The Nurse's Secret Suitor

Tia’s increasingly comical antics caused him to chuckle. He’d about decided that someday having a little girl wouldn’t be half bad. Caleb glanced over to see Kate watching them with an approving smile as she chopped apples in the kitchen for a fruit salad. He grinned back at her and winked.

For a guy with limited experience dealing with kids, his babysitting gig seemed to be going pretty well. Sure, Bri and Ian were there to step in if anything went wrong, but they were so wrapped up in each other, he wasn’t sure they’d notice if he and Tia set the kitchen on fire. Things had been so busy for both of them lately that he knew the engaged couple needed time together.

Two beepers sounded. Bri shrank in disappointment. Ian and Kate sobered and pulled out their chiming cell phones. Caleb’s grin faded as he stood, instinctually knowing Ian’s creasing forehead meant something bad was headed to the trauma center. Tia quieted, and the dog seemed to sense her unease because he moved closer.

“I’m sorry, babe. I gotta go.” Ian kissed Bri’s forehead, hugged Tia then followed Kate, already out the door. Every nerve ending in Caleb strained and ached to go with him. He’d been doing combat medicine for so long it felt strange to sit back and watch an emergency go by without running headlong to help.

Bri sighed. “He’s been on call four days in a row. With Mitch and Lauren away, and Dr. Lockhart, the anesthesiologist, taking some personal time, the trauma center is short staffed. He really has no choice but to be there,” Bri said, as if to convince herself it was all right and temporary.

But Caleb could tell she missed Ian and he her. The center had erupted with traumas this week and the engaged pair barely saw each other in the two weeks since Caleb had been here. Even then, they’d only waved in passing when Ian came to pick up Tia. No wonder Bri’s renovations had fallen behind. She couldn’t take a child into a construction zone. Caleb grew even more thankful he’d received military leave. His sister and her cabins needed him.

Caleb felt heartsick at her disappointment over not being able to cook for her fiancé and not getting to enjoy the meal, much less the evening, with Ian. Caleb rose from the rug to meet her in the kitchen but she bravely waved him back down and approached the carpet, instead.

“What did you decide to name her, Tia?” Bri asked in a light tone and brushed a hand down the doll’s long, flaxen hair.

“Calebina, of course.” Tia’s bright smile sent unfamiliar feelings through Caleb. “After my awesome, amazing uncle, who rescued her from the clutches and brought her to me from a land far, far away.”

Actually, it had been the discount store down the street at the local airport, but he wasn’t about to wipe the adoration off the kid’s endearingly cute face, framed in a riot of brown curls and bedazzled with freckles. Though he knelt on the rug beside her, he felt easily three feet taller. Especially since she really looked convinced he’d rescued the doll from “the clutches.” Clutches of what, he had no idea. The twinkle in Tia’s eyes and the joy in Bri’s as she peered lovingly at Tia made the worst clutch he could imagine not seem to matter.

“Calebina.” Bri smiled and winked at Caleb. “Of course. I should have guessed.” The love between Bri and Tia was tangible. Caleb could see how much happiness the two brought each other. They’d both been through hard times, but those experiences had brought them together. Thankfulness shifted something small but vital inside him. Maybe it was a bit of the grudge he’d been holding against God?

“What clutches did Caleb rescue her from, Tia?” Bri asked.

“The clutches of death! Death by broccoli,” Tia announced dramatically. Commotion across at EPTC’s lot cut their laughter short. Whipping rotor blades beckoned Caleb to the window where he watched two helicopters land outside the trauma center. Twin ambulances also pulled up. Staff scurried to them. Caleb grew concerned when stress mounted on the faces rushing around. He thrummed to go help, but he hadn’t exactly been hired yet. Could he—should he—go? Should he not? He shuffled foot to foot in an effort not to bolt there.

Bri’s phone rang. The second Bri said, “Yes, he’s here,” Caleb skied across the waxed wood floor and grabbed the phone.

“Hey, Landis, if you’re up for it, we could use a hand over here.” Ian’s voice strained through the cacophony of background noise.

Adrenaline, gratitude and readiness buzzed through his veins. “Be right over.” Caleb hugged Bri, scrubbed a quick hand through Tia’s hair before shoving his shoes on and hopping out the door, while trying not to trip over the rug-of-a-dog. He jumped the steps and sprinted to the trauma center. Ian waved him past staff and occupied gurneys near the first set of surgical doors.

“Scrub up. The surgeon needs someone else in there, stat.”

At Ian’s directive, Caleb found and changed into scrubs, washed his hands at the sterile sink, donned a hat and mask and backed through the O.R. doors into complete chaos—raised voices, code alarms and a slick floor that wasn’t supposed to be covered in crimson. He eyed the man’s blue lips and nail beds. Dear God...Caleb surprised himself by praying. This guy’s toast if You don’t step in.

“Grab another unit,” Kate directed as he rushed over. A nurse gloved him up, then Caleb exchanged one bag of near-empty blood for a full one resting amid a pile of others on a stainless-steel cart.

Realizing her mind could trigger a different masked encounter, he put his back to her as soon as he could, prepping a second IV. When Caleb turned back to the group and the emergency still going south on the table, he secured a second IV line without having to be told, which drew nods of approval from Kate and Ian.

Caleb looked around for code meds in an effort to crash-orient himself to the room setup and supplies they’d need. It was a struggle to locate everything, since he’d never set foot inside this room before. He piled meds and supplies on the table and started quickly ripping open package after package of whatever they needed.

Moments later, Kate nodded to him, then down. He swiftly took over compressions, which freed her to grab supplies he’d have a longer time finding. He appreciated her intuition and rapid actions.

When the vascular surgeon suggested they call the code, Kate flat-out refused to give up. Over the next hour Caleb was filled with respect as he watched the team battle to save the man’s life.

Kate not only multitasked but drilled order after order to the other nurses and staff, who looked to her skill as much as to the doctors for guidance. Even the vascular surgeon cast admiring glances her way as the patient actually improved and was transferred.

Another patient followed, and while this one was less critical, a third patient tanked, which took most of the staff out of the room, leaving Kate to man the care of the third patient and the code of a fourth. Caleb watched once more as her quick actions and stream of split-second decisions saved two lives in a row.

Hours later, after the accident victims were stabilized and the next crew took over, Ian motioned Caleb into the doctors’ lounge.

Ian extended a phone to Caleb. “Mitch wants a word with you.”

Caleb smiled, knowing Ian’s smirk meant he was about to be offered a job. Indeed, Mitch thanked Caleb and confirmed his employment before ending the call so Mitch could, as he put it, “return his attention to his beautiful wife.”

Ian perched on the desk and Caleb thought it odd that his smirk hadn’t retracted. “Mitch told me to have Kate show you the ropes in terms of in-house policy, procedure, et cetera. You gonna be okay with shadowing her, Landis?”

The statement seemed loaded, somehow. Too much like a baited trap for Caleb’s ease. Ian watched Caleb the way Asher did when studying unclear overseas maps of potential explosive-device hot spots.

Caleb stood his ground, poker face in place. “If you have somethin’ to say to me, Shupe, let’s get it on the table now.”

Ian’s smirk stretched into a full-fledged grin. Had Bri shared about the bandit with him? Or was Ian’s perceptive radar picking up stuff on its own? Like Caleb’s innate attraction to Kate that had flared as he’d watched her in action?

Regardless, Caleb couldn’t get out of his mind Kate’s words that night on the patio. She’d confided to the bandit how much it weighed on her when people expected her to be invincible all the time.

He saw it firsthand tonight. He now fully realized the intense pressure Kate felt to live up to others’ perceptions of her. How could he ease her burden? Or at least ease others’ galactic expectations of her?

People truly did depend on her. She was the best at what she did and exemplary in emergency care, even in the midst of her own private-life trauma. She didn’t buckle, bend, weaken, break or even flinch tonight in the face of some of the worst injuries he imagined she or her team had ever seen.

He admired her. Big-time.

If respect was what Ian was sensing, so be it. Kate had more than earned it.

Yet Ian was acting as if he knew something more than that. Caleb was reminded of the way Bri had bragged about Ian’s ability to see inside people and realize things about them even before they did.

Ian play-slugged Caleb’s shoulder. “All I have to say, Landis, is keep up the good work. On all fronts.”

With that, Ian strode out, chuckling.

Leaving Caleb alone to vacillate between confusion and determination not to ponder what Ian might have meant.

* * *

“I have a proposition for you,” Kate said to Caleb. Her on-call shift had just ended, and when she’d had a second to think about the rest of her day, an idea had occurred to her. As she walked to the employee parking area, she hoped Caleb could help her put it into action.

She hadn’t seen the man since they’d worked the traumas together a few nights prior. They had made a great team. Surgically speaking, of course.

She knew he’d been officially hired, but unfortunately, unlike her, Caleb actually had a couple days off. Bri mentioned he’d left town for a military training operation with some of the Refuge Pararescue Jumpers—PJs for short. Kate knew he’d be back today, hence her phone call. She was hoping he could help her work out her plan to get Ian and Bri some much-needed face time.

“Yeah?” he answered. “What’s that?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but then her eyes caught on a paper on her Jeep’s windshield, flapping in the rare summer breeze. From BB? Her heart jumped, even as she tried to tell herself it was probably just an advertising flyer. “Hold on. Someone stuck a piece of paper on my— Holy smokes! He did it again.” Kate stared at the homemade greeting card under her windshield wiper blade.

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