Authors: Jay Crownover
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.
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