We All Sleep Alone (Finley Creek #11) - Calle J. Brookes Page 0,37

and smarter than one, too. Especially smarter than all the nurses who dared to question his goodness.

Well, Izzie had always had a bad habit of questioning. She had three disagreements and one outright argument with him—in the two days they’d worked together.

He was worse than Dr. Lanning had ever been.

That had been saying a lot.

Dr. Lanning had literally given her nightmares.

She grabbed her bag and stormed outside.

She paused on the sidewalk, long enough to pull in a deep breath. It was going to storm again. Just like her mood.

Great.

Seemed like all it had done since May had been rain or storm or flood. Mother Nature really had it in for Finley Creek. Either that or she’d been burned out for a while and was taking it out on Texas lately.

Almost torrential rain started as she was halfway across the parking lot. She could barely see the sign for W4HAV in the distance.

A part of her wanted to go over there. To see where it had happened one more time. Another part of her wanted to never think about it again.

Neither she nor Nikkie Jean had been ready to go back to that building yet.

Nikkie Jean had been talking about it lately. She’d started counseling again—doing it all within the hospital. Her counselor at W4HAV understood that the trauma now associated with W4HAV was going to take a long time for Nikkie Jean to process.

Nikkie Jean was starting to seriously consider going back.

It was Izzie that was still hesitating.

It wasn’t the building that had nearly killed her. In her head, she knew that. The sight of the familiar green-and-white sign had her stomach tightening.

Wallace Henedy had even taken W4HAV from her.

Her sense of safety had been ripped away.

It must not have been all that real to begin with.

Some of the rain she wiped from her cheeks wasn’t rain at all.

Damn them. Damn them both. Damn him for doing this to her, and her for letting herself feel so scared of a sign.

Maybe she should leave this hospital and go into private practice with a physician that she actually respected.

She could take Cage Ralstone up on his offer to work in his pediatric surgical practice. He only worked at Finley Creek General and Barratt County a few days a week. He had a practice where he saw patients.

Unfortunately, it was right there across the street. In the W4HAV building.

In the office he shared with Allen Jacobson.

Well, there went that idea.

Allen Jacobson. Talk about awkward. She winced as she remembered yesterday’s confrontation with him. Him and that ass Dr. Baker—all within two hours of each other.

Allen seemed to be everywhere, challenging her on everything, lately.

Izzie had no idea what she was supposed to say or feel about him.

She wasn’t exactly proud of herself for that moment yesterday. He’d had no right telling her that she had no business returning to work yet. She’d been winded and fatigued after dealing with a patient that had outweighed her now one hundred eighteen pounds by two hundred and twenty. He hadn’t been cooperative. She’d had to call in Shane and Ted—two male nurses who together weighed a good five hundred pounds and were strong as bulls—to help her finish up.

He had a lot to say about her rushing back.

There had been what had happened with the mayor. Turner was lucky he hadn’t been killed. Him or Annie.

Fear for her friend struck her once again.

Something...something bad was going to happen.

Izzie could feel it. Something bad that had everything to do with Annie.

39

Reggie needed to find his mother, as ridiculous as that sounded. His father’s attorney had called. It wasn’t going to go well for his father now.

Especially if his father continued to not cooperate.

He’d been told bluntly that all his father seemed to care about was the fact that his wife was leaving him. His father didn’t seem to even be aware of what he had done.

The attorney was going to claim diminished capacity. Reggie hoped it would work, that they could get his father the help he so obviously needed.

His dad and Ray had been extra close. Losing Ray in the storm had practically destroyed his father. To lose his mother, too, it was no wonder his dad had gone a little sideways there.

Not that there was an excuse for shooting someone. Maybe that had been his dad’s way of calling for help when he so desperately needed it.

The attorney needed Reggie’s mother to confirm how close he had been to Ray, and that she had