CHAPTER TWO

      ZAC COULDN’T BELIEVE he was staring at the doorknob in Ella’s hand. He was still a bit in shock. It was bad enough that he’d had that momentary blip of PTSD in front of her. He just needed to put some distance between her and him, but now that really wasn’t an option.

      It’s because you’re working too hard.

      He shook that thought away. Work was the only thing that helped. It kept the ghosts at bay. Saving lives helped him focus and forget. He was a trauma surgeon, that was his job, and that’s all he needed to worry about. Of course it was hard to be a trauma surgeon locked in an on-call room.

      “Give me that,” he snapped, snatching the doorknob from her and trying to cram it back where it was supposed to be.

      “Oh, my God, why didn’t I think of that?” She slapped her forehead. “I forgot you had the ability to fuse metal.”

      Her sarcasm was grating on the last of his nerves.

      “Dammit, Ella.” He threw the doorknob down and scrubbed his hands over his face. This was not happening.

      “It’s not my fault.”

      She was right. It wasn’t her fault that the doorknob was defective. She’d made it clear that she wanted to leave the room just as much as he did. And he shouldn’t be angry at her, he should be angry at himself.

      If he hadn’t run after her he wouldn’t be in this mess.

      If the power hadn’t gone out, he wouldn’t be in this mess and if that tray of instruments hadn’t been knocked over... Just the thought of the metal hitting the polished floor, the clattering against the walls made his pulse kick it up a notch.

      Get a hold on yourself.

      He didn’t want to have another attack here now, locked in a room with her.

      Although Ella wasn’t stupid. She’d probably figured out that what had happened had been a PTSD attack.

      No one in his family knew about it, except Charles, who knew that Zac had been cleared for work. Of course, it rarely made an appearance. He kept it in check.

      But even Charles didn’t know the exact reasons he’d left the navy and had accepted his honorable discharge. No one needed to know. He’d tried to stay in Annapolis and work there, but working on injured veterans had brought back the horror of his last tour of duty all too well.

      And just thinking about it, the screams from last Christmas filled his head.

      “I need to sit down.” He pushed past Ella in the small on-call room and sat down.

      Why did he have to be locked in an on-call room with her right now?

      The one woman he’d never really been able to resist. The one woman who his family had been trying to marry him off to since he’d been a young man. He didn’t want to ever get married. Adventure had been his goal and family just tied you down, stopped you from living your life. On his own he could do whatever he wanted.

      Life was too fragile. Lives could be cut short in the blink of an eye and after what had happened with his parents, with his father cheating on his mother, yeah, marriage was something he’d never wanted. Settling down had never been on his agenda.

      Ever.

      For so many years he’d tried to keep Ella Lockwood at arm’s length, but that summer before they’d both headed off to medical school, they’d connected.

      Ella had been so much more than the awkward society princess he’d thought she was. She had been curvy, clumsy and her self-esteem had been shaky, but there had been something about her that had drawn him to her.

      And he’d known from past experience he had a hard time resisting her.

      Though he’d tried. He’d been going off to Annapolis. He hadn’t wanted to be tied down because he’d had these childhood feelings for Ella Lockwood.

      Then that Christmas at her parents’ home in the Hamptons, right before he was going back, they kissed and he knew he had to walk away from her or there would be no turning back. She fired his blood and it frightened him, the hold she’d had on him. That she still had on him.

      After that night he didn’t see her again. Not even at the party her parents threw the next day. She just vanished without saying goodbye. It stung, but it was for the best. He couldn’t offer her anything, although he never forgot her.

      He hadn’t seen her in so long.

      When he’d learned she was a senior surgeon in the ER at Manhattan Mercy, he’d been shocked. He had been naive to think that the years apart would have calmed his reaction to her. After the horrors of war, he had been certain that she’d have no effect.

      He’d been wrong.

      So wrong. There was a fire in her, a drive he admired, but she was still off limits. Every woman was. He didn’t want a relationship ever. He’d come home to make amends with his family, but that was it. His stance on marriage hadn’t changed.

      Zac stood up and pulled off his white lab coat, tossing it on the bed.

      “What’re you doing?” Ella asked.

      “Push-ups,” he muttered as he dropped to the floor and began to do push-ups. Exercise and hard work was how he forced his nightmares away. It’s also how he dealt with sexual frustration.

      Despite the friction between them at work, when he’d seen Ella at Charles’s wedding, he’d wanted to kiss her again. To take it further, like he’d wanted to do before he’d left.

      But she’d blown him off.

      She’d avoided him since he’d arrived and he didn’t know why. It had frustrated him. Just like having a breakdown in front of her had.

      Most of his family didn’t even know about his PTSD, and he certainly didn’t want Ella Lockwood to know about it.

      He had to put it out of his mind. Talking about what had happened wouldn’t do him any good.

      “I’ll call for a janitor.” She pulled out her cellphone.

      He stopped his push-ups and sat on the floor. “You have the janitor’s number on your cell?”

      “There are messes in the ER that sometimes need a janitor’s touch stat,” she said as she pushed the contact on her phone.

      Zac rolled his eyes. “Of course, what was I thinking?”

      Ella shook her head. “Hello? It’s Dr. Lockwood. Dr. Davenport and I are stuck in an on-call room in the ER. On-call room four at the end of the hall. The doorknob came off. Right. Okay, but...yeah. Okay.” She ended the call.

      “Well?”

      “They’re trying to get the power back on. The new generators failed and it’s imperative they get the power back on before the battery backups on critical machines fail.”

      “Of course.” He understood, but he really didn’t want to start off his shift like this. It was bad enough that he hardly ever slept anyway, but sitting still in a locked room with Ella would exhaust him more.

      When he was busy he was able to chase away the demons from his tour of duty and keep the exhaustion at bay. The only thing that calmed him down was saving lives. In the operating room he was in control