Frankie doesn’t need a hero...

But can she fight her attraction to Nate?

Paramedic Frankie Bryce is finally over her crush on her late brother’s best friend, former navy SEAL Nate Oliver—but he returns to their hometown acting as if she’s still the wild child teenager he has to protect (he promised her brother he would!). Frankie’s all woman now, and definitely doesn’t need rescuing! Trouble is, this super-sexy hero is impossible to ignore...

With two beautiful daughters, LUCY RYDER has had to curb her adventurous spirit and settle down. But because she’s easily bored by routine she’s turned to writing as a creative outlet, and to romances because—‘What else is there other than chocolate?’ Characterised by friends and family as a romantic cynic, Lucy can’t write serious stuff to save her life. She loves creating characters who are funny, romantic and just a little cynical.

Also By Lucy Ryder

Resisting Her Rebel HeroTamed by Her Army Doc’s TouchFalling at the Surgeon’s FeetCaught in a Storm of Passion

Rebels of Port St John’s miniseries

Rebel Doc on Her DoorstepResisting Her Commander Hero

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Resisting Her Commander Hero

Lucy Ryder

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07494-0

RESISTING HER COMMANDER HERO

© 2018 Bev Riley

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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As always, to my family.

Especially my daughters Kate and Ash.

You are, and always will be, everything to me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

“LOWER THE BASKET!” yelled paramedic Francis Abigail Bryce into her headset over the whop-whop-whop of the helicopter hovering a hundred feet overhead. Wind and rain lashed at the ledge on which she was crouched, shielding the fallen climber.

If she slipped it was a long way down and probably wouldn’t end well. It wasn’t exactly how she’d envisioned spending her Friday evening but when word had come through from the rangers’ station earlier that a climber had fallen, Frankie had been dispatched to the scene.

Further up the coast from the large seaside town of Port St. John’s on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, heavy rains had caused a huge landslide and rescue teams were busy digging out survivors. With the storm wreaking havoc on the Juan de Fuca Strait, rescue personnel were stretched to the limit.

Frankie had returned with a few of the injured and then been the lucky candidate in the wrong place at the wrong darn time. Now, instead of providing emergency medical care at the site of the slide, she was clinging to a slick ledge only a few feet wide and a couple hundred feet from certain death because a group had thought it smart to go climbing in torrential rain.

She looked down into the guy’s youthful face and shook her head. Probably a student on spring break, she thought. EMTs were always busy this time of the year, rescuing kids from their own ambitions.

“Hang in there, handsome,” she yelled, aware that in the fifteen minutes she’d been there, he’d been slipping in and out of consciousness. She suspected a ruptured spleen and she’d already wrapped his leg in an inflatable compression cast.

Concerned about what was taking so long, Frankie looked up as a deep voice in her ear warned, “Heads up,” and the next instant a large figure dropped onto the ledge. Dressed in a red and black jumpsuit and wearing a half-face helmet with comms mouthpiece, he looked like a huge bug from an alien world.

Frankie didn’t need to see his eyes to know who it was. The hard, masculine jaw and the unsmiling line of his sensual mouth would have been a dead giveaway even if the hair on the back of her neck hadn’t stood up like a freaked-out cat.

Nathan Oliver. The man who’d been back for months without at least letting her know he was home.

What the hell was he doing here? Wasn’t he some super-secret commander of the Maritime Security Response Team or something? Unless her patient was a terrorist, or a foreign national in the country illegally—which Frankie doubted—she was pretty sure a member of the nation’s deployable operations group stationed at Port St. John’s wouldn’t normally be part of search and rescue.

Then again, maybe the landslide and current conditions in the strait had put all coasties on call, including the MSRT. And, yeah, wasn’t it just peachy that he had to be the one dropping from the sky?

Unhooking his line from the chopper, he gave a couple of hand signals to the pilot above before his safety line disappeared into the lashing rain.

With her heart in her throat, Frankie ruthlessly squelched the urge to reach out and grab him before rotor wash blew him off the ledge. Or maybe before she gave him a little shove over the edge herself.

Okay, fine, so maybe she was tempted for about a nanosecond, but even though Nathan Oliver was the last person she wanted to see, she didn’t want him to die either.

They’d meant too much to each other—once.

Besides, balanced on the rocky ledge and sure-footed and powerful as a mountain lion, Nate was more than capable of rescuing them both. He’d been a Navy SEAL before transferring to the Pacific North West unit of the US Coast Guard as Lieutenant Commander of the MSRT. Granted, the present conditions probably weren’t the worst he’d experienced, but even he couldn’t walk up sheer cliffs in this weather.

He dropped to his haunches beside her and she felt the sweep of his penetrating gaze. The resultant shiver, she told herself, was from being soaked through and freezing. It couldn’t be that he still affected her.

That ship had sailed a lifetime ago and Frankie didn’t make a habit of repeating her mistakes. Especially the very public ones that had devastated not only her pride but also her heart.

She saw his mouth form words that looked like, “You okay?”

But instead of replying, she yelled, “Where’s the basket? He’s going into shock.”

He pointed skyward and she looked up to see the rescue litter swinging wildly in the gusting wind as it descended toward them. Nate barked out an order to the chopper and the pilot edged closer to the cliff face. But instead of controlling the swing, it caused the litter to spin.

He rose to his feet in one smooth move and stretched out a long arm to snag it. Almost in slow motion, Frankie watched as it abruptly shifted in the wind. She opened her mouth to yell a warning as the medevac litter flew through the air toward him.

He saw it coming too late to get out the way and it clipped him on the side of his helmet, sending him staggering backward toward the edge.

Time slowed and stretched, narrowing into an endless tunnel of pure horror as Nate fought to regain his balance. Then his foot slipped and in that split second before he went over, his gaze caught and held hers.

In that timeless instant, all the wild conflicting emotions she’d managed to suppress for twelve long years exploded through her, blinding her to everything but him.

Everything but the need to keep him from disappearing from her life forever. And before she realized she was moving, Frankie rose and leapt for him in one desperate move.

She reacted. As she always did.

Fear gave her strength and speed and before she could even process her actions, her icy fingers closed around his harness. Her momentum sent her thudding into him and Frankie wrapped her legs around him like a vice as they shot off the ledge.

Through the frantic yelling in the comms, she heard him curse as his arms enveloped her like banded steel. Her line went slack and for one awful moment she thought they were headed for the bottom of the gorge. She sucked in a breath, tightened her grip and pressed her face into Nate’s throat, thinking stupidly that maybe it wasn’t such a bad way to go.

Wrapped around his big tough body and with his uniquely potent masculine scent filling her lungs, Frankie could think of a dozen worse places to be.

It was the closest she’d been to him in twelve years. The closest she’d been since the night of her eighteenth birthday, the night he’d completely humiliated her in front of half the town.

He’d been around forever and as well as she’d thought she’d known him, she couldn’t have known how much he’d changed or that he’d lost friends on his last mission. He’d looked the same—although bigger, harder and fitter—and acted the same as the boy she’d known her whole life. And if she’d noticed the closed-off expression in his eyes, the tight line of his mouth and jaw that night, she’d put it down to typical male arrogance and the fact that he was a member of the nation’s elite fighting force, mixing with a bunch of wild immature teenagers all because she’d begged him to come to her party.

She should have known better than to try to measure up to all the women in his life. To him she’d always just been his best friend’s kid sister; wild, reckless—always wanting to tag along.

Besides, she’d never measured up, to him or to her brother Jack. At least not in her parents’ eyes. Jack had been their golden child and Nate, popular, sporty and incredibly smart, was like their second son. They’d excelled at everything and it had been daunting, living in their shadow.

The birthday incident had been humiliating and she’d said things that filled her with guilt and shame whenever she thought about them. She’d lost him that day...and then seven years later she’d lost Jack in a mortar attack.

Her champions. Her own personal superheroes.

Frankie’s heart squeezed. And now she and Nate were heading for the bottom of the gorge and she’d never get the chance to prove that she’d—

The safety line abruptly snapped taut, halting their graceful pendulum arc into empty space; halting the wild, regretful thoughts flashing through Frankie’s mind. The next instant they were headed straight for the unforgiving rocky surface of the cliff face.

She tensed, because this was going to hurt.

Nate tried to turn, probably to take the brunt of the impact, but Frankie was attached to the safety line and the collision was hard enough to force the air from her lungs...and Nate’s big warm muscular body between her thighs.

Stars exploded behind her eyes. Whether they were from the jolt to her skull or his hard, tough body, Frankie wasn’t sure. But it was enough to rattle loose her good sense and cause some seriously inappropriate thoughts to flash through her mind, sending heat exploding through her body.

Nate Oliver was still the hottest man she’d ever known. The kind of hot that made women think inappropriate thoughts even while dangling hundreds of feet in the air by a slender nylon rope, and one wrong move away from falling to their deaths.

“Don’t look down,” he ordered. “And for God’s sake don’t let go. Not yet.”

Of course Frankie didn’t listen. Craning her neck, she looked down and then promptly wished she hadn’t when a distressed squeak escaped without permission. All she could see beneath her was a dark cold emptiness. Vertigo abruptly clamped queasy fingers around her throat and her belly churned.

“Dammit, Frankie,” Nate growled in her ear. “I said don’t look down.”

She wanted to tell him that he wasn’t the boss of her but her breath was lodged in her throat and she could only gasp.

Oh, God. How mortifying. Inside, Fearless Frankie—Port St. John’s former wild child—was freaking out.

“I’m going to let you go,” Nate said calmly, and it took a couple of beats for his words to register.

When they did, she snapped, “No!” and tightened her grip on him. No way was he letting go.

“Just enough to free my hands and feet,” he explained quietly. “Then I’m going to crab-walk us to the ledge. Okay?”

She wanted to say no, but she knew it would take a little strain off the safety line and keep it from shearing off on the rocky outcroppings.

She really, really didn’t want that to happen.

She looked up at the suspended medevac litter, which was now hanging motionless a few feet to her left.

Go figure.

Gritting her teeth, she nodded jerkily, tightening her grip on Nate’s harness. Her thighs clenched around him until they ached, and all she could think was, Thank God for all those squats and lunges I’ve been doing lately.

“Good girl,” he murmured, and she wanted to snort because she was about as far from being a good girl as they were from the ground. He eased his grip until all that kept him from succumbing to the law of gravity were her arms and legs.

He murmured into his comms and then with his feet planted flat against the cliff face, he began to move them toward the ledge.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute since Frankie’s spectacular leap off the edge but her muscles had begun to shake and she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to hold on.

Beneath Nate’s jumpsuit, muscles bunched and flexed, giving her a few more inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts that might have freaked her out if she hadn’t been closer to death than she liked. Frankly, in the circumstances, she figured she was allowed.

Besides, it had been so long since she’d had inappropriate thoughts of any kind that she might as well enjoy them. They were the closest she’d had to actual sex in forever.

Finally, the tension on her harness lessened and Nate straightened, big feet planted shoulder width apart.

After a couple of beats he said, “You can let go now, Francis,” the dry tone as much as his use of the hated name bringing her head up. The first thing she saw was his mouth, beautifully sculpted and much too tempting.

Tearing her gaze away, she looked up into eyes as dark and fathomless as the death they’d just escaped. Sometime in the past couple of minutes—probably while she’d been having those hot thoughts—he’d lifted his visor and the warmth in his usually unreadable gaze stunned her.

“You okay?” His mouth was barely an inch away and all it would take was one tiny move from her and—

Spooked, Frankie flashed a quick look to the left and saw they were once more on the ledge. Her patient, wrapped in a silver emergency blanket, was a few feet away, waiting for her to get her act together.

“I’m fine,” she croaked, her throat desert dry and tight with tension while adrenaline still pumped through her at their near disaster.

Eager to put a little distance between them, Frankie released the stranglehold she had on him and slid to the ground until all that connected them were her fingers still locked on his harness.

“Francis.”

She opened her mouth in a snarled protest but it gave her the impetus she needed to let him go. She might have pushed away from him if they hadn’t been perched on a narrow, slick ledge and she hadn’t just taken a decade off her life with that one daring leap.

“You good?” he asked again, ducking his head to look into her eyes. He must have been reassured because he didn’t wait for her to reply. “Help me secure the PEP so we can get off this ledge.”

Frankie shook her head even though she knew he meant the patient extrication platform. Sucking in a shaky breath to still the churning in her gut, she shoved all her messy emotions aside and got her head in the game. She had a patient who needed her undivided attention and the litter swaying gently just over their heads was waiting to airlift him to the closest trauma center.

Everything else could wait. Including her freak-out because no way was anyone witnessing that.

Within minutes, they’d transferred the student to the backboard and strapped him into the litter. Nate then reattached the hoisting strapline and with a hand signal from him, Frankie’s patient rose into the air. She watched as hands reached out to snag the litter and pull it aboard the chopper before expelling the breath she’d been holding.

Litter rescues occasionally went bad but, despite the rocky start that had almost cost Nate his life, this one had gone relatively smoothly. But she wanted to be off the ledge before something else went wrong. Before she lost the tight grip on her emotions.

She wasn’t looking forward to climbing back the way she’d come either. Her arms and legs shook, which would make the ascent a little tricky even though the rangers at the top had set up a standing body belay and would take most of her weight as she “walked” up the cliff face.

She’d wait until Nate left with the chopper before attempting the ascent for fear of completely humiliating herself any further.

Out of the darkness the hoisting strapline appeared again and Frankie let out a tiny relieved breath. Any minute now she’d be free to fall apart without an audience.

She watched Nate catch the metal connector clip and murmur something that she couldn’t quite catch. Now would be a good time for Fearless Frankie to regain control, she thought, because smartass and cocky was way better than cowering, trembling and freaked out.

She gave a cocky grin and quipped, “So long, soldier,” adding a snappy salute for good measure.

“It’s sailor, not soldier,” he growled, as he unclipped her line and gave it a quick tug.

“What are you doing?” she snapped in outrage, making a grab for it, but it was already out of reach as the rangers above reeled it in. She turned on him with a snarled “Are you insane?” but he ignored her, snapping her onto his harness capture strap. Of course, she tried to stop him but he brushed her hands aside with a quick impatient flick and hooked them both to the hoisting line.

Eyes on hers, he wrapped his arms around her and said, “Trust me.”

The words had her heart lurching as the truth landed like a punch to the solar plexus. God, she did. Didn’t want to...but did.

“No,” she lied, but he must have read the reluctant truth in her eyes because he said, “Bring us in, Boom,” and the next instant they were airborne.

Frankie swallowed as they swung away from the ledge. She didn’t like the feeling of being suspended in a sea of blackness while wind, rain and rotor wash lashed at them from every side any more than she liked being vulnerable.

To anyone...let alone this man.

She’d tried it once and he’d devastated her, stomping on her tender heart with his size thirteen tactical boots. It was the last time she’d allowed her feelings to show.

“I’ll get you for this, soldier,” she warned through clenched teeth and squeezed her eyes closed against the overwhelming pull of the man pressed intimately against her.

Gone was the cocky, handsome boy who’d treated her with all the indulgent impatience of an older sibling. In his place was a man whose powerful cocktail of tightly coiled testosterone and simmering pheromones was even more treacherously compelling.

Even the expression in his eyes was different—sometimes intense, sometimes brooding but always distantly watchful.

This Nate might look like an older, hotter and harder version of the boy she’d once loved but somewhere along the line he’d acquired a darkness that made him more than dangerous, more than lethal, to women everywhere.

Over the sound of the chopper she heard him yell, “You falling asleep there, spider girl?”

Her eyes popped open and she looked up to see the red and white fuselage looming closer. A couple of visored men watched and controlled their ascent, reminding Frankie of a movie she’d seen about alien abduction.

“No,” she muttered. “I’m pretending I’m on a beach in Hawaii.”

He must have heard because his mouth kicked up at one corner and before she could fully grasp the sudden transformation, hands were reaching for them, pulling them in. The instant she felt the capture strap release, Frankie scrambled over to where a crewman was tending her patient and wondered what she thought she was doing, because she had a feeling that getting sucked into Nate Oliver’s force field again...would be an unmitigated disaster.

Fortunately, she was too smart to let that happen. Way too smart.

Her patient’s eyes were open but he appeared dazed and disorientated. “Focus on me, handsome,” she yelled over the noise of the engine, and quickly freed his arm to set up an IV. “You hang in there, okay?”

Looking up briefly to gauge their ETA, she noticed several pairs of eyes on her and became aware of the grins.

Frowning, she looked around and caught sight of Nate’s expression and by the firm unsmiling line of his sexy mouth, he wasn’t happy. But then again—apart from that flash of wry humor—unsmiling seemed to be his default expression.

At least when it came to her.

Her belly clenched.

“What?”

“Yowza, lady,” a crewman yelled, his wide toothy grin and smooth cheeks all she could see beneath the bug helmet. “You saved Sammy in the most awesome move I ever saw. Ever think of joining the circus?”

Sammy? she thought with a frown. Who the heck is Sammy?

Thinking maybe they were talking about her patient, Frankie drawled, “I’m allergic to rings,” laughing when she was rewarded with confused looks. She shook her head. “Never mind.”

No way was she explaining that one. She’d decided a long time ago that marriage wasn’t for her and guys seemed to think all a woman wanted was a wedding ring and a white picket fence.

Determinedly pushing aside unpleasant thoughts, Frankie willed the chopper to move faster through the air. The sooner they arrived at the hospital, the sooner her patient could be rushed into surgery. And she really needed to escape this inexorable pull Nathan appeared to still have on her double-X chromosome.

CHAPTER TWO

HOURS LATER FRANKIE dragged her weary feet through the ambulance bay doors into ER. The adrenaline had long since faded and she was feeling every strained muscle and ache as though she’d been through a marathon workout session.

Fortunately, the mud slide hadn’t been as extensive as everyone had feared and most people had managed to escape the worst of it. Those that hadn’t had already been admitted or treated and released.

It had probably been the longest shift of her career. Her jumpsuit clung wetly to her skin and her boots squelched with every step. There was also something wrong with her back that she could no longer ignore. She’d check it herself but one of her superpowers wasn’t the ability to make her arms bend the wrong way or her head swivel like an evil toy in a horror movie.

Fortunately, the ER was quiet after the earlier rush and she found the person she was looking for in the staff lounge, stuffing her face with one donut while searching through the bakery box for another.

Paige Carlyle looked as exhausted as Frankie felt. At the sound of the door opening, the petite doctor looked up guiltily—cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s—as though she’d been caught doing something illegal.

“Those things will kill you,” Frankie announced, snagging the full to-go mug off the counter. She swallowed a large mouthful and grimaced. “And so will this.”

“Hey,” Paige objected around a mouthful of pastry, and snatched the cup away, cradling it protectively against her chest. “It’s hot, delicious and I need the sugar.”

“No, you don’t. You need some veggie juice and a nice long soak in a hot tub.”

Paige made a face at the mention of veggie juice. “Yuk, I’m not drinking pond scum,” she declared, gleefully washing down her donut with hot chocolate and making sounds that were a little too disturbing in Frankie’s opinion. Paige reluctantly closed the bakery box and slumped against the counter. “But a long hot soak sounds like heaven. My feet hurt and I haven’t been home in so long Ty’s probably forgotten what I look like.”

“Stop whining. It’s unattractive,” Frankie said with an accusing frown. “And so are your constant reminders that you have a sexy hunk waiting for you with home-cooked meals and daily massages.”

Paige’s mouth curved in a secretive smile and she made another sound that ratcheted Frankie’s irritation level a couple of notches. “You sound jealous,” Paige observed mildly. “Like you want a sexy hunk at home too.”

Frankie snorted. “Who doesn’t?”

“Well, I do know another unattached sexy hunk you might be interested in,” the doctor said craftily.

“Your brother? The air force top gun?” Frankie gave a dramatic sigh. “He’s hot and I just love a man in uniform.”

Paige gagged. “Yuk. No. I was talking about someone in another sector of the armed forces. Say...the Coast Guard?”

“Not interested,” Frankie said promptly. “And I can handle my own love life, thanks.” Or lack thereof, she reminded herself dryly. “You just concentrate on Terrible Ty.”

Tyler Reese had been Nate and Jack’s best friend until the summer they’d turned eighteen. Something had happened that had landed the three friends in a lot of trouble and it had been the last time Ty had been in Port St. John’s—except for Jack’s funeral—until an injury had threatened to end his surgical career. He’d returned to recuperate and had run into Paige on his first night.

Or rather into Paige’s flashlight, which had clearly knocked some sense into him because he’d left his life and big city career to move north.

Paige cleared her throat and stared at Frankie expectantly. “Is there something you need to tell me, Ms. Bryce?” she asked with excruciating politeness.

Frankie frowned at her friend’s tone. “No,” she said warily, and when the doctor just narrowed her eyes, she shrugged and couldn’t stop the sharply indrawn breath at the movement.

Paige must have seen something in her expression because she demanded, “What did you do?”

Of course Frankie answered with an affronted “Nothing,” hoping Paige would drop it because the doctor looked like she needed a break as much as Frankie did. She’d just go home, have a hot shower and fall into bed. She could deal with everything after about twelve hours of shut-eye.

Paige scoffed. “Tell me before I call Ty.” She paused and her gaze turned crafty. “Or better yet, maybe I’ll call a big bad coastie. He can hold you down while I examine you.” Knowing exactly who Paige was talking about, Frankie narrowed her eyes dangerously but her expression clearly didn’t intimidate the medical center’s newest specialist.

“Let’s go,” Paige said, tossing her to-go cup in the trash before moving toward the door, turning impatiently when Frankie didn’t move. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

“An ER physician?”

Paige rolled her eyes because everyone knew that though she was a qualified pediatrician, she was still paying off her state-granted tuition by working in ER. “Your smart mouth doesn’t intimidate me, Ms. Bryce,” she drawled. “Room Four. Stat,” she ordered, before disappearing through the door.

Frankie closed her eyes, her boots rooted to the spot. It wasn’t that she was being deliberately difficult. She was just too tired to move. Oh, yeah, and every breath reminded her of her flying trapeze stunt. Moving required skills she’d temporarily misplaced.

A second later the door opened again and Paige stuck her head inside, scowling when she saw that Frankie hadn’t moved. She narrowed her gaze and gave her cellphone a peremptory waggle. “Now,” she snapped.

Frankie frowned. “Does Ty know how annoying you are?”

“Of course he does,” she announced cheerfully. “It’s one of the things he loves about me.”

Frankie rolled her eyes because Paige was right. Ty did love her. His feelings for the pint-sized Attila the Hun were so obvious that it made Frankie just a little bit jealous.

She wanted someone to look at her like that.

Sighing, because now she was feeling sorry for herself, she followed Paige down the passage into an empty ER room.

“Okay,” the doctor said with her hands on her hips. “What hurts?”

Finding levity in the situation, Frankie snorted and reached for the zipper tab on her jumpsuit. “Maybe you should ask what doesn’t hurt...and go from there?” Maybe she should have gone home before she tried this because there was no way she was going to be able to dress again without bawling like a baby.

Paige pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and studied her. “Lemme guess. You acted rashly during that mountain rescue and you’ve hurt your back.”

“What mountain rescue? How do you know it’s my back?” Frankie demanded irritably. “And I’m never rash—at least, not any more—and not unless I need chocolate. Then all bets are off.”

Paige arched her brow. “It’s the way you’re holding yourself.” She leveled a mildly irritated yet softly understanding look that made Frankie squirm. “And I know you hate being a burden because you harbor what you think is a super-secret need to make amends for your past, Frankie. So you were wild and rebellious.” She shrugged impatiently. “Big deal. We all do dumb stuff when we’re kids.”

Frankie spluttered. “That’s ridiculous. I bet you—”

But Paige interrupted with, “You’re an excellent paramedic—the most advanced one on the coast, actually—but maybe you should think about saving yourself.”

“What does that mean?” Frankie demanded with a scowl.

“It means no woman is an island. It means that you should accept help once in a while. Now would be good...while we’re both still standing.” Paige huffed out a laugh when Frankie rolled her eyes. She reached out to peel the jumpsuit off Frankie’s shoulders and had barely got it halfway down her arms before sucking in a sharp breath.

“Ooh, that’s nasty.”

“What?” Frankie demanded, craning her neck at the tone in Paige’s voice. “What?”

“You really should have had this seen to ages ago,” Paige scolded, and gently pulled Frankie’s wet undershirt away from her back. Frankie must have made a sound because Paige cursed. “Did this happen before or after your Fearless Frankie stunt?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do, since everyone else knows about it,” Paige groused. “And how come I have to hear via the grapevine that you made a superhero save, anyway? I thought best friends told each other everything?”

Not everything...because there were some things a person didn’t share. With anyone. Especially things that made Frankie cringe with shame whenever she thought about them.

Paige huffed and eased Frankie’s bloodied tank top over her head, leaving her in a black sports bra, jumpsuit pooled at her waist. She made a sound of exasperation at what she’d uncovered. “I know we joke about it but, Frankie, really, taking a flying leap off a ledge? What the heck were you thinking?”

Wincing as Paige gently probed a particularly tender spot, Frankie demanded, “Who told you about that?”

“So it’s true?”

She sighed irritably. “It’s complicated... Ouch. That hurts.”

“Not as much as it’s going to,” Paige said shortly. “But seriously? It’s like you have a death wish or something.” Frankie opened her mouth to object but Paige beat her to it with a snapped-out “I’m busy here.” But after a couple of beats she said almost absently, “There’s bruising, a couple of lacerations and some bad grazing. What really happened?”

Frankie gave a negligent shrug. “I got caught between a rock and a hard place.” Paige sighed and began cleaning Frankie’s injuries. “Wanna tell me about it?”

“No,” Frankie said.

At the same time a deep voice drawled from the door, “Yes, Francis, let’s hear all about it.”

She closed her eyes wearily and thought, Not now. Not ever. Or at least not while she was feeling exhausted and raw and couldn’t think of a snappy comeback.

She’d hoped to avoid the lecture she knew was coming but she should have known he would eventually hunt her down. He’d hunted terrorists for a living, for God’s sake. What had made her think she could continue to evade him?

She’d only managed to avoid him since the night of her eighteenth birthday because he’d wanted it that way. She’d wanted it too, she reminded herself, mostly to forget that the boy she’d idolized had called her a selfish willful brat who didn’t think about how her actions affected others. He’d also called her reckless and told her to grow up.

Then he’d left town. Getting as far away from her as possible.

Well, she was cool with that. Really cool, she thought fiercely. She just wished he’d stayed away.

Turning, she eyed him with what she hoped was cool disinterest, ignoring the fact that even after the long night, he looked bigger, badder and hotter than ever.

While she looked like a complete mess.

Go figure.

“This is a medical examination room,” she said flatly. “Only medics allowed.”

One dark brow rose in silent challenge. “Want to call Security, Francis?” he drawled with a hint of amusement that did nothing but raise her blood pressure. And not in a good way.

“No,” she snapped, because he had awesome SEAL skills no security team could match. “I don’t want any witnesses when I use a scalpel.” Her unspoken, on you, hung in the air between them.

It had genuine amusement lighting his eyes and curling his mouth in a smile that had her gritting her teeth in aggravation. Arrogant BAB, she snarled inwardly, using the acronym she and Paige had thought of one night when they’d been a little tipsy. But “badass boy” fitted Nate like a pair of snug boxer briefs. Except seeing him now, it was clear he was no longer a boy.

“You thinking of taking me on, Francis?” he drawled smoothly, his gaze hot and intense one moment, dark and unreadable the next. The lightning-fast changes left her confused and more than a little irritated.

“You think I can’t?” she challenged, furious with the shiver crawling up her spine that had nothing to do with Paige using alcohol swabs on her scrapes and cuts.

Besides, taking him on while she was tired and hurting wouldn’t be smart. Not to her pride and certainly not to her heart.

She glared at him. Why couldn’t he take his sexy self off and leave her alone?

“You can try.” He smirked with typical male arrogance that had Frankie barely restraining herself from snarling.

Casually propping his shoulder against the door frame as though he had every right to be there, Nate locked his dark brooding eyes on his hapless target—her—his sensual mouth an uncompromising and disapproving line. All humor had gone.

Frankie shivered. Yeesh. She’d forgotten that about him, about his ability to focus so intently on a person they felt like the most important person in the world. Like they were under a microscope.

She turned away to stare at a wall chart without seeing a thing. But her body, the traitor, was locked like a tractor beam on him. And then...and then her nipples tightened and tingles spread across her skin like a heat rash that she blamed on the fact that she was cold and wet.

“Excuse me, Doctor,” she drawled, ignoring the hunk in the doorway. “But isn’t there a rule that says only family members are allowed in an ER room?”

Paige sent Nate a quick look and muttered something that sounded like, “Don’t pull me into whatever is between you two.”

Frankie felt guilty for about two seconds. She didn’t want to involve Paige but she wasn’t above using her friend as a buffer either. Especially when it came to Commander Cool.

“There isn’t anything to get between,” she said smoothly, ignoring Nate and mentally celebrating the complete disinterest in her tone.

“Frankie.” Paige protested her rudeness, but Frankie ignored the rebuke, watching Nate out of the corners of her eyes while pretending to ignore him too. For long moments he studied her until she was ready to start squirming.

Finally, with a casual roll of his shoulder, he pushed away from the door frame.

“It’s all right, Doc. I’ll go.” A big hand landed palm flat against the door in preparation of pushing it open. He paused and with a hard look at Frankie said to Paige, “For you.”

Meaning he’d never do it for Frankie. The notion stung, and before she could stop it, hurt sliced through her. Quickly squelching it with the full force of her will, she reminded herself that getting her feelings hurt by Nate’s attitude would not only be stupid but self-defeating. Besides, she was over her silly adolescent infatuation and the last thing she needed or wanted was someone with a hero complex.

She turned and locked gazes with him just as he pushed open the door. His mouth twisted with faint irony and the next instant he was gone.

Heavy silence descended on the room but Frankie could literally feel her friend vibrating with questions and maybe a bit of exasperation. She slid a sidelong look at her and caught Paige chewing on her lip. She could practically see the wheels spinning away in the brunette’s head and counted the seconds until the other woman cracked.

She reached nine.

“Seriously, Frankie?” Paige finally burst out. “You blew him off? Are you sick, dumb or just insane? And what the heck is going on between you two anyway?” she continued, without waiting for a reply.

“Nothing.” Frankie sighed, tension draining abruptly and leaving her beyond exhausted. “Nothing I want to talk about anyway. But I am confused about why everyone keeps referring to Nathan as Sammy.”

Paige was silent for a couple of beats as she studied Frankie. She must have decided not to probe because all she said was, “It’s his coastie handle.”

“Handle?”

Paige rolled her eyes. “His nickname, his moniker.”

“I know what a handle is, Dr. Cutie,” Frankie said, because she knew that moniker irritated Paige. Besides, why should she be the only frustrated person in the room? “I’m just not sure I understand this one.”

Paige shrugged and swabbed a particularly tender spot that had Frankie sucking in a sharp breath.

“I’m guessing it might have something to do with him transferring from the SEALs.” She sprayed her back with iodine. “Lie down, will you? I need to put in a few stitches.”

Frankie’s gut clenched. “Can’t you just glue them or something?”

“No. I can’t.”

“But—”

“I know you, Francis,” Paige briskly interrupted when Frankie opened her mouth to argue. “The first thing you’re going to do when you get home is ignore doctor’s orders and shower. Next thing you know you’re back here with an infection. Besides, I’ll make sure they’re small and won’t leave any scars.”

Her mouth snapped shut. Okay, so maybe Paige did know her. “Fine.” She lay facedown on the bed and propped her chin on her stacked hands. At some point she must have dozed off because the next thing she knew, Paige was tapping her arm.

“All done, sleeping beauty,” she said cheerfully, “and before you object, I’ve booked you off for a few days. Now go home and get some sleep. No picking up heavy objects or taking flying leaps off ledges. And absolutely no physical activity or you’ll undo all my hard work.”

Frankie sat up with a yawn and twisted to see Paige’s handiwork but her back was a patchwork of waterproof dressings. She tentatively rolled her shoulders to test her flexibility and was pleasantly surprised to discover that, though it pulled a little, it didn’t hurt.

“While you were snoring, I gave you a shot of pain meds and antibiotics,” Paige said, clearing up the mystery. “You should be good till the morning.”

“Which is in about an hour,” Frankie said, sliding off the bed and blinking blearily at her wristwatch. “How long was I out?”

“About twenty minutes.” Paige helped Frankie pull her jumpsuit up her arms and over her shoulders. “I’d let you sleep but Andrews is in charge tonight.”

Frankie brushed her hands away.

“I can dress myself, Mom, thanks.”

Paige backed off with a snicker and picked up a clipboard. She scribbled something then looked up. “Are your tet shots up to date?” Frankie grunted out a reply that the doctor must have understood because she tore a sheet off a pad and held it out. “I’ve prescribed antibiotics and pain meds. Get them. With all that bruising, you’re going to be sore in the morning.”

Frankie mustered a snappy salute. “Thanks, Doc,” she said, and with a quick hug headed stiffly for the door. “You’re the best.”

“Yes, I am.” Paige chuckled. “Just be sure to put that in the patient survey on your way out.”

Frankie stopped abruptly at the door when she remembered their earlier visitor. She wouldn’t put it past Nate to hang around and ambush her while she was spaced out on pain meds and couldn’t defend herself.

“What’s wrong?” Paige asked, alarmed. “Are you hurt somewhere else?”

Shaking her head, she quickly stepped aside and nudged Paige into the doorway. “Tell me what you see. Go on,” she urged when her friend looked at her like she was a crazy person on the verge of a meltdown.

When she made a get-on-with-it gesture, Paige gave a dramatic eye-roll and stuck her head out, looking around with dramatic furtiveness. “What am I looking for?” she whispered loudly, clearly enjoying the cloak-and-dagger moment.

Frankie growled and pulled her back into the room. “Any...um...thing that doesn’t belong in the ER?”

Paige’s eyes widened and sparkled with enjoyment. “You mean like a...a seal?”

“No.” Of course a SEAL. She huffed out an exasperated laugh, both at herself and Paige.

“Well, no sign of seals or any other wildlife,” Paige said with a quick head-shake.

“Okay, good. Because I’m not in the mood to fend off any marine mammals or any other wildlife.”

She wasn’t in the mood to deal with Nate, especially not in his disapproving big-brother role.

No wait, she amended. Not in any role. She just wanted to go home, shower for about an hour and then fall into bed and sleep for a week.

“Thanks, Paige, I owe you,” she said quietly, and walked stiffly from the room.

“Yes, you do, Francis Abigail,” Paige said, popping her head into the passage. “And I plan to collect...in the form of an explanation. About sea mammals.”

“Sure,” Frankie said agreeably. “I know a lot about whales and dolphins.” She smirked when Paige sighed loudly, but no way was she sharing her humiliation at the hands of Nathan Oliver. She’d never told a living soul about what had really happened that night and had no intention of discussing it now.

Or ever. Even with her best friend.

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