HARD AS STONE by
Sara Brookes
Brady thrives on saving patients in his busy emergency room, but when things don't go according to plan, nothing prepares him for a chance encounter. There's something familiar, and mysterious, about the downright sexy-as-hell stranger he encounters on a busy Chicago street.
In Garrett's world there are no coincidences. He's been standing as the doctor's secret guardian for years. Driven by a burning need Brady unknowingly awakened more than a decade ago, Garrett finally breaks his silence. He steps in to show Brady there's more to life than rescuing those in need.
Roused by their desperate passion for one another, their desire reaches an explosive breaking point. Brady realizes one night isn't enough, but Garrett is bound by rules he can't change. Now Brady's healing touch may save more than just a life - it may just save Garrett's soul.
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An Excerpt From: HARD AS STONE
Copyright © SARA BROOKES, 2011
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.
Chapter One
“Get me O positive STAT. She’s bleeding out.”
Brady’s hand pulsed around the small heart he cradled. He’d already tried the paddles twice, but the hole through the patient’s heart wouldn’t allow the much needed blood to remain in the lower chamber. The victim had to be stable enough in order to repair the hole.
At this point, it would take a miracle.
Unfortunately, Brady was certain he’d already used up his allotment of miracles. He’d been a doctor long enough to know how this was going to end—even as the patient had been wheeled into his emergency room.
Gunshot wounds and five-year-old little girls didn’t mix.
“Doctor?”
His gaze met the eyes of the trauma nurse who stood on the opposite side of the gurney. He recognized the despair in her expression and had seen it more times than he cared to count. She knew the same truth he did.
But tell that to the little girl who’d been brought in five minutes ago.
The very same one who had a tattered pink elephant next to her pudgy hand even as she lay with her chest cracked open.
Brady was used to this kind of disturbing image, and because of that, he’d stopped having nightmares. Most would assume he didn’t care. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
Lately, he’d cared far more than he was supposed to and he suspected it would be his ultimate downfall if the pattern continued.
It didn’t help matters that the girl’s eyes had been open when she’d first been brought in. Clear and bright, the crystal green color had looked alive, and full of energy despite her condition. This little girl had more courage than he could even hope to possess and he was going to do his damnedest to save her life.
The fighters always deserved a second chance.
Brady had always been stone—cold and smooth under pressure. The more intense the situation, the better he worked.
Some days were better than others.
Some, harder.
Tragedy had become a daily part of his life, and this very moment seemed to test the rock-solid exterior he was known for. Despite the fact he wanted to continue, he recognized the possibility was slim. He knew better than to torture himself—and the child—anymore than he already had.
He’d already lost her long before she’d been wheeled into the room.
With a weary sigh, he reached over to flip off the offensive beep that indicated a flatline. Even though he knew it was futile, he continued to massage the tiny organ in his palm.
The head nurse burst back through the door with her hands full of bags of red fluid. Too little, too late.
Brady knew the cadence of life as it rose and fell. He’d fought his way through the peaks and valleys, and yet there was always a constant that couldn’t be avoided—death.
Despite all Brady’s effort, that last stage of life stole this little girl. It wasn’t fair as her light had just begun to glow. The nurses across from him accepted it the moment he pulled his hand from the child’s chest.
“Call it,“ the nurse stated quietly as she dumped the bags of blood on the counter beside her.
He stripped off his gloves and frowned at the large clock on the wall. The very one that taunted him each time he had to say the few words that would devastate a family. “TOD, six thirty-two.”
The weight of the girl’s death added to the moment and he suddenly couldn’t catch his breath. The large room closed in around him and his heart raced. He threw open the swinging doors, clenched his jaw and pushed past two candy stripers gossiping in the hall.
The thin gauze over his scrubs felt heavy and thick, and he ripped it away. He chucked the blood-soaked fabric into the nearest bio-hazard bin, stepping through the doors of the waiting area. The everyday hustle and bustle of the waiting room slammed into him.
His vision started to go gray and his feet tripped over one another as he tried to move around an approaching nurse. He was dimly aware of the sound of a few people calling his name, concern heavy in all the voices, but he had to get out of there.
As he burst through the hospital entrance, the cold December air hit him in the face. The shock of it brought reality crashing around him.
He’d lost another patient.
Another in a long string of deaths he hadn’t been able to stop. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d been trained in how to deal with this and he always knew how to funnel away the emotion in order to do his job.
So why the hell am I reacting this way?
His feet pounded against the pavement as he blindly wove his way through the bustling streets. He blocked the sounds around him, hearing only the rush of his heartbeat. Driven by memory rather than sight, he ran the few blocks between the sterile hospital and the building that always felt like home.
Tall columns of intricate stonework soared high overhead, ending abruptly where the flying buttresses took over. Their carving was just as ornate and detailed as the rest of the masonry around the soaring building. The idea of the graceful lines and sweeping curves went against the scientific formalities he’d spent years learning in medical school.
Why he came here time and time again remained a mystery.
He stared at everything and nothing while his heart pounded. With each beat, a fissure formed. A crack that couldn’t be sealed and even seemed to expand as the seconds ticked by. The world around him went gray again, and he finally recognized the signs of what was happening.
Racing heart.
Shallow breaths.
Clammy palms.
He was in the throes of his first panic attack.
Things like this didn’t happen to him. He was the calm, cool and collected one. The trauma doctor who kept everyone else from falling apart. That resolve propelled him quickly to the top, earning him head of the entire emergency room in just a few short years. The stalwart professional who brushed his personal feelings aside each time he walked through the curtains separating the patients.
His hands clutched the metal streetlight in front of him and he lowered his face so his forehead pressed against the back of his hands.
Breathe in.
Out.
He kept up the slow, measured breaths in order to steady frayed nerves. Why did he feel as if he was falling apart? He was a doctor, for Christ’s sake. Surely he could talk himself through this. If he kept things clinical, sterile and didn’t think about the utter fear and desperation he’d seen in that little girl’s eyes, he’d be all right.
The girl had just barely begun her life and he’d gotten a sense—in just a few minutes with her—the she’d seen more than one child should ever experience.
The knowledge caused those small fissures in his heart to fracture, split apart and come undone.
Brady wasn’t having a panic attack—his heart had broken. He’d spent so many years training to keep distance from his patients, and it all came at him in a rush.
Every cut.
Every broken bone.
Every moment he’d called time of death rushed into his soul.
Sorrow and anger swelled to burn through that icy exterior he’d worked so hard to erect. His head pounded from the sudden release of emotion and he gave himself over to it.
Garrett studied the distraught man using the streetlight to steady himself. Even as he watched from the warm comfort of the coffeehouse, the man’s pain was tangible. Garrett’s chest tightened with the knowledge that something had unsettled Brady this much.
He loathed seeing him this way as much as he hated knowing he couldn’t help. Given the wrinkled appearance of his scrubs and the way they were dotted with drops of blood, Garrett knew it had finally happened.
The normally unflappable Dr. Brady McConnell had taken a patient’s death to heart. His habit of working too hard and refusing to take enough time off had finally caught up with him. Not to mention, he never, ever did anything for himself. As most good doctors did, he put his patient’s needs before his own.
Nothing had ever visibly shaken Brady to his core—until now.
At least he was around for this moment.
Garrett couldn’t stand the sight of Brady suffering. He knew he had the power to take away Brady’s pain. Since Brady had started medical school, Garrett had always been at the doctor’s side. However, he hadn’t made himself known before this moment because he’d always stood as a silent guardian.
He pushed through the coffeehouse doors and approached the man he’d always watched from afar.
“Beautiful architecture, isn’t it?” Brady’s head snapped up and Garrett saw the pain behind the elegant blue eyes. The harried and exhausted appearance of Brady’s face worried Garrett further.
“What?“
Garrett offered a friendly smile to lessen some of Brady’s instant skepticism. He gestured to the thirty-two story building across the street with the paper cup in his hand. “I saw you staring at the building earlier when I ducked into the coffee shop to grab a latte. Are you all right?”
“Yes.“ Brady nodded, a lock of his dark hair falling over his brow.
Garrett’s fingers tightened against the cup as they itched to reach out and brush that hair out of the way. Maybe this would be harder than he thought. He’d had years to cultivate his feelings.
To Brady, he was a complete stranger.
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