An Informal Introduction (Informal Romance Book 3) Read online

  An Informal Introduction

  by Heather Gray

  an Informal Romance novel

  Informal Romance Books

  An Informal Christmas

  An Informal Arrangement

  An Informal Introduction

  An Informal Date (coming Fall 2016)

  ©2016 by Heather Gray

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the HCSB®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. HCSB® is a federally registered trademark of Holman Bible Publishers.

  Cover design by Heather Gray.

  Cover art photos ©goodluz/Fotolia and ©VILevi/Fotolia. Used with permission.

  Published in the United States of America by Heather Gray

  www.heathergraywriting.com

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Informal Romance Book List

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Bible Verse

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Preview of An Informal Christmas

  in celebration of my Savior

  in memory of my daughter

  with pride in my son

  with gratitude for my husband

  We know that in all things God works for good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

  Romans 8:28

  As if the flashing lights in her rearview mirror weren’t enough, the trooper turned on the siren, too. Lily cringed and slid down in her seat like a teenager hiding from prying eyes. Of course, her teen years were long behind her, and any eyes intent on prying would need night vision goggles to see her. The sun hadn’t yet kissed the eastern horizon.

  She slowed and sought a place to pull over, no small feat on this narrow stretch of Lee Highway. Spotting a patch of grass to her right, she steered her silver two-door sedan as far over as she could and cut the engine. Her fingers drummed a rhythmless beat on the steering wheel as she waited for the trooper. He was probably busy checking with dispatch to make sure she wasn’t a mass murderer. Because, clearly, rampaging homicidal maniacs drove nondescript cars on the way to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning.

  In all her years traversing this road, Lily had never seen a state trooper on this particular stretch. Until today. Good thing she’d left early for work.

  Thank you, God, for getting me up and out the door when You did.

  The trooper climbed out of his cruiser and approached her parked vehicle. She hit the button and listened to the almost imperceptible hum as her window slid down. The grey of his uniform would have blended into the night were it not for the illumination of his headlights and his car-mounted spotlight. As it happened, they blinded her enough that she couldn’t catch much more than the color of his clothes and a hint of his shape.

  “License and registration, please.” The voice was impatient. Tired, too. He was probably at the end of his shift, which meant she had little chance of winning the argument, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from trying.

  “I wasn’t speeding.”

  “License and registration, please.”

  So much for the serve part of public service.

  “Can you at least tell me why you pulled me over?”

  “Give me your license and registration, ma’am.”

  Heat swept through Lily. It’s not like she’d asked a difficult question. “How do I even know you’re a state trooper and not some crazed rapist who’s trying to get my address so he can break into my home?”

  The trooper’s shadowed mouth hinted at a smile, and his eyes morphed from intense pinpoints to… Hm. Eyes couldn’t be huggable, could they?

  Who was she kidding? She couldn’t even see his eyes. Her imagination had to be on overdrive.

  “Well, ma’am, most people consider those flashing red and blue lights as proof enough that I’m one of the good guys, but if it would make you feel better, I’d be happy to go turn the siren back on, too. I doubt crazed rapists announce themselves with police sirens.” Now that he was speaking in actual sentences, Lily picked up a hint of honeyed Southern drawl dancing along the edge of his words. She never could resist Southern charm — real or imagined.

  “Here.” She handed him her driver’s license and the other paperwork from her glove compartment.

  He examined both and called her license information in, using the small radio strapped to his left shoulder.

  “For the record, I did nothing wrong.”

  He stepped back from her car and listened carefully to whoever was on the other end of the radio. If it was even a real person. The garbled, static-like squawking left that in doubt.

  Once the radio quieted, the trooper began entering information into a form held in place on his clipboard.

  Fantastic. It was never good when they started writing. Not that she had enough experience to know…

  The trooper finished what he was doing and approached her window. “I’m afraid you were driving recklessly, ma’am, swerving all over the road. You’re going to step out of the car and do a field sobriety test for me.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  The light cast by his cruiser illuminated half his face. It was enough for her to catch the widening of his eyes at her response, but it did so with a blinding glare, preventing her from making out the details of his features. “No, ma’am, I’m not joking. Please exit the car and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Lily opened her door and, keeping both hands in plain sight, climbed out. “How long have you lived around here?”

  The trooper ignored her question. He indicated the barely-there white stripe on the edge of the road. “I need you to walk straight down this line from your car to mine.” He remained between her and the cruiser but off to the side, presumably so he wouldn’t block the onboard camera filming the entire incident.

  Great. She only hoped she didn’t become part of some viral video about drunken nurses. True or not, it could cost her the job she loved.

  She walked the line with nary a wobble. The trooper made notations on his clipboard and gave her more commands. “Touch your nose with your left index finger.”

  She complet
ed each of the tasks assigned her until, at last, he produced the electronic contraption from his car. “Take a deep breath and blow into this piece here.”

  He indicated the straw-like attachment he’d just put on. At least she got a clean one. That was something.

  With a shudder, Lily shook the thought away and did as he’d instructed.

  The trooper frowned at her. “You’re not drunk.”

  “Of course not. I was swerving to avoid all the badly-patched potholes. This road is torture on every vehicle that’s ever driven it, except for the snow plows which are responsible for most of the potholes to begin with.” She was only getting started. “Then spring comes, and all the holes are fixed, but this year they must have used someone new because there’s not a level patch anywhere in sight. There’s not a suspension system out there that can compensate for this road.”

  “You know the potholes and bumps so well that you can swerve around them?”

  He remained cast in shadow by their position, his back to the cruiser and its too-bright lights while she stood in front of him with the glare directly in her eyes. Lily was close enough now to make out some of the geography of his face — like his square jaw — but she still couldn’t identify much beyond that. Certainly not enough to tell if she was being mocked or admired. “I drive the road on my way to work. It’s faster than the freeway, which is always bogged down by now. And I never once swerved out of my lane. How is it any different than if I’d been trying to avoid debris? I wasn’t being unsafe. I was swerving specifically so I could drive safely.”

  The trooper scratched his head, and Lily took a moment to admire his plentiful — if short — hair. The color remained indistinguishable, but at least he wasn’t bald.

  Not that bald was always bad. On some men, though, it was… unfortunate.

  He shook his head and moved closer to show her the clipboard. “I’m giving you a warning. As far-fetched as it sounds, your excuse might just be legit. I need you to sign and date here.”

  Excuse? Lily tried not to growl as she grabbed the pen from him and completed her part of the form. “Any chance you’ll hang back for a while?” Like, give her a ten-minute head start before making his way from the shoulder back onto the highway? Now that she was running late for work — thanks to him — she’d have to push the speed limit.

  “In a hurry?”

  She shrugged and withheld the glare she wanted to give him as she reached a hand out for her copy of the warning. “I wasn’t before, but I am now.”

  “Wherever you’re in a rush to go, I’m sure it’s not life or death. Drive safe and follow the laws of the road. Including the speed limit.”

  Lily held back the mock salute she wanted to offer him. He’d gotten her morning off to a doozy of a start, but she’d do her best not to take it out on him. She could empathize, after all. Her job was to help people, too, and it sometimes required her to call people out on their behavior or habits. It wasn’t fun to be cast in the role of bad guy in order to do good for people.

  With a glance at the road, Lily buckled her belt. In the time they’d been on the shoulder, the highway had turned from a ghost town into a quagmire of early morning traffic. Making it to work on time was out of the question now. With a disgruntled mutter, she tucked the earpiece into place and hit a button on her steering wheel. “Call ICU.” It was time to tell the charge nurse she would be late.

  “Pulled over for drunk driving?”

  Lily hung her head as she scrubbed in at the sink.

  “Child, you have the kind of luck that gives most folks hound dog jowls.” Lyza, the nurse she was scheduled to replace, leaned against the wall next to her and waited.

  Could anyone talk to Lyza and not smile? “I don’t own a hound dog, and hopefully I never develop jowls, but I appreciate the sentiment. I was supposed to get here early, too. Sorry they made you stay late for me.”

  With the lift of a shoulder, Lyza dismissed it. “No worries. I’m off the next three nights, and the extra thirty minutes was worth it to hear your story.” The older nurse chuckled again. “Drunk driving. Unbelievable.”

  Lily would face a day full of good-natured ribbing about her escapades with a state trooper, but she didn’t mind. Life in ICU could be wrapped up with a single word: intense. Being the occasional butt of a joke only meant people had something to laugh about. Tomorrow it would be somebody else’s turn to lighten the mood with their own embarrassing story.

  Lyza gave her the rundown. “Mr. Miller is your only patient for now. My other one got moved out to the floor two hours ago. Since you were late, they shuffled the assignments.”

  “If anybody else comes in today, they’re all mine.” Lily knew the drill. In all likelihood, she’d be in charge of another patient by lunchtime. ICU was rarely dull, Mondays especially so. Her drunk driving experience was sure to be only the start of an adventuresome day. “All right, then. Tell me about Mr. Miller.”

  “He works at one of the tire recycling places around here. The tires go through a shredder there before they can go on to the next phase of processing. Only something got jammed, and he shut the machine down to search for the problem, but some trainee who’d been out back smoking a cigarette with earbuds blasting who-knows-what into his ears and drowning out the PA announcement came along and blew it all to smithereens by pushing the big red button that started the shredder back up.”

  “Oh, no.” Lily’s stomach dropped.

  Lyza took a big breath and exhaled, fluffing her bangs as she did so. “Fool kid could’ve killed someone, but luckily the supervisor shut the machine back off within seconds. Mr. Miller’s arm was decimated. He was in the OR for hours but the doctors couldn’t save it. There are a lot of other contusions and bruises, but the amputation is the worst. He ended up with an SD.”

  Shoulder disarticulation. His arm had been removed at the shoulder joint. As often happened with patients brought into the ICU, his life was headed in a whole new direction.

  Lord, help him adapt.

  Lily was helping Jacie, one of the newer nurses, with a bedding change in room 4150 when the charge nurse — whose voice carried across the unit even if she whispered — yelled from the front desk. “Lily, we got a hot one coming in! Now!”

  She spared a quick “Gotta run” for Jacie before peeling off her gloves and leaving Mrs. Rivera’s room behind her.

  “Tell me what we know.” How much information they received depended greatly on where a patient came from. Sometimes the details were sketchy at best.

  The charge nurse, with her short gun-metal grey hair and perpetual frown, was all business. “Female, fifty-five years old. Son found her collapsed and phoned for an ambulance. ER cites severe dehydration and ketoacidosis. She’s ours until we can get her blood sugar stable.”

  Lily nodded. “You said hot?” That was a term they used when a patient was combative.

  “Not her. The son. All they told me is that most of the emergency room emptied out as soon as he marched in.”

  Oh, dear. Gang banger? Giant Samoan wrestler? Covered in body art and piercings? Please don’t let him have metal spikes drilled into his skull like that guy last month!

  Lily took the paperwork from the charge nurse. She peeked in on Mr. Miller — no change there — before moving on to open the glass doors of Mrs. — she glanced at the papers — Graham’s room for the transport team to wheel her hospital bed into place.

  “Hi, Mrs. Graham. My name’s Lily, and I’m going to be your nurse today. Are you comfortable? Can I get you anything?”

  “No, dear, I’m fine. Everybody’s making way too much fuss. I’d rather be allowed to go home.”

  A visual assessment of the patient showed bright eyes and good color. Her speech was clear, too. Lily made a couple notes on the chart then tugged the stethoscope from around her neck and placed its diaphragm against her hand to warm it. “I need to listen to your heart and lungs for a second. This might be cold. Try to ignore me and breathe like normal.”r />
  The rustle of movement behind her announced someone’s entry, most likely the son.

  “Caleb, dear, will you please say hello to Lily? She’s my nurse.”

  She gritted her teeth behind a bright smile as she circled to greet Mrs. Graham’s son, the man who had single-handedly driven everyone out of the Emergency Room. Lily ended up face-to-face with a whole lot of grey. The man wore a uniform, and not just any uniform. A quick step back allowed her to look up at his face without having to crane her neck. Her gaze raked across his unshaven jawline and grey eyes, but that wasn’t where her attention landed. A well-worn cowboy hat topped his head in place of the typical state trooper’s campaign hat.

  A uniform and a cowboy hat both… Good thing she wasn’t the type to get weak in the knees.

  “Hey, Lily.” Rinaldo, one of the respiratory techs, hollered to her as he approached the door. “Police are on the unit. Did they come to haul you away after your run-in this morning?” The tech popped his head over the threshold, but as he took in the scene, his eyes grew into saucers and he backpedaled out the door. Lily watched from the corner of her eye as her friend abandoned her and sped down the corridor.

  “I hope you nurse in a straighter line than you drive.”

  That voice!

  She hadn’t gotten a good look at the trooper. During her sobriety test, he’d stayed between her and the cruiser, backlit the entire time. She’d been in the spotlight while he’d remained in the shadows. He would have had a clear view of her, but she’d not been able to garner much more than an impression of his appearance. His voice, though, pure velvet with the subtle hint of a Southern drawl, was unforgettable.

  “You!”

  Caleb rubbed his eyes. The beauty from that morning stood in his mom’s hospital room. He’d realized, of course, that she wore scrubs when he’d put her through the paces of the field sobriety test, but he’d figured she worked at a nursing home or in a doctor’s office. With her long blond hair drawn up in a casual pony-tail-type-bun thing on her head, and her blue eyes regarding him with shock and accusation, he couldn’t help but think her too delicate for the grueling work of an ICU.