Page 1 of Her Beta

1

EVETTE

It looked as though my last shift at the small hospital in the mountains where I’d spent the past seven weeks would not be anything to write home about. I only had one patient to take care of, and she was set to be discharged tomorrow morning and didn’t require much help. She mostly just wanted the break from her six other children at home so she could get a little bit of sleep between feeding her newborn every two hours.

Not that I was surprised by the lack of activity when I’d had many shifts without any new patients during my time here. Although they had consolidated obstetric units with another nearby hospital about a year ago, there had been only about three to four births per week since my contract started.

I enjoyed giving my patients more one-on-one attention than I was used to at the other hospitals where I had worked. It was one of the things I would miss most as I moved on to my next assignment. But that was the life of a travel nurse—getting used to how things run in one place just before you’re off to the next.

I didn’t have any regrets about choosing to go the travel route, though. In the past eight months, I’d been to three different states and was headed to another tomorrow. With nothing tying me to one place, I loved being able to see the world. Or at least, my little part of it so far.

With so many states participating in the nurse licensure compact, I was hoping that I’d have the opportunity to spend some time in more of them. Maybe even all of them since I’d already gotten assignments in four states in less than a year.

Almost as though I had manifested a patient with my thoughts—even though I knew better than to voice that it was a slow day since that was almost guaranteed to —a truck roared in front of our entrance and came to an abrupt stop. The driver jumped out and circled to the passenger side, and I almost tripped over my own feet as I took him in.

My best guess was that he was about a full foot taller than my five feet five inches. And he probably weighed a good three hundred pounds. All of it was pure muscle—to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if his body fat percentage was only five or six percent based on the vascular definition in his arms, sculpted muscles, and chiseled jawline.

His brown hair was thick and overdue for a cut, a few shades lighter than his dark eyes. His skin was tan, and combined with the mud on the tires of his truck, I wondered if he spent a lot of time outdoors. And how it would feel to run my fingers through his hair. Or press my lips to his.

So many thoughts circled my brain. Completely inappropriate ones, considering I was at work. And totally surprising since I had never reacted to a man like this before.

I wasn’t sure why my previously nonexistent libido decided now was the perfect time to rear its head, but I needed to pull myself together. Immediately.

I barely managed to tear my attention away from him when he flung the rear passenger door open right before a man climbed out of the back seat, carrying a pregnant woman in his arms as though she barely weighed anything.

Keeping my focus on her—right where it should be—I rolled a wheelchair toward them as quickly as possible. When I got close, I called, “Put her in this.”

“I can get her in there faster this way,” he growled.

“Just set me down so we can get this show on the road,” the woman murmured, a muscle jumping in her jaw. “I don’t think we have a lot of time to haggle about who’s taking me inside.”

The man who I assumed was the father-to-be listened to my patient, gently placing her in the wheelchair. Once she was settled, I quickly whirled it around to rush her through the doors to the maternity ward. “How far apart are the contractions?”

“Four minutes,” he answered, keeping pace with us from the other side of the chair, holding her hand. “And her water broke about half an hour ago.”

“I need to push. Now,” she panted, her nostrils flaring as she gripped the armrests of the wheelchair so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

I squeezed her shoulder. “I know it’s difficult, but can you hold on just a little bit longer? We need to check how dilated you are. I don’t want you to experience perineal tearing if we can avoid it.”

“Dang it, that sounds awful.” She took a few breaths through her nose, the air slowly puffing from her mouth as she slowly released them. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll last more than a couple of minutes. Tops.”

“Then it’s a good thing Dr. Charron is right down the hall, ready to help you deliver this baby.” I rolled her toward one of the birthing rooms. Hoping to distract her, I asked, “Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”

“Our little pup is a boy.”

This big guy calling his soon-to-be-born baby a pup was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen. “Aw, that’s such a sweet nickname for your baby. Adorable. I normally hear things like peanut or bean.”

“Mm hmm,” she hummed with an impish gleam in her eyes that I didn’t understand. But that didn’t matter because we had more pressing matters to take care of.

“Are you pre-registered with the hospital?”

She nodded. “Yup, everything should be all set under Cressida Kemp. My birthing plan should be in there, but if not, Aaron knows what I want.”

“And I’ll be right by your side every second to make sure everything goes exactly to plan,” he promised.

I wheeled her into the room and over to the bed. “Great, after I check to see how dilated you are, I’ll pull up your records and let Dr. Charron know how you’re doing.”

“Hurry,” she urged, breathing through another contraction after Aaron and I helped her onto the bed.

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