I made it to the hospital in record time and surged into the emergency room on a tidal wave of anxiety and fear. I was more familiar with these institutional and sterile walls than I wanted to be—one of my closest friends, my surrogate big brother Rome Archer, had tangled with a bunch of bikers and a bunch of bullets not too long ago and I had spent hours upon hours nervously pacing these very halls waiting to see if he was going to pull through. But right now this visit felt like it might define the rest of my life. The security guard gave me a concerned look. I was used to it. When you had yellow, orange, and red fire tattooed along each side of your scalp and had ink from your collar to your wrist on each arm, people tended to think you weren’t really a very nice guy. Funny thing was that I was typically a lot nicer than most of the guys I loved like brothers, but not right now, and if the nurse who sat behind the desk didn’t tell me where my uncle was in the next second I was going to straight up lose my shit.
I was just about to breathe fire way hotter than the kind inked all over me when I saw her walking toward me. She looked like an angel, even though her name was Saint. It fit her, Saint Ford, healer of the sick and hater of anything and everything having to do with Nash Donovan. She was beautiful, breathtaking, absolutely despised me, and made no secret about it. I had run into her more than once on my unfortunately frequent trips to this ER, where she seemed to be a permanent fixture as one of the attending nurses.
We had gone to high school together years ago, and while I was all for striking up a reunion of sorts, she was having none of it. She made a big production of avoiding me, or giving me nervous, sideways looks like she didn’t trust me or was forced to endure my company. Only right now, in this moment, she was looking at me with equal parts compassion and seriousness in her soft, dove-gray eyes. It left no doubt whatsoever that things with Phil were really, really bad.
She put a hand on my shoulder and I felt like I was going to shatter under the gentle touch.
“Nash …” Her voice was light and I could hear the bad news in it. “Come over here and talk to me for just a minute.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to hear whatever horrible words she was going to have to say to me, but because she was so pretty, because she had the loveliest eyes I had ever seen, I just numbly did what she asked. There were worse people to take bad news from.
We took a few steps away from the nurses’ desk, and I gazed down at her with trepidation. She was fairly tall for a girl, so we were eye to eye when she leveled it at me in a feather-soft voice speaking rock-hard words.
“Did you know Phil was so sick?”
I felt like she was asking me as a friend, or someone who actually cared about what was happening, and not as a medical professional. I knew logically she was just doing her job, but it made me feel better to pretend otherwise.
I didn’t have any words that sounded or felt right to answer her, so I shook my head.
“I recognized the name on the intake paperwork and the two of you look an awful lot alike. I figured I might find you out here.”
I gulped down my thundering heartbeat and nodded my head stiffly. “He’s my only family.” That wasn’t entirely true, but he was the only family I had that really mattered to me.
She sighed and I tried not to flinch when she put a hand on my cheek. I knew she didn’t like me, and for some reason that made the fact that she was being so considerate, so caring, hit home that whatever she was getting ready to lay out for me was way worse than I had imagined.
“He has lung cancer … the doctors are thinking stage four. He has an extensive medical chart. He’s been receiving treatment for a while. We got him settled, gave him fluids, he might have pneumonia, so that’s why he’s struggling to breathe, and his oxygen levels are dangerously low. We aren’t a hundred percent sure why he was unresponsive just yet, but we’re trying to get him awake. The attending doctor called the oncologist that was listed in Phil’s chart. It’s a serious situation, Nash. I can’t believe he didn’t let you know how ill he was.”
I let my head drop on my neck like it was suddenly just too heavy to hold up and her gentle fingers stroked along my cheek. It was startlingly soothing.
“He’s been avoiding me.” It sounded pathetic to my own ears.
She was going to say something else when a tiny, pregnant pixie and a hulking giant came thundering into the room where we were standing. I didn’t recognize the older guy that entered with them, but he had an intent look on his face that was almost scary. He took one look around the empty waiting room and turned on his heel in a way that made it seem like he was on a hunt for information or someone that had answers. The cavalry had arrived. Saint went to pull away and I instinctively grabbed her wrist. I needed my friends, loved my crew of misfits and rebels, but right now I needed her more. I couldn’t explain it. She gave me a wan grin and tugged her arm free.
“I’m gonna go check on him and see if we managed to get him awake so that you can see him. Nash … you should consider quitting smoking.”
The last of her words trailed away as I was steamrolled by a punk-rock pixie and engulfed in a hug I needed like no one’s business. I let Cora do her magic and try and make me feel better. I also let the quiet strength and steady assuredness of the guy I considered my older brother try and ground me. Rome Archer was a rock and I needed that kind of stability as my world was shaking around me.
I was pulling it together, getting the emotions that were churning and rolling in check, getting my head around what was going on when they showed up. It was bad enough that my mom was there, but that she had the nerve to bring that asshole she married with her was just pushing the limits of my already tattered control.
She just had to go and call me Nashville … no one called me Nashville and lived to tell the tale … well, no one but Cora. I think it was hearing my real name spoken from my mom’s lips that had all the questions rolling and the pieces tumbling into place. I went from hovering on the brink of calm to a volatile molten core of fury that was ready to take this ER down in flood of hate and wrath.
Why was she here?
Phil made her his next of kin, his power of attorney … like she was somehow more important to him than I was.
Why?
She didn’t answer.
Did she know he was sick and for how long?
She did. Phil didn’t want me to worry.
She tried to convince me it was all in my best interest and my top was about to blow with each biting question I fired at her, when my best friend, Rule, showed up with his fiancée. I had a moment of clarity and was starting to see through the haze of dread, anger, resentment, and everything else fueling my blood when Saint’s copper-colored head popped back around the corner. Her words had already changed my life once tonight.
I had no idea that she wasn’t even close to being done.
She cocked her head to the side, blinked those gray eyes at me like she wasn’t just going to break apart the foundation of everything I thought I knew, and said, “He’s awake and asking for you.”
“He is?”
“Yeah, he said he wants to talk to his son … that has to be you, right? You guys look identical.”
The world fell away. I stopped breathing, stopped feeling, and stopped living. I was just rooted on the spot, stuck in a moment where my beloved uncle Phil had somehow just morphed into my father. The lies, the secrets, the wasted time, the hollow feeling I had always carried around from being unwanted not only by a superficial and uncaring mother, but also by a faceless, nameless father turned around and around, and I felt like I was going to pass out from the dizziness it caused.
“Holy shit!” Typical Rule, he brought me back to the white room with a clatter and blood rushing into my face and ears. I was going to lose it, but like she knew it, Cora was suddenly there, right in my face, always the voice of reason. Always taking care of her boys.
“Nash.” Cora’s tone was stern and no-nonsense. “Now isn’t the time. We can work out
all the details later. They don’t matter. You have to appreciate that he’s still here and focus on the now.” Her bright eyes danced over to her man and then slid back to mine. “Plus you can’t hit her and get away with it. I can.” Her spiky blond head tilted in the direction where my mom was cowering next to her husband. I wouldn’t put it past her to actually take a swing at my mom. It was why I loved her so much.
Cora moved to the side as Saint walked up to my side and put her hand on the crook of my elbow in a silent gesture to follow her.
“I got you, Nash.” Her eyes were a thundercloud I wanted to stare at forever. That was a storm I would never complain about getting caught in.
“Do you?” I hoped against hope she was the only one who could hear my voice crack and that Cora really did lay my lying, conniving mother out on the ER waiting room floor.
“I do.” She almost whispered it and I wanted to ask how long she had me for. Was she going to be there while I coped with putting my role model, the only person who’d given me their time, their love, who turned me into a man I was proud to be, in the ground? How about while I dealt with the fact that same man had lied to me my entire fucking life? I had no clue who Phil Donovan was, and as a result I was starting to wonder if I had a clue who Nash Donovan was. I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t know her. Barely remembered her from before, and really had no clue what kind of person she was beyond her personable and professional bedside manner, but I wanted her to be there, felt like I needed her to be there … it was too bad she fucking hated me.
It may have been Thanksgiving, but I was having a really hard time finding one single thing to be thankful for.
CHAPTER 2
Saint
One week later …
I argued with myself the entire way on the short trip from the hospital to his apartment. I knew better. I hadn’t been a practicing nurse for very long, only three years, but I had been immersed in the medical field long enough to know that it was stupid to get involved, to make patients and what they were dealing with a personal matter. There should be no forming personal attachments, no taking one case more seriously than another, no treating any one person affected by a family member’s illness or accident any differently than the next … but none of that logic or professional training mattered against the need to find out why Nash hadn’t stopped by the hospital once since Thanksgiving to see his dad.
Phil Donovan had been moved almost immediately from the ER to the upper levels of the hospital where the oncology unit was located, so he wasn’t even my patient anymore. That hadn’t stopped me from stopping by at the end of my shift to check on him and see how he was doing. The older man that was the spitting image of his son was taking his prognosis surprisingly well, and I always enjoyed his easy demeanor. It didn’t look good, he didn’t look good. But I had noticed that he was never alone. There was always someone in the room with him when I stuck my head in. He seemed to have an endless parade of tattooed and pierced men and women who pushed aside the discomfort of visiting and spending time with someone so sick in order to keep him company and offer him support. Only it was glaringly obvious that his own flesh and blood hadn’t been among them. It wasn’t my place to question why his own kid hadn’t made an appearance any of those times, and I wouldn’t have been driven to do something so out of character had Phil not sounded so disappointed when he mentioned Nash’s disappearing act.
It wasn’t like I was overly anxious for another run-in with the brooding, tattooed hottie anyway, but tonight, when I popped my head in, Cora had been arguing with the older man. I knew her to be loud and up front from the time her boyfriend had been shot and nearly died in my ER. She was currently being very vocal in her opinion about Nash’s current behavior. Phil was telling her to leave Nash alone, that he would work through things in his own time and that he didn’t blame his son for not being by once since the holiday. She was all kinds of worked up, shouting that it wasn’t right, that Nash was acting like a big baby and that he was going to regret wasting any of this time they had together considering Phil’s prognosis wasn’t good. She might look a little crazy and sound kind of abrasive, but I had to agree that she had a point.
I felt bad for eavesdropping and was going to duck out of the room and head home when her next statement sent a rebellious chill down my spine.
“He won’t even talk to Rule. He won’t answer the phone. He’s missed work all week. Rome went to the apartment and knocked on the door until a neighbor came out and threatened to call the cops. I told him he should’ve just broken it down. I think he was tempted because he never got any kind of response. The idea of Nash sitting alone in that apartment hurting, trying to process this all on his own, is breaking my heart, Phil. I don’t know what else to do.”
Phil murmured an answer that was too soft for me to hear and I jumped as another nurse came around the corner. I saw her give me an odd look because this was totally not my floor, I rarely went anywhere in the hospital outside of the ER. Before I could talk myself out of it, I went back to my own floor, snuck a quick peek at the file we had on Phil Donovan that listed Nash’s info as his emergency contact after some woman named Ruby Loften, and headed out on a mission to do I don’t know what. I wasn’t sure why I was so worked up, so invested in either of the Donovan men, especially considering the bitter taste my history with Nash left in my mouth.
I loved my job. I’d wanted to be a nurse since forever. Fixing all my dolls’ “owies” and making my big sister let me cover her in bandages and gauze when I was little had always been my favorite game, and I had worked hard and busted my tail off to be the best nurse and caregiver I could be. At twenty-five I was a certified ER nurse and I was thinking about going back to school and studying to get my master’s in nursing so I could look at being a nurse practitioner. I graduated at the top of my class from California State University in L.A. and I chose emergency nursing for the challenge, the fast pace, and because I knew I wanted to help people when they needed me most. It was a different environment, different set of patients and problems every single day. I was extremely skilled at it, completely invested in giving it my all each and every day. So I knew that whatever weird pull this case and these people involved had on me wasn’t something I had ever experienced with a patient or their loved ones before.
I should have known the instant those unmistakable purple eyes locked on to me, trying to place where they knew me from on the Fourth of July all those months ago, that Nash Donovan was once again going to set my well-ordered world on its side. Even after all the time that had passed, and even with the ages-old resentment and dislike I harbored for the darkly handsome young man—who, let’s be honest, had only improved with age—there was still something about him that got to me. With just a look he made my blood heat and I had that long-repressed feeling of longing and want whispering at me to remember. It seemed like I was always going to be stuck in a turbulent cycle of lust and hate where Nash was concerned and I didn’t like how extreme and out of control either of those things made me feel. In just a matter of a few short weeks those feelings and the man that inspired them had me doing something totally out of character and against not only my professional rule book, but also against my own sense of self-preservation.
The traffic cutting across downtown was terrible. There wasn’t any snow on the ground yet, but it was cold out and the hustle and bustle of Denver getting ready for Christmas was causing a nasty gridlock. Not to mention it was a Saturday night, so the rush of all the weekend-warriors to get out and enjoy their freedom made a three-mile drive take almost half an hour.
Being around someone from my past, someone who remembered the former me, just brought all those insecurities I still struggled with to a lesser degree now right to the forefront of my mind. Especially when that someone was the adult version of the out-of-my-league teenage boy I’d had a painfully intense, supersecret crush on.
It had never been easy getting made fun of and hearing mean things said about me. It
hurt and tore down my already frayed self-esteem. I knew high school was fleeting and that in a few years none of those people would matter to me anymore, that Nash could be chalked up to a phase, but the way he made me feel when he ignored me and the even worse way it hurt me when I heard him saying awful things about me had taught me a valuable lesson, one I still held close today. People could only hurt you and disappoint you if you let them. They only had the power to hurt you if you thought they were special and above that. I didn’t let anyone close enough, didn’t let anyone touch my heart or emotions enough to risk that happening again … ever. I think that made dealing with my cheating boyfriend in college and handling the knowledge that my own father was a philanderer easier. Across the board, men in my life had disappointed me, and Nash was just the first in a long line.
Which made this need, this urgency to check on him, my nemesis, and my teenage nightmare even harder to process. Still, even though I was full of apprehension and doubt, I wheeled my new Jetta into a spot on the street in front of the Victorian that had obviously been converted into some apartments and got out. I gazed at the building for a second, trying to convince myself to mind my own business and just go home. I was still in scrubs, had my ugly work shoes on and my hair coiled into a tight, fire-colored braid that reached the middle of my back. I only had the barest hint of makeup left after a ten-hour shift and I didn’t know why I thought he would answer the door for me if he was ignoring his friends and the people closest to him.
I shivered because I hadn’t grabbed a coat and decided I either needed to go home or just go in. My gaze slid over a sweet Charger that was parked in front of the building and I sighed. I dealt with death and horrific injury on a daily basis. I could handle a brief encounter with a ghost from my memories and survive the encounter. I was made of stronger stuff now. Besides, seeing Phil so sick and sad and the traumatic way Nash had responded to the news on Thanksgiving had me concerned for both of them. And despite knowing better, I knew that my concern wasn’t going away.