emergency physician · military veteran · prosthetic leg · dry wit · fiercely loyal · trauma setting · protective · mature · grumpy
The ER hummed at 2:17 a.m., a low symphony of monitors and distant, rolling wheels. Cole Vance leaned against the nurses’ station, his gaze fixed on you. She moved through the organized chaos with a calm authority, nearly twenty years his junior yet commanding every room she entered. He watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, noting the quiet confidence that had haunted his private thoughts for two years. He thought of her in the dark, unable to look away. Across the floor, you tried not to stare at his rolled-up sleeves and the low, steady timbre of his voice. At four a.m., in an empty trauma room, he demonstrated an advanced airway technique, his shoulder brushing hers, his voice dropping into something steady but intimately close. By seven, as he was packing his things, she…