“You probably hate it, and then you also love that you’re more mobile.”
Jimmy smiled. “Yeah, something like that.”
There was nothing more important to a man than being independent, so Rafe stayed out of his way while Jimmy grabbed two glasses, filled them with ice and took a pitcher out of the refrigerator. He didn’t offer to help, because you didn’t take away a man’s dignity by doing things for him when he already had physical restrictions.
Jimmy handed the glass to him.
“Thanks.” Rafe took a couple large swallows. “This is good.”
“Carmen makes the best iced tea in Florida.”
Rafe laughed. “I don’t disagree with you.”
“Come on over and let’s sit by the window.”
They had a similar floor plan to Rafe’s house, except that Rafe and his brothers had renovated their house before they’d moved in.
They sat at the table, and Rafe noticed Jimmy had a deck of cards sitting there.
“Are you playing some solitaire?”
“I’m looking to play a little poker. You up for it?”
“You know it. Let’s get started.”
Jimmy dealt and then promptly kicked Rafe’s ass. The man was lethal at poker. But since they weren’t playing for real money, it wasn’t like Rafe was losing anything. Except maybe his dignity.
Rafe studied his cards on the current hand. “I’ll take two.”
Jimmy handed him the cards, then took two for himself.
He looked around. “I take it Carmen is at work today?”
Jimmy didn’t look up from his cards. “Mm-hmm.”
Rafe placed his bet. “I call.”
“Four kings,” Jimmy said.
“Dammit, Jimmy.” Rafe laid down his three jacks. “You got a loaded deck or something?”
He laughed. “No. I’m just better at this than you are.”
They played several more rounds, and Rafe managed to actually win a couple of hands, so he didn’t feel like a total loser. Rafe refilled both their glasses with iced tea while Jimmy went to the bathroom. After that, they ate some sandwiches for lunch.
Rafe munched on his chips and looked around. “Carmen keeps herself busy, doesn’t she?”
“She does.”
“Work and keeping this place up. Does she . . . date anyone?”
Jimmy’s lips curved. “Asked her out, didn’t you?”
Obviously, he couldn’t slip anything past the sharp old man. “Yeah.”
“And she turned you down, didn’t she?”
Rafe sighed. “Yeah.”
Jimmy nodded. “She’s a tough woman, my bebita. Her exterior—like a hard shell. But she’s soft on the inside, Rafe. She’s had some very hard times. It’s made her wary about men.”
Hearing Jimmy talk about Carmen like this shed an entirely new light on her and made him want to know more about her. “I didn’t know. She hasn’t told me anything.”
Jimmy gave him a look that meant serious business. “It’s not my place to tell her story. Just . . . if you’re interested, don’t give up on her. She’s worth it.”
“Okay. I won’t.” He sat up straighter after that lecture, leaning into this conversation. Jimmy had given him a lot to think about.
Despite getting his ass handed to him in poker, Rafe found the day enlightening.
And he changed his mind about asking Carmen out again.
CHAPTER 6
“I WANT YOU TO MONITOR THE PATIENT IN SEVEN. HIS breathing is uneven, his white cell count is elevated and his BP is through the roof. No history of asthma or COPD. We’re waiting on blood test results, and I need to make sure that now that he’s had a treatment, his breathing improves. I asked for a report every thirty minutes. If you don’t mind actually doing your job, make sure you give me those reports.”
Carmen counted slowly to three in her head before answering the doctor. “I’ll make sure that’s taken care of, Dr. Ventura.”
The doctor turned and walked away while Carmen took her internal count all the way to ten to avoid throwing her extremely expensive portable netbook at Dr. Ventura’s head.
Brody Anderson was thirty-three years old, had never smoked, held a job as a grocery store manager and had a wife and three little boys. He seemed very nice. He was also very sick right now. She checked his vitals, which seemed stable, and his blood pressure appeared to be coming down, which was a good sign. His wife, Karen, sat at his bedside, looking almost as pale as Brody.
“The fact that he’s resting right now is good,” Carmen told her.
“I just don’t know what happened. He never gets sick. Then he woke up this morning short of breath and looking deathly pale. It came out of nowhere.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it figured out. You should try to rest, too.”
Karen shook her head. “I can’t. All I want to do is . . . watch him breathe.”
Karen’s eyes filled with tears.
Carmen had seen a lot of crying in the ER over the years and steeled herself against the emotional aspect of her job. If she didn’t, she’d fall apart every day. But that didn’t mean she’d lost all sense of empathy.
“We’re doing everything we can to find out what’s wrong, Mrs. Anderson. And you should try to rest. If you tax yourself too much with worry, you won’t be able to help your husband.”
She nodded. “You’re right. Thank you. Everyone here is so nice.”
Carmen smiled at her, then left the room.
Almost everyone here was nice.
She sent her report in, though she doubted Ventura would pay attention. The man had a typical God complex. She’d seen it countless times over the years. Some doctors would come in, do their jobs and get along well with everyone. But every now and then there’d be one like Forrest Ventura who thought he was owed something. He had a connected family, came from money, and because his father was a big name in the city, he thought everyone should bow down to him.
To Carmen, the only way you earned respect in the ER was to do your damn job, just like everyone else. If you cared about the patients, if you worked as hard as everyone else, you were appreciated. If you didn’t, you needed to get the hell out of everyone else’s way.
Her responsibility was to monitor what her nurses were doing, which included all the patients on her wing. Because she hired exceptional nurses, she rarely had anything to worry about. Today, everything was running smoothly, which meant she had more time to concentrate on the one patient who needed extra care—Mr. Anderson.
“Front desk said someone’s asking for you,” Bonita, the unit clerk, said.
She frowned. “For me?”
“Yes. Some good-looking guy in a firefighter’s uniform.”
He wouldn’t . . . Well, maybe he would. “Okay, send him on back.”
She would have gone out to the front, but she wanted to stay close to her patient in case anything changed.
Rafe walked through the double doors a few minutes later. He looked amazing in his dark blue firefighter pants and T-shirt.
“Back to work?”
“Just left the doctor and got a clean bill of health, so I’m released to full duties. And since I was next door at the medical offices, I thought I’d stop off here and say hello.”