Page 7 of Stockman's Stormcloud

‘We’ve got to go, Mr Purrington. Incoming patient.’ She scooped up the cat as a yellow Kombi van drove into the emergency entrance. The driver’s door opened and a woman with lots of red hair jumped out. ‘Is that a cat? On a lead?’

‘Yes. Can I help you?’

‘Me, no. But you can help the cussing dark avenger playing his part as the bitching back-seat driver.’ She opened the back of the van. ‘You whine like a girl.’

‘You drive like you got your licence from a Weet-Bix box!’ A man with dark hair and brooding looks scowled at the redhead, then at the cat. ‘Is that a cat? Or did you give me some witch potion and I’m now hallucinating?’

Was Sophie hallucinating about this guy? He could have been a model. A rugged outback male model with messy dark hair and those eyes that had an edgy look to them.

‘Do youwork here? Or are you a professional pet-walker?’

Sophie frowned at the brash redhead. ‘I’m a nurse.’ Hello, she was wearing the ugly green scrubs withNursewritten on the back. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked the patient.

He looked at her with that scowl, and those dark eyes. Holy mother of mercy, it was hot.

‘It’s just a cracked rib,’ muttered the man who made sin look positively sexy.

‘It’s more than that, Stormcloud.’ The redhead was so bossy. ‘Dex is in some serious pain. He’s pale, and he’s getting light-headed because it hurts for him to breathe. So, now that we’ve done the diagnosis in the car park, are we allowed to bring Dex inside?’

‘Yes, sure. Sorry.’ What was wrong with her to space out like this? Standing in the car park holding her cat, while staring at a patient, when she was a darned good ER nurse with years of experience.

‘Pop, grab that wheelchair for Dex.’ The redhead beat Sophie who was about to say the same thing.

The elderly man who’d arrived with them grabbed the chair, as the bossy redhead helped the new patient from the back of the yellow Kombi van.

‘I can walk,’ he complained.

‘Stop being a dick, Dex, and use the chair.’

‘Bossy much, Witch.’ Dex lowered himself into the seat, holding his ribs. ‘Are you going to aim for the wall and hit every bump you can find, like you did on the drive to get me here?’

‘I can find some for you, if that’s what you want?’ The redhead may have been taunting the guy, but she patted his shoulder like a friend. ‘Where do you want him, nurse?’

‘Take him to the emergency room on the right. I’ll call the doctor and turn on the X-ray machine.’ She punched the button to reopen the doors. With her cat draped over her shoulder, and phone in hand, she rushed to the nurses’ station. There, she clipped the cat’s lead to his trolley, wherehe’d happily sleep for the next twelve hours.

After swapping her shirt for one free from cat hair, and washing her hands, she found her new patient standing beside the examination bed, his shirt removed, wearing dark jeans and boots, holding an icepack against his ribs.

Sophie swallowed, as a bucketload of heat washed over her in ways it hadn’t done in years.

His body was nothing but pure raw muscle on muscle, all tight, lean and muscular mean. He had a set of abs on him that were so perfectly contoured she itched to fetch the tape measure to test their perfection. Along with a set of scars, and a whole lot of ink work, this guy put the bad into bad boy. Oh, no, not a boy—no, this was a M.A.N.

‘Is the doctor coming?’ the redhead asked.

Sophie nodded. ‘I’ll take Dex for X-rays. Which means another spin in the wheelchair.’ Even the name Dex was as hard as the man who scowled at the world as though he’d fought for everything. Sadly, he was fighting to breathe, like she was in his space.

‘Can you fill out his paperwork?’ Sophie handed the clipboard to the bossy redhead.

‘Sure.’ The redhead grabbed a wallet from her handbag and pulled out a driver’s licence. ‘Oh wow, your first name is Declan. Aww, how sweet. I always thought it was Dick.’

‘I hate you, Bree. Shouldn’t you be more sympathetic to the sick and injured?’ Dex winced, climbing back into the wheelchair.

‘Bree dumped me at the front doors of this place, once,’ said the old man, poking around the emergency room. ‘Problem was she flamin’ didn’t come back for days. And I’m her grandfather.’

Sophie couldn’t believe the redhead was grinning like it was some game. How callous and cruel was that woman? And how was this Bree connected to Sophie’s new patient?

‘We’ll be back soon.’ She pushed Dex’s wheelchair smoothly down the corridor to the X-ray room. In a matter of moments, she had Dex back on his feet and had manipulatedthe bulky tube head and extension arm of the X-ray machine to take a set of shots. She’d originally trained as a radiologist but later made the move to ER nurse. And the medical staff at this tiny bush hospital loved that she was skilled in both areas.

‘Where is the cat?’ Dex asked. ‘It was a cat, right? I wasn’t hallucinating?’

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