Fragged: A BWWM Military Romance Read online

  Fragged

  Paige Notaro

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE-Rosa

  CHAPTER TWO-Calix

  CHAPTER THREE-Rosa

  CHAPTER FOUR-Calix

  CHAPTER FIVE-Rosa

  CHAPTER SIX-Calix

  CHAPTER SEVEN-Rosa

  CHAPTER EIGHT-Calix

  CHAPTER NINE-Rosa

  CHAPTER TEN-Calix

  CHAPTER ELEVEN-Rosa

  CHAPTER TWELVE-Calix

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN-Rosa

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN-Calix

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN-Rosa

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN-Calix

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN-Rosa

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN-Calix

  CHAPTER NINETEEN-Rosa

  CHAPTER TWENTY-Calix

  Epilogue

  Thanks!

  Other Novels

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without the express written consent of the author. This book is licensed for personal use only.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ©2015

  Paige Notaro

  Cover Design:

  ©2015

  SilverLight

  Also by Paige Notaro

  Storm’s Soldiers MC:

  Black and White

  Grey

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  Black and Blue:

  Black and Blue

  Hot and Cold

  Other:

  Uncaged

  Deacon

  I love hearing from fans!

  Here’s how you can reach me:

  www.facebook.com/PaigeNotaroAuthor

  [email protected]

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my loving family who tolerate me when I tune out for whole days to write.

  It is dedicated to my friends and fellow authors who have helped so much through this journey.

  Most of all it is dedicated to my fans. Thank you for reading!

  1

  Big White Lie

  CHAPTER ONE

  Rosa

  I waited for my lunch date, not knowing that this would be the day I met the most perfect specimen of a man I’d ever seen. Even as I saw my date walking towards me, I couldn’t tell.

  After all, it wasn’t him.

  “My god,” my date said, stopping as he reached the covered patio table where I sat. “And I thought you were radiant even in scrubs. Look at you now.”

  I managed a teacup of a smile. “That’s really sweet, Dr. Sygard.”

  He scraped back the chair and sat down, his eyes never leaving my face.

  I really had hoped typing my dark hair up in a bun and wearing an oversized t-shirt would make me look trashy. The air was thick as a wet marshmallow and I was already sweating.

  But the Atlanta sun was peeking through the skyscrapers on either side of the street. Even in the umbrella’s shadow, my arm glowed like dark honey.

  “Please, Rosa,” Dr. Sygard said. “Call me Lem when we’re outside the hospital. Of course at work, we’ll still have to keep things under wraps.”

  He held a finger to his lips. I hadn’t even opened my mouth.

  Lem beamed at me until I looked down at the menu. I already knew what I was going to order. I would have so loved to have it already on the way so I could speed this whole thing along. I had seen enough to know this would go nowhere.

  Besides, the whole thing was purely to get Mamá’s tiny feet off my back.

  “He’s such a gentleman, Rosa,” she would invade my room to say.

  Or “He is a doctor, Rosa!”

  Once, she’d even tried “He’s so handsome.”

  Truthfully, Lem wasn’t awful to look at. He was at least half a head taller than me. Plus, unlike a lot of weirdos that came out the other end of med school, he knew how to dress. Then again, he’d probably had his own stylist in the mansion he grew up in.

  He was wearing into a soil-brown sweater and dark pleats that made him look like a professor. With his wavy brown hair, copper eyes and narrow features, he had an intensity that some girls would like.

  Girls who might swoon at the MD on his hospital badge perhaps, or the black card he surely had in his wallet. Girls who were into the refined and aloof type who kept their desires hidden until they wouldn’t cause a fuss.

  I wasn’t one of those girls. Give me a man with a fire. A man who burned for something he might never even get, but who bled and sweat for it anyway.

  The relationships never lasted, of course. I understood that by now. At least they left their mark. That was all you could expect in this world.

  “Feel free to get anything,” Lem said. “Even the lobster.”

  “Lobster?” I flipped the placard back and forth, then rolled my eyes. “Oh, hah hah.”

  “You picked the place, my dear.”

  Great. He loved to go British when he was in a good mood. “I did. I like to pay for my own thing on first dates.”

  “I respect that. But, Rosa, come on.” He edged in. “It’s me. This isn’t out first rodeo.”

  “Sitting together at the hospital cafeteria doesn’t count as a date.”

  “I know, I know. I’m just saying even if we somehow don’t make this work, we’re still friends. You’re not obligated to anything.”

  Obligated to something? Where was his mind at? “I never said I was. Friends should pay for themselves anyway.”

  He threw up his hands in surrender. “Alright.”

  The waitress came up and took our orders. I got a Cuban sandwich - tasty and fast - but Lem went for a baked pasta. The waitress had to yank my menu away from me. It was the only shield I had.

  “So tell me about yourself, Rosa,” Lem said, taking an indulgent sweep of my body. “There’s so much I’m seeing about you for the first time. I can only imagine that there’s a lot more that I have yet to experience underneath.”

  I couldn’t bite back my tongue at that. “You shouldn’t expect so much.”

  “Oh, you thought…?” He laughed heavily. “I’m a doctor not a Neanderthal. I meant your history, nothing more.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. If he had at least owned up to what he had said, that might count for something. But no, he would nibble at me until he was sure he could sink his teeth in without getting hurt.

  “You know my history,” I said. “I bet you looked me up on Facebook. Or was it Linkedin?”

  “Both.” He laughed his fake laugh. “I’ve been sort of hoping for this day for a bit. But now that we’re here I almost wish that this was my first taste of you. I wish we didn’t have the work relationship coloring our views of each other.”

  The relationship in the hospital was the only reason this lunch was even happening. My mom had become infatuated with him at the Christmas party last year.

  It was also the only reason I hadn’t downed my diet root beer and left. I loved being a nurse at Peachtree Memorial. The last thing I need was bad blood there for spurning him too soon. Lem was powerful, and he had never hidden he was into me. This was a chance to wean him off his puppy love for good.

  “I actually don’t know much about you,” I said. “I definitely didn’t look you up online. Why don’t you tell me about yourself, first.”

  “Oh, you’re interested?” He leaned in, swirling his glass of water.

  “That’s what I’m here for, right?”

  “I guess the past is the key to finding the path to our future.�
��

  I managed to not roll my eyes.

  Lem happily launched into his spellbinding story of a boy who overcame a privileged childhood, expensive private schooling and mild gluten allergies to satisfy expectations and become an above average cardiologist.

  I’d been planning to feign disinterest, but I didn’t even need to. There hadn’t been a whiff of hardship in his account. It was less a story than a bunch of facts lined up. People said I had a big mouth to my face. Well, at least it had gotten me into situations worth sharing.

  I nodded now and then, but inside I was secretly happy. Finally, I had more than a hunch for not wanting to be with Lem. This was a man who had never fought for a thing. He hadn’t suffered more than maybe a couple sleepless nights before exams.

  How could a man like that have any idea of how to keep you safe?

  “Have you ever worked overseas?” I asked suddenly.

  “Overseas?”

  “You know, Doctors without Borders. Red Cross. That sort of thing. Helping the poor and all.”

  “Ah, I plan to.” He looked off, frowning like he could already smell the slums. “Those are certainly great organizations. I just am not sure how much my skills would apply.”

  “I think they take any doctor.”

  “You might be right.” He clapped his hands. “Of course, I have spent time in other cultures outside of work. My family has a beach house down in Costa Rica. It’s not a long flight from Atlanta. We could do it on any three day weekend.”

  “I’ve seen Central America,” I said.

  “Right,” he said. “Your mom was telling me about your history.”

  Ah, Mamá.

  I loved her, but she could not keep her damn mouth shut. There was no doubting that I got it from her. I might look more like my much darker father, but I was definitely my mother’s daughter.

  Lem did not qualify to hear about any of that story though.

  “I grew up mostly in Atlanta,” I said. “Before that, Miami. I’ve been in the US most of my life.”

  “I can still hear a trace of an accent,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s quite sexy.”

  “That’s probably from Miami. We had a bastard Spanish of our own down there, with the Cubans and Venezuelans and all the others.”

  “I bet. I bet.” He looked deeply entranced.

  I took a deep breath and launched into some of the least interesting stories about my childhood. About babysitting my sister Elsa, or going to work cleaning houses with my mom in the summers, or having to teach myself English when we moved to the US in fourth grade.

  I wanted to show him how different we were, but I ended up getting a bit lost in myself. I started talking about the little bodega stand I’d opened to help the family when I was ten. The boys all used to play soccer on this big concrete plot after school. I started selling lemonade during breaks, but I ended up making more money selling bandages to the kids who scraped their legs.

  I had put the bandages on myself. Those kids had been my first patients. I felt a chill just thinking about the smiles they gave me.

  We were still too young for my touch to mean anything. I was still innocent to a lot of things in the world.

  I snapped out of it and realized that I had succeeded in boring Lem. His attention had drifted - but only as far as my chest.

  His gaze returned to my lips, and that didn’t feel much better.

  “And your father?” he asked.

  “I didn’t mention him for a reason.”

  He decided to give me an umpteenth reason not to like him. “But did he leave you when you were young?” he asked.

  “He died before I turned ten,” I said, through grinding teeth.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said with all the compassion of a Halloween mask.

  This must be why two of his patients had written he was the most “heartless” cardiologist they’d seen.

  Mercifully, the food appeared. I stuffed my mouth, but chewed slow. Lem made a show of savoring his dish and complimenting my pick of restaurants. I just nodded politely.

  Taste had not really entered the equation. My friend, Lilly, and I had only stumbled in here one night after nursing school because we had four dollars and fifty cents between us. It wasn’t enough for a meal, but we could split a thing of cheese fries and biscuits.

  Lem and I exchanged fire a few more times, but I kept my answers tiny and neat. There were no threads left to pull on.

  When he finally set his utensils down on his napkin, I allowed myself to shove in the last morsel of sandwich. The last half of our date had to have felt as exciting as Monday mass, but he glowed at me as if we had bared our souls to each other.

  “This was a really relaxing lunch,” he said. “I knew I could be myself around you. I hope you felt the same way.”

  I wiped the corners of my mouth clear, forcing a smile and choosing my words.

  “It was definitely nice talking,” I said, carefully building my own compliment sandwich. “But it just seems clear we’re too different to work together as more than friends. I’m happy to stay how we are.”

  “I disagree. Wherever our lives started, we’re in the same place now.”

  “We’re in the same hospital maybe. But you’re a doctor, and I’m a nurse. We’re not exactly on the same path.”

  “Some nurses would be quite happy with that arrangement in a relationship.”

  “I’ve just never been one of them.”

  His smile only dimmed. “Think on it a while. I have a feeling you’ll change your mind.”

  I won’t, you pansy. The words floated on my lips, but I had the sense to keep them in. Apparently this thing was not meant to die a quick death.

  “Anyway,” he said. “Shall we head back?”

  “Sure.” We were just a busy crosswalk away from the hospital entrance.

  I opened my purse, but Lem waved his credit card and the waitress rushed over and scooped it.

  “Hey,” I yelled, but she was already lost in the burble of other tables. “Lem!”

  “Oops.” He chuckled, as if he were being unbelievably charming and not getting on my last nerve.

  “I’ll pay you back after I stop at the ATM,” I said, watching him sign the bill.

  He chucked the receipt into the trash as we strolled onto the sidewalk.

  “That’s not necessary. Just consider my proposition.”

  “What proposition?” I asked.

  “To allow me to take you out again.”

  “I already said no, Lem.”

  “Just consider it.”

  Yeah, this lunch really hadn’t accomplished anything. I pretended to be contemplating as we crossed the street and clicked into the tall glass lobby of the hospital. Fortunately, we were working on different levels today, so I whispered a quick goodbye to him at the elevators.

  “Au revoir, not adieu,” he said, clasping me in a surprise hug.

  I pulled away, murmuring something, and headed down to ER.

  I scrubbed into my gown in the locker room, but took my time washing my hands and face. I finally released all the tension I’d held in my chest.

  Guys like Lem really unnerved me. They were still men, and they were still after the same thing as any other guy, but it always felt like they never saw reality. They had lived in a cotton candy world for so long.

  It was like going out with someone from the mental ward. You could never tell what would make them snap.

  Of course, it was always possible that I was the mental patient. The guys I tended to date freaked out other people a lot more. They weren’t exactly criminals but they weren’t far away either. I’d dated underground fighters, a bouncer from a club, bikers… ok, a guy who ended up robbing a bank - but that happened way after we broke up.

  Most of the other nurses had no idea why I didn’t go for more sensible men. A few quietly respected me for it.

  I wasn’t trying to be a rebel or anything. It just made sense to me. Rough men knew the things that we
ren’t far from the surface of society. If they were dangerous, then it was to deal with a dangerous world.

  Still, I’d be lying if I said that their sexy swagger did nothing for me.

  So what if the relationships didn’t last. Everywhere else, I was responsible. I helped serve society at work. I was a good daughter to Mamá - as if this lunch wasn’t proof enough. And I did my best to help Elsa.

  I’d earned the right to choose the guys I wanted to be with. When things inevitably ended with one, I’d take my licks, then wait for the next guy.

  I searched my belt for my ID card, then blinked open the doors to the ER nurse’s station and went inside. Even now, in the middle of the day, the seats outside were almost completely occupied. People of all stripes sat clutching various parts of their body, trying to look more miserable than the next guy.

  Lilly looked up from her computer. She had on a red and white floral gown and a white surgery cap that bulged with her thick blonde hair. She looked like a broken candy cane.

  “You’re back early,” she said.

  “Not early enough, girl.”

  “Come on, Lem can’t have been so awful. He didn’t whip it out did, he?”

  “Admittedly, not that bad.”

  She grinned and her round features turned pointy. That earnest face really masked a mischievous heart.

  “You’ve never seen social Lem, though.” I flipped idly through a bunch of intake charts that people had filled out. “Every other line was like him drooling over my body.”

  “Ew,” Lily said. “Well, he’s never been that way to me.”

  “Cause he knows you have Paul already. He’s not going to tangle with that. Especially not during mating season.”

  “Gross.” Lily threw a paper clip at me. “We’re not animals.”

  “We work at a freaking hospital. There’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is. You’re trying to have a kid. That’s reproduction. It’s what everything in the world is trying to do all the time.”