A strong hand rested on her shoulder. “Good job back there.”

She glanced over her shoulder and up. Barefoot was tall and surprisingly broad. Unlike anyone else, he smelled good. Sandalwood and man. Such a relief from blood, sweat, and dirt. “Thank you for helping.”

“You did all the work. Have you done that before?”

“No.”

“You made it look easy.” He smiled and for a brief moment, the room slid away. Something curled in the pit of her stomach and heated. Was it desire or was it hunger?

The weight of his hand never left her shoulder. It would have been too easy to lean on him.

She shook off the yearning and moved out of Barefoot’s reach. Unable to stop herself, she glanced at his feet. He wore a pair of running shoes.

“I’ve got to keep moving. Thanks for your help.”

Monica took a few steps away only to hear her name. “Monica?”

He remembered?

“The name’s Trent. Not Barefoot.” He lifted a leg and wiggled his foot.

Monica felt her face heat. “Good to know,” she said with a rare smile before turning away.

Chapter Four

“I need a volunteer.” Donald pulled Monica aside twelve hours after she’d set foot in the blazing inferno.

She rubbed a clean hand over her face and blinked a few times. “Volunteer? Isn’t that what I’m doing here?”

Donald offered a half smile. “I need a nurse to go over one county to the east, it’s a fishing village, Port Lucia. The clinic there is bursting. The local doctor hasn’t been seen since the quake.”

Monica shook her head. “There isn’t a doctor?”

“No. There’s a couple of nurses… aides.” He glanced around them. As organized as chaos could go, the room had some order. “Your triage skills kick ass.”

As much as she’d like to bask in the compliment, she couldn’t get over what he was asking. “You want me to go to a clinic where there isn’t a doctor? How does that work? My license…”

“Your license is safe here. There are people suffering and I need to send someone to triage the worst back here. We have standing orders you’ll take with you, and a two-way radio to ask questions if needed. The last thing we need is more walking wounded filling these rooms.”

Monica couldn’t argue with that. “You’re asking for a volunteer?” The way his eyes looked through her said he was more than asking.

“Tina’s good… but you’re better. If I put the best nurse there, I won’t worry that careless mistakes are happening. Either Walt or I will come up every twenty-four hours to lend a hand.”

“A lot can go wrong in twenty-four hours. I’ll need to sleep.”

“Like I said. There are aides. They’ve been sending most of the wounded here. Half of them didn’t need to come.”

Like a bad flu season in California, when the ER would fill with patients, bottlenecking the entire department and eventually the hospital, which made it next to impossible to treat anyone in a timely manner. Here the numbers of critical patients were too great to let sit.

“So… can I count on you?”

The inside of Monica’s stomach twisted. She liked to think she had some autonomy as a critical care trauma nurse. The bottom line, however, was there was always a doctor around. She followed a doctor’s orders.

A cry from a patient three beds away had Monica glancing around the room. All day she’d treated people, tended their needs… directed them to the next level of care if need be and she could count on one hand how often Donald or Walt had made it past her side.

“How far away is Port Lucia?”

There was an excited hum in his veins Trent had forgotten existed. For the first time in what felt like ever, he woke with sense of real purpose. He tried to convince himself the reason for his overzealous sense of self was due to the state of emergency the island had been under since the quake. That was part of it, but the itchy, hot exhilaration came from something much baser.

Blonde hair and cool blue eyes found him while he slept. Even there, her sassy tongue and knowing eyes found a moment to mock his bare feet.

Before leaving his chopper on the tarmac the night before, he’d been asked to arrive early to pick up one of the American nurses and deliver her to Port Lucia. Because Trent’s home resided between the short runway and Port Lucia, Reynard asked him to deliver the nurse personally. There wasn’t anywhere to land the chopper close to the clinic so a short drive would be in the travel plans.

Trent wanted to ask which nurse was taking the new assignment, but didn’t. He’d find out soon enough. He didn’t hold too much hope that Monica would be that nurse. He knew she didn’t take to flying and probably wouldn’t volunteer.

Either way, he’d have an excuse to see her again briefly, if only to find out who he was escorting around the island.

After a short shower and a cup of god-awful instant coffee, Trent filled Ginger’s dog bowl and pulled his Jeep out of his driveway.

Clouds blocked the morning rays of the sun and threatened more than a few drops of rain. The last thing the island needed was bad weather.

The closer he made his way toward the airstrip, the more concerned with the clouds Trent became. Visibility was everything in a helicopter. If the ceiling of clouds wasn’t high enough, he’d be grounded until the thick layers lifted.

Alex, one of his pilots, met him outside of the air traffic tower. Alex was a good thirty years older than Trent. He and his wife, Betty, both flew for Blue Paradise Helicopter Tours, an offshoot of Fairchild Vacation and Charter Tours, which Trent and his brothers owned. Unlike Jason and Glen, Trent decided to run one exclusive leg of the worldwide company. A decision that still provoked arguments between the three of them.