Chapter Four
Sierra admitted shewas nervous before starting her first shift. Not because she was worried professionally. She knew she could handle the cases they were called to take care of. But she wasn’t sure what Connor was going to do or how he’d react.
She needn’t have worried. Connor, she soon discovered, was the consummate professional on the job. Their first patient was a young teenager who’d been injured in a car accident and was scared out of her mind. She had a broken leg and arm and a possible concussion. Connor talked to her while they splinted and stabilized her, soothing her fears and keeping her talking so she wouldn’t go to sleep. As Sierra had discovered during their night together, Connor was very easy to talk to.
“You’re really good at that,” Sierra told him once they’d dropped off their patient at the ER.
“At what? My job?”
“Yes, but I was thinking about your manner with her. How easily you managed to calm her down, for one thing.”
“It’s a gift,” he said with a smart-ass smile. “I’m good with women.”
Don’t I know it.“I’m serious. You really do have a gift.”
He looked at her for a moment as if he was going to respond. Instead, he shrugged and walked away.
She wondered how he was with men. She suspected he’d be every bit as comforting, in a guy kind of way. She was right, she discovered, on their next flight. The patient was a man, about the same age as Connor. He’d had an accident with a chainsaw and besides being in terrible pain, he was afraid he would lose his leg. She and Connor gave him morphine, which helped calm him down, but he was still in pain and worried about the consequences. Connor managed to assuage his fears without promising he wouldn’t lose the leg. Later she asked him about it.
“I hope he doesn’t lose his leg. What do you think?” She wasn’t at all sure that he wouldn’t.
“We have first-class trauma surgeons at Marietta Regional.”
“I know. My best friend here is one of them.”
“Then you know if it’s at all possible Sam will see that he doesn’t. But we got him here fast, and I know Sam will do her best.”
For the next couple of weeks Connor treated her as nothing more than his flight nurse. He never disputed her judgment but gave his opinion if asked. He clearly had no need of her telling him what to do. He knew his job. And he didn’t flirt with her. Never, not at work or at Grey’s or wherever else she ran into him. He still flirted with other women, though she never saw him leave with anyone. He was driving her crazy.
Instead of being thankful she was annoyed. Unreasonable? Sure, but she couldn’t seem to help it. So much for him wanting another chance with her. He treated her as an acquaintance, rather than a woman with whom he’d spent an amazingly hot night. One she’d never forget. Damn it, had he already forgotten her?
If he had she should be thankful. But she wasn’t.
*
Connor had neverworked directly with someone he was interested in romantically. He’d dated a lot of women who worked at the hospital in one capacity or another. But there had been a couple of flight nurses before Sierra who he’d worked with and one had been married and the other much older than him.
He didn’t mess around with married women. All his romantic relationships—short as they were—had been with single women. There were a lot of them out there. Why mess with one who was already taken?
Sierra knew her stuff. And she respected that he knew his job as well. They worked well together. At work she always wore her hair braided or at the least pulled back out of her way. Very professional. Unfortunately, when she took off her helmet, he remembered what she looked like with it down…flowing over her bare breasts. Shit, he had to stop thinking about that.
Samantha Gallagher was throwing a birthday party for her husband, Dylan, the Friday evening about a week and a half after Sierra arrived. Connor didn’t really want to go, but Dylan was a friend of his and Samantha worked with him on occasion, so he went. He usually liked parties but lately they’d kind of lost their allure for him.
Sierra wasn’t there when he arrived at the Gallaghers’ ranch, but he knew she would be. Sam was the one who’d talked her into interviewing for the Redbird job and moving to Marietta, and the two women were close friends. He knew what would happen once Sierra arrived. He’d have to watch guys hitting on her and not smash his fist into their faces. Which was ridiculous. He had no claim on Sierra. But damn, he wished he did.
What if she came with someone? Or worse, came alone and left with someone? Just because he wasn’t seeing other women didn’t mean she wasn’t seeing other men. In fact, he knew she did because he’d seen her at the pub at the Graff with a man. And he, the guy who never particularly cared if a woman moved on, and in fact, wished them well when they did, admitted he was jealous as hell of any man who he saw with Sierra.
With the exception of what had happened in Afghanistan years ago, he’d never been jealous before. Not for more than a day, anyway. He didn’t like the feeling. At all.
He could go out with other women. God knows he wasn’t involved with Sierra, much as he might want to be. He didn’t sleep with every woman he went out with. Most of them, maybe, but definitely not all. Not that anyone believed that. But he didn’t want to go out with anyone else, much less have sex with them. No, damn it, the only woman he wanted to be with was Sierra.
One of his friends, a woman he’d dated for a short time not terribly long ago, came up to him. “Connor, where have you been hiding yourself?”
He kissed the cheek she offered him and hugged her. “Hi, Mandy. I’ve been around. I heard you’d gotten engaged. Congratulations. Where’s the lucky guy?”
Her eyes clouded and she frowned. “The lucky guy turned out to be a frog.”
“Damn, I’m sorry. Want me to beat him up?”
