Choppy Waters

By Sandy Grissom

What do you do when your past, your sexist hang-ups and other differences seem too great to ever be able to truly love someone?
That was the problem for three couples who meet but can find no way to get past the issues that keep them apart.

There’s:
The Executive and the Wannabe Baker
The Doctor and the Nurse
The Builder and the City Official

Will conflict keep them apart? Or will they overcome their fears and grab onto that one special love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandy Grissom
• Release date: May 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458037503

Sandy Grissom

Sandy Grissom has loved books all her life. That love began by listening to her older sister read when she was still too young to discover the magic for herself. She's read everything from history to the phone book but her favorite authors are James Michener, Agatha Christie and the mystic William Blake. Over the years, romantic novels became a favorite. The top of that list is Pride and Prejudice. When she retired she had too much time on her hands and spent too much money and trips to the library to get books in order to satisfy her restless soul. It was then she began to write herself. As an adult she held a variety of jobs, all of them grist for her imaginative mind. The occupations in Choppy Waters will hopefully inspire someone to fight for their own dreams, to never give up on themselves or on love. A widow, Sandy recently moved to southern Indiana where she lives near the younger of her two beloved sisters.

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Choppy Waters

A Romance Trilogy

By Sandy Grissom

Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 by S.K.G. Haag

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover image by: Lyn McLeod used under Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike License

Sandy Grissom has loved books all her life. That love began by listening to her older sister read when she was still too young to discover the magic for herself. She’s read everything from history to the phone book but her favorite authors are James Michener, Agatha Christie and the mystic William Blake.

Over the years, romantic novels became a favorite. The top of that list is Pride and Prejudice. When she retired she had too much time on her hands and spent too much money and trips to the library to get books in order to satisfy her restless soul. It was then she began to write herself.

As an adult she held a variety of jobs, all of them grist for her imaginative mind. The occupations in this trilogy will hopefully inspire someone to fight for their own dreams, to never give up on themselves or on love.

A widow, Sandy recently moved to southern Indiana where she lives near the younger of her two beloved sisters.

I dedicate this to all the romance writers I’ve ever read who have given me hours and hours of pleasure and inspiration.

If you’ve ever boated you know what choppy waters are like and how they can be awfully scary. Love is like that. You’re up on top of a wave one minute feeling free and invulnerable. Then the next minute you’re barely holding on as your boat dips below the water line and you fear being capsized and drowned.

Check out how the three couples in the following stories handle the ups and downs of love.

The Doctor’s Comeuppance

Chapter 1

It had been a lousy week for Dr. Sarah Collins and it looked like nothing was going to change anytime soon. She usually worked in Pediatrics and Sarah loved working with children. The kids all called her Dr. Sarah. She loved that, too. The staff all called her Dr. Collins but then conversely they didn’t seem to like her all that much.

That’s their problem, she muttered to herself for the millionth time. I’ve worked damn hard to get to where I am. I suppose I do have their respect if not their friendship. Perhaps, that’s enough.

She sighed as though it wasn’t possible to actively acknowledge it but somewhere deep inside she knew that it wasn’t nearly enough. Other staff members had friendships. They went to ball games and met for dinner. Sarah had spent so much time and energy getting to where she was that she had never given the time and attention it took to nurture any friendships. She hadn’t yet admitted consciously that she was lonely but the feeling was there nonetheless. Sarah suppressed it as best she could without admitting to herself what it really was.

She made her way to the next examining room and pulled the chart from the wall file hanging outside the room. This week, due to a shortage of staff that was out sick, Sarah was assigned to the Emergency room. It was certainly a change from Pediatrics. While there were times when she was running around in circles there, most of the time it was relatively quiet. The Emergency room on the other hand, had not quieted down once all week long. It was constant pressure. Sarah didn’t know how anyone managed to work here all the time.

She had worked long hours all week because of the staff shortage both in the ER and covering the patients in Pediatrics. Sarah was tired and out of sorts. And she didn’t have any patience for the rude orderly.

Orderly, she yelled for the second time. But the man continued on down the hall and around the corner.

How dare him, she said under her breath. Well, he’ll be sorry he ignored me. I’ll get his name and report him to Personnel later.

Just then, Sarah saw another orderly coming from the other direction so she called out to him. He came over right away.

Yes, doctor, what do you need?

The patient in Examining Room three threw up. Will you take care of it for me?

Right away, doctor.

Oh, and what’s the name of the other orderly on duty tonight?

The other orderly, he asked in confusion. I don’t…, he began.

Never mind. Just take care of the clean up.

Of course, doctor.

The time was very close to changing shifts. Sarah imagined the orderly she’d spoken with didn’t know which other orderly he had come on to replace. It didn’t matter. She’d run into him again. She’d recognize him, too, when she did. It was true she’d only seen him from the back, but the man was bigger than any of the other orderlies she’d worked with. Maybe he was new or like her usually worked on a different floor.

Whatever the case, Sarah would know the man when she ran into him. He was tall, taller than Sarah and she was 5’7".

He must be over six feet tall, she thought.

He was broad of shoulder so he’d be strong, a good trait in an orderly. He had black hair, short and straight and slicked back. The man’s legs looked like tree trunks and his tush, well, she’d know that anywhere.

Sarah blushed at her appraisal of a lowly orderly. She wondered idly how she’d processed so much information about him in the brief time she’d seen him. Sarah shook her head and hurried in to examine the patient waiting in the next room.

Quite a few hours later Sarah finally was able to clock out when another doctor came in to relieve her. Things had settled down a bit by then so she headed for her office to get her purse and then go home. On her way to the elevators, she passed by the entrance to the staff quarters. The hospital had set it up for single staff or new hires who hadn’t gotten settled into their own places yet. Sarah had stayed in one of the rooms herself when she’d first taken the job at Mercy.

Passing the entrance door, her eyes were drawn through a window into the work out area. That too was provided for the staff by the hospital. It was often difficult to get away to go to a gym so it had been added along with a day care center the last time the hospital had expanded. Those perks made retaining employees much easier than it was for other hospitals who were unable to provide such amenities.

Sarah’s feet slowed as she recognized one of the men working out in there. He was lifting weights. Sarah’s mouth gaped open at the number of heavy round weights that were positioned on each side of the bar. Drool formed in her mouth when she saw the man’s muscles ripple as he lifted the bar up over his head. As she watched, he lifted the bar over and over. Sarah’s feet wouldn’t seem to move away from the sight, her eyes glued to his magnificent torso.

When is he going to stop, she wondered. And then, my god, he looks as good from the front as the back.

For it was the orderly who’d ignored her call to him. Sarah noted that his chest was dark and hairy but not too hairy. The hair on that massive chest was glistening with sweat from his workout. It was coal black the same color as the hair on his head. She could almost imagine a drop of sweat dripping off each hair and onto his remarkable chest. After what seemed like an eternity to Sarah, he replaced the bar on the rack with the help of the spotter standing behind him. He sat up on the bench and casually looked her way. Sarah was spell bound.

His eyes were black, too, and seemed to look right down into her soul. He held her gaze for a moment just long enough for her to become uncomfortable and then he looked away.

Surely he didn’t know she had been studying him, did he?

For the second time tonight and the first time in years, Sarah blushed. She turned then to walk away only to see that one of the nurses had been watching him, too.

He’s really something, isn’t he, the nurse sighed.

Yeah, Sarah whispered in spite of herself.

She finally got her feet to moving and walked over to the elevators and pushed the button for the eighth floor where her office was located. The vision was still with her when she stepped off the elevator and moved down the hallway.

He knew he had an audience, she thought, as she went. Me and that nurse. But he looked at me, not at her. Sarah grinned inside at the pleasure that gave her. Still, he’s just an orderly, she reminded herself. A damn fine looking orderly, but an orderly, nevertheless.

Besides, he hadn’t answered her when she called out to him in the ER And just now he’d looked at her like a man looks at a woman, not an orderly to a doctor. The man behaved entirely too familiarly to Sarah’s way of thinking. She deserved respect, not open appraisal. Didn’t he know his place? He was at the bottom of the pecking order here.

When Sarah got her dander up enough, she was finally able to dismiss how he’d affected her. She told herself that it was just anger that caused her reaction to the man. Her emotions were already high where he was concerned. It was only natural that they would change to encompass his physical attributes. But he’d ignored her when she called out to him and Sarah wasn’t going to let that pass without a dressing down.

She got her things together and left the hospital. She drove the few blocks to her condominium. Sarah was exhausted when she arrived. She’d been on duty for fifteen hours straight. She made some chamomile tea and toast and after eating the light snack, she went straight to bed.

Sarah woke up about midnight. She was moaning and twisted up in her sheets. Sarah sat straight up in bed when she realized that she’d been having a most lurid dream.

Oh, no, she told herself, not him.

Sarah had been dreaming about making love with a common orderly.

It was that weightlifting that did it, she declared. His strong arms moving up and down over and over like that while the muscles in his legs went taut as he braced them on the floor to lift.

Sarah wiped her forehead which was wet with sweat.

My mind must have transferred my reaction to those movements to a more sexual feeling. It must have caused my unconscious mind to think about how his muscles would similarly go taut during sex. It’s perfectly natural. It doesn’t mean a thing, she told herself adamantly.

He’s only an orderly, she reminded herself. If you decide to get involved with someone, it will be a doctor at least, not some lowly orderly, no matter how good looking he is. Besides he was rude, remember?

In any case, she went on thinking, I would be just like my mother if I got into a personal relationship with him. All she’s done all her life is look for a man to take care of her. Not that that orderly could take care of me, she laughed. Not on his salary. And I sure as hell don’t plan to take care of him.

I decided a long time ago to be in charge of my own life. My mother’s men come and go out of her life. Then she’s on the trail for another one. I understand that it’s all about my father, but that still doesn’t excuse her behavior.

Sarah moved up on the bed and stuffed pillows behind her back so that she could rest against the headboard. When thoughts of her mother’s life came, Sarah knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anytime soon.

So he left her. Get over it, Sarah thought.

She knew her mother hadn’t, though. She put away the picture whenever a man was staying with her. But when one wasn’t, the photograph always stood prominently on her mother’s night stand. It was a picture of Sarah’s father, of course. He was a handsome man. She’d have to give him that. But he’d left when Sarah was only three years old. She didn’t know why. Her mother wouldn’t talk about him or why he left. But Sarah knew that her mother had never gotten over him.

She’d spied her mother holding and looking down at the framed picture of a young man in a Marine uniform more times than she could count over the years. Her mother never knew Sarah watched her by hiding around corners. So she didn’t know that Sarah had seen her sad face so many times. But she had and now Sarah saw her mother again in her mind holding tightly onto the picture frame and she supposed recalling their few years together.

Sometimes she wished she knew what had happened between them to cause her father to leave. But most of the time, Sarah simply determined not to let herself get into a similar situation. She wouldn’t allow herself to care that much for a man. It was simply self preservation. Sarah didn’t think she’d survive the kind of love and hurt she saw on her mother’s face those times when her mother held that small picture so close to her heart.

She was a doctor. Dr. Collins. And she thought he was an orderly. This could be fun. He’d heard about her. That was for sure. She was uppity was the first comment that he heard. Stuck up was another one. Oh yeah, he’d heard all that. What he hadn’t heard about her was how beautiful she was. It was too bad she thought so highly of herself. She was some woman or would be if she got down off her high horse.

He knew she’d been watching him lift weights. For half a minute there, she almost looked vulnerable standing outside the window. It hadn’t lasted, though. The good doctor didn’t give up anything easily it seemed. He’d seen the nurse too, out of the corner of his eye. He could take that one to bed tonight if he wanted to. She looked more than willing.

Jake Monroe kind of liked a challenge, though. The doctor would certainly be one if he had a mind to pursue it. In spite of her attitude, Jake thought he could like her. And who knows, she might just be worth the trouble. If nothing else, it still might be fun to see how high that horse she rode on actually was.

His stint in the military had taught him a lot of things. One very useful one was perception, both physical and personality wise. That’s how he picked up on her attitude so quickly staring at him through that window. But it was his staring into those cool green eyes of hers that had told him she was more than she tried to appear. He’d also gotten a good look at her body though she wouldn’t know that. He’d learned to skim over a person while not allowing them to notice he was doing it.

Jake wasn’t an orderly. He was a nurse. He’d only been back from the Gulf about a year. He finished up his enlistment at a nearby base and until a few months ago he had assisted a psychiatrist who was working with patients suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. After that ended due to budget cuts, he had taken the job at Mercy Hospital. He still volunteered at the center, though.

Jake had been lucky. He’d not been close to the action except for a few times. But it had been enough for him to understand what those soldiers had gone through and how it still affected them. What he hadn’t discovered over there, he’d seen working with the people who came home.

How was a man supposed to come out of a minute by minute fight for his life into a calm and collected atmosphere at home? The transition had to be unbelievably difficult. He also wondered how you trained a killer and then expected him to stop cold turkey just because he had a change of scenery at home. Even worse, at least in Jake’s eyes, how did you come to terms with taking another person’s life? Jake was trained to save lives so he could get why some men struggled in their attempt to put such a horrendous event aside and get on with a peaceful existence.

During his time in the Gulf, he had also learned how scared most of the kids were who were brought into the hospital in Baghdad. That’s where he learned to skim over their bodies covertly. Checking them out without their knowledge allowed him to see the extent of their injuries before he began to work on them. And he did work on them, doing even more than he was trained for or would have liked. Doctors were buried under a mass of people so the nurses did a lot of what doctors would normally have done. Jake kind of missed that but only because the patients did not have to wait for a doctor to be freed up to see them.

Jake had an empathy for people that some of the staff over there had considered to be a weakness but it wasn’t. It was pure sympathy for what they’d gone through and seen and what they had yet to endure. He had to reel in those feelings before the patient recognized them, though, and Jake had learned to do that very well. His once over while they would swear his eyes never left theirs had given him time to see the injuries but more importantly, to mask his sympathy so that the patient wasn’t unduly alarmed at his condition.

He’d used the same technique to check out the sexy doctor. His eyes had never seemed to waver from hers but he’d seen everything there was to be seen. He liked her pale blonde hair. She’d pulled it back into a pony tail. Jake was curious how it would look lying all soft against her shoulders. She had the perkiest nose and a mouth made for kissing all night long. The body spoke for itself. It was luscious, curved in all the right places.

Jake lay in bed that night wondering about Dr. Collins. No rings and no white line either so she wasn’t married or engaged, but was there a guy in her life? Or did she use all that passion he’d seen in her eyes on her job? She’d tried to hide what she was feeling but Jake had been in tune with her even through a plate glass window. He knew she liked what she saw when she looked at him because he’d felt the same way about her. Jake doubted she’d admit it, however.

Yeah, he thought as he turned out the bedside lamp. It might be fun to play a little with the lady. He turned over and went right to sleep.

Chapter 2

Orderly, he heard behind him. It was her high and mighty voice.

Let the fun begin, he thought.

Jake turned around to see Dr. Collins motioning with her arm for him to join her. He did so happily.

Doctor, he said.

I need your help. I have a patient I need to have turned over so I can see the wound on his back but he’s passed out and I don’t have the strength to turn him alone.

No problem, Jake said. Always glad to help.

Sure you are, Sarah thought. Then why did you ignore me the other day?

This way, she said pompously.

Jake smiled at her retreating back. He went along with her into the examining room. Jake easily turned the man over and then asked, Will there be anything else, doctor?

No. Will you send a nurse in?

Jake started to tell her but that would have been too easy and he was enjoying this way too much.

Yes, doctor, he replied in as courteous a voice as possible.

He left the room and went up to the nurse’s station.

Dr. Collins wants a nurse in Examining Room two.

I don’t understand, the brunette behind the desk told Jake.

She thinks I’m an orderly, he grinned.

Didn’t you tell her that you’re a nurse, she asked.

Jake just smiled even more broadly. The nurse whose name was Betty looked at him closely.

Oh, you are a rascal, Jake, she grinned.

Thank you, he replied, amusement showing all over his face.

Jake went along to assist another doctor while Betty sailed down the hall to help Sarah.

It hadn’t been the first time he’d been mistaken for other than a nurse. It was the first time he’d enjoyed it so much, though. He was getting quite a kick out of teasing the lady doctor. In the gulf, he’d been mistaken for a delivery person, a patient, and yes, even a doctor. So Jake was used to it. What he didn’t like was the condescension he often saw in their eyes when they were corrected.

He knew what they thought. There were only a few explanations their small minds could come up with. They never came up with the right one though, the fact that he loved what he did. He’d always wanted to