She imagined squeezing her clitoris while Gail worked the muscles in her ass until she came. Seconds, it would only take seconds. Jett jerked her hand from beneath her body and gripped the rough cotton sheets.

“Lift your hips.” Gail tugged at the waistband of Jett’s pants. Then she palmed the small, firm mounds of Jett’s ass and massaged them in firm circles. Jett moaned. “You see. You need this, I can tell.”

Gail leaned away for a second, and then Jett felt a trickle of oil run into the cleft between her buttocks. Gail’s thumbs followed, digging into the muscles on either side. Jett was so hard the pressure was painful and she desperately wanted to masturbate.

“Turn over. I should do your chest too.”

Jett’s brain was too muddled for her to do anything except obey.

With her pants pushed almost below her pelvis, she turned awkwardly, exposing the triangle of blond hair between her legs. She thought she saw Gail glance down, but her vision was hazy and she wasn’t sure. She bunched the sheets in her fists on either side of her body as Gail pressed both hands to her chest. Gail’s face was very close, leaning over her, as she smoothed her palms in circles from Jett’s breastbone out to her shoulders. Jett’s breasts ached and her nipples throbbed.

“I told you you needed this,” Gail whispered, her lips moist and full. “Aren’t I right?”

“I need…” Jett whispered.

“What? What do you need?”

Viciously, Jett twisted the shower dial to cold, gasping in shock as the frigid stream pounded against her head and shoulders. She braced one arm against the slick wall, panting as she fought to escape from the memories. She needed to come. Her legs shook and she locked her knees to stay upright. With a groan, she slid one hand between her legs and gripped her clitoris. She kept her eyes open as she squeezed and tugged, not wanting to come with Gail’s face dancing on the inside of her eyelids. She was close, so close. She leaned her forehead against the wall, fingers circling frantically. She heard Gail’s voice.

You see. You needed this.

“No,” Jett groaned, yanking her hand away. But it was too late and she was coming. She sank to her knees, closing her eyes in surrender.

“Jett?” Linda called, knocking on Jett’s door.

Jett sat on the side of her bed, dressed in clean black pants and T-shirt. She’d been sitting there for a long time, her mind mercifully blank. The second time Linda called her name, she rubbed her face and took a deep breath. Squaring her shoulders, she prepared herself to get on with business. She still had a while to go on her shift, and even if they got called with five minutes left, they’d go out.

“Come on in.” When Linda entered, Jett asked, “Another flight request?”

Linda shook her head. “We just got a call from risk management. They want flight records from one of our runs.”

“The boy with the burns?” Risk management pulled records when a case was under review or someone lodged a complaint. Jett searched her memory for anything unusual about the recovery or transport. True, she’d flown during the electrical storm, but she couldn’t imagine who would have complained about that. And certainly not so soon.

“No, sorry,” Linda said, sounding rattled. Jett could never remember her being the slightest bit off balance. “Not this shift, but one from last week.”

“Which one?”

“The multivehicle accident—the one with the governor’s daughter in-law.”

The flight where she’d first met Tristan. Jett hadn’t seen her recently, but then she wouldn’t. They worked in different parts of the hospital. She might never see her again. When her stomach tightened, she ignored it and asked sharply, “Why? What’s going on?”

Linda’s expression was grim. “I made a few calls to the nurses in the TICU right after I got off the phone with the admin from risk management. The patient arrested last night.”

“She died?” Jett wasn’t surprised, but she hated to hear it. A trauma victim who made it to the hospital alive, especially a young patient, had a very good chance of survival. Sometimes, though, even the best chance wasn’t enough.

“No, they got her back, but she’s in a coma and they’re not sure about brain function.”

“I don’t get it,” Jett said. “What does it have to do with us?”

“I’m not sure, but they want flight logs and our scene reports.”

“Okay. I’ll get my records together. You and Juan do the same. Just make sure everything you documented is accurate and complete. It was a clean run.”

“I wonder if Tristan knows.” Linda bit her lip absently. “I’m not sure if she’s working today. Maybe I should call her.”

“Risk management must have contacted her too.”

“You’re probably right.” Linda sighed. “I’ll go get started on the paperwork.”

Alone again, Jett thought back to the morning she’d spent stretched out beside Tristan in the sun. She’d never done anything like that with anyone. Just talked. There had never been anyone to talk to when she was growing up, and she’d gone right into the service after high school.

It was the quickest way she knew to get to fly. She’d made friends, of a sort. Mostly men and some women who shared the Army experience and the love of flying. No one asked about her. Where she came from or what mattered to her. Or maybe they had, and she’d shut them out.

She was good at that and it always worked. Except it hadn’t worked with Tristan.

For a second, she wished she had another hour in the shade of that oak tree to look forward to. Then she shook her head, having learned once already not to give in to wishes. She grabbed her overnight bag and headed toward the small office on the other side of the lounge where they kept their paperwork. She had a report to review, and then another twelve hours until she could return.

Chapter Eight

I’m going to take an early dinner break,” Tristan told the nurse anesthetist on call with her, a burly guy who had been a medic in the Navy before going to nursing school.

“Sure.” He grabbed the sports section from a pile of eviscerated newspapers on the table in the OR lounge and headed toward the men’s locker room. “It’ll be an hour before they get that femur washout over here anyhow.”

“Page me when the family shows up so I can get the consent.”

“No problem.”

Alone, Tristan surveyed the stark lounge and the detritus of the day’s activities. Crumpled newspapers, empty fast-food bags, coffee cups upside down by the sink. A scrub shirt rolled into a ball and tossed into a corner of the couch. A haphazardly folded blanket that before morning would cover someone—surgeon, nurse, OR tech—as they slept on the sofa waiting for the next patient to arrive. When the routine cases of the day were finished and the day shift went home, Tristan always felt a little bit marooned, as if she were completely cut off from the rest of the world, disconnected even from her own life. The handful of staff left behind to cover emergencies during the night assumed the attitude of front-line soldiers, resigned to hold on until reinforcements returned in the morning. Until the sun came up, no matter what came through the door—multiple traumas, gunshot wounds, burns, exsanguinating postoperative patients, obstetrical catastrophes—the team taking night call had to be up to the task.

Because no one stood behind them.

Tristan pulled on one of the shapeless green OR cover gowns and took the stairs down to the cafeteria on the second floor. She ordered the special and carried her tray into the dining area, checking out the occupants. When she saw Jett at the table where she’d been sitting the week before, she sighed inwardly, admitting she’d been hoping to see her. She’d had a lousy day and the worst was yet to come. The prospect of a few minutes talking to Jett inexplicably cut through the gloom. When she raised her tray in a questioning gesture to Jett, she held her breath. She’d looked for Jett every night since that night in the helicopter on the roof, but she hadn’t seen her. Maybe Jett had been avoiding her. A long minute passed, and Tristan forced a smile before starting to turn away. Then Jett beckoned her over, and a bit of the unfamiliar abandoned feeling disappeared.

“How’s the chicken à la king?” Tristan asked, setting down her tray.

“Is that what this is?” Jett’s voice rose in surprise.

“That good, huh?” Tristan laughed. “I am capable of talking about more than hospital food, but I figured since you already taste-tested it…”

“It’s hot. I recognize pretty much everything that’s in it.” Jett grinned. “That makes it close to gourmet food.”

“Is military food really that bad?”

“Not stateside. But you can’t expect much when you’re deployed.”

Busy sprinkling pepper over her meal, Tristan asked offhandedly, “You miss it at all?” When Jett didn’t answer, she looked up. Jett’s face had gone completely blank. “Sorry. Someday if you ever want to talk about it…” She let the words trail off because she realized she was being presumptuous. Whatever secrets Jett harbored were clearly not happy ones. “You know what. I’m a jerk. Just forget I said that.”

“Why did you?” Jett pushed her tray aside and focused on Tristan.

Maybe Tristan was just one of those curious people who befriended everyone casually. She’d known plenty of people like that in the Army, men and women alike. People who would talk to anyone about anything because they enjoyed social interaction, or they just liked the sound of their own voices. Jett had never been like that. She didn’t share what was important to her with anyone, because she didn’t trust anyone that much. She’d learned that lesson at a young age after her brothers scoffed at her dreams and her father tried to beat her into the shape he thought a woman should assume.