Irish Crown Read online

  It wasn’t heartburn, although I wish it were.

  The doctor had ordered more tests and requested him to be seen by the cardiologist.

  I liked crotchety old Mr. Johnson because he was refreshingly candid and told you exactly what was on his mind; however, today I wasn’t up for it.

  What I wanted was to go out with Ally for a glass of wine, then go home and soak in a bath of Epsom salts until my skin turned to tissue paper.

  I breathed in a lungful of air and silently prayed for patience. I loved my job. I’d wanted to be a nurse ever since I was five and my mom brought me to the Emergency Room when I broke my arm falling off the top of the playground slide. I’d been terrified thinking my arm was going to fall off, but Nurse Becky sat with me the entire time and explained everything to me. Then she distracted me with games on her phone that she helped me play because I only had one hand. That day, I told my mom I was going to become a nurse and make people feel less scared, too.

  I cared about every patient who walked through the hospital doors. And normally, I’d have the patience to easily convince Mr. Johnson to take his pills.

  But not today.

  The thought of bending to pick up the now scattered pills on the floor had me groaning, because it was going to hurt.

  The thug’s fist slamming into my ribcage had left bruises.

  After he’d grabbed me and punched me, he’d got in my face and I’d gagged on the smell of heavy cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes with the mixture of peppermint and whiskey on his breath. It had happened so fast that my brain didn’t register anything except the spider tattoo on the back of his right hand.

  He’d tried to grab my purse, and maybe I’d been stupid for refusing to give it to him, but after what I went through with my ex, Curran, I swore to always fight, no matter the consequences.

  So, I fought. And I knew a bit about self-defense because I took a course two years ago.

  “Eva? You nearly ready?”

  I jerked my head to the doorway and saw my friend Ally in her blue scrubs with a stethoscope looped around her neck and blonde hair tied back in a loose ponytail.

  We’d met on the first day of nursing school at Ryerson College four years ago. She’d run into biology class ten minutes late wearing pajamas and carrying her anatomy books instead of bio. We were partnered up and somehow, despite our drastic differences, we became best friends.

  “Give me ten minutes?” I replied. We were grabbing lunch in the cafeteria.

  She frowned, her eyes on my wrist. “What happened to your wrist?”

  I glanced down. My shirtsleeve under my scrub top had slid up.

  Shit. Purple, yellow, and red marred my skin.

  Luckily, my attacker hadn’t expected a girl in a flowy yellow sundress to fight back, and at first, I hadn’t, because I’d froze in fear as memories were triggered.

  It was when he trapped me up against the wall that I’d reacted. I raised my knee into his groin as hard as I could. A ragged cry escaped his throat as he released me, staggering backward, hands to his crotch and bent over in agony.

  Then, I ran.

  I shoved my sleeve down to cover the thug’s handiwork. “It’s nothing.” I had no intention of explaining why I’d been in an alley in a shit part of town on the weekend.

  At least not yet.

  I needed a glass of wine, or two, before dropping the bomb on her about the thug in the alley and the explosive sex with Deaglan.

  My dignity was still swishing around in the sewer from Deaglan’s “I have shit to do, pet,” dismissal and wine was a must before spilling to Ally.

  Ally’s eyes narrowed and her pink glossed lips pursed. It was a sure sign she didn’t believe me. “What happened?”

  I crouched to pick up the scattered pills. “Honestly, it’s nothing.”

  Ally was fast approaching by the sound of her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum floor.

  Mr. Johnson leaned over the side of the bed to peer at me. “You okay?”

  “Yes, Mr. Johnson. It’s just a bruise,” I replied.

  Ally crouched to help pick up the pills off the floor. “Did someone grab you?” she whispered.

  I reached for a red escapee tablet under the bed and a sharp pain ripped through my ribs.

  I winced. Ally noticed.

  She grabbed a wayward pill near the bedframe and plopped it in the cup, then stood. “That’s it. Let’s go. We’re talking.”

  “I’m fine,” I insisted.

  “You want me to get Dr. Richard?” Ally asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  My eyes snapped to hers. Dr. Richard was the attending on duty. He had that Dr. Sloan from Grey’s Anatomy arrogance, but with no bedside manners. He also treated nurses like his personal slaves.

  It’s why I’d said no when he asked me to go on a date several months ago.

  And I certainly had no intention of taking my clothes off for him to examine me, and Ally damn well knew it.

  “I’m a nurse. I self-diagnosed,” I said.

  The bed creaked as Mr. Johnson shifted his large frame up onto his side so he could see me better because I was still crouched looking for the last pill. “That Dr. Richard fella needs a hot iron prod up his ass, if you ask me. Don’t like him. Not one bit.”

  Ally laughed.

  I grabbed the last pill and put it in the paper cup to dispose of. Unfortunately, the five-second rule did not apply in a hospital.

  I stood. “Mr. Johnson, let’s worry about you right now.” I glared at Ally, attempting to get her to leave. “I’ll have to get you some new pills, but please, you need to take them.”

  He grumbled something about it only being heartburn, then stopped as his eyes swung to Ally and back to me. “I’ll take the pills if you let your friend check you over.”

  Brows lifting, I looked from Mr. Johnson’s stern expression to Ally, who was trying hard not to smile by firmly pressing her lips together, but semi-sort of was anyway.

  “And you’ll take your pills at home, too?” I negotiated.

  He snorted with a frown, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. “You drive a hard bargain. Yeah, I’ll take ’em, but I don’t need them. It’s heartburn. Ate some chili. The wife makes it real spicy. And damn, it’s the best chili you’ll ever eat. I’ll have her bring some over.” He looked at Ally. “You, too.”

  I patted his arm. “Okay, Mr. Johnson. You have a deal.”

  He nodded as if satisfied.

  “I’ll grab the pills. You finish up.” Ally left the room and went to get more pills from the pharmacy while I checked Mr. Johnson’s vitals, and he told me how he’d wooed his wife away from the quarterback in grade twelve by bringing her wildflowers and putting them in her locker every day for six months. He said she was more impressed with how he got in her locker than with the flowers because she changed the code to her padlock several times.

  When Ally returned, I took the pills and passed them to him. He tossed them back without any water, then said, “Now go with your girl.”

  I lowered my hand to the bed, squeezing his arm. “Your wife is a lucky woman, Mr. Johnson. The doctor will be by to check you again and sign your release papers.”

  “About damn time,” he grumbled, but there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth and a spark in his green eyes. I bet Mr. Johnson charmed plenty of girls with those eyes and that smirk. And it obviously wasn’t just his ability to pick locks that won his wife’s heart.

  Ally snagged my hand and pulled me down the corridor, then yanked open the storage room door and towed me inside.

  She flicked on the light and crossed her arms. “Okay, let’s see.”

  I sighed then lifted my scrub top and long-sleeved shirt. That was when the barrage of sounds emerged from her throat, then a multitude of curses.

  “What the…” Curses. “Jesus Christ, Eva, what happened?” Her gaze bounced from my bruised ribs to my face. “Is he back? That pathetic piece of dog shit bastard. We’re calling the police.
He is going back to jail where he belongs,” she said through gritted teeth as she reached into her scrub pants pocket for her cell.

  “No. Don’t.” I lurched forward and grabbed for her arm, instantly regretting it when my ribs protested. But I didn’t need the police knocking on Deaglan’s door to check my story and to see if he heard or saw anything.

  She ignored me and tapped her phone.

  “I swear, if you tap one more number, our friendship flatlines,” I threatened.

  Her head jerked up, finger hovering over the screen. “I’ll give you one minute to explain, and then I’ll decide whether I take the risk and call the police.”

  I half smiled. Ally knew I’d never defriend her or my other two friends, Kendra and Charlotte, who were sisters.

  She lowered her phone, crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  “I was mugged Saturday morning.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “The guy tried to take my purse and we fought—”

  “You fought? Over your purse? Jesus, Eva. Why would you do that? God, did you listen to our self-defense teacher at all?”

  Our instructor Evan told us on day one in self-defense class to never let someone take you to a second location, and if they just want your purse, let them take it.

  “I kneed him in the crotch.”

  “You kneed him in the crotch,” she repeated.

  But first, he’d grabbed my wrist and threw me against the wall, then slammed his fist into my ribcage when I tried to get away. “Ally I’m fine. It’s just a few bruises.” I could definitely handle a few minor bruises after Curran’s fists.

  She paced the room, head down, brows pulled together. “Eva, I think we should call the police. Tell them what happened and they can try to find the guy.”

  “They won’t find him. It happened so fast I didn’t get a good look at him.” But I’d never forget that spider tattoo on the back of his hand and the wretched smell of whisky with peppermint.

  She scrunched her nose as she paced the length of the storage room.

  Ally and I were complete opposites.

  My idea of a perfect day off was reading a good book; hers was going to a local festival, a pub, or a concert.

  I liked those things, too, but after several grueling shifts at the hospital, I craved boring. Boring was good. Boring was my Zen and rejuvenated me for the week ahead. Right now, I didn’t get boring, though, because on my days off, I worked on fixing the century-old house I’d bought eight months ago with the money my late grandmother left me. But I still couldn’t live in it because it was a century old and falling apart…and also why I’d been able to purchase it so cheap.

  Ally chewed her plush lower lip with the pink gloss, the same gloss that was now partially rubbed off by the chewing.

  “Why the hell didn’t you just give him your purse?” she asked.

  “Because I have everything in it.”

  “Everything can be replaced,” she said. “It’s that neighborhood you live in. I bet the asshole lives on your street. God, you need to move into your house, Eva.”

  I remained quiet because I wasn’t ready to explain that it hadn’t been my neighborhood where I rented a house until my house had at least a functioning washroom. It had been Deaglan’s, although it could’ve easily been mine and why Ally made the assumption.

  The house I rented was in a shitty part of the city, but within walking distance to the hospital, so very convenient. I’d moved in there after I broke up with Curran.

  Ally’s rubber soles squeaked on the floor as she ran to me. Her body slammed into mine and she threw her arms around me in a fierce hug. “God, you don’t need this shit.”

  I winced.

  “Oh, damn, sorry,” she murmured as she withdrew to arm’s length. “Next time just hand over your purse, okay?” Tears filled the rims of her eyes. “Seeing bruises on you…. Jesus, I thought that bastard was back.”

  It had been two years since I’d seen or heard from my ex, Curran Carrick. Of course, one year of that he’d been in jail, but he hadn’t tried to contact me at all.

  Buzzing erupted in our scrub pockets at the same time.

  “Trauma,” we said in unison, and ran from the room.

  Two hours later, we were at the nurses’ station filling out medical records. The trauma had been a car accident involving a husband, wife, and their twelve-year-old son.

  According to the paramedics, a transport truck carrying a load of tomato sauce blew a tire and swerved into their car on the highway doing a hundred kilometers an hour.

  “My stomach is eating itself,” Ally said. “Cafeteria’s soggy tuna sandwich is looking really good right now.”

  Cafeteria specials on Mondays were tuna and chicken salad sandwiches on soggy bread. They were soggy because they sat in plastic wrap in a fridge that was too cold.

  “We could go to—”

  “Holy smokes,” Nurse Greta exclaimed.

  The two other nurses behind the desk looked up at whatever Greta gawked at coming in through the emergency sliding doors.

  One by one their mouths dropped open and eyes widened.

  Looked like lunch would have to wait.

  “What is it?” I swung around, picturing someone with an ax in his or her chest or an incoming patient with missing limbs.

  It was like an ice storm moved in as everything in my body stilled.

  There was no medical emergency.

  Not even close.

  But it was most certainly an emergency.

  Mine.

  Holy crap. Deaglan. Here. In the hospital.

  There was no way I could mistake the tattooed badass striding across the waiting room. He commanded a room without doing anything except being in it, even a room full of ill patients who had suddenly stopped moaning and were now watching him.

  I clutched the tablet to my chest in a sort of prayer-like fashion as I stared at him across the crowded waiting room, breath locked in my throat. Those daisies that had been beheaded, one by one, two days ago regrew, and quivered in my belly.

  He stopped, and his eyes scanned the Emergency Room until they landed on me.

  That was when the ice cracked and my body went into complete chaos. Pulse zip lining, heart pounding, and tingles tap dancing across my skin in a mixture of anger, alarm, and desire. A lethal combination.

  Everything slammed into me like a tidal wave of lava and I couldn’t breathe as I gaped at him.

  Shit. I never, ever thought I’d see this man again.

  I wasn’t supposed to see him again.

  Damn it, I didn’t want to see him again.

  Least of all in my workplace with an audience, which included Ally, whom I had not yet told about Deaglan.

  “Jesus… that is the sexiest, scariest man I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Rachael, one of the nurses from behind the desk, said.

  Greta, who was at least sixty, but looked fifty because she was a yoga fanatic, had great skin, and looked after herself, nodded. “Mmmm, total deliciousness.”

  “Now, he would be one wild ride,” Tammy, an admissions nurse, said.

  He is a wild ride.

  And he knew his way around a woman’s body. Knew how to make her beg and scream and make her body quiver.

  God, he’d made me beg and scream and quiver too many times to count.

  Ally shifted closer and whispered, “Uh, why is he staring at you? It’s like he’s eye fucking you right here on the desk.”

  I didn’t move. Or speak. I lost the ability to do anything but stare for those ten seconds it took Deaglan to make his way toward me.

  “Wait a sec,” Ally said. “Are you holding out on me? Do you know this hottie? ’Cause he sure as hell looks like he knows you.”

  I swallowed, and it felt as if I had a stethoscope lodged in my throat. “He’s…” A man I fucked. “Uh, well he’s an acquaintance. Kind-a-sorta.” An acquaintance who had his finger in my ass while his tongue did all sorts
of things to my pussy.

  “That man isn’t looking at you like he’s just an acquaintance,” Ally said, just before Deaglan halted in front of me.

  I forced a smile, despite my urge to spin around and run like hell.

  He didn’t waste any time as he said, “We need to talk. In private.”

  We need to talk? In private?

  Was he for real? No, “Hey, Eva. How are you?” Not even a simple “Hey.”

  Was he insane? Or just a completely insensitive asshole?

  Okay. This is my workplace. Be professional. Be polite.

  My hands curled into fists around the tablet as I forced out, “Sir, is there something I can help you with?”

  “Sir?” His brows rose and he smirked, and the smirk was just as annoyingly sexy as I remembered. “Cute.”

  No, not sexy.

  He. Is. Not. Sexy.

  This guy kicked me out, then pretty much shut and locked the door behind me. The only thing he did that was nice was call me a cab and pay for it, but really that didn’t count because it was all for his benefit to get rid of me.

  God, he made me feel… well… like garbage, and I had sworn after Curran to never let another man make me feel that way. I couldn’t completely blame him because I’d gone home with him knowing full well that it was a one-night stand.

  And I’d had amazing, mind-blowing sex. And that sex had been all about me. He’d made it all about me.

  What pissed me off was that despite him kicking me out of his bed, Deaglan still did it for me.

  That confidence. The way he commanded a room. How he stands with his legs braced, yet still appears casual.

  That smirk.

  Those piercing, sun-streaked, ocean eyes.

  I never thought I’d like tattoos on a guy, but I’d spent an hour tracing them with the tip of my fingers. When I asked if any of them meant anything, he flipped me onto my back and proceeded to kiss me, which led to him sliding inside me, and I forgot about the question.

  Then, it ended.

  Like a mirror shattering, so had everything I’d liked about him.

  God, what had I been thinking going home with him?

  Reality was… I hadn’t. I’d had a few drinks, but was far from intoxicated. No, I’d been drunk on him.