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Just speaking the thought out loud left her feeling empty and lost. The ER was her life. It was where she felt needed the most. Leaving it behind was going to be difficult. But not nearly as painful as trying to deal with another minute of Luke Sherman.
“When?”
Gideon’s question prompted Paige to refocus her attention on his weather-beaten features. Thankfully he didn’t appear overly concerned, but then he wasn’t a man who always wore his emotions on his sleeve. Mostly, she tried to gauge his feelings about a matter by how many words he spoke. More meant he was angry. Less meant worried.
“Later this afternoon. After I’ve had a little sleep.”
“Hmm. This doctor you had the run-in with, you don’t like him?”
Like him? She couldn’t associate such a meek word with Dr. Sherman. A person either admired him or detested him. During the past three years she’d worked with him, she’d forced herself to ignore his abrasive demeanor and focus on his skills. Because he was one of the best doctors she’d ever been associated with, she’d tried to overlook his shortcomings as a person.
Holding back a rueful sigh, she said, “He’s a super doctor. A stickler for details. And he genuinely cares about his patients. But to answer your question, no. I don’t like the man. He’s an ass.”
“Maybe he has to be that way.”
Paige frowned. “Why? Why would anyone have to behave in such a way? It’s just as easy to be nice as it is to be hateful.”
Gideon slanted her a pointed smile. “Not for a man. We’re wired different. You ought to know that by now.”
Oh, yes, she’d learned the hard way that a man’s behavior wasn’t always guided by his morals or conscience. Seven years ago, Paige had divorced her cheating husband and moved from a luxurious house in Reno to live here with Gideon. Most of her friends and coworkers found it hard to believe that she preferred living so far away from her job, with an elderly grandfather, in a small house that had seen very little changes since it had been built in 1940. None of them understood that being close to her grandfather meant more to her than anything. He loved her and needed her. That was more than her own father had ever felt for her and certainly more than her ex.
“Grandfather,” she gently scolded, “you could never be anything but nice.”
He chuckled. “You didn’t know me when I was a young bull and my fist was ruled by the fire in my hair. The years have mellowed me.”
Paige figured Luke Sherman’s age to be at least five years older than her thirty years. And though there wasn’t any fiery red in his sandy hair, she’d seen plenty of sparks in his green eyes. If he lived to be ninety, she couldn’t imagine him ever mellowing into a nice guy.
Rising from the chair, she placed her hands against the small of her back and rolled her shoulders in an effort to ease the taut muscles. “You could tack a half century to Luke Sherman’s age and he still wouldn’t be good-humored.”
Gideon didn’t say anything to that and Paige was glad. She was tired of thinking about the doctor and even wearier of talking about him.
After picking up her tote, she stroked a hand over Samson’s head, then made her way to the door. “I’m going to have a bite of breakfast,” she said. “Before I tend to the chickens and goats. If you go out on the tractor tell me.”
“Yes, little hen.”
Inside the house, Paige walked to her bedroom and changed out of her scrubs and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Once she was dressed, she pattered barefoot over the old linoleum as she made her way to a small kitchen located at the back of the house. Along the way, she pulled the pins from the heavy swathe of long hair fastened to the back of her head, then shook it free.
Since the cool of the morning still lingered, the air conditioner was off and a few of the windows stood open to the breeze. Normally this was Paige’s favorite time of the day, but her quarrel with Luke Sherman had taken the joy right out of her. Just another sign she needed to get away from the man, she thought dourly.
When she stepped into the kitchen, Gideon was already there at the cookstove, placing strips of bacon into a black frying pan.
“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning. “Samson doesn’t need any more bacon today.”
“This isn’t for Samson. It’s for you. Bacon, eggs and toast. Get yourself a cup of coffee and sit down while I get it cooked.”
“Grandfather, I’m a hospital nurse. Not a patient. You don’t need to take care of me.”
“Maybe I want to take care of you. Ever think about that? Besides, I figure you’ve already done enough arguing for one morning. No need to do more of it with me.”
Sighing, Paige crossed to a white metal cabinet and pulled a mug from the shelf. As she picked up a granite percolator from the stove and tilted it over the cup, she couldn’t help but wonder if Luke Sherman was home by now. Would he be eating breakfast alone? It was a known fact he wasn’t married, but he could have a special woman who hung her robe on his bathroom door. Maybe the two of them were having breakfast together, or even worse, talking about the confrontation he’d had with Paige.
Don’t be stupid, Paige. Once Luke Sherman leaves the hospital he wouldn’t waste one minute thinking about you. To him you’re just a flunky who’s paid to do his bidding. Nothing more. Nothing less. Forget about the man. Forget about the ER.
“Paige! Have you lost your hearing?”
Realizing Gideon was practically shouting at her, she mentally shook away the dismal thoughts and glanced over her shoulder.
“Sorry, Grandfather. I didn’t hear you. What were you saying?”
He scowled at her. “I was asking if you wanted green chilies on your eggs.”
“No. I want habanero sauce.” Hopefully the fire on her tongue would burn any thoughts of Luke Sherman right out of her mind.
* * *
Twenty miles west of Carson City, on the south rim of Lake Tahoe, Luke Sherman sat on a redwood pier, staring out at a flock of birds skimming the waves of the deep blue water and soaring high above the giant evergreens shading the shoreline of the private cove. It was a beautiful July morning with the sun shining brightly in an azure-blue sky and a gentle breeze singing through the pines behind him.
During the summer months, he always made it a habit to drink his morning coffee here on the pier, where the beauty and solitude helped him unwind from the rigors of the ER. But this morning, Luke was far from relaxed. The image of Paige Winters’s face continued to float in front of his eyes, blocking out the magnificent view of prime Nevada real estate.
Damn it! What in the world had come over her? Of all the nurses he’d worked with during his ten years as an MD, Paige was definitely the most capable. If anything rattled her, it never showed in the smooth, efficient way she administered care to the influx of ER patients. Before this morning, he’d never once seen a glimmer of a tear in her eyes.
He didn’t know what had caused the waterworks. And he damn well didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to him was that his best nurse remain focused and ready for whatever emergency came through the door.
Luke unconsciously gripped the insulated coffee mug even tighter as the image of Paige’s clear gray eyes swimming in tears replayed itself in his mind. She would never know, or possibly guess, how much it had hurt him to see her crying. He could hardly believe it himself.
You didn’t have to cut into her the way you did, Luke. You were a jerk. A bastard, she called you. And she was right. You don’t deserve to have a nurse like Paige working at your side.
Cursing under his breath, he rose from the Adirondack chair and walked to the edge of the long, planked pier. As he stared down at the deep blue water, he shoved mightily at the accusing voice in his head.
It was possible he’d overreacted, he contemplated. And he might have tendered his words in a gentler manner. But he’d never had to handle Paige with kid gloves. She was tough. She could take anything he dished out. On top of that, he’d been right in confronting her and right in sending her out of the ER. He wasn’t going to allow anyone, even Nurse Winters, to jeopardize a patient’s life. So why did he feel so miserable?
Maybe because Paige Winters is the only person you care about being around. Because without her, your job at Tahoe General would mean far, far less. Face it, Luke, for a long time now you’ve thought of the two of you as a team. Now you’re wondering if you might’ve torn your team apart.
Releasing a heavy sigh, Luke left the pier and began the steep climb up to the massive split-level house he called home.
Built of native rock and rough cedar, it was perched on a rocky shelf that overlooked a finger of the lake. Nestled among a stand of huge ponderosa pine, the solid structure was always shaded from the blistering sun in the summer season and partially guarded from high drifts of snow in the winter. Built onto the back of the house, a wide stone terrace was furnished with comfortable lawn furniture and an outdoor bar and grill. Potted plants, carefully tended by a gardener, were strategically placed to make the sitting area feel like an extension of the yard.
Even to his jaded eye, the place was incredibly beautiful, yet in the past four years he’d lived here, it had never felt like home.
Hell. No place would ever feel like home to him again, Luke thought. Even if he went back to West Virginia and walked into the tiny house where he’d grown up, where his parents had lived until the day they’d died, it wouldn’t be the same. Too much had happened. Too many things had been ripped away from him. Now he viewed everything with stark reality. Home was just a fanciful ideal and a house was simply a place to eat, sleep and take shelter from the elements. As for family—well, they were just something a person eventually lost.
* * *
Later that night, as Luke began his evening shift, it was glaringly obvious that Paige wasn’t present and the remaining nurses in the ER were tiptoeing around him as though he had a communicable disease.
With a steady stream of patients pouring into the emergency care unit, he didn’t have a chance to question where Paige was, or if she’d be showing up later. But as soon as there was a lapse in the number of patients, he caught up to Chavella Honanie, just as she was entering the medical dispensary. From what he observed in the ER, the young nurse appeared to be a close friend of Paige’s. If anyone could tell him about her absence, he figured Chavella would be the one.
“Yes, Dr. Sherman, is there something I can do for you?” she asked.
Feeling a bit embarrassed and hating himself because of it, he said, “I, uh, was wondering if you knew why Nurse Winters isn’t on duty tonight. Is she ill?”
The nurse’s dark gaze awkwardly fell from his. “I don’t think so. Samantha Newton is working a double shift to make up for Paige’s absence. As for Paige, I haven’t talked with her since she left the hospital at five this morning.”
Exactly when he’d ordered Paige to leave. Chavella didn’t say the words, but Luke knew the young Hopi nurse was thinking them.
“Do you think any of the other nurses might know why she’s not here?”
Chavella nervously darted a glance at him. “I’m not sure. You should probably ask Helen. She takes care of the shift roster.”
Nodding, he left the dispensary and walked out to the nurses’ station. When he approached the long, waist-high desk, Helen was on the phone. Trying to hide his impatience, he folded his arms against his chest and waited until she ended the conversation.
“Good evening, Dr. Sherman. Haven’t you ventured a little beyond your territory?”
Since Helen was nearly thirty years his senior and had worked in this very hospital for close to forty years, he felt she’d earned the right to say anything she wanted to say in whatever tone she wanted to say it.
“From time to time, I do stick my head out of the treatment area,” he informed her.
She cracked a smile at him. “Well, it’s nice to see your good-looking face tonight. What can I do for you?”
Good-looking? He’d never thought much about his appearance, other than to keep his face shaved, hair trimmed to a decent length, and his clothes clean and neat. Otherwise, it didn’t matter. But for some odd reason he was suddenly wondering how Paige saw him. Did she ever see him as a man, instead of a doctor? Had she ever thought of him as good-looking?
Silently cursing himself for having such idiotic thoughts, he said, “Nurse Winters isn’t here tonight. Can you tell me why? Did she call in sick?”
Helen’s chin lifted as she drew in a long breath. “Paige is not ill. In fact, she’s at work right now on the third floor.”
Luke stared at the veteran nurse as if she’d lost her mind. “Third floor! Paige is up in internal medicine?”
“That’s right,” Helen said smugly. “She’s been transferred out of the ER unit. At her own request.”
If someone had hit Luke square in the forehead with a baseball bat, he wouldn’t have been more stunned than he was at this moment. For as long as he’d known her, Paige had worked the ER. Sure, they’d exchanged heated words, yet he’d never thought she’d go to this extent to get back at him. But perhaps he was jumping the gun in assuming he was the reason she’d left the ER. Maybe there was a different reason.
He looked blankly at Helen. “Why?”
“Excuse me?”
He grimaced. “Why did Nurse Winters ask for the transfer?”
Helen rolled her eyes. “Think hard, Dr. Sherman. You’ll figure it out.”
Drawing in a harsh breath, he started to stalk away from the sarcastic nurse. But that would hardly garner the answers he was seeking.
Swiping a hand through his hair, he tried to keep his paper-thin patience from slipping completely away. “I don’t have time for mind games, Helen. Yes, Nurse Winters and I exchanged a few cross words last shift, but it hardly warranted her flying the coop!”
Helen’s head tilted to a challenging angle. “Perhaps you view the incident in those terms. Paige obviously sees it differently. Hmmph. I don’t suppose you bothered to ask her why she had tears in her eyes.”
His back teeth snapped together. “The reason for her breakdown didn’t matter then,” he uttered slowly and concisely. “Nor does it have any bearing on the issue now.”
The way in which the older nurse was eyeing him, Luke got the impression she’d like to spit a few salty words at him. Instead, she turned back to the desk as though to say her job was far more important than dealing with his demands.
Picking up a clipboard and pen, she said crisply, “Naturally you would have that attitude. You’re a man. You wouldn’t understand the deep pull of a woman’s maternal instincts.”
Maternal! Before he’d caught Paige crying, there hadn’t been any children visit the emergency unit. She couldn’t have been crying over a sick baby or an adolescent. Unless Helen was implying in a roundabout way that Paige was pregnant! No! Surely that couldn’t be!
“Helen, it might be helpful if you would explain that cryptic remark.”
“I think you should be having this conversation with Nurse Winters. Not me.”
He wasn’t going to have any more conversations with Paige, he thought crossly. She’d clearly made her choice to move on. Away from him. Away from the ER. If she’d gotten involved with some man and gotten herself pregnant, then he didn’t want to know about it. And he definitely didn’t want to think about it.
“Can you kindly explain if you have another nurse lined up to take Nurse Winters’s place? The unit was already short-handed on nurses.”
“I’m working on that, Dr. Sherman. Just give me a bit more time. Filling Paige’s shoes isn’t going to be easy, you know.”
Before he could make a retort, the telephone rang and Helen excused herself to answer it. Luke didn’t wait around to see if her conversation was going to be brief. He figured Helen had already spoken her piece on the matter.
Determined to put Paige and the whole incident out of his mind, he turned on his heel and started back to the treatment area. Yet as he passed the elevator used exclusively for ER patients, he suddenly wondered what Paige would think if he did show up on the third floor.
Would she tell him to go jump in the lake? Or apologize for calling him a bastard?
The nagging questions were rolling through his thoughts when the corner of his eye caught a flash of movement and he looked around to see Nurse Honanie motioning to him.
“Dr. Sherman, the paramedics are bringing in a patient with stroke symptoms,” she called to him.
Hurrying forward, he promised himself he’d think about Paige Winters later. Right now saving a life was his only priority.
Chapter Two (#u2b918337-08b1-5933-8798-f3ca76647266)
Friday morning after Paige had finished her night shift, she was walking across the parking lot to her car when she heard a familiar voice calling to her.
Pausing, she glanced over her shoulder to see Chavella hurrying to catch up to her. The young woman had changed out of her scrubs and into a pair of jeans and a shirt. Her coal-black hair bounced against her back as she trotted across the asphalt. She was so very young and beautiful, yet tragedy had wiped away too much of her youthful spirit when her fiancé had been killed in a freak construction accident. Paige had often wished Chavella would meet a man who would fill the emptiness in her life, but so far she’d shown no interest in forgetting her late fiancé.
“Hey, sweetie!” Paige called to her. “On your way home?”
Chavella nodded as she came to a stop at Paige’s side. “Yes, what about you?”
“Me, too. In fact, I have the next two nights off. I’m still pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
The young nurse’s dark eyes widened. “Two nights off? Are you kidding?”
“No. Seems the internal-medicine floor has plenty of nurses to rotate. And my break just happened to fall this weekend.”
Chavella shrugged. “Lucky you. We’re still short-handed, so none of us are expecting days off.”
“Oh. You mean Helen hasn’t replaced me yet?”
“Three different nurses have come in for the past three nights. All of them are just temps.”
Confused by this news, Paige shook her head. “What is the woman thinking? She knows the ER always has a demanding load of patients!”
