Laura locked her apartment door, set her half-consumed cardamom latte on the bookshelf, and collapsed in the living room chair.

Her feet throbbed on their ergonomic, extra-padded inserts.

She toed them off.

Twelve hours on her feet plus an impromptu shopping trip overwhelmed even the most pillowy shoes.

The last shift was hands down the hardest shift of her career.

As tension drained out of her, the dangerous hiss of uncried tears sucked in. Would her eyes seal shut, drowning her in the oblivion of sleep?

No. That would be too easy.

Her breath hitched into the half-hiccup of sobs.

Okay. That was okay too.

“Morning.” Her housemate Neve carried from the kitchen strong, independently roasted, fair trade Kenyan coffee in a handmade ceramic mug. She studied Laura with gentle sympathy. “Rough night?”

Laura closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against the lids. “The worst.”

“Did somebody code?”

She shook her head. That was about the only redeeming thing about tonight. Nobody had died.

“I’ll get the bread flour.”

While her housemate pulled out the familiar ingredients and plugged in the stand mixer, Laura groaned to her feet and started her grief-catharsis routine.

First, she put Untamed Heart on the mini kitchen TV. Socially awkward Christian Slater saved cute waitress Marisa Tomie from rapists while Laura warmed a cup of milk on the small white stove to activate the yeast. By the time the protagonists had fallen in love, gone to a hockey game, and Christian Slater had suddenly collapsed from an undiagnosed heart disorder, Laura was pounding her sorrow into the sticky dough.

Neve disappeared to get ready for school, and her brother Tyler arrived home.

“Rough night,” he guessed, stealing Neve’s half pot and collapsing into the living room chair Laura had vacated.

They called it “the living room” but actually all the rooms squished together with only a few waist-height dividing walls organizing the space.

Tyler had a worse swing shift than Laura at an all-night alternative music store. But, since it was one of the last of its kind in all of Portland, or maybe in all the world, he didn’t mind.

“A code?”

“No codes,” Neve said, returning to the living room to put on her loafers.

He opened a pink box of boutique donuts and snagged a custard bar. “That’s good. What happened?”

Neve grabbed one of his donuts. “Nosy.”

“Talking is great therapy.”

“Maybe if any of us had proper credentials.”

Laura sucked in a deep breath.

Neve paused, a donut in her teeth and her shoulder bag half-stuffed with her master’s teaching materials. She waited to see if Laura would actually answer.

So much had happened.

First, Dr. Richard’s lecture, then treating the dragon shifters, the bomb scare, and ending in Kyan’s arms.

And then his total, absolute rejection.

She’d disgusted him. No, his final look hadn’t been disgust. She’d annoyed him? No matter how many times she played the scene over and over in a horrible loop, she couldn’t quite identify his feeling.

He’d jerked back. And stepped back. He didn’t want her touch, her interest, her.

That part needed no explanation.

There was too much hurt to unpack, so Laura skipped to after Kyan left. “I got called in to discuss ‘my performance’ with the Director of the Hospital.”

Tyler’s brows rose, causing his square glasses to slide down his nose. “You’re fired?”

“No.” She sucked in another breath and studied the ceiling. Warm morning sunlight caught dust motes and revealed invisible spider webs. “I got a warning. I was careless and I … I treated a patient.”

Neve exchanged glances with Tyler.

“That’s kind of your job,” Tyler said.

“I know. But I got so much encouragement from my preceptor I overstepped.”

“Overstepped?” Neve repeated.

“You?” Tyler flubbed his lips, then took a huge bite of donut. “Somebody got their wires crossed.”

“There has to be a misunderstanding,” Neve agreed.

Laura huffed a mirthless laugh. Her housemates were well-aware of her short-comings. Overconfidence wasn’t one of them.

But that was exactly what the Director had accused her of.

Her mind traveled back to the Director’s Office and their conference with crystal clarity, like the whole horrible incident had happened minutes instead of hours earlier.

The frazzled Director had tapped his hand on the small conference table. “Why did you treat him?”

She’d pressed her knees together in the hard chair. “Kyan was bleed—”

“Not him. The first one! The mild burn.”

Her mouth had opened and closed. “I was assigned.”

“You were assigned to evaluate him. Now they think we’re an alien clinic! Who knows how many more they’ll bring in here?”

She should have kept quiet.

But she’d gone and opened her mouth. “Um, but, I thought we were a dragon—”

“Don’t!” He’d held up his hand and then rubbed it over his exhausted face. “We are a depository for their special ‘medkits’ which they are storing here in the case of an emergency. We’re not an alien research hospital. We’re not even a human research hospital. Now we’re under bomb threats.” He’d pointed a long index finger at her. “This is your fault.”

She’d left his office certain he would call her back in and cancel her clinical, dismiss her, and inform the school she was unfit for the medical profession.

Knowing she’d gone through a bombing, Sabrina had kindly suggested she go home. But since it might be her last shift as a nurse, she’d been determined to finish.

Every time she’d tried to focus, she’d been slammed again with the Director’s warning or Kyan’s rejection. She’d nearly written on the wrong patient’s chart and later accidentally carried a back pocket full of prescription opioids out to her car — which she’d immediately returned, to more discipline.

“These are the mistakes that kill people,” Galina had told her sternly, and Laura hadn’t said a peep because it was true.

Now in her sunny kitchen, facing her housemates’ kind but misplaced sympathy, the night seemed even worse than she’d remembered.

She thumped the bread dough one last time and put it under a towel for its second rise while the video froze on Marisa Tomei crying inconsolably over Christian Slater’s body.

“The misunderstanding was mine,” she said firmly. “If I screw up again, my career is over. I definitely killed my chance for a recommendation.”

A gold star of approval would never be hers.

Again Neve exchanged a look with her brother, then raced for her bus to the university.

Tyler selected his second donut. “We’re in a health care crisis so you’ll get a job even without a recommendation.”

She sniffed. “Yeah.”

Their final housemate, Tyler’s athletic girlfriend Whitney, strolled out of their bedroom in a tank top and yoga pants. She yawned, bypassed the coffee and donuts, and helped herself to fresh kombucha. “Who died?”

“Coded,” Tyler corrected.

“Nobody.” Laura let out a sigh. She did feel better having confessed her problems. She washed the flour off her hands and dried them on the towel. “I’m never making a single decision without approval ever again.”

“Oh?” Whitney set a packet of Peace Corps materials on the crowded counter. She recruited for volunteer organizations and had brought home the packet at Laura’s request. “You might forget about this then. Peace Corps sticks you in places where you have to rely on yourself and make all your own decisions.”

Laura’s fingers closed over the packet. “Uh...”

“I’m just being honest.”

“Hey,” Tyler said. “Where’s my welcome home kiss?”

Whitney shrugged and went to Tyler, sorry to wreck Laura’s wishes but perfectly able to bluntly declare the truth. Her honesty was something Laura admired even when it crushed her dreams. If Laura too could just say what she felt all the time…

…Dr. Richard would never steal another granola bar break from her again.

…the Director would understand the hospital’s fractured chain of command had put her into the untenable position of providing treatments he apparently didn’t want her to provide — and, denying services after agreeing to host the medical kits really felt like a weasely administrator response that went against her inner beliefs.

…Kyan would know his reaction had hurt her. Deeply.

…and she’d probably be legitimately fired right now instead of just “under warning.”

Laura finished her kitchen cleanup. Tyler would check on her rising loaves or Whitney would. She carried the Peace Corps packet to her bedroom and set it next to her Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, and Amnesty International packets.

They were all full of colorful photos showing brave nurses making real differences in others’ lives. Challenging dangers, confidently striding into the heart of a disaster carrying medical supplies and hope.

She wanted to be the kind of nurse who carried hope. Just seeing her should make a patient’s face light up.

It’s okay now. Relief is here.

But, honestly, Whitney was right. Galina was right. And even Dr. Richard, curse his granola-bar-stealing-squicky ways, was right.

While Laura’s disaster team cohort strode confidently into the darkness, she’d flutter uselessly asking if it was safe, if they’d been cleared, if she’d brought the right first aid supplies, if she was doing okay. If … if … if …

Kyan’s rejection flashed across her mind.

She twitched and headed down the hall to shower her pathetic existence away.

Tyler and Whitney laughed in the kitchen. Always having someone home, pretty much, no matter the hour gave her comfort.

I work alone.

Laura didn’t like to be alone. That was another reason the Peace Corps wouldn’t work for her. She’d always imagined taking part in her village’s life, but she’d probably get stuck in a lonely, isolated hut.

So, it was just as well she never applied.

Hot water poured down on her sore back. Brushing her teeth at the same time, she strove to boil her worries away.

Kyan was clearly fine with being alone. He was a rock. He probably spent all his time clenching that sexy jaw, striding into disaster zones, and then cracking a solitary beer at his kitchen table. Alone.

He didn’t need a house full of nice roommates or kneading bread while watching tear-jerkers to get catharsis. He probably shrugged off a hard day by punching up a sweat at the gym. Droplets flying, Rocky music playing, his strength was everything Laura desired for herself.

Of course, he would never want to know. He’d made his feelings clear.

She let the fiery water wash away any lingering uncried tears.

Her own method for dealing was a little different.

Laura’s first clinical rotation had been in a children’s ward. Every day on the floor introduced a new torture.

“It’s okay to grieve,” her first preceptor had said, accurately identifying how close Laura was to quitting. “Put on the saddest movie you own, pour yourself a glass of wine, and pound your grief into bread dough. Tears make the loaves taste sweeter.”

It had worked.

Even though Laura never got over the ones she couldn’t save, she was able to accept and focus on the ones she could. Her attitude improved and her little patients responded. And, she finally was able to see that many, many children did recover, even from the worst diagnoses, and got their chances to grow up and live.

She shut off the water and toweled dry. All those endorphins made her head pound and her lids sink with exhaustion.

Finally.

She pulled on her worn nightgown and robe, wrapped her wet hair in a threadbare towel, and returned to her room.

A new movie filled the living room.

She was never alone in this house. It was so nice.

Laura closed the blinds on the bright sunlight and slipped into her sheets. She closed her eyes.

Spinning had shocked and frightened her. In one instant, she’d gone from walking toward the mystery device to lying flat on the tile covered by Kyan’s powerful body. But she had known she was safe because it was him.

Heat throbbed between her thighs.

Ugh. Go to sleep.

Her mind demanded to relive the good parts in exquisite detail.

His hand had cupped the back of her head, sheltering her from the tile. He’d stiffened as the deadly razors struck him, all the while protecting her. They’d shared a tender, soul-shattering kiss.

Then she’d offended him.

He was used to bombs. Her insistence on talking and touching, like she had any right to do so, had made him walk off without another word.

She’d destroyed his good opinion. She’d never see him again.

Her heart ached.

Something banged outside her apartment.

What was that?

Laura rolled over and reached for her earplugs.

Something exploded. Her neighbors’ car alarms went off. An engine revved.

Huh?

She crawled out of bed, groaning, and stumbled to the window. She opened the blinds.

A dark shadow hit the glass.

Her bedroom window shattered.