Midnight Heat (Black Phoenix Book 2)

MIDNIGHT HEAT

Black Phoenix #2

SARAH GRIMM

She was the only woman ever to rock his world.

The unconscious man wheeled into Dr. Rebecca Dahlman’s ER is sexy—devilishly sexy—and injured. This isn’t just any patient in need of medical help. He is the only man she’s ever loved—the one who still haunts her dreams.

Black Phoenix bassist Dominic Price made a mistake three years ago when he walked out on Rebecca. A mistake he plans to rectify. But first he has to convince her to open her heart to him again.

One touch of his calloused hands reignites their passion. Can they rekindle their trust as easily, or will her fears cause her to lose him again…this time to a man bent on revenge?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In many ways this book was more challenging for me to write than any that came before it. Perhaps because life took over for a while and my writing fell by the wayside. It’s tough, climbing back onto that writing horse and putting words on the page. Fighting against self-doubt and an innate fear that not only may readers have forgotten me, but my characters. Lucky for me, Dominic seems to be a character with ‘sticking’ power.

I need to say thank you to my husband, who has never doubted my ability to tell a good story. He may not read the genre, but he is darn proud to tell people about his wife’s books.

A very special thank you goes out to Amy Lillard. Ames, I can honestly say this book would have been that much more difficult to write if you weren’t always just an email or text away. Your ability to reassure me at my most panicked moments and willingness to read anything I send you no matter if you were facing a deadline of your own is worth more to me than gold. You’ll never really know how much your friendship means to me. <3 you.

Thanks to my incredible Street Team, for everything you do. You are the best! And to the readers who read my books, whether you’ve been with me since the first one, or only just heard about me – thank you for allowing me to share my stories with you.

~ Sarah

Special acknowledgement goes to my street team member, Melissa Aguirre, for ‘Dressing Dom’ in his leathers. And also to Kathleen Grieve for helping me make my medical scenes more accurate. I fully admit to taking artistic license with a bit of it, so any inaccuracies are mine not hers.

Chapter One

“Forty-year-old male MVC victim,” the medic shouted as he and his partner pushed the stretcher through the doors and into the emergency department. “SUV versus semi. SUV rolled multiple times before stopping to land on its passenger side.”

Adrenaline surged through Dr. Rebecca Dahlman’s system, revving her pulse, pushing away the fatigue of an overly long shift. It worked better than the half pot of coffee she’d already consumed.

“Upon arrival at the scene, patient was unresponsive. We were able to get the c-collar on him right away, but had to wait for the Jaws of Life to extricate.”

Gown and gloves in place, Rebecca ran her gaze over the unconscious man strapped to the backboard with orange belts as they swung into room one and transferred him to the ER’s gurney. Her team, already assembled in the trauma room, moved efficiently around the patient, cutting off his clothes with trauma shears, starting large bore IVs and getting vital signs.

The medic continued feeding her pertinent information as she began her assessment. “Blood pressure is one-twenty over seventy-five, pulse ninety-five. Pulse ox is one hundred percent on room air. Pupils—dilated, equal, and reactive.”

The guy was a mess. Blood covered his face, soaked the left side of his head and shoulder of his shirt. He had a laceration on his left upper arm; deep enough to require sutures, and some bruises were already beginning to form at his left shoulder and right hip from the seatbelt doing its job of holding him in place. Even more troubling was the bruise forming on his right side, a sign of rib trauma. Ribs weren’t the only common injuries from impact with the center console. The ones she couldn’t see were what caused her the most concern.

“I want an ultrasound of the abdomen,” Rebecca stated automatically as she shifted closer and listened to her patient’s chest. Lungs clear, respirations even and non-labored, heart tones audible not muffled and no abnormal rhythm. Good, no internal chest trauma. She looped her stethoscope around her neck and leaned in, searching the man’s scalp for head trauma. “Get me a cross-table C-spine, chest and pelvis x-ray. Draw a full trauma panel, type and cross, and a urine tox screen.”

Karmen Williams, Rebecca’s best friend and charge nurse for the night, pulled the man’s wallet from the pile of clothes on the floor. “Rebecca.”

Directly above his left ear Rebecca uncovered the source of all the blood. Pushing her fingers into his hair, she palpated the injury site. The wound immediately began to bleed again. “No skull fracture that I can detect.”

“Rebecca.”

“I’ll want a CT scan of the head and neck.”

“Rebecca.” Karmen’s voice was tight and pulled her attention. “It’s Dominic.”

For a moment, a heartbeat really, the words didn’t make sense. Then, she looked closer at the lifeless man on the gurney. As if in slow motion, Rebecca dragged her gaze up the torso, locked it onto the face partially hidden behind long, blood-soaked black hair. Her breath snagged in her throat and she froze, the echo of her pulse beating in her ears. It was a struggle to keep her hand steady as she pushed his wavy hair away from his face and focused on his mouth, those lips, the bottom one slightly fuller than the top, the thin, straight nose.

“Stud,” she whispered, her voice torn.

His eyes were closed, ringed in thick black lashes. Were they open they would be the color of the sky just after a cleansing rain.

Her world tilted.

No. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t him. Dominic didn’t have a goatee or a scar across his right clavicle. Dominic wasn’t in California, he was in London. Safe in London.

Not unconscious and bleeding in the middle of her ER.

Rebecca lost focus as the room began to spin. She grabbed the side rail of the gurney to steady herself.
Dom. My God.
Her chest felt as if someone stood on it, forcing the last of the oxygen from her lungs.

“You know this man?” the medic on her right asked.

How could she ever forget? He’d haunted her, both asleep and awake, for nearly three years. She knew his scent, his wicked sense of humor. If he was conscious, he’d be giving her a hard time in that sexy damn voice of his. That he had calluses on his fingers that set her body on fire. Calluses from years of playing the bass, something he did even while asleep, tapping out a rhythm against her hip.

“Yes,” she admitted without thought. Then she pulled her head out of the past and focused on the monumental task in front of her. “Has he regained consciousness?”

“No.”

“Okay, I want a CT scan of his head and neck.” Relying on her training to get her through this, she slid her hands over his extremities, continuing her head-to-toe assessment, trying her damnedest to remain detached. Pretending she didn’t have intimate knowledge of the body beneath her palms.

“You said that already,” one of the residents made the mistake of pointing out to her.

“Then make it happen!” she snapped.

The room erupted with a renewed flurry of activity and noise.

A hand settled on her shoulder, a small gesture of comfort. “It’ll be all right,” Karmen told her.

Rebecca wasn’t certain whether she was referring to Dominic’s accident or his sudden reappearance. At the moment, it didn’t matter. Hands clenched, she drew a deep, steadying breath.

Her stomach twisted as she stared at the monitor, watched his heart beat out a steady, normal rhythm. He’d been unconscious for too long. Should she change the CT scan to an MRI? Should she do both? Second guessing herself was not usual. She didn’t have to. She was good at what she did, exceptional. But that was when she didn’t know her patient—intimately.

The door banged open, bringing an X-ray tech and a portable X-ray machine into the room. Rebecca shifted enough for her to pass, but not completely out of the way. She was too fixated on her patient’s chest. She frowned, noting he was breathing much too fast. The monitor screamed an alarm as his heart rate jumped from the one-twenties to the one-sixties.

Her Tyvek gown snagged as she stepped closer, moving back in to get a better look at her patient. It helped to think of him as a patient, and not the man she once knew. Helped, right up until she discovered her gown wasn’t snagged, but fisted in Dominic’s hand. He groaned, then met her gaze with a touch of panic in his vivid blue eyes, as if he didn’t understand where he was or how he’d gotten there.

She gave him a smile. “Welcome back. You’ve been in an accident, but everything’s going to be okay.”

He frowned, then shifted. His grip on her gown tightened, his body went taut. Unable to move his head because of the c-collar, his gaze left her to bounce around the room like a ping pong ball.

She placed a reassuring hand on his arm. Waking to this…it would terrify even the strongest man. “You’re in the emergency room. You’ve been in an accident. I know you’re frightened and in pain. There’s a lot going on around you right now that you don’t understand. You’re going to be all right.”

Not reassured, his entire body jerked, which prompted her to set a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Get me two milligrams of morphine,” she said to her staff. The medicine would ease his pain and help keep him calm.

“Look at me.” Rebecca leaned closer, until her face was directly above his. She dropped her voice a bit, lost the professional tone she always adopted when working and took on the one he would recognize. “Dom, look at me.” It was a moment before his gaze met hers. “I know this is confusing for you. It’s noisy, there are people everywhere, but I need you to try and remain calm. I’ll get the c-collar off you as soon as possible, I promise. Just hang on, okay? We’re going to help you.”

He closed his eyes for a good ten seconds then opened them. “Becca?” he said his voice low, rough and too damn familiar for comfort.

“Yes. Hang in there. We’re working as fast as we can to find out the extent of your injuries. Do you recall what happened, what brought you here?”

He frowned, clenching his jaw in pain. “California?”

“The hospital,” she corrected.

“Why am I in hospital?”

“You were in an accident. Do you remember the accident?”

“I was…” His brow furrowed. He blinked rapidly.

“Can’t remember that, huh?” She pulled out her pen light and rechecked his pupil response.

His eyes squeezed closed on a moan. His body tensed; muscles flexing.

“Are you having sensitivity to light?”

“Yes.”

“Any blurred vision or blind spots?”

“No.”

“Do you have any pain?”

“Yes.”

“Where? Where is your pain, Dominic?”

“My right side.”

“Okay.” With the bruising present, that didn’t surprise her. “You don’t remember the accident. Can you tell me your name?” Retrograde amnesia was common with a brain injury. A concussed person had trouble with new information, like what happened to them, but not old information, like their name. To most all the questions seemed silly, but they were a necessary part of evaluating the severity of his injury. “What’s your name?”

“Dominic Parker Price.”

Parker?
“What day is it?”

“Sunday.”

“What month is it?”

“March.”

“What year?”

“This year,” he replied, his tone a tad patronizing.

It made Rebecca smile. There, finally, was a sign of the man she knew. “I’m going to move out of the way and let the X-ray tech do her job now, okay? We’re going to get a few films.”

She stepped aside.

Dominic made a grab for her. “Becca? Where am I?”

His short term memory wasn’t intact. Confusion was typical, normal for his injury. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from smoothing his hair away from his face. “You’re in the emergency room. You’ve been in a car accident.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“An SUV.”

“No.”

“Dom—”

“Where’s my phone?”

“I don’t know.” Most likely in Karmen’s possession, along with the rest of his personal effects, but there was no way she was telling him that. The exact location of his phone was inconsequential. Of far greater importance was assessing the extent of his injuries.

“I need my phone. You need to call her. Shit. She’s going to kill me for this.”

“Who?”

“Isabeau. You need to call Isabeau.”

* * *

Rebecca stared without focus at the lab report in front of her. She’d read it once already; hemoglobin normal, no drugs or alcohol in his system. His X-rays were good, too. No obvious fractures of the neck or spine. She knew all of this already and didn’t need a few minutes to read through the reports.