Wrecked: A Stepbrother Romance Novel (9 page)

The terrifying part was that I knew I meant it.

If I had my way, he’d never wake up without me again.

“
B
randon
…
I’m-in-love-with-you
.”

The words came out on a forced rush of breath and I frowned at myself in the mirror, wondering why it was so hard to properly say the words out loud even though I was
damn
sure that they were true.

I’d spent the last four days of Brandon’s recovery pretty much completely alone with nothing to do but think. About him. About me. About
us
.

And I loved him. It was as simple as that, although it apparently it wasn’t simple for me to say, even to myself. With a final irritated growl at my reflection, I spun around and began the march to Brandon’s bedroom to wake him up.

Surprisingly, he had beaten me to the punch. He was just barely propped up and watching the doorway, his face lighting up with a smile when he saw me coming in. I grinned back at him and made my way to his side.

“Good morning. Glad to see you up before I got here. That’s a good sign.”

“A sign that means I can probably handle work?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t push it.”

He let out a frustrated huff and I turned away to hide my smile. Brandon had to be the only person I’d ever met who would pout over being kept out of work.

“Can I at least get my laptop? Seriously, how much harm can I do by checking my e-mail?”

The unladylike snort was out before I could stop it. My cheeks turned red from embarrassment as I said, “Knowing you and how you are about your business? The first bit of bad news will spike your blood pressure and the second will send your laptop flying across the room. Better to just keep you calm for the time being.”

There was a beat before he spoke. “I guess you know me a lot better than I gave you credit for.”

“Getting older and growing up doesn’t mean that our entire beings change. I like to think I knew you pretty well when we were kids and so far, I’m not convinced that you’re very different than you were back then.”

Brandon was quiet as I began to gently remove the bandages on his chest to check and clean the stitches. Not for the first time, he titled his head back and stared at the ceiling, not wanting to disappoint himself by looking down at Shaw’s work before the swelling had a chance to go down. Something I had thankfully managed to convince him to do.

“It’s getting better very quickly,” I noted while I pulled on a pair of sterile gloves and reached for the antibiotic cream. “The stitches should be fully dissolved with a few days and if I had to guess, I’d say that the majority of the bruising and swelling will be gone in a week or so.”

“What about the bandages? How long do I need to keep wearing them?”

“Dr. Shaw will probably advise you to take them off today, but if you want to avoid seeing them yet, I can put together something that’s thin enough to let them breathe while still keeping them out of sight. It’s entirely up to you.”

Brandon sighed and shut his eyes, mentally going through the options. But before he could finish weighing the pros and cons of each, his eyebrows furrowed together and he looked over to me.

“Shaw’s coming by today?”

“Yep. They’re going to get you out of bed and test the strength of your leg, make sure everything went as it should have. From what he told me on the phone last night, he’s probably going to want you to be in the wheelchair for at least a week before switching over to the cane. But he’s the one you need to talk to about all that.”

He nodded to himself, but the frown remained firmly in place. I continued my nursing duties almost robotically—cleaning up the stitches, applying the cream, checking his vitals, then preparing to give his upper body and his good leg a sponge bath. The memory of the last time we did this sprang into mind, complete with the adorable blush on his cheeks when he had awkwardly cleared his throat and offered to clean his private areas himself. Or what he could reach anyways.

I didn’t argue with him about that and I was incredibly grateful to Shaw for arranging one of his male assistants to come over daily and tend to the more....
personal
aspects of Brandon’s care. When I spoke to the doctor about it, he pointed out that Brandon had failed to inform him that his nurse was also his stepsister and he thought we would both be better off if someone else was around to do the few things that I had no business doing.

Of course, I didn’t bother to point out that there were quite a number of things I wanted to do with my stepbrother that were
way
more inappropriate than changing bedpans. I couldn’t imagine that going over well with the stuffy doctor, though I did have a good laugh over what his face would’ve looked like if I had said it.

Apparently speaking his name was like some sort of summons and there was a sharp rap on the bedroom door before it flew open. Shaw made a grand entrance into the room, his eyes widening with surprise when he saw me.

“Ah, Miss Jensen. Good morning. How is our patient today?”

“I’m fine,” Brandon answered. “Just... getting tired again.”

Shaw frowned, then look at me. “Did you administer his medication already? He wasn’t due for his next dose for another twenty minutes.”

I sighed and nodded, hoping he’d understand when I said, “He was in pain and judging from our earlier conversation, I thought you weren’t coming until this evening. A little warning would have been nice.”

Shaw grunted his displeasure, then motioned behind him for the two assistants lingering in the hallway to enter the room. He practically shoved me away from Brandon’s side in order to look down at him, the frown easing off his face when he saw his exposed work.

“This part of the surgery went very well at least,” he muttered, more to himself than anything else. “Brandon, do you think you could stay awake just long enough for us to get you on your feet? I can do most of the examination while you’re lying down afterwards.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Excellent. Miss Jensen, would you mind giving us some privacy? My assistants and I will take it from here.”

I understood his reasoning, but I didn’t like it. After giving Brandon an encouraging smile, I left the room and went down to the living room to wait. Since I wasn’t sure how long the exam was going to take, I plopped down on the couch and made myself comfortable.

N
early an hour later
, Doctor Shaw and the other two men came downstairs and found me curled up with a magazine. When I looked up and saw them, I marked the page and sat it to the side, standing up and waiting to hear the news of how it went.

“It seems that the reparation went as well as the scar removal. He can’t stand on his own yet, but everything is healing properly.”

“Nothing was damaged getting him on his feet?” I worriedly asked.

Shaw shook his head. “No. Thankfully, the medication you administered hadn’t fully kicked in yet and he was able to keep him body tensed while we lifted him. Nothing was torn, and I suppose part of that is thanks to you.”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, dumfounded both by the random praise and by the tone of his voice. He almost sounded... impressed.

“The other day I asked for your opinion on my work because, as a nurse, you would know how a good stitch looks. Well, that works both ways. As a doctor, I can tell when a nurse is properly taking care of a patient as well. And you have taken great care of your stepbrother. While I had my doubts when we first met, you are a fine nurse.”

“I.... thank you,” I said, my voice trailing off to an incredulous chuckle. “I don’t really know what to say.”

Shaw cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes, looking at me curiously for a long moment before turning back to dismiss the two men lingering behind him. Once we were alone, he gestured for me to take a seat on the couch and I had the odd sensation of a child about to be scolded by a teacher.

“I have a question for you. You aren’t obligated to answer, of course, but I would appreciate it if you would indulge my curiosity.”

Alarm bells started going off in my head as I frantically tried to remember if I had said or done anything that would make him suspicious of my true feelings for Brandon. Not that it would really matter in the long run, but there was still a slight chance that he would label me as an even bigger conflict of interest and attempt to convince Brandon to assign someone else to care for him.

But I knew Brandon would never allow that to happen and I was too curious of what Shaw wanted to know to just walk away now.

“Ask away.”

“Brandon told me you worked in a hospital up until recently and that’s why you were available to come here for such a long period of time. Were you laid off?”

I was initially relieved that the conversation wasn’t what I thought it’d be, but my previous employment wasn’t something I particularly wanted to talk about either.

Hell, I might have
preferred
to talk about Brandon.

“No, actually. I quit.”

The surprise on his face was obvious. “May I ask why?”

I thought about saying no, telling him it was too personal, but I also felt the desperate need to talk to someone—
anyone
—about why I quit. Brandon and I had yet to discuss it and with my mom and Harold away on their vacation when it all went down, I never had a chance to speak to them either.

The thought of my mom was an excellent reminder that soon, their trip would be over and I needed to turn my cell phone back on unless I wanted my mom to panic when she couldn’t reach me. But that also meant that I needed to speak with Brandon about what the hell I was going to tell them.

“If it’s a private matter, that’s all right. I don’t mean to pry.”

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head rapidly back and forth. “Sorry, I just got lost in thought. As for the reason I quit, I just... it was just depressing.”

He nodded sympathetically—knowingly—the way that only someone else who frequently watched people die could understand. And the reminder that Shaw
did
know how it felt made the words just start flying out of my mouth.

“I was constantly working—picking up extra shifts, filling in for others any time I was asked—and it was just so
draining
. I never even considered what it would be like to work in a hospital when I signed up to become a nurse. I just wanted to work in a normal doctor’s office, you know? Give shots or take blood. Not get calls to the assist in the ER and watch people—husbands, wives...
kids
... Not watch them die and be powerless to stop it. Entire lives just ripped away right in front of me… and all I could do was stand by and watch it happen. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

By the time my rant ended, there were tears rolling down my face. I spent years bottling up all the emotions I felt working at the hospital, only letting them out when I was alone in my apartment, and it felt both painful and freeing to finally say it to someone else.

Shaw placed his hand gently on my shoulder and gave me a comforting pat. I hastily wiped my eyes and looked up, immediately seeing the knowing look of concern on his face and cursing the fact that it made even more tears begin to leak from the corners of my eyes.

“I understand. That’s the very reason why I built a private practice. I spent almost a decade as an ER surgeon. It’s a very taxing profession, in more ways than one.”

I snorted. “That seems like a bit of an understatement.”

Shaw laughed and I felt another fresh wave of shock run through me at the sound.

“So what do you plan to do now? Will you look for work in an office setting like you mentioned?”

“Honestly, I’m not even sure if nursing is right for me anymore. Before I got Brandon’s letter, I was applying to stores and coffee shops and pretty much anything that I thought might take me.”

A raised eyebrow and a scoff was his initial response. “You would squander your talent slinging coffee? No, no. A young lady like yourself is destined for much greater things. What is your
dream?
If given the opportunity to have any job in the world, what would it be?”

I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to tell him that I had long ago written off my personal dreams as something I’d never be able to obtain. It seemed like a silly thing to worry about considering Shaw had no way of knowing that I had zero faith in myself in that sense, but I didn’t want to end up having to admit it out loud.

“I... Well, I’ve always wanted to bake.”

“Bake?”

“Yeah, like own my own bakery or be a chef in an upscale restaurant. I love to cook. I also wanted to write a novel at some point, but that wasn’t something I ever wanted to make into a profession. I just wanted to do it in my free time.”

“Free time you never had while working double shifts at a hospital.”

“Ding, ding, ding,” I jokingly said, then let out a sigh. “But I don’t see any of that ever happening. Except maybe the novel considering I’ll be unemployed again in a month or so.”

Shaw was eerily quiet for a moment and I faced my fear of his judgement and looked up at him. His face was blank, lips pressed into a fine line. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I could sense that he was irritated.

“What’s with the look?”

“You’ve seen first-hand just how swiftly life can be taken from us. As you said, it’s the primary reason why you left your job. So it amazes me that you haven’t yet thought about just how quickly
your
life could be taken from
you
,” he said pointedly, pausing for a moment to let his words sink in. “If you were to die tomorrow, I imagine your list of regrets would be rather long considering it sounds as if you haven’t done anything for your own happiness in a long while.”

“I.... You’re right,” I admitted breathlessly, swallowing hard as I imagined Brandon’s accident again and how I would have felt if he died.

Then, I flipped the scenario and imagined if it had been me. If
I
had died.

Shaw was right. My list of regrets would be a mile fucking long. Still, right or not, Shaw was the last person I ever expected to get this talk from.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because
someone
has to,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll, before allowing his face to relax back into one of concern. “I’m far older and wiser than you, my dear. I advise you to take control of your life and find a way to do whatever it is that makes you happy. And if you ever decide to return to nursing...” he trailed off, reaching into his pocket and holding a business card out towards me. “Feel free to give me a call. It’s always good to have a backup plan.”