Winds of Fortune

Returning Tides

Sheltering Dunes

First Responders Novels

Trauma Alert

Firestorm

Oath of Honor

Taking Fire

Wild Shores

Short Fiction

Collected Stories by Radclyffe

Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace

Radical Encounters

Edited by Radclyffe:

Best Lesbian Romance 2009-2014

Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.

Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments

Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love

Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions

Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games

Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery

Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets

Breathless: Tales of Celebration

Women of the Dark Streets

Amore and More: Love Everafter

Myth & Magic: Queer Fairy Tales

By L.L. Raand

Midnight Hunters

The Midnight Hunt

Blood Hunt

Night Hunt

The Lone Hunt

The Magic Hunt

Shadow Hunt

Acknowledgments

A return to the Rivers series is like coming home to friends, family, and warm fires (or sunny afternoons, as the season dictates). The challenge of the familiar, in life as in fiction, is to embrace change as we preserve what keeps us strong. In the romance documentary Love Between the Covers, Jayne Krantz makes the point that readers find in romances the core values they aspire to emulate or experience in life, not “just” love and passion, but valor, loyalty, bravery, and heroism. What I love about writing and reading romances, whether stand-alones or a series romance, is the story of two people overcoming obstacles in their journey toward commitment within the context of a larger duty—to family, community, and the world we live in. Our romances tell powerful stories of individuals who risk all to live honest and meaningful lives. The Rivers community is one born of history, heritage, and inclusiveness. I hope you enjoy your time there.

Many thanks go to: senior editor Sandy Lowe for a partnership that keeps BSB running smoothly while I write, editor Ruth Sternglantz for never missing a beat, editor Stacia Seaman for her irreplaceable expertise, Sheri Halal for a perfect cover, and my first readers Paula, Eva, and Connie for encouragement and aid.

And as always, thanks to Lee for her indomitable spirit of adventure. Amo te.

Radclyffe, 2016

To Lee, for always answering

Chapter One

Glenn opened her eyes in the dark, not awakening so much as emerging from a void. She didn’t have to look at the clock to know it was two thirty. No matter what time she fell asleep, she always opened her eyes at two thirty. She didn’t dream, had taught herself not to. Sleep was a blank, an enforced respite from thought and memory. An absence of awareness wasn’t exactly restful, but her body required the recovery time in order for her to perform at peak efficiency, so she maintained a regular sleep schedule, even if the actual hours she slept were erratic. She turned on her side. Two thirty-seven.

Outside the open window, the night was silent. If she listened very hard she might hear some distant sound—a freight train chugging along the river, a coyote or two calling for the pack, a branch falling from the big pines that bordered the parking lot behind the empty store beneath her apartment. Not tonight, though. The night was as empty as her dreamless sleep had been.

Her cell phone emitted a series of staccato beeps, the closest approximation she’d been able to get to her field radio, the familiarity an odd comfort. She reached for it with a quick easing of the heaviness in her chest.

“Archer.”

“Hey, Glenn.” Cindy Ames’s soft voice was instantly recognizable. Cindy was the head night nurse in the ER, and she and Glenn had spent many hours working together over the last three years. “I’m really sorry to wake you up.”

“No problem. I was awake.”

Cindy laughed briefly. “If you were, I hope you’re doing something fun. But I’m in a jam and I know you’re not on call for surgery anymore, but—”

“That doesn’t matter.” Phone to her ear, Glenn slid naked from beneath the sheet and pulled scrub pants from the neat pile she’d left on the straight-backed wooden chair next to her bed. She’d planned to wear them her first day on the job as director of the physician assistant program in the morning. “What’s going on?”

“Flann’s in the OR with Pete doing a blocked A-V shunt, and I can’t reach Dr. Williams. He’s backup for surgery tonight. I’ve got a lady here whose foot looks really bad. I’d wait for Flann, but—”

“I’ll come over and take a look. Be there in ten minutes. Did you get X-rays?”

“Yeah, I did, and something is weird.”

“Okay, you know what to do until I get there.”

“You’re a savior,” Cindy said.

“Yeah,” Glenn said flatly as Cindy rang off.

A savior.

Nothing could be further from the truth. For an instant, the tally of the dead rolled through her mind along with the memory of acid smoke and the copper taste of blood and fear in her throat. Too many to count, too many without names. But the faces never faded even though she’d taught herself not to let them haunt her, just as she’d taught herself not to dream. But some things could never be erased, not when they were tattooed into your bone and chiseled onto your soul. The dead were as much a part of her as her beating heart.

But not tonight. Tonight she tended the living.

She scooped up her keys, wallet, and phone and let the screen door click shut behind her on her way out. She didn’t bother to lock up—there wasn’t anything inside worth stealing. Her footsteps on the wooden staircase spiraling down the back of the building to the parking lot followed her like so many ghosts. Her ragtop Wrangler was the only vehicle in the tiny lot behind the consignment shop and its neighbors on either side, the pizza place and an antique store. Ordinarily she’d walk the mile up the hill to the Rivers where it looked down over the town and the valley like a conscience reminding everyone that life was fleeting and fickle. But Cindy was an experienced nurse, and if something about this patient bothered her enough to call for help rather than wait the hour or two for Flann or the PA to be available, then she might not have the luxury of the fifteen-minute walk. Instead, she was pulling around to the staff lot in less than five.

The ER would be empty at this time of night, unless somewhere on a nearby highway a thrill-riding teenager had misjudged a curve or a farmer had another case of indigestion that wouldn’t let him breathe or a baby decided to exit the comfort and safety of the womb. But the only vehicles in the lot adjacent to the emergency entrance were those of the staff and an idling sheriff’s patrol car whose occupant was probably inside scoring a cup of almost-fresh coffee. When she pushed through the big double doors into the wide, tiled corridor leading past reception, the bright lights shocked every sense sharply online. Her head cleared of memories and misgivings, and her vision snapped into crystal focus. Somewhere around the corner an elevator door clanked open, a power floor polisher whirred, and someone laughed. In the empty waiting area, a weather map scrolled across the TV screen, tracking tornados in a part of the country she’d never visited and doubted she’d ever see.

Cindy looked up at the sound of footsteps, relief erasing the lines of tension above her bright blue eyes. She must have been in her early thirties, but her creamy complexion could’ve been that of a twenty-year-old. “I owe you.”

“You sure do,” Glenn said. “Half a dozen of those chocolate chip cookies—the ones with the nuts—ought to do it.”

Cindy laughed and pushed blond hair away from her face. A small diamond and accompanying gold band glinted on her left hand. “Then you’re in luck, because I promised the kids I’d bake tomorrow.”

“What have you got?” Glenn leaned an elbow on the high counter that sectioned off the work area from the rest of the ER. The whiteboard on the wall to her right was divided into rows, each with a number indicating the patient room and the names of those who occupied it. Only one was filled in, number seven. Down the left-hand side someone had printed the names of the doctors on call in black block letters. She scanned it, suppressing a grunt when she saw Williams next to surgery backup. He was notoriously unreliable, often taking hours to answer his pages and, even when he did, reluctant to come in. More often than not when she’d been taking first call in the ER and had a patient who needed to go to the OR, she’d call Flann. Flannery Rivers never complained about taking an emergency, whether she was technically on call or not. Williams would bitch and gripe if he had to get out of his warm bed in the upscale Saratoga suburb and drive down to take care of someone who might die if he didn’t come. On the other hand, he never complained if he happened to hear that an emergency had come through that Flann had handled instead of him, as if it was his due that other people make his life easier.

She let go of the pulse of anger. He was an ass and not worth her time. Since returning to civilian life, she’d mostly shed the reflex need to keep everyone around her on track and doing their jobs. All she could do was give every case her best. That would have to be enough. She told herself that a dozen times a day, and someday she might even believe it.

Glenn focused on the vital signs and brief history recorded on the ER intake sheet Cindy handed her.

“Naomi Purcell,” Cindy recapped as Glenn read. “Thirty-five years old and healthy. Married, three kids. They have a small herd of dairy cows down on Route 4 by the river. She came in with a fever and an infection in her left lower leg. It seems she got tangled up in some old barbed wire pulling a calf out of the brush this morning. Now her leg is red and hot and tender.”