Falling for His Runaway Nurse
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Amy Ruttan
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CHAPTER ONE
“WELL, WE DO need a nurse...”
Lacey smiled and nodded. She knew that the recruitment officer was staring at her—not that she really could blame her—but tried to stay positive. It was a bit of an odd situation, even for her. Well, it was completely odd to her. Lacey didn’t particularly like taking risks. She didn’t like change or waste.
Things usually ran smoothly in her life, especially when it came to her career.
She planned everything she could.
Like her wedding and that expensive cake that she had shelled out for.
What a waste.
She didn’t even get to taste it.
That’s because you ran out on your wedding.
Lacey shook that thought away and smiled brightly, smoothing out the tulle on her dress. Not that smoothing it over would diminish its volume, but the sensation of running her hands over the fabric calmed her and stopped her leg from nervously tapping under the table.
“I know my dress is a bit of a surprise.”
The human resources woman pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and smiled politely. “You can call me Deb and, I’ll be honest, it is unusual. After all, it’s not often that we have candidates come to an interview in a wedding dress.”
Lacey blushed. “It’s a long story. I was in something of a hurry to get here.”
That was an understatement. When she had walked in on her fiancé in a compromising position with her maid of honor, she had needed to make a run for it.
So she did. She bolted, completely unprepared for what came next, which was so unlike her.
“I can see that.” Deb cleared her throat. “Well, your credentials are outstanding, and everything you’ve provided checked out. We’re also in a bind as we urgently need a nurse practitioner for this three-week cruise—though the placement is four weeks in total for staff as they come back with the ship. Not sure we’ll need your midwife certification, but you never know.”
Lacey smiled nervously. “Well, I do love babies.”
She did, but when she’d moved to Vancouver five years ago, there had only been a job in the emergency room, so she became a trauma nurse and put her midwife career on the back burner. She missed it so much.
It was in the ER that she had met Will. He told her she was a great trauma nurse. He told her that the emergency room needed her.
That he needed her.
Lacey swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Welcome aboard, Ms. Greenwood. I’m so very glad that you’re able to sail with us this afternoon, though I do hope we don’t have any babies born on ship,” Deb said, interrupting Lacey’s thoughts.
Lacey breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you!”
“If you’ll follow me, we’ll board, and I’ll show you the medical facilities. We do provide a uniform and scrubs, but I presume you have other clothes in that suitcase. I know it’s summer, but Alaska still has its nippy days.”
Lacey glanced back at her suitcase—the one she had packed for her honeymoon—but instead of feeling sad about the honeymoon she wasn’t going to get, she just felt anger and a bit of distance. But most of all, disappointment that she had been duped.
Again.
When it came to love, she was cursed. She always picked the wrong guy. Ones who left her, cheated on her—and one time, one who stole most of her clothing. It was hard to trust men when they had a habit of always breaking her heart.
Just like her fiancé. Or rather, her ex-fiancé.
She was angry at herself for not seeing the signs earlier. She didn’t want to believe that once again, she’d got it wrong. That she had—foolishly—almost walked down the aisle and gotten married to a man who lied and had cheated on her.
Will had seemed like a stable guy. Someone she could settle down with, who was just as much of a workaholic as she was.
She had thought he was a safe bet. Someone who could make her feel safe for one moment in her life.
Did you?
Lacey shook that thought away. She knew she had been stagnating in her work, happy to go along with Will’s plans to stay in Vancouver and maintain the status quo. But there had always been a small part of her that had wanted change. She had thought marriage would be that change.
Apparently, that wasn’t meant to be.
Before Vancouver Lacey had spent so many years of her life bouncing from one place to the other, making her crave stability.
Or so she’d thought.
She liked Will well enough and thought what they had was enough for a successful marriage.
Their relationship was comfortable. It wasn’t needy. They both agreed that work came first.
It was okay.
And so she had asked him to marry her. It seemed like the right thing to do. The natural progression. None of her previous relationships had lasted that long before. She’d never stayed put for so long.
And wasn’t marriage the step that everyone took eventually?
Being settled with Will was the only time in her life she’d had a sense of stability and peace since her family had lived in Yellowknife when she was younger. When she’d had a real best friend.
Carol.
Another lump formed in her throat as she blinked back tears. Carol had been like family, but she’d died last year just before Lacey got engaged. Lacey had been devastated, and had been grateful that she had the wedding to focus on to help her get through her grief.
She’d had Will.
Now she didn’t.
She should’ve trusted her gut.
On a whim, she’d decided to see him before the ceremony, because she didn’t really believe in that silly custom of the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding. That’s when she caught him in the act, with her friend Beth.
It brought to the surface all those signs she’d been ignoring because she thought Will was perfect for her. Stable.
She’d wanted that stability so badly.
Did you?
She’d been blind, and seeing Will with Beth was a wake-up call.
Instead of waiting to hear all the same excuses she’d heard from others in the past, she marched out of the room, grabbed her suitcase and caught the first taxi she could to take her as far away from Will as possible.
The taxi driver drove her around for an hour as she figured out what she wanted to do—all she knew was she needed an escape—and as the cab passed the docks, she saw all the waiting cruise ships. Lacey remembered there had been an opening for a nurse practitioner on one of them. She had only been casually looking at the postings—though she realized now it hadn’t actually been all that casual—and it had caught her eye.
When she showed it to Will, he’d scoffed. He didn’t see the point.
“Why would you want to do that?” he’d asked.
“Why not? It’s an adventure. We can use a break, and heading north to Alaska sounds exciting.”
Will had made a face. “North? Exciting? Those two words don’t go together.”
“Sure they do. I lived in Yellowknife. It’s wonderful.”
Will had shaken his head and ended the discussion with a firm, “No. Not at this time. We’re busy. Things are good here.”
Lacey had agreed—Will was right. Vancouver was safer—but there was a part of her, one she’d tried hard to suppress, that still wanted to go. She wanted to travel up north again.
It called to her.
The one time when she’d been truly settled as a child had been when her father had been stationed in Yellowknife.
She’d never stayed long enough in one place to have a best friend before, but this time they did, and she’d met Carol. That had been the happiest time in her life.
Alaska was far from Yellowknife, but it was an escape.
Right then, an escape was exactly what she needed. Time for herself and to figure out what she really wanted. She was going nowhere in her career. She missed midwifery. The emergency room kept her busy, but all she did was work, and obviously her personal life was doing the same. She was stuck in a rut.
Lacey wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore, but she knew what she needed—adventure. And fast.
Applying for a job on a month-long Alaskan cruise seemed like the right thing to do.
In theory.
She pulled herself back to the present, realizing Deb was still waiting on an answer.
“I have clothes, Deb. Don’t worry.” There was no point in getting into the details about her canceled honeymoon, and she had everything she needed to get by. She’d already texted her dad and asked him to get her stuff from Will’s place, so there was nothing holding her back from disappearing for a few weeks.
She was free, and it was a bit unnerving. In fact, she was shaking, her heart was racing, and she was already beginning to second-guess this decision.
“Oh, good, because I do have to warn you that Dr. Bell probably won’t take too kindly to the outfit.”
Lacey noticed Deb kind of winced, but still had a smile on her face, which Lacey could only deduce meant one thing. Dr. Bell was most likely a bit of a stubborn mule.
Lacey could deal with a doctor like that.
She had a lot of experience dealing with grumpy surgeons.
Her father was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, and he’d taught her how to be strong. As they’d moved from place to place all over Canada for his work, she had learned how to grow a thick skin. She’d also learned to live in some of the most remote places in the north, and if it didn’t faze her as a kid she wasn’t going to start letting it bother her now.
She could handle this.
There was nothing to be nervous about. This temporary job was just a chance to clear her head and decide what to do when she returned to Vancouver, because she already knew that she wasn’t leaving Vancouver just because Will had betrayed her.
Her parents were there.
They were her only roots now.
Lacey pulled her suitcase behind her as she followed Deb out of the office and up a gangway that led onto the ship. It was a staff entrance and didn’t have the same fanfare as the main gangway that would soon be full of tourists embarking on a dream cruise. There were no crew greeting her, no free drinks and warm reception. Just a narrow hall and busy crew members getting everything ready for departure.
She knew this cruise was work—her means to escape the reality she was now facing and the fact her life had gone so wrong—but she had to admit that a free drink would really hit the spot right now.
“I’ll take you to the clinic so you can meet the doctor. I still have to figure out your room assignment, though, and get you identification so you can open doors only accessed by staff,” Deb said over her shoulder as they made their way through the maze of hallways.
As far as Lacey was concerned, the sooner they left, the better, even though right now her nerves were shot and her stomach seemed to be doing backflips in her abdomen.
Lacey just wanted to get to work and forget this whole day had ever happened.
She wanted to forget the shock of finding Will and Beth together. She wanted to forget how foolish she felt to have missed the signs that she and Will were not actually compatible.
She was hurt, angry and numb.
Finally they arrived at the infirmary.
“This is where you’ll be working with Dr. Bell.” Deb knocked, but didn’t wait for anyone to answer as she walked in. “Dr. Bell, I have a replacement nurse for you.”
Dr. Bell came out of an exam room, ducking because he was at least six foot and the doorway was not. His dark gray eyes were stormy, he was scowling and his ginger hair was a bit mussed, like he’d been raking his fingers through it in frustration. The white uniform suited him, and before she could help herself, she found she was checking him out from head to toe.
What are you doing?
Her cheeks grew hot in embarrassment. She had no idea what had come over her. All she could think of was how frazzled she felt—her heart was racing and her blood was heated. She just hoped she wasn’t blushing.
This was so silly.
She’d just walked out on a wedding. Now was not the time to be admiring her new boss.
Still, Lacey was zapped with a rush of something she hadn’t felt in a long time. In fact, she couldn’t recall ever feeling or experiencing this kind of visceral reaction before. It seemed right and was mixed with a sense of familiarity too. As though she’d seen him before.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she felt as if she knew him.
Get a grip.
It didn’t matter where she’d seen him before.
She was here to work and figure out why she kept falling for men who cheated on her. Whatever momentary attraction she’d felt for Dr. Bell was wrong.
Even if he was very dashing, he was her boss, and she was fresh off an almost-marriage.
That was a recipe for disaster.
In a British accent, he began, “It’s about bloody time...” He paused when he saw her, and his lips pursed together. “I asked for a nurse, Deb, not a wife!”
This was not what he was expecting.
Thatcher had been worried he wouldn’t have a nurse on this trip. He’d felt so flustered about potentially not having support staff that he’d answered a call from his brother.
Something he never did.
Thatcher had been annoyed with himself, especially when it was clear Michael was angry, spending several minutes grousing over the fact he’d had to hire a private investigator to locate him. A fact that made Thatcher livid.
So instead of a normal conversation, Thatcher had to endure a thirty-minute guilt session on how he’d abandoned the family and the title and that their father was ill. So now more than ever he needed to get married and produce heirs. Thatcher tried that once. It didn’t work.
He didn’t want the title. And harsh as it sounded, he didn’t want to see his father. All Thatcher wanted was his medical career, to stay and settle in Canada and to do so without his father’s help.
It had always been his goal to make his own way, buy some land in the Yukon and set up a practice in a small community where no one knew his father was the Duke of Weymouth and that he was next in line to inherit the estate and title.
A place where no one would eventually call him “Your Grace.”
That was his dream.
The cruise ship gig was just a job to get him the funds so that he could purchase the land—the means to the end—and after this cruise, he would have all he needed to live out his dream. As long as nothing screwed it up, that is. He just needed this to be a smooth and uneventful trip.
And then Michael had called and nagged him about not settling down and taking up his birthright. As if being married and procreating was all that he was good for to his family. Were they stuck in some kind of Regency-era book?
It wasn’t for lack of trying that Thatcher wasn’t married. A wife and kids were things he’d always wanted. The kind of loving family he’d never had growing up.
He’d been close once, but it turned out Kathleen didn’t want him. All she wanted was to be a duchess.
Thatcher didn’t want to be the duke if it meant turning out like his father.
Distant.
Cold.
Uncaring.
When his mother was sick and dying, the most compassionate, kindest person had been her physician. His father wasn’t there, but the doctor was.
And that was why Thatcher had wanted to become a doctor. He wanted to save lives.
Only, Kathleen didn’t share in that dream.
She wanted the aristocracy and the money that went along with it.
She didn’t love him, and when it became clear he was serious about moving to Canada, she left him. After that, he’d moved, changed his name to his mother’s surname and avoided women altogether.
Thatcher fell in love with the Yukon and Canada and convinced himself it was easier to live out his dream single.
Except you’re lonely.
He shook that thought away. Even though he’d always longed for a family, a wife, he couldn’t trust a woman to want him for him.
So he gave up on all that.
Now here he was, staring down a bride. And a beautiful one at that.
Was this some kind of cruel twist of fate or karma or whatever?
“I’m Lacey Greenwood. Your new nurse.” She smiled brightly and stuck out her hand.
Thatcher looked her up and down.
She was enchanting.
He couldn’t deny that. Her honey-blond hair was done up in a bun with a few loose strands. Her blue eyes twinkled and her lips were full, pink. They were made for kissing.
Don’t.
He was shocked that she was standing there in a wedding dress. Was she fresh from her wedding ceremony? Was she a jilted bride?
She didn’t look all that heartbroken.
There were no red splotches on her creamy skin, no puffy eyes to hint that she’d been crying. And while she wore an engagement ring, there was no wedding ring on her finger.
Maybe she was the jilter?
“Are you indeed?” he finally said, breaking the silence, but not taking her hand. “What qualifications and experience do you have?”
The smile on her face slipped, and her big blue eyes narrowed. He knew he was making Deb uncomfortable too. He hated being an old crank, but he wasn’t going to let anything ruin his last cruise.
He just wanted things to go smoothly and calmly.
He didn’t need some flighty runaway bride as his nurse.
Especially such an attractive one. He found himself wondering what was under all that tulle...
No, you don’t!
“I’m a registered nurse practitioner and certified midwife. Deb has all of my credentials,” she stated firmly.
Thatcher raised his eyebrows. She had spirit. He liked that.
No, you don’t.
“Dr. Bell, I did my due diligence,” Deb started, flustered. “Nurse Greenwood is more than capable.”
He felt a pang of guilt for being disrespectful to Deb. He’d honestly forgotten she was there. All he saw was Lacey.
Lacey frowned. “I’m more than qualified, Dr. Bell. Are you going to be so pigheaded to let something as silly as a wedding dress hold up the cruise? I’m not going into lengthy explanations about why I’m wearing a wedding dress, because that’s my business, but I can assure you it won’t affect my work.”
“Are you lecturing me?” he asked, amused.
No one stood up to him, not usually, and he kind of liked it.
No. You. Don’t, that inner voice reminded him again. It was setting off danger flares.
Lacey crossed her arms. “I am.”
“Fine.” He sighed in resignation. He didn’t want the cruise postponed, and he was sure Deb had vetted her properly. “You can stay, I suppose.”
Deb looked visibly relieved. “Well, now that it’s all settled, I’ll just take Lacey to meet the captain, get her identification and show her to her quarters.”
“I expect you back here at seventeen hundred hours to report for duty, Nurse Greenwood. That’s five o’clock, if you’re not used to military time.”
She screwed up her eyes, and she smiled, saluting him. “Aye, aye.”
Thatcher chuckled to himself as Deb led Lacey out of the infirmary and down the hall. He peeked out the door to watch her walk away, pulling her suitcase behind her.
Her tulle skirt took up the entire width, and he smiled again. It was comical.
This is your last cruise. Remember? Focus on that.
He shook his head and shut the door. Thatcher was hoping for smooth sailing, but with Nurse Lacey Greenwood working with him, this would likely be a choppy voyage indeed.
