Before the Rain Breaks Read online

  Lacy shot her a quick grin. “Boyfriend keeping you up all night? I recognize the look.”

  Heat hit Fin’s cheeks. “I—”

  Lacy stopped and turned, the refrigerator open behind her. “I was teasing, Fin. But now...ok...spill. I need to know.”

  Fin’s lips twitched. Lacy might like to hear the gossip, but she never spread it as far as Fin could tell. “I...have...for the first time in four years...I...am involved with someone.”

  Lacy closed the fridge. Turned and stared at Fin. “Sweet. He a good guy?”

  She nodded. “One of the best.”

  “Do I know him?” Lacy’s eyes widened. “Does he look particularly yummy in a tux and have the initials VP?”

  The heat intensified.

  Lacy laughed. “Sweet. Perfect. I can’t think of two people who made a cuter couple the other night. Well, except Mel and Houghton. Those two are just all gooey.”

  “I... it’s just been since that night, Lacy. I have no idea where it goes from here. But I like being with him. And I... it’s weird, but I’m not on edge with him, like I was in my previous relationship. He can actually walk up behind me.”

  Lacy knew what had happened to Fin. Just as Fin knew what had happened to Lacy. One of the hallmarks of W4HAV was conversation. Talking about what happened and seeing that they were not alone. They had all been victims. They were not alone.

  She couldn’t deny that had been one of the ways she’d gotten through what had happened to her friend Sierra. To her and Margo.

  By talking.

  “That’s wonderful, sweetie. Have you told him exactly what happened yet?”

  Fin shook her head. “Not yet. He knows something did. And I’m sure it’s been all over Google, but he hasn’t asked.”

  Lacy sent her a serious look. “I’m glad the two of you are together, Fin. I think you’ll be good for him, too.”

  She hoped. Fin hoped.

  Fin stayed where she was long after Lacy had been paged back to surgery. She had maybe another ninety minutes before she had to be anywhere. The last week, while wonderful, hadn’t exactly been restful. Before long, her eyes closed, and she drifted off, secure in the knowledge that her phone would beep fifteen minutes before she had to be in her meeting with Rafe.

  Chapter 21

  “You’re such a fool.” The whispered hiss had Ray’s shoulders stiffening. It took him a moment to realize the aunt who had raised him wasn’t actually speaking to him. This time.

  It shouldn’t have surprised him; it was usually his uncle that drew her ire. If he hadn’t needed to stay on her good side Ray would say something to break up the inevitable. His aunt and uncle couldn’t be within fifty feet of each other without fighting.

  He didn’t want to fight with them—he needed to live there with them for a while.

  It was a part of the conditions of his parole. Ray didn’t want to go back to prison. As it was, his aunt had pulled strings to get him out early.

  She’d made it perfectly clear to him that he was going to toe the line in every possible way. She’d made his uncle get him a job at the hospital. The only options had been janitorial and security. Ray had chosen security. Being actually inside the hospital would be too much temptation for him to slip into his old ways again.

  With drugs. And with women.

  As it was, he didn’t have that much contact with beautiful women except in passing.

  In passing was enough most days.

  He knew he had problems. Sexual problems. He shouldn’t focus on women as much as he did. Or at least, he shouldn’t focus on the wrong sort of women for him. Nurses, doctors, X-ray technicians—they weren’t for an ex-con like him.

  His aunt had made that abundantly clear.

  He was to keep his hands—and his eyes—off the women who worked inside the hospital. He wasn’t healthy enough, his aunt had said, to even think about a woman right now.

  She was paying for his therapy. She was letting him live in the apartment over her garage. She was providing food for him that he didn’t have to buy or cook himself.

  She had gotten him out of jail. Years early.

  He owed her.

  If that meant she wanted to nag and bitch at his uncle constantly, Ray couldn’t say a word about it.

  And she wasn’t wrong.

  His uncle was a fool.

  A fool for staying with her, anyway.

  Uncle Orin had a choice—Ray didn’t.

  Orin could escape—if he really wanted to. Ray had always thought his uncle liked how his aunt ordered him around.

  Ray just scooped some more of his breakfast into his mouth and tried to tune them out. Just like he had as a child.

  Chapter 22

  Virat entered the breakroom first. The surgery he and Allen had just completed hadn’t gone well. The prognosis was not good. They needed a break. Badly.

  They had an hour before the next surgery would demand their attention. Men had to eat, after all.

  He stopped walking when he saw the blond woman snuggled in the recliner that was far too big for her. He glanced over his shoulder and held a hand up to his lips.

  She needed to sleep.

  The call on a patient of hers had come just after five thirty that morning, and they’d been up late the night before.

  “That chair’s big enough to practically swallow her,” Allen said, staring down at her. “She looks like a kid.”

  “She’s just small. Hard to see that until she actually stops moving.” Fin buzzed around constantly; it was a decided contrast between awake Fin and sleeping Fin. It had taken him a few days to realize it was her way of avoiding what terrified her.

  Fin needed someone to just make her stop sometimes. Stop and breathe. He half thought, if she stopped, then she’d have to face the fears he didn’t think she’d fully dealt with yet.

  He grabbed a blanket out of the cabinet and tossed it over her.

  Fin liked to snuggle beneath heavy blankets—or curl up against his chest. Virat touched her braid lightly, moving it to one side.

  He let his hand linger.

  When he looked up, Allen was watching him, a knowing look in his eyes.

  “You’re involved with her.”

  Virat just nodded.

  He would never deny it.

  “You’re a lucky man, Vir. Don’t forget that.”

  Allen’s pain was right there for him to hear. All Virat could do was nod.

  They stayed where they were, talking quietly, for the next forty-five minutes. Fin never stirred.

  He fought the guilt. Part of the reason she was so tired was because of him. Finally, her eyes slipped open, and she looked around.

  Her eyes met his. She smiled. Just a sweet, welcoming smile that was absolutely perfect.

  “Hi. Allen and I decided to keep you company while we ate. Have you eaten?” She didn’t take the best care of herself, always forgetting to eat while she did fifteen thousand other things.

  Virat had found he liked being able to fuss over this woman.

  She shook her head.

  “I have extra.”

  He scooted over, making room on the small couch next to him.

  She took the seat, easing into pressing against him.

  Fin felt absolutely perfect exactly where she was.

  Chapter 23

  There had been something in his eyes when he’d looked at her. Fin still shivered when she thought about it. Something exactly like what she had seen in Rafe’s eyes when he’d looked at Jillian.

  Or Lacy’s husband when he looked at her.

  A smile kept playing with the corner of her lips, one she couldn’t control. She hadn’t felt like this since she had been a young girl. He had been seventeen; she had been fifteen. It had been before.

  Before the world had changed to darkness.

  He had moved on with his life by the time she even realized there was life still left in her. Those years after Sierra had been some of the darkest of her life. And it ha
dn’t helped that she’d lost both of her parents four years after that.

  All she’d had since then had been Margo and Thomason. Though she suspected he had delayed retirement because he’d not wanted to leave her alone.

  But now...she and Virat hadn’t discussed exactly what they were doing.

  It could be that it was just friends that had turned into something sexual. Fin wasn’t stupid, nor was she not aware that those types of situations weren’t all that uncommon. Rumor mill at FCGH had long made that abundantly clear.

  But she didn’t think it was that.

  She hoped.

  Heck, Fin was probably the worst person she knew at figuring out actual relationship-type stuff.

  She needed help.

  Her meeting had gone well with Rafe, but the hospital was going to face some direct changes. No surprise. It had been changing constantly since Dr. Daniels had been arrested for prostitution.

  Rafe was one of those good changes. And he was determined to make Finley Creek General as best it could be.

  Fin was just as determined to help him do that.

  But right now, she didn’t need her boss. Fin needed other women.

  She headed toward the ER. The first person she saw was Nikkie Jean.

  Something was going on with the other woman, but Fin hadn’t been able to figure out what it was yet. Nikkie Jean looked green around the gills. And shaky. “Hey, Nik. Are you doing ok?”

  The other woman bolted straight toward the nearest restroom. Fin followed. Hopefully, Nikkie Jean made it in time. And they couldn’t have a sick physician on the clock. Too easy to spread germs that way.

  She waited until Nikkie Jean emerged, pale as a ghost and shaking. With tears on her cheeks. “Hey, you need a few days off?”

  “Maybe. I think I ate some bad fish last night.”

  “Nik, you don’t eat fish.” Her friend was adamantly against seafood of any kind. Nikkie Jean claimed it had always made her ill.

  “I tried some last night at the diner because it smelled good. You’d think I’d remember, right?”

  “You want a shot of something to settle your stomach?”

  “I’m good now, I think. But remind me never to eat fish again. What are you doing out here? I thought Rafe was keeping you locked up in his inner sanctum while he dealt with those buyers?”

  Fin nodded. It wasn’t what she wanted to think about, but the hospital had been sold before. It very well might be sold again.

  The hospital was her family’s legacy, though. And she wanted to protect it as much as she could. Fortunately, Rafe felt the same way, even though his family hadn’t founded it.

  But it had become everyone’s family around there lately. “I needed a break. And some female conversation. The buyers are all men.”

  “They seem ok?” Nikkie asked. “Like they know what they are doing?”

  Fin nodded. She hadn’t been wowed, by any means, but they had impressed her with what they had suggested for the hospital. They’d been sedate and businesslike and experienced.

  If they stuck to what they said, it might be a positive change for the hospital. And maybe then her uncle would step down as head of the board, and some real progress might be made. “They actually might. It could be good for things around here. They have a decent reputation on the east coast, too. But it’s still too early to tell.”

  “So what’s on your mind? I see it in your baby blues, Finnie,” Nikkie Jean said as they headed toward the locker room near the surgical department.

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Fifteen minutes. I had an extremely early surgery today.” A flash of something went over Nikkie Jean’s face. “It didn’t go well.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nikkie Jean was one of the best pediatrics residents Fin had ever seen. Fin had finished her own residency in general practice two years ago. Even though they were around the same age, Nikkie still had a year or two to go. But Nikkie Jean was phenomenal.

  She blew Rafe and Lacy, two other highly gifted physicians, completely out of the water.

  But she took every child patient to heart.

  Nikkie Jean’s heart bruised too easily for this job sometimes.

  “There may still be a full recovery, but the odds are far longer than I wanted.”

  Fin just nodded. She understood.

  They had just hit the corner of the corridor when a man in dark-green scrubs rounded it.

  Fin smacked straight into his chest.

  “I’m sorry. I really need to check the mirrors—” They had safety mirrors to make certain gurneys didn’t collide, but Fin sometimes forgot to even look. She looked up at her victim.

  Brown eyes were looking down at her.

  Strong hands wrapped around her waist.

  “Hi.” The word came out soft and breathless.

  Oh, hell. She just wanted to curl up right against that chest for the rest of the night. Maybe forever.

  Fin laid her head over her his heart for half a second.

  They weren’t exactly hiding what was happening between them—but they weren’t shouting it from the rooftops, either.

  She turned her head.

  And looked right into Nikkie Jean’s laughing hazel eyes.

  Chapter 24

  Virat fought back the thrill of satisfaction. Her cheeks had turned bright red when she’d looked up at him. And she’d smiled just for him. He didn’t want to let her go, but they were in the middle of the main corridor that connected the ER to the backside of the surgical department. Anyone besides Nikkie Jean could come along at any moment. “Hey, yourself.”

  Virat looked at the other woman next to Fin. They were close to the same height and build. Nikkie Jean was darker, the hair was a few shades past honey, and the eyes were an almost exact same honey colored.

  Today, Nikkie Jean was far paler than Fin. He suspected his favorite resident pediatric surgeon wasn’t feeling all that great today. But her characteristic devil grin was flirting with her lips.

  Nikkie Jean knew and was quietly giving her approval.

  Virat smirked back. “Weren’t you going somewhere tonight, brat? Choir practice or something like that?”

  “Yes,” Nikkie Jean drew it out. “But...Fin’s my singing buddy, Vir. You have to let her go so we can cross the parking lot. Don’t worry. We’ll hold hands. And you can watch us from the window.”

  She came across as quiet and reserved at first, but once she got to know people and got comfortable, Nikkie Jean was the most incorrigible woman he had ever seen. But she was loyal. She wouldn’t spill the knowledge of him and Fin until Fin was ready.

  He hesitated. Virat had a meeting with Rafe and Allen in ten minutes that he couldn’t miss.

  But he didn’t like the thought of her crossing the parking lot without him. Not until the stalker was found. Other than within the walls of the hospital itself, she hadn’t been out of his sight for the last week.

  His eyes met Fin’s. “You ok?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m not alone, Vir. I know that.”

  “Go. I’ll watch from the window. Rafe and Allen will just have to wait.”

  Nikkie Jean shot him a look. One filled with suspicion and questions.

  Fin pulled away. “Someone has been leaving letters on my car. I’ve spoken with the police, but...”

  Nikkie Jean’s eyes widened. Her hand wrapped around Fin’s.

  But the questions didn’t come. Just silent support.

  “I’ll stay with her, Virat. I promise.”

  Chapter 25

  Fin couldn’t stop laughing. Nikkie Jean had been singing the kissing song to her since they’d stepped out of the side entrance to the ER. She also hadn’t let go of Fin’s hand and kept swinging her arm.

  If it hadn’t been raining, and Nikkie Jean hadn’t been a little green still, no doubt the other woman would have been skipping. It was no wonder the kids they treated loved Nikkie Jean. “You are crazy.”

  “You’d better believe it. Sorry
about the letters, Fin. I know how scared you must be.”

  Nikkie Jean had her own issues from her past that made her have some anxieties she did her best to hide. But Fin knew. W4HAV was Nikkie Jean’s safe place, too.

  The apple-green sign was right there across the parking lot. Beckoning. Fin shivered. Something didn’t feel quite right.

  Probably because she’d had Virat with her almost every second she’d been off the clock for the last week. She’d grown to depend on him. That thought scared her, too.

  “I’m doing ok. I trust Vince’s son to find the man responsible.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a man, you know. Women stalk other women.”

  “True. I just...I suppose it could be a woman.”

  Nikkie Jean gave an exaggerated shiver. “But at least you have Virat watching over you. And the way he looked at you...yummy.”

  “Yes. He is.” Nikkie Jean and Virat played off each other. He acted as the straight man for a lot of Nikkie Jean’s jokes.

  And he had told her how alone he worried Nikkie Jean actually was. Told her how thrilled he’d been when she’d started running around with Izzie and Annie. That Nikkie Jean had needed people. Virat cared a great deal for Nikkie Jean. Genuinely cared for her.

  It had been sweet. Virat had taken it on himself to play the big brother role as much as Nikkie Jean would let him.

  Just another way he floored her with how kind and compassionate he actually was.

  “Extremely yummy. The yummiest man I have ever met,” Fin said, slowly, as they got closer to where she had parked that morning. Nikkie Jean was a few spaces up. She’d grab her bag of spare clothes—the heels she wore were killers, and after choir practice, they were going to be decorating the large rec room in the center of the charity. It had started off as a small, one-floor charity only a month ago, but the space was needed.

  Then they’d book it across the parking lot and out of the rain.

  They were already soaked.

  Nikkie Jean headed back toward her, laughing as rain plastered her clothes to her skin.