Ringer: A New Year's Romance: The Doyles, a Boston Irish Mafia Romance Read online

  One of the reasons I left the medical field: I can’t stand the sight of blood.

  And now, the one man I didn’t dare to hope I’d ever see again, sits in front of me covered in enough blood that it looks like a murder scene.

  Five days before Christmas.

  Perfect.

  “Bleeder,” says Molly.

  “Always was,” I agree, almost absently.

  I think back to when we were kids.

  “You know him?” asks Owen.

  He nods at the huge man wearing nothing but silk workout shorts and a tank top.

  Neither bit of fabric does anything to hide his muscular body.

  A curve of intricate tattoos snakes up his arm, across his chest and then disappears beneath the top of the shirt.

  “Long story,” Jack growls at Owen.

  His deep bass voice is slightly compressed by the broken nose. Even after all these years, that voice still sends shivers of anticipation down my spine.

  Holy shit.

  I always forget how big he is. Six-foot-six, if he’s an inch.

  Swallowing hard, I watch as Molly assesses, pokes, prods, and generally measures the situation. It must hurt like a son of a bitch, but Jack’s not flinching.

  Not even once.

  Molly deftly slides her fingers down the sides of his nose, then she pulls a small, thin penlight from her medical kit. She puts it straight up his nostrils, looking for obstructions.

  He grunts, more in annoyance, than pain.

  Molly doesn’t waste time.

  Jack’s eyes are a dark, stormy blue. They remind me of endless ocean, stretching to the horizon on an icy winter day. They bring back memories of a very specific day.

  A series of specific days that are burned into my memory.

  His light brown hair has the slightest touch of silver, but the Marine Corps cut makes it hard to tell. Suddenly, I want to my hand across that hair, to feel the soft hairs beneath my fingers, and I bite my tongue to send that thought away.

  “Alix, get over here,” Molly says.

  She presses against part of his nose and he grunts. Clearly it’s broken, which is why the signature, strong Mulvaney nose now leans further to the left.

  “It was an accident?” Owen says, sheepishly.

  Rolling my eyes, I take a step closer.

  Jack tenses, every inch of his body going rigid.

  It’s from the pain, I tell myself, not from being close to me again.

  His silk shorts leave little to the imagination. I can see the outline beneath the material, and I force myself not to think about the fact that I never got to test out the magnificent hardware.

  It’s looking really impressive from this vantage points, not that I’ll get a chance to verify.

  Not after what happened between us.

  Or didn’t.

  My heart hammers in my chest.

  I’m pretty sure a lot of it has to do with Lt. Colonel Jack Mulvaney being less than three feet away, but I also know a lot of it is because there is so much blood.

  So much blood.

  It’s a force of will to look away, glancing up at the ceiling, and then down again.

  “Don’t you faint on me, Alix,” Molly snaps. “I just need your professional take here. I don’t think he needs a hospital. Could you set it?”

  I push down the nausea, and put on my professional face, trying to look at it as a problem on my board exam.

  Technically, I could set it. After all, I’m a physician’s assistant, although I’m not licensed to practice anymore.

  Clinically speaking, Molly could set it, as well. But the laws are strict where these things are concerned and her planned career path is medicine. She’s been doing a lot of work on the side for the Doyle family, I think, and a misstep in her boyfriend’s gym could have significant consequences.

  Both for her medical training and his insurance.

  She’d mentioned something about it, so her wariness makes sense.

  “She hates blood,” Jack’s deep voice cuts in matter of fact.

  He tries to twist away, so I don’t have to look.

  Images flash through my mind.

  Images of Jack and my brothers riding bikes down our steep driveway. Of him crashing into the mailbox. And then, all the blood. I’d run down the driveway to help – without thinking – and I’d fainted.

  My brothers teased me relentlessly for months.

  Jack never did, though.

  And I’d decided that day that nothing I was afraid of would stop me from doing what I wanted.

  I swore a vow to be stronger, tougher and more independent.

  Funny how deciding those things early on had long-term consequences.

  Molly presses down on the side of his nose so firmly that his hard, blue eyes open imperceptibly and then narrow, as a stream of blood gushes in a thin rivulet.

  I swallow hard. I look at his blue eyes.

  Still on my face.

  He raises his chin.

  That’s as close as you’ll get to a Mulvaney scream.

  “You hate blood,” he grimaces as he bites off every word.

  God forbid a woman spends a second doing something she doesn’t want or that makes her uncomfortable.

  That’s a classic Jack Mulvaney response.

  An officer and a gentleman. Bossy as hell. But that drive to take care of a woman. It’s taken me many years to realize how rare and valuable that perspective is in a man, when it’s backed by honor and duty.

  I turn to help, but Molly sees my face.

  “It’s fine. I’ll do it,” Molly says, sounding resigned.

  “Hold him down,” she orders Owen.

  Owen gives her a slightly terrified look.

  I see that Jack’s bracing himself. To fight?

  This is going to go off the rails.

  “Hold on,” I say to Owen, who looks instantly relieved.

  He perceives the same threat level here.

  I clear my throat and wipe my hands over my face.

  I pull my attention into the here and now.

  “Molly, tell me what you’re feeling?” I ask.

  “Small fracture, right side, pushing the bone to the left. No nasal obstructions,” she answers, her tone professional.

  Minimal deformation, I think, scanning his handsome face.

  Good. That we can work with. Wait? Did I just think ‘handsome?’

  Focus, woman.

  I clear my throat.

  “Jack, I’m a physician’s assistant. If you want, I can take a look at your nose, but you need to know that I didn’t renew my license,” I say quietly.

  Full disclosure.

  I have six years of school.

  Four undergrad pre-med, two physician assistant training, and I worked in an ER for almost two years. But you don’t need a PA license to run a pet shelter.

  “You’re a doctor?” he asks, voice quiet.

  Molly puts some gauze under his chin, trying to catch all the blood.

  Jack peers at me, his eyes boring into mine.

  It looks like he’s rearranging information in his head for a mission.

  Even though our lives have woven around each other, the reality is that since high school, it’s mostly stayed surface-level. We’ve rarely had the chance to get very deep or very specific.

  But, my God, that voice. It rumbles straight to my core.

  I fight my body to regain control, turning away briefly, in the hopes he can’t see my reactions.

  When I have some composure, I answer.

  “No, actually, I run an animal shelter these days,” I say, helpfully.

  That gets the most response I’ve seen since I arrived.

  His eyebrows shoot up, which apparently causes him some intense pain, because they drop again.

  Still silent, though.

  Tough guy.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he grits out.

  I focus on the break.

  I analyze the angles
and conclude it’s a simple set. Fixing it now and packing the nose will give him the best shot at a full recovery. I can align the bone quickly enough. It doesn’t look that serious, but I bet it hurts like hell.

  “I can’t believe I punched him,” says Owen softly.

  I ask him to grab ice and some more gauze, so he can have a second to get over punching his friend.

  Molly could do this.

  I should let her do this.

  But one look at Jack and I want to help him. Old instincts die hard.

  I take a knee in front of him.

  I’m trying hard not to look down at those shorts. It’s apparent he’s sporting the biggest hard-on I’ve ever seen. Even in the amount of pain he’s in, his testosterone is raging through him, trying to block it out.

  Shiver.

  I clear my throat.

  Don’t let on. Don’t get distracted.

  And, most importantly, don’t you dare forget a single detail for when you think about this later. I file it away, memorizing every inch.

  It’s complicated set of feelings, and if there are two things I don’t like, it’s complexity and messy emotions.

  “Jack,” I say, summoning my patented ‘cheerful’ voice.

  It’s the voice I reserved for people who would come into the ER with strange wounds, like self-inflicted but accidental gunshot wounds, when a bullet ricocheted off of their refrigerator and into their leg. Or when something got lodged somewhere painful during an intimate encounter, and they couldn’t get it unstuck.

  “Lean forward and breathe through your throat.”

  He complies immediately.

  Good. Hardcore military training at its finest.

  I push down the thought about what else I’d like to order him to do with what he’s packing in those shorts.

  Jesus, Alix.

  “Good news here is that while your nose is broken, it’s a simple set,” I tell him cheerfully.

  “You’ll need to pack it afterward,” I explain.

  “Shove a bunch of batting up there. Stop the blood, keep the swelling in check.”

  The look he gives me could melt wax.

  Does this look like the first time my nose has been broken?

  Right.

  My voice is false sparkles. “Just ice it, keep your head up for the next few days, and eat Tylenol like candy. Otherwise, you’re fine. Anyway, I can set it here, and then you can get it checked out, or we can get you to an ER stat, and let them care of it. Your choice, Jack. What’ll it be?” I ask.

  He looks at me long and hard.

  So long.

  So hard.

  I lick my lips and look away from the blood to keep from getting lightheaded.

  “Do it.”

  I take a deep breath and position myself next to him.

  Molly’s on the other side, her small hands gripping either side of that huge, square chin like a vise. He’s got that five o’clock shadow thing going on, and I swallow hard. It probably grows in an hour after he shaves.

  Focus.

  His legs are spread wide, and the hot skin of those hard, muscled legs brushes my yoga pants.

  My skin sparks where we touch.

  Jack’s body is throwing off heat like a furnace. It’s because he’s just finished a sparring session with Owen. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  Closing my eyes, I work the way my mentor taught me, feeling along the lines of the nose by tactile sensation.

  My fingers follow the edge of cartilage, track the deviation and come to rest on either side.

  I ask, “Ready?” and, before he can respond, shove my thumbs towards each other.

  There’s one loud snap, and it’s back in place.

  See, that wasn’t so bad?

  Except, now, I’m definitely going to faint.

  The world goes woozy and my head spins.

  Jack’s on his feet, hands very gently to either side of my torso, as he lowers me down onto the bench where he was sitting just seconds ago.

  Every part of me is shrieking that I’ve got this, that it’s okay. That I’m not the kind of woman that faints or can’t handle herself.

  But all those things are lies.

  My eyes won’t focus.

  My ears are ringing.

  Jack’s voice sounds far away.

  “Deep breaths. Stare at the floor,” he says, rumbling quietly, his mouth close to my ear.

  His breath tickles my earlobe and it pulls me back into my body. “Tactical breathing. In for four, out for four through the nostrils. It’ll help, I promise.”

  I won’t actually pass out. I know from past experience.

  A career in medicine was a terrible idea. I’d been so focused on being useful, on helping people, on developing the skills to make sure that no one ever suffered on my watch that I’d failed to ask whether those choices were right for me.

  Eventually, I figured out the answer was no. But the embarrassment still stings.

  As I sit there, trying to catch my breath, Molly steps in. She quickly and efficiently packs Jack’s nose and soon has an icepack on it.

  Jack walks stiffly off to the locker room, Owen trailing behind speaking in low, earnest tones.

  Molly repacks her kit, cleans up the blood, and turns to me with bright red cheeks under her freckles.

  “Thank you, Alix,” she says, sitting down next to me. “I have no idea what happened there.”

  She gives me a wicked grin. “You get extra points for not vomiting!”

  “What’s Jack doing here?” I ask, fighting to keep the confusion from my voice.

  “He’s an old friend of Owen’s,” Molly says. “He got stationed here a couple of years back. Owen and he reconnected, and he’s been doing some fighting in the MMA part-time. He’s terrific, and he’s got a pretty big fight on tap for New Year’s,” she explains.

  A couple of years?

  Years. I try to wrap my mind around that fact and fight down the confusion and sadness that bubbles up at the thought.

  Then her face goes serious.

  “How the hell do you know Jack?” she demands.

  What do I say?

  We grew up together, kind of, even though he was years older than me. He’d been my brother’s friend. We’d danced around each other for years and went on one perfect date before he broke my heart.

  But, most importantly, he was my brother’s commander in the Marine Corps. The one at the funeral.

  Molly and I have been friends for a while.

  She talks openly about her family, her friends, her life. It’s one of the things I admire about her. I’ve gotten better at socializing but opening up is hard. She knows the broad contours of my family life, and about what happened to my brother, but not necessarily the specifics.

  I’d never talked to her about Jack.

  I’m mulling over my answer when footsteps ring out across the cement floor of the gym.

  “I killed her brother,” Jack states, matter-of-factly.

  Molly gasps.

  Owen’s face molds with confusion and then clears.

  He knows Jack lost men serving under him, but not that one of those men was my brother.

  Molly knows my brother died during military service, but wouldn’t have connected it to Jack.

  Why would they?

  I just sigh.

  He looks better.

  The blood’s gone, and he’s changed into jeans and a black t-shirt. A hell of a bruise is already taking shape across his face. The cotton batting sticking out of his nose does very little to obscure how attractive this man is.

  Jack Mulvaney is rugged, dangerous, huge. The perfect soldier.

  He may not seem classically Hollywood handsome, but he’s got the “I pump iron, and I’d slaughter your enemies and give you strong babies” vibe down pat.

  Jack is the man that your DNA stands up and notices, even when your mind fights it.

  But those harsh words spear me.

  If it weren’t for
the grief under his proclamation, they would be very hard to hear.

  But it’s an old refrain, and both Jack and I know far too much about feeling guilty about things we can’t control.

  “Jack and I grew up together on Cape Ann. He was a friend of my older brothers’ until he left for the Marines. When my brother Bryan enlisted, he ended up in Jack’s unit. There was a training accident. It wasn’t Jack’s fault. He wasn’t even there, but we lost Bryan and it’s been hard for everyone, especially Jack,” I say the words, focusing on the facts.

  I tamp down the memory of the horrible flood of feelings that came later.

  Jack looks like he wants to argue.

  Of course he does, because he feels his greatest failures are every man he had to leave behind.

  There’s no convincing him that each of those men and women made decisions and were impacted by factors far beyond his control. He didn’t force them to enlist. They chose that life. They embraced that risk and were brave enough to face it.

  But Jack is a leader - a military officer. The lives of his people are everything to him.

  I understand where he’s coming from – probably more than he realizes - but it’s still hard to hear him do this to himself.

  Being reminded of his sense of responsibility tears into me in a particular way.

  And then there’s my own grief, impossible to ignore, even after all these years.

  His words kick that up.

  He’s so focused on the dead that he misses his impact on the living.

  A few beats pass, and Owen tries to make things right.

  Definitely comes from being a younger brother, I think.

  “Alix,” he says, slipping into cheerful mode, “get over here and give me a hug.”

  Molly’s dated Owen for a while, and I like him.

  They’re good together.

  One look and it’s clear he only has eyes for her. I’d say he’s a goner, but Molly would punch me, and there’s been enough of that tonight.

  I step over towards him, when Jack takes one determined step to head me off.

  He glares at Owen.

  Jack’s a complicated guy.

  Owen looks between us and drops his arms.

  He looks at the ground and smirks.

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?” he jokes.

  Molly punches him lightly in the arm, before Jack can.

  I guess I was wrong about too many punches today.

  I face the three of them.