Chapter 1

1

“Deepan?”

Deepan jumped when someone prodded him in the side. He spun around and saw his colleague standing beside him with a deep frown. It was then Deepan realized he had been standing at the nurse’s station and designation board for the past five minutes, and hadn’t noticed one of his fellow nurses talking to him.

He flushed and cleared his throat, putting the lid back on the pen that had been forgotten in his hand.

“Sorry, Steph. I was miles away.”

“I noticed that.” Steph Flanagan tilted her head to the side. “What are you doing? I’ve been trying to get your attention. You can’t afford to go into your own thoughts right now. Not with a full ER.”

Deepan knew that. But he was also the charge nurse for the shift and he was aware of the paperwork piling up on the desk behind Steph. He sighed and gestured at the board.

“I was trying to figure out who’s going into what bed, which department, or just go home. I only just realized someone’s messed up the paperwork when I was talking to one of the patients.”

That had been embarrassing. The board hadn’t got the patient’s name on, so Deepan had assumed the man in question was going home. But going into the cubicle in question and seeing that the patient was in no fit state to leave and should have been taken to X-ray half an hour ago told him something else. Deepan felt about two inches tall as he scrambled to sort out the patient, sending him off to X-ray within two minutes of finding out the mistake.

Someone had fucked up and this wasn’t the night to do it.

“Don’t we just do it as we go?” Steph asked. “We all talk and bounce off each other. That’s why the ER’s normally so smooth.” She grinned and nudged Deepan. “You and I, for example, don’t even need to speak.”

“If you’re got people who work regularly together, yes.” Deepan saw a discrepancy and took the lid off the pen, wiping away the mistake and writing over it. “But some of the newer nurses we’ve had come in haven’t kept up the paperwork.”

“It is busy in here?”

“Are you trying to defend girls you were ranting and raving about the other day?”

Steph shrugged.

“You’re scarier than I am. And I thought you were happy with them.”

Deepan had been. Five recently qualified nurses had arrived in the ER and, for the most part, they were doing well to keep up with the stress and pace of the job. Three of the girls were doing brilliantly, and Deepan had no issues with them. But the remaining two were starting to show their laziness, and both were working on that shift.

Paperwork had to be kept on top of, no matter what. And everyone knew it. The charge nurse oversaw everything, and Deepan wasn’t in the mood to finish all the paperwork at the end of his shift when he didn’t know what had happened to half of them. Those nurses needed to buck up or they were walking out the door with Deepan’s boot up the backside.

“Well, just to mess things up for you, there’s another one coming in. Don’t worry,” Steph added as Deepan groaned. “He said he’s happy to sit out in the waiting room while things are sorted, as long as he can go home afterwards.”

“A calm patient.” Deepan muttered. One of the few tonight. “Depends on how bad his injuries are.”

“Someone he was trying to arrest slashed him with a knife.”

“The guy’s a cop?”

“Yep.” Steph took the pen from Deepan’s fingers, snagging the lid before pushing him away from the board. “Go and treat him. I’ll take care of this. My brain’s not fried, and you need to remember you’re a nurse, not a paper-pusher.”

“But…”

“Go, you idiot.”

Deepan didn’t argue. He was too tired to argue. Instead, he headed into one of the side rooms, recently vacated by his broken arm patient. He yawned loudly as he got things ready, making sure everything was clean. He loved his job, and he didn’t mind doing the shifts, but there were only so many shifts in a row he could do without suffering.

He needed a break. A long one. As long as he could hole up in his apartment with just his roommate to bother him, Deepan didn’t care. That was as good a holiday as anything.

The door to the room opened, and Deepan didn’t look up as he washed his hands, soaping his arms up to the elbow.

“Just take a seat on the bed. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Deepan?”

Deepan stilled. He knew that voice. It was one he hadn’t heard in a long time. He looked around, and saw a tall, dark-haired man in the doorway. He was holding a towel over his arm, which was soaked with blood. Blood also splattered his jeans and his pale green shirt. But Deepan couldn’t help but stare at the overall physique of the guy. Tall, slim, but with obvious firm muscle in the compact body. There was a dusting of a silver beard across his jaw, and his hair was splattered with silver, giving off a salt-and-pepper look.