Chapter 3

3

She was looking at him again. Even though he knew she was trying to pretend otherwise. He was an important man around this place. All of the women watched him.

Including her.

Dr. Doug Hodges had worked for years to make his way to the top of the food chain at Barratt County General Hospital. He’d even put in for the Chief of Medicine position when it had been open. He’d lost it, to a man a year younger, who’d just gotten out of the damned military—where he’d run hospitals overseas.

The powers-that-be thought the hospital needed a COM who could whip the place into shape better than civilians. So they’d hired that big behemoth who ran it now. Junkyard dog was a more apt description.

Dr. Caine Alvaro was good at his job, no denying that, but Doug would have been so much better. He’d known the hospital staff, the way things were ran before. Doug would have been the better choice.

Of course, Alvaro had married Jordan Carrington’s daughter—before the older man had even bought the hospital. They’d probably planned it from the beginning. Doug’s good friend Justin Michaels thought Caine Alvaro was most likely a plant. Doug’s theory was that Jordan Carrington had been looking for a place to dump off his loser son-in-law and had settled on Barratt County since the man’s daughter worked at the larger, more prestigious Finley Creek Gen one county north.

Doug could feel Caine Alvaro watching him sometimes, too. Judging him.

Planning to get rid of him somehow.

He felt threatened by Doug. Doug knew that.

It was in the man’s eyes.

He could see Caine Alvaro right there. Talking to her.

That nurse.

Doug’s favorite nurse. The one who mattered most.

Doug hadn’t thought she was so special when she’d first hired on a year or so before Alvaro had invaded. She’d been so young and small and mousy and had seemed a bit squeaky . Nerdy, dramatic and irritating. Easily overlooked.

Until the last year or so.

She’d matured. Her hair had grown out, her body had curved a small bit more. Though she was still quite petite.

He liked that about her, though.

She always smelled nice. Doug would smell her over the antiseptic and institutional scent of the hospital around them. He knew… she used that particular scented shampoo… for him.

It was like a secret code between them. A signal.

He should ask her again, if she was ready for him. He’d been giving her space. To grow, to mature. When he had first noticed her six months ago, she had been hurting from a bad breakup from the hospital attorney.

That man had broken her heart. Everyone in the hospital had been gossiping about that.

Doug had hurt him. It had taken little for him to drive up behind Randall Brown and run that asshole off the road. Randall had had a broken leg and a massive concussion after that. Doug had felt mildly guilty for that, he had once considered Randall a friend, but he had had to do it.

Randall shouldn’t have hurt Genny like that. No one should hurt her like that.

She was hurting now. Because of what had happened to her closest friend.

Dr. Chad Fields’s sister—he had known that woman was good friends with Genny. That redheaded Fields woman, and that blonde, Dr. Fisher.

Dr. Fisher—Caine Alvaro’s side piece. They weren’t the right kind of people. They infuriated him.

They… had no business being anywhere near Genny.

Especially that Fields woman. Genny was too pure to ever be associated with Chad Fields’s family in any way.

He knew that. He had seen that for himself.

She was too good for people like that.

Genny just was.

It was going to be up to him to help her see that.