Page 16 of Save Me

She gave the soft, floppy bear a gentle hug. “My treasures forever,” she whispered, then set it down in the rocker and stepped back to get a better view.

After all these years, the bear’s floppy head had begun to tilt the slightest bit to the right, like it was waiting to hear another secret. Without Hunt in her life, she’d given them all to his bear.

She turned the smallest bedroom into an office, and lined an entire wall with bookshelves, and through the ensuing years, filled them with books. On her days off when the weather was dreary, she puttered around her kitchen, trying new recipes and baking, and when the weather was good, she hiked the trails in the surrounding mountains.

The day she finally moved in, she said a little prayer, thanking her grandmother’s generosity in leaving her that trust, and settled in like a little hen in a nest. She liked her job, and had long since mastered driving in snow. In short, Denver had become her home.

She’d framed Hunt’s last text message to her, and hung it over the headboard of her bed as a talisman against bad dreams and lonely nights. But it didn’t stop the longing. Time had not eased her broken heart.

She was barely twenty when she first began working at the hospital; she’d had to go through the gamut of being the new, single woman on the job. Doctors, interns, coworkers, even patients hit on her, and her friends kept trying to fix her up with dates, until they realized it was futile. They didn’t know her story, but it was apparent having a partner of any kind was not on her radar.

Sometimes she’d hang out with friends, but only as part of a group, and wherever she went, she arrived alone and left the same way. She didn’t want another man holding her. Kissing her. Making love to her. She’d had the best. And if she couldn’t have Hunt, she chose no one at all.

THE RAIN WAS still pouring as Lainie pulled into the employee parking lot, but she’d come prepared. She had a raincoat over her clothes, and an umbrella over her head as she got out running. Once inside, she headed to her locker, stowed her things, grabbed the lanyard with her ID and pass card and put it around her neck. After a quick check of her pockets to make sure she had everything she needed, she locked her locker and went to check the schedule.

Soon, she was on the job, readying a thirtysomething woman for X-rays. After that, it was a succession of patients, and the morning passed. When there was a break in her schedule, she went down to the cafeteria to grab some lunch, and saw some friends eating at a table, and headed over.

“Got room for one more?” she asked.

A little blonde named Charis Colby waved a French fry in the air. “Sit by me,” she said. “I need positive vibes. I just weighed myself this morning and it’s not looking good for that wedding dress I’m soon going to need.”

Lainie smiled at the comment and the French fry as she sat. “So, you’ve finally set a date, have you?”

Charis rolled her eyes. “I have six months to pull a wedding together. My mother is in hysterics. You’d think she was the one getting married.”

They laughed in sympathy, and then picked up the conversation, most of which was hospital gossip, as they ate. Lainie kept an eye on the time and was just about finished when she noticed a heavyset man in scrubs approaching the table with a food tray. He was a bald, thirtysomething man with broad shoulders, and a mat of thick brown hair on his arms, but it was the look on his face that alerted every ounce of self-preservation within her. To her dismay, he stopped at their table. Before she could leave, Charis was introducing her.

“Hey Lainie, this is Justin Randall...a new nurse on our floor. Justin, this is Lainie Mayes. She’s in radiology.”

“Lainie, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

Lainie nodded politely. “You, too. Welcome to Denver Health. Sorry, but I’ve gotta run. Later, y’all.”

She picked up her tray as she went, sorted the dirty dishes and silverware at the station, and left the cafeteria. She didn’t have to look back to know he was still watching her. She could feel it, and it gave her the creeps.

Justin frowned as he watched her go, then put down his tray and sat in the chair she’d just vacated. He took note of the warm leather still holding the shape of her backside, and let dirty thoughts roll through his head as he took his first bite.

Her day got crazy, and toward the end of her shift, she wound up down in ER with a portable X-ray, trying to get film on an unconscious child who’d been pulled from a wreck. By the time she headed home for the evening, she’d forgotten Justin Randall even existed.

But Justin Randall hadn’t forgotten her. She was exactly his type. Her auburn hair fit into the category of redheads. She was average height, busty and lean, and by the time his lunch with his coworkers was over, he now knew she was single, too. All he had to do was bide his time. She given off all kinds of “don’t touch” vibes, but he didn’t care. He liked a good fight.

He picked up a pizza and a six-pack of beer on his way home, and settled in to watch the sports channel, while Lainie was in her oversize soaker tub on the other side of the city, up to her neck in lavender-scented bubbles.

THE ARRIVAL OF Justin Randall began to change Lainie’s routine at work. He appeared at random times, in random places where she was working, and at first, she thought little of it. But then it dawned on her that while she moved around within the floors and halls of the hospital according to what her job required, his job did not. He was a nurse on an assigned floor, and yet there he’d be, out of place and in her face.

As the months passed, he began upping his approach, trying to include her in group lunches, asking her to go bowling, to take a ride, to have coffee, and every time, she turned him down. Some days, she made excuses. Other days it was a flat no.

But on this morning when she saw him coming, it was too late to make an escape, and all of a sudden, he was in her face.

“Lainie! You’re looking great today! How about a drink after work? I know this place with great bar food and even better drinks.”

“Thanks, but I have other plans. Gotta go. They’re waiting for me,” she said, and kept walking.

Even though he was talking to her back now, he still persisted. “Maybe another time,” he called out, and frowned when she didn’t respond.

Before the week was out, he’d blindsided her two more times—appearing out of nowhere. All she could think was that he had to be following her. Why wasn’t he on his floor?

Finally, she cornered Charis midweek in the cafeteria. Charis was alone at the table, and Lainie immediately sat down.

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