doubt.
There was plenty of ribbon left Jon could’ve gone for, but obviously Jon didn’t like that the guy had aimed a gun at his girl for point-five seconds.
“I can watch Beavis and Butthead while you practice your game,” Lance offered with a shameless grin.
“You’re fucking impossible,” Jon muttered, standing and grabbing the bucket of supplies. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Lance watched his buddy stride back toward the bakery they’d effectively rescued, but averted his gaze before the watching turned into spying. He caught the stare of a young, teal-haired female through the window who wore an apron, so he presumed she worked there, and offered her a smile.
The girl immediately ducked her head.
He chuckled to himself and turned his focus outward, examining the parking lot and town beyond. Misty Glades, huh?
The town was Hallmark-quaint, at least to look at it.
Tucked into the forest that had opened up only a handful of miles earlier almost as if the forest had birthed it.
He’d seen the old, painted sign, as well as the standard signage a few feet beyond it.
According to that, the little community of Misty Glades didn’t even hold 1300 residents.
So, it was no wonder they were stuck waiting for an out-of-town sheriff to get his ass to their position and pick up the snoozing crooks on his left.
Lance spread his legs to shoulder width and hooked his thumbs on either side of his belt buckle in a waiting stance.
Guard duty had never been his strong suit.
He could be still and patient, but somehow it was harder for him when he was holding up a wall and waiting for the possibility of a problem.
Lying flat and waiting for the perfect shot?
He could do that all day. It was a head game for him.
He blew out a slow breath. They were basically volunteering their skills because it was the right thing to do and something they were qualified for. Neither he nor Jon were on assignment.
There was no assignment coming.
Discharged. Fuck.
It’d been a little over a month since that world-changing conversation in Major Miller’s office, on the other side of the world, yet Lance still felt like he was catching up to the news.
The Marine Corps had been his life, his home, for seventeen years.
A fact which was emphasized when he’d decided to try reaching out to the family he’d left behind—the family who’d thrown him out so long ago—after he and Jon were dry-docked.
But his family had disappeared. Changed their number, abandoned the property his father had been so stubborn about clinging to.
Lance was pretty sure he knew why, too. They’d probably had a fucking seizure when they’d realized he wasn’t tucking tail and coming back to take his lumps and fall in line with their anti-governmental views.
He’d written them exactly once, from boot, mostly because the recruits had been tasked with writing home and sharing basic information.
So, he’d taken the opportunity to let them know he was alive and that he’d followed through on his word.
The letter hadn’t been returned, but he’d never received a response, either.
Guess that means I’m a family of me now.
“It’ll be about an hour before the sheriff gets here,” Jon declared as he came to stand on the other side the unconscious duo. He mimicked Lance’s stance as if it were natural to him. “And that’s if they drive fast.”
Lance bit out a harsh laugh. “Good thing we trained for this, then.” It wasn’t like he had anything else to do, anyway. What was standing around for an hour or two? He turned his head just enough to glance Jon’s way. “Sure you don’t want to spend the time more productively?”
Jon cut him a sidelong glare. He was damn good at those, honestly. “We are not doing that. Drop it.”
“You can’t expect me not to be curious.”
“Did you find IDs on our crooks?”
Lance rolled his eyes and dug the two cards he’d pilfered earlier out of a pocket. “Yeah, yeah, here you go.” He paused while Jon took them to skim the information. “Isn’t water supposed to be more … fluid?”
“Isn’t electricity supposed to be bright?”
Lance barked out a laugh and decided to let it drop. For the time being. He’d have other opportunities, seeing as how they had nowhere else to be.
Her first patient yelled at her for turning on the light when she walked into the room. Not because he’d been trying to sleep, but because he hated the hum of the fluorescents.
Her second patient was leisurely stroking himself, blanket tossed aside and gown bunched up to his belly, while he watched some morning news show.
Her third patient was a kind elderly woman who simply could not understand why Chandie wasn’t there. But she didn’t mean that in a rude way—as she repeatedly insisted.
Lynnette fell into a familiar groove. New patients weren’t so unusual.
The corridors were mirrors of the paths she was used to walking, and room numbers were as flexible as patient names really.
Someone needed an IV refill. Someone didn’t want to be fussed over and forced her to call in an orderly.
Someone was trying so hard to tough out the pain, when it was so clear they needed a higher dosage.
Someone else most definitely needed a lower dosage and most definitely was not going to speak up about it.
Injuries of varying types. Illnesses of varying types. It was familiar and relaxing in the way that it occupied her mind. Everything required focus. The harder she had to focus, the less room her mind had to dwell on the concern of the looming problem.
Until, inevitably, he stepped out of the patient room beside the one she had just exited.
Lynnette came up short, the vase of flowers that particular patient had asked be removed clutched in her hands.
Doctor Gavin Bishop arched both thick, still brown brows up his forehead as he raked his eyes over her. “Nurse Garver,” he said. “This is quite the surprise. What brings you to my side of the dividing line?”
The sound of his voice made her skin crawl, but Lynnette kept her expression calm. “Irene. She has a hard time with being told how to run her nurses, it seems. Please do take it up with her.” She took a step to the side, moving out of his path. “If you’ll excuse me.”
His lips twitched in a flash of a smirk. “Your boyfriend pick some weeds from his mama’s yard and bring them to you?”
Lynnette clenched her hand tighter around the plastic vase.
“Mrs. Alvers asked me to get rid of these.” She held his stare.
“As a courtesy, since it seems I’ll be here for a few days, I’ll remind you that my personal life is none of your business, doctor.
” She pivoted on her heel and strode down the hall, moving swiftly out of his reach.
Her heart raced. How the hell was she supposed to put up with that scumbag for a week, possibly a week and a half, when he clearly gave no shits about the agreement she distinctly remembered striking with the chief medical officer?
She found an organic waste bin for the flowers, a recycling for the plastic, and finally trudged toward the break room. Her hours were going to be shit for the day and they didn’t look much better for Tuesday. She needed to try and actually take her breaks when she could, maybe even eat.
She recognized most of the faces in the break room but couldn’t place more than half the names. Maybe she really wasn’t the only one who stuck to a specific area. That was somehow both comforting and not, because it meant she was on her own for a bit.
There are worse things.
Some cool water and one of the simple sandwiches provided by the cafeteria were enough to rejuvenate her. Not ideal, perhaps, but enough.
“Hey, did you hear?” someone whispered at the table next to hers while she was gulping down the rest of her water.
“Hear what?” the male nurse presumably being spoken to asked, not quietly.
“There’s a Marine down in the ER,” the female said with a scandalized giggle. “I heard they wheeled him in a few minutes ago. My friend Rhonda’s on intake down there, she said his leg’s real messed up. Looks like it went through a human paper shredder.”
“Holy shit,” the guy said.
“A Marine,” someone else interrupted, walking past Lynnette to lean into the conversation. “Like, a real soldier type of Marine?”
Lynnette rolled her eyes and finally pushed to her feet. Because no one in the armed forces ever gets hurt.
“Yeah!” the first woman replied, not even pretending to whisper anymore. “That’s what I was told. And he had a hot friend with him with a GSW, too.”
The male nurse whistled. “Be still my heart. Is the hot friend still downstairs? I might’ve left something in my car.”
Both women laughed.
Lynnette dropped her foodstuffs in the appropriate trash bins and rounded toward them, too irritated to play dumb.
Apparently, she wouldn’t be making friends on the east side.
“So, there’s a guy downstairs who might be losing his leg, after risking his life for this country, and you’re up here giggling and gossiping about him like school girls?
” She paused until they all turned to her with wide eyes, as if they were shocked they’d been overheard.
“For his sake I really hope he gets sent to an open bed on the other side, because obviously none of you will know how to compose yourselves if you have to help him learn to walk on one leg. Or get to the bathroom.”
Offense began to show on at least two of the faces, while the third turned in a shameful direction.
Lynnette tacked on one final tidbit, because her father would never forgive her otherwise.
“And soldiers are Army. Marines are Marines. It’s not that hard, and they do take it seriously, so be respectful.
” She stalked from the breakroom before the red-faced gossip-starter could open her mouth to retort.
So far, the only person she liked on the east side was Amy, the pink-sparkly-nailed desk nurse.