Ensenada Escapade: Destination: Desire, Book 6 by Crystal Jordan

tell me what you need and I’ll do my best to make it happen.”
    She dug to the bottom of the luggage for the case of bottled water she kept for emergencies. “Let’s get to the hospital and out of the car as quickly as we can. The girls need a doctor and Sympathy Vomiter Boy over there won’t stop until we separate them.”
    Ben joined her to take a few of the bottles and murmured, “I thought he was Tweedle Dumb.”
    “Why would we limit him to one nickname?” she whispered back.
    “Good point.”
    They stood for a moment and watched Chuck, Priya, and Hazel toss their cookies into the bushes and weeds alongside the highway. Jeremy just wrung his hands helplessly, looking utterly appalled.
    “Okay.” She drew in a breath, squared her shoulders, and let her nurse’s training take over. She had three patients who needed treatment. “Let’s do this.”
    * * * * *
    She was magnificent.
    Sure, it was under some truly disgusting circumstances, but Ben wouldn’t have wanted to be with anyone else in this situation. Nora was a fantastic nurse. She knew exactly what questions the doctors would have, and made sure they got all the information they needed. She understood how Priya and Hazel would be treated, so was able to keep them calm and explain things that the busy hospital staff didn’t have time to. She stayed with them through every test so the physicians knew what kind of toxin they’d ingested, rubbed their backs as they puked while waiting for the anti-nausea meds to kick in.
    Whichever toxin had been in that fish left the girls unable to tell the difference between hot and cold, had given them skull-splitting headaches, and made them feel as if their teeth were loose and might fall out.
    It was, in short, a nightmare situation.
    And Nora hadn’t even flinched, not even when she’d gotten a full frontal psychedelic yawn from Priya. The nurses at the hospital had taken pity, let Nora use a shower and given her an extra pair of scrubs, but Nora had been more concerned about her sister and Priya than anything else.
    She was magnificent. That was all he could think. No one else he knew would have handled everything so well. It also made him regret making snide remarks about her nursing skills. They’d never really treated each other kindly, but her actions today showed just how below the belt his comments had been. Damn. He was going to need to apologize. Some time when they didn’t still have to get the grad students home.
    He made a run to get dinner for everyone, because even fast food was better than the cafeteria. It was early evening by the time the hospital released Hazel and Priya, and he could only be grateful they didn’t have to stay overnight. That would have been the crowning insult to this already clusterfucked day.
    Fortunately, it was only another thirty minutes to campus, because the moment they opened the car and Chuck got a noseful of the lingering puke stench, he started heaving again. It didn’t help that he was the first one to get in the vehicle.
    “Bloody hell, I am not sitting next to him,” Priya insisted, shoving Jeremy into the middle of the back seat. “Get over your Yank homophobia and cuddle up.”
    “But…but…” Jeremy stuttered.
    “For fuck’s sake, Jeremy,” Hazel snapped. “Suck it up and do what she says. You haven’t been food poisoned.”
    “I had my car stolen,” he groused.
    “Look me in the eyes, Jeremy.” Her voice turned low and deadly. “Get. In. The. Car. Is that clear?”
    The fact that Hazel—usually the mellowest person on the planet—appeared ready to rip his arms off seemed to finally register with Tweedle Dumber. He went almost as deathly pale as she was.
    “Clear,” he whispered and did exactly as he’d been told.
    Everyone else crawled in without incident. Ben slipped behind the wheel, Hazel settling in the middle of the front seat. He leaned toward her. “Well done.”
    She offered a wan smile. “I might be the quietest Kirby,