Free A Knight for Nurse Hart by Laura Iding

disheveled, her blonde hair tangled up in knots, her face pale and her mascara smudged beneath her eyes.
    Pure instinct and compassion took over. Ignoring her own feelings and the persistent nausea, she stepped forward, keeping her tone low and soothing as she addressed the patient. “Helen, my name is Raine, and I’m a nurse. Can you tell me what happened?”
    The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember. I can’t remember! ”
    â€œShh, it’s okay.” Raine crossed over to put a supporting arm around the girl’s shoulders. She knew, only too well, exactly how Helen felt. The void where your memory should have been threatened to swallow you whole. Her own horrific experience had happened a month ago, but she was suddenly reliving every detail.
    She pushed the fears away, trying to keep focused on Helen. The girl was her patient. The poor young woman had come here for help. “Do you have bruises? Do you hurt anywhere?”
    Helen nodded, tears making long black streaks on her cheeks. “When I woke up…my clothes were off. And…was hurt. I think—I might have been raped.”

CHAPTER SIX
    T HE room spun dizzily and Raine’s knees buckled. She grabbed the edge of the bed, holding herself upright out of sheer stubbornness. But her mind whirled, drawing parallels matching the horrific experience she’d endured with this poor girl’s situation.
    She swallowed hard and tried to gather her scattered thoughts. She needed to get a grip. This wasn’t about her. She needed to focus on the patient. Helen.
    â€œYvonne, please find Dr. Stewart, will you?” Raine wasn’t sure how she managed to sound so calm. “I need him to approve some orders.”
    â€œOf course.” Yvonne ducked from the room.
    Helen tightened her grip on the blanket, her eyes wide and frightened in her face. “Is Dr. Stewart a man? Because I don’t want him to examine me unless he’s a woman.”
    The disjointed protest didn’t make much sense, but Raine understood exactly what Helen was trying to tell her.
    â€œDr. Stewart is a man, but he won’t examine you,” she explained gently. “We have nurses, female nurses, who have special training as sexual assault experts to do that. Dr. Stewart does need to write the orders, though.We’ll need to draw some blood so we can run lab tests, to see if you have any drugs in your system.”
    â€œDrugs? I don’t do drugs. Oh…” Helen’s face paled and her eyes filled with fresh tears. “You mean he gave me something? Is that why I can’t remember?”
    Rohypnol was the drug they’d found in her bloodstream. But there were various date-rape drugs on the streets. She’d spent hours searching through the information on the internet. Even alcohol could be used to encourage a woman to do something she normally wouldn’t do.
    There were plenty of men who would take advantage of the opportunity.
    Her skin felt cold and clammy, and she tightened her grip on the edge of Helen’s bed in an effort to keep her mind grounded in reality. Thankfully the patient was too traumatized to realize there was something wrong with her nurse. Raine tried to speak calmly through the dull roaring in her ears. “We won’t know until we get the test results back. When did this happen?”
    â€œLast night, late. We closed the bar. But I didn’t wake up until a couple hours ago. I slept all day. I never sleep all day.”
    Most likely because of the drugs. Especially if they were mixed with something else. “And were you drinking alcohol, too?”
    â€œYes.” Helen dropped her chin to her chest, as if she couldn’t bear to make eye contact. “Cosmo martinis.”
    The potent beverage may have been enough, but Raine didn’t think so. Helen’s total lack of memory sounded more like a