Sighing, she tugged her scrub top over the long-sleeved shirt she’d slipped on, then pulled on and zipped up her hospital-branded fleece. Feet into sneakers, hair into a ponytail, homemade lunch in her purple insulated case, and she was ready to go.
Before she’d moved to San Francisco three months before, or rather before she’d moved to a town south of San Francisco—because working for a nonprofit didn’t exactly make a girl rich—she hadn’t worked at an actual hospital for years. Now, she’d adjusted to her job. For the most part.
She still missed the kids.
The innocent smiles and the excitement when they came to help.
The ones here weren’t terrible, but most of them also didn’t know how good they had it.
She knew how good she had it.
Money hadn’t been flush when she’d been a kid, even as an O’Keith—or well, she’d technically been a Donovan since her mom hadn’t taken the O’Keith name. Regardless, her father might be a billionaire and the owner of a Fortune 500 company, and her sister, Heather, might be the newest named female billionaire in the world, but Trix wasn’t in that circle. She had been part of his second family, part of her mother’s taint (and thanks dear old Dad for those kind words when she’d gone to ask him for help paying for medical school).
Look, she got it. Her mom was a disaster. Flighty, burned through money faster than water flowing through fingers. She was selfish and . . . frankly, she could be mean.
So, Trix hadn’t exactly won the parent lottery.
The dream of medical school had disappeared, and she’d worked her way through nursing school instead.
Pivoting, adapting, that she could do.
And it wasn’t like everyone could have everything, could they?
“Nope,” she muttered, agreeing with her inner monologue while grabbing her backpack and heading for the door. “They can’t have everything.”
But at the very least, she could do something to make the world a little better for someone else.
Her shift had been relatively uneventful.
Or, at least, uneventful for the ED—emergency department—because there weren’t any gunshot wounds or people threatening to stab her. There weren’t any potentially scary cases that might be ebola or another highly communicable disease.
A broken arm, a heart attack, and one stab wound.
Not exciting.
Okay, so maybe she had a high tolerance for excitement, but they had thirteen beds and a full staff of nurses and doctors twiddling their thumbs.
It was making her crazy.
At least in the field she’d always had something to do, something to occupy her time with.
There weren’t empty hours to think.
About a certain unnamed doctor.
Okay, fine.
About Jet and how good he’d been in bed—
No. That wasn’t fair, either, because, yes, they’d been great in bed together, their bodies seeming like they were made for one another, but the entirety of their friendship, even before the brief interlude when they’d transitioned into lovers . . . that had been good.
She’d been in love and Jet . . .
She hadn’t been enough.
Not surprising.
Trixie didn’t have a self-worth issue. She knew she had value. She was smart and capable and good at her job. But she also wasn’t soft or emotive or the type of woman that would clasp her hands and flutter her eyelashes and let her man know he was her hero.
She didn’t need a hero.
She needed a partner.
She’d thought Jet had understood that, had thought he wanted the same in return. Sigh. She’d thought a lot of things, but her being what Jet wanted as a future had been perhaps the most grievous of her errors.
Well, obviously Trix had been wrong, and now it was time to move on. No time to cry over spilled milk or keep up all her teenage girl level sighing. Stifling another of the said exhalations, she headed to the break room. So what, Jet was around. Her life was busy and full. It wasn’t like she was going to open herself to him again.
Been there. Done that. Got the souvenir balloon, and it had popped.
Lucky her.
Trix opened the lock on her locker and pulled out her backpack, shrugging on her fleece before tossing her bag over her shoulder and grabbing her lunchbox.
Time to wade through some traffic, order takeout, and get caught up on about ten years of quality—and she had to be honest, some not quality—television. She was going to forget all about Jet and their past, forget how good it had felt when he’d touched and kissed and held her, forget about—
The man walked into the break room.
Dressed in a lab coat, stethoscope draped around his neck, he was talking to the chief trauma specialist, Tricia Heldway, and didn’t notice her.
Thank God for small miracles.
She whipped around, facing her locker, and doing her best impression of a sidle as they spoke. Neither stopped their conversation as she approached the door, and she started to slip out, only to be halted when something caught her backpack.
When a hand caught her backpack.
Jet’s chocolate eyes met hers. “Hey, Trix.”
Tricia’s head tilted to the side. “Oh, do you know, Trix, Jet? She’s one of our best nurses.”
Trixie tried to tug herself out of Jet’s grip, but he didn’t release her. In fact, he exerted inexorable pressure on her backpack that she ended up very near his side. Close enough that she could smell the spice of him, close enough to sense the coiled strength of power, close enough that she had to smother a shiver when she remembered how well he’d used that power.
The humid heat on their skin that had made their bodies stick together, the way he’d held her tight, his fingers almost bruising, the thin cushion of the mattress as he’d pounded into her.
The sounds of the jungle, the smell of smoke and ash from campfires.
Feeling so incredibly exhausted and yet exhilarated because they’d made a difference, trailed by the moments of feeling so damned low when they hadn’t.
Such an intense time in her life, both with her career and with her heart.
And now she had come full circle.
Back trying to find her own path to making a difference . . . right alongside Jet.
Who replied to Tricia’s question with a, “Yup, I know her.”
Ringing endorsement, that.
But Tricia smiled anyway. “Well, I’ll let you two catch up. I’m going to wrap up my charting and get out of here.” She waved and left.
Trix tried to follow her. “I should—”
The grip on her backpack stayed firm. “You’re working here.”
She sighed, chin dropping to her chest as she debated whether to push it. “Yup,” she eventually said, echoing his earlier reply. “For a couple months now.”
He dropped his arm. “Cool.”
Slowly, she inched away. “Cool.” Another step. “’Kay, bye.”
One half of that mouth curved up. “Okay, bye.”
Trixie escaped into the hall, narrowly missing being mowed over by a gurney. She sent an apologetic wave and chagrined look toward the patient and her coworker’s way. “Sorry,” she muttered, plastering herself against the wall as they moved by. Once they were gone and she started moving again, she half-expected Jet’s hand to snag her backpack and tug her to a stop a second time. It didn’t.