Skye dreaded having a conversation with Spencer and decided to deal with him later. She’d mail back his ring and deny him the opportunity to twist what had happened and what he’d done. He’d try to turn the entire situation against her. She’d fallen for his manipulations for too long.

She searched for Bob, hoping he had finished taking care of Spencer's injuries. Luck was on her side. Bob stood by the nurses’ station typing his note into the computer. He rubbed his temples, and then pulled out a medicine bottle from his pocket. A long time migraine sufferer, he tapped one of his migraine pills into the palm of his hand.

“Long shift?” she asked. “I didn’t realize you had worked last night, too.”

“Well, Jenna went into labor early, so I took her shift.” He popped the pill and chased it with a long pull of his coffee. “I’m getting too old for this.”

Unkempt gray hair curled around his balding head. He’d probably tried to finger-comb it into submission, but it refused to be tamed. His haggard appearance had her worried. He’d been pulling too many extra shifts. And the gray scruff of his beard aged him, making him look more mature than his sixty-one years.

An avid sailor, he’d insisted, “Every sea dog worth his salt keeps a respectable beard.”

Her cell phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. Forest! “Give me a second.” She stepped away for privacy.

Her foster brother always knew when she needed to talk. Their bond had been forged in pain, made strong by their shared weakness, and tempered into resiliency, allowing them to survive their shared trauma.

“Hey, my summer Skye. You need a hug?”

“How’d you know, Beanpole?”

“The universe spoke to me.”

Their psychic bond was the single constant in her life.

She grinned. “What are you smoking this week?”

Praying only weed held sway over him had her holding her breath. He’d smoked, ingested, and injected every form of mind-altering substance at one time or another. As far as she knew, he’d weaned himself off the more harmful stuff.

“Hey! I stopped.” He hated when she got on him about his drug use.

Like her, Forest had a long, complicated history, but they medicated themselves differently to forget the past. He’d use drugs. She’d bury herself in work.

“Stopped? When?”

“My sixty-day mark is coming up.”

Her stomach dropped, fluttering with excitement. He’d never made it half that long before. Could this be it?

She allowed a moment of hope that he’d finally be free of the drugs. “How?”

“Just decided it was time. I get my coin in ten more days.”

He’d relapsed so many times in the past. She had little faith, but a never-ending well of hope remained.

“I’m going to make it,” he said, proving their thoughts traveled the same airwaves.

She wished she’d had the same confidence in him as he had in himself.

“Don’t worry, my summer Skye. I’m on a yacht in the middle of the Pacific. No drugs on board. I’ll make it.”

She breathed. Maybe he would, but what would happen when the boat docked and all the temptations were back in front of him? “Be safe, Beanpole. You with anyone?”

Knowing Forest, he wasn’t floating out in the Pacific alone.

“New guy. Cute. Fucks like a bull.”

Forest would dump lovers like they were last season’s style. It wasn’t worth asking for a name because Jack would become Mike in two weeks’ time.

“Send me a pic, but keep it clean.”

He’d sent too many X-rated photos in the past. Forest had difficulty with understanding the need for boundaries, not when there had been a time when there’d been none.

“Did you buy the yacht, Bean?”

He was a Frivolous Frank with money where she was a Frugal Fanny.

“Nope!” His snicker had her smiling. “This time, I caught the shark. He’s taking care of me.”

“Be careful!”

Forest would take too many risks with drugs, alcohol, and unprotected sex.

“Talk later. Lover’s getting frisky.” He cut the line without a good-bye.

Whoever this new lover was, the man had Forest distracted because, while he’d sensed her distress, he never asked why. It was unusual for him not to dig for details.

She wouldn’t hear from him again until he surfaced from his newest love. Drugs and sex defined Forest’s life. They filled his emptiness the same way she filled hers with extra shifts. She’d rather be busy than stare at empty walls.

“Dr. Summers,” a nurse cried out, “we have a multi vehicle accident coming in. Paramedics are coding the driver—pregnant, twenty-nine weeks. Male passenger—head injury, vital signs unstable. Two-year-old in a car seat—stable.”

Skye swept into the trauma bay as the paramedics wheeled in the pregnant driver while another straddled her performing chest compressions. Her gut dropped, as it always did, in that sliver of time before she ran a code. She didn’t rush, pausing instead for a moment to evaluate the scene.

Bob had taught her that trick when she had been a resident. “First order of business, Skye. Don’t do anything. Stand there. Think. Process. Only then do you act.”

She lived that mantra and saved lives.

The paramedic shook her head. The pregnant woman was losing her fight to live.

Another ambulance crew rolled in the woman’s husband, placing him in the adjoining trauma bay.

With her thoughts gathered, Skye pushed up her sleeves and barked out orders, “Call OB and Peds. We’re going to save that baby. Call the surgeons, STAT.” She rattled off the labs and X-rays she would need. “Hand me an ET tube.”

Her hands were steady as she placed the tube down the woman’s throat, securing her airway.

As the respiratory tech taped the tube in place, Skye glanced at the head nurse. “Where’s OB?”

“On their way.” Nancy Grier, a trauma veteran of thirty years, had a surgical tray prepped and ready.

“Stop compressions.” Her command was a measured, even tone, providing an island of calm within the chaos.

The flat line on the monitor told her everything she needed to know, but she went through the motions, feeling for a pulse.

There was none.

“Resume compressions.” There was still one life to save. “Let’s do this.”

“What about OB?” Nancy’s brows lifted—not in challenge, but as a question.

Skye shook her head. “We don’t have time.”

Nancy gave a jerk of her chin. “Right. I’ll help.”

Skye cut, and less than thirty seconds later, she pulled a limp premature baby out of the incision. The room cheered when the tiny human gave a feeble gasp.

“I need a bag and mask,” she called out.

“Peds team is here,” someone announced from the back of the room.

Skye tried to look over the press of bodies; it was the curse of being short. When the on-call pediatric resident pushed through the crowd, she placed the premature baby into his hands.

“Got it, Dr. Summers.” The pediatric resident clutched the baby to his chest.

Nancy pulled the young doctor out of the room toward a warmer.

Skye moved on to the father, hoping to save him. That baby had already lost its mother. No way was it going to lose its father, too. She knew all too well what happened to orphaned children. But a baby would have a better chance of staying out of foster care than a six-year-old girl. People wanted to adopt babies, not traumatized children.

Skye had the father stabilized by the time neurosurgery arrived, and she transferred care to their team. Then, she went to check on the least critical patient—the two-year-old. He was bruised and crying, which was a good sign. He was lucky. His car seat had minimized his injuries. She sent the child to the pediatric ward for observation.

Not every day started with a bang.

By the time she finished with the trauma, Spencer had been seen and discharged. She breathed a sigh of relief and went to find Bob. She needed to make sure he went home.

When she found him in the break room, he was rubbing his temples, fatigue pulling at the corners of his eyes.

“Looks like you’ve got the busy shift,” he said. “Mine was steady but quiet in comparison.”

“Lucky you.”

“Your fiancé is all patched up. I think he left.” Bob gave a significant look, but she averted her eyes.

That scene with Ash and Spencer was beyond embarrassing. The last thing she wanted was to become the object of emergency department gossip.

Bob put a hand on her shoulder. “None of my business, Skye, but if you need to talk, you know I’m here.”

Her throat constricted at the unexpected tenderness. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

Bob was many things—boss, mentor, and teacher. With his paternal concern, he was also the father she wished she’d had growing up.

His shoulders stiffened. Her tone must’ve been too sharp. She had never been good at interpersonal…stuff.

The corners of his mouth curled up into a smile. “You know why I wanted you to work here?”

The sudden change in conversation caught her off guard.

Because she was the best. But it would be impolite to admit it. There was prestige for the hospital to hire the best of the best. If not for her test scores, then why?

“You always work your ass off. No one could match you on your exam scores. For that alone, I hired you.” His eyes softened. “But that’s not why I wanted you. You care, especially for the patients who have nothing—the homeless, the street kids, the druggies, the ones who were raped and abused.” He pointed to the trauma bay. “You didn’t hesitate. You knew what needed to be done, and you did it to save that baby.”

There was a reason behind her passion, and someday, she would repay her debt to society. Everyone deserved a chance, and not everyone got one. She never had. And, while she and Forest had crawled out of their desperation together, not everyone was lucky enough to find the strength they had.

“If marrying Spencer McAdams is going to make you happy, then I wish you the best of luck. But, if you’re having any second thoughts, don’t do it.”

Spencer must have said something about their engagement.

“How did you—”

Bob held her at arm’s length. “I saw who you ran to after the fight was over. It wasn’t your fiancé.”

“He’s no one. Just a stranger…”

Bob’s eyes narrowed. “Well, sometimes, nobodies can become somebodies. I’m just saying, being in the wrong relationship can hurt more than you know.”

Her eyes widened at his message. “Bob—”

Nancy ducked her head into the break room. “Go home, Dr. Manley.” She gestured to Skye. “Three stabbing victims in the lobby. They’re bleeding all over the linoleum. Come on.” She ran off.

Skye nudged Bob toward the door. “She’s right. Go home, and get some sleep. You’re my relief from all this craziness, and I have a feeling, I’m going to be happy to see you on the other end.”

He shook his head as he walked away from the chaos she was now running toward.

As she treated the three bleeding gang members, it occurred to her that, while talking to Forest, she had forgotten to mention Spencer's proposal or the kiss with the more interesting man. Forest was going to love that story.

She hummed the melody to “Manic Monday” while laying down a line of stitches, thinking about Ash in his T-shirt and jeans that hung low in all the right places and his promise of dinner.

After dealing with a lobby full of patients with their flu symptoms, vomiting illnesses, broken bones, and other minor catastrophes, her shift ended on a down note. A two-year-old entered the emergency room with a fever. A simple thing really until his blood work came back. She admitted him to the cancer service amid the tears of his parents.

When she finished her patient’s note, the wise eyes of Bob Manley stared back at her. “Rough shift?”

“I’ve had worse.”

His brows drew together with concern. “Someone’s waiting for you outside. I guess you have a lot to think about over the next three days.”

Yes! She had a string of days free from the craziness of the emergency department. Bob had offered up his cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and she’d graciously accepted. She’d had plans with Spencer, a celebration of their engagement, but now, she’d be heading there alone.

First, she looked forward to getting to know Ash better over dinner.

Skye took Bob to the patient board, taking time for a thorough checkout with those marked as critical. Then, she ran outside, eager to see more of Ash.