Don't Leave Me

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Jack was now sitting at the foot of the bed, reaching up to touch the bloody towel wrapped around her hand. She noticed the blood that had dried on her favorite blouse, an image she’d never get out of her head. Great, it too was now ruined.

  The curtain swung back, revealing a young doctor in green scrubs with a five o’clock shadow and deep brown hair with a hint of red. “Becky Friessen, I’m Dr. Tom Campbell,” he said. “It says here you cut yourself—”

  “Her finger is hanging off!” Jack interrupted, sounding so excited.

  The doctor took in her dad, mom, and little brother as he rested the chart, which had to contain her details, on a hook at the side of the bed. Then he glanced her way. She took in his eyes, blue, so deep and vibrant she felt awkward lying so prone and vulnerable, even if the bed was inclined so she was almost sitting. Still, her first thought was how she looked, but he was more interested in her hand as he unwrapped the towel. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “A little squeamish, are you?” he teased.

  “Yeah, well, blood’s not really my thing,” she said. Her finger hit air, and instantly there was a rush of pain.

  “How’d this happen again?”

  “A knife,” Brad said. “She was chopping—you were chopping vegetables, right?”

  It would be really nice if everyone could let her speak. She opened her eyes, seeing her mom beside her dad, his hand now around her waist. Jack was too busy trying to get a closer look at her almost severed finger, which she still hadn’t looked at.

  “Yes, I was making a salad,” Becky said—the one her dad had said her mom insisted she make. She knew that was likely not the way of it, but she wasn’t about to throw that bit in as she remembered the call from school and the good news her mom had yet to learn. “I guess I wasn’t really paying attention when I pushed down with the knife, and my finger was there. I felt it, and then—”

  “We found you on the floor. You fainted,” Emily said. Becky could see now the worry she had caused. “Maybe you have low blood sugar. Did you eat all the lunch I packed for you? You should do a blood test to check her levels.”

  Now she was horrified. Her mom was telling a doctor what tests he should be ordering. The doctor paused and glanced her way. It was a look that had her suddenly feeling five years old. Her dad cleared his throat. Could this moment get any worse?

  “Emily, just let the doctor work,” he said.

  “Mom, seriously, I fainted because of all the blood. I don’t like blood. It kind of freaks me out. Ignore my mom, please. She’s never happy unless she’s doing something for all of us. You’ll be happy to know I’m not helpless, thus making the salad which got me here. I was distracted over some good news.” She turned to Emily. “I’ll be off to college sooner rather than later and will be out of your hair.” Becky glanced back to the doctor, to her dad, and finally to her mom again as she tried to save whatever dignity she could. The moment it was out of her mouth, she wanted to take it back.

  “What!” her mom snapped, and the pointed look her father leveled on her had her wanting to sink back into the bed. When she looked over to the doctor, who was taking in all of them, she wondered whether it could be any worse. There was humor and something else in his expression she couldn’t make out.

  “Okay, first things first. This is deep, to the bone. I’ll stitch it up, and I want to give you a tetanus shot and order a round of antibiotics.” He snapped off the latex gloves she hadn’t known he’d put on.

  “Her shots are up to date,” her mom added as if she were a dog at the vet’s office, so she stared up at the ceiling, horrified and wanting to remind her mom she was all of nineteen, an adult, and didn’t need her parents here speaking, handling things for her.

  “Great,” Doctor Campbell said. “So how about this? Since this is such a small space and it’s getting a little crowded in here, how about everyone wait out in the waiting area while I stitch up Becky’s finger. Then I’ll have you out of here in no time.”

  She lifted her head and took in her dad as he ushered her mom out, Jack following on the ground. Brad stopped just inside the open curtain and took in the doctor, something in his expression that was…what, a warning that he wasn’t amused? She couldn’t say for sure. Then Brad softened as he took in his daughter.

  “We’ll be in the waiting room,” he said and then left, his boots scraping the floor.

  She took in the hot doctor, who appeared ready to laugh as he pulled up a stool with a covered tray, prepping everything. He pulled on fresh gloves and scooted closer, holding up a needle.

  “So how about we get that stitched up?”

  She stared at the syringe, the size of it, huge and steel. He was going to jab that where, exactly? It was moving closer to her hand, her finger, which he was holding now on the draped tray.

  “Hey, look at me,” he said. “Tell me about school.”

  She jerked her head to his face, this handsome doctor who didn’t have a ring. She was now alone with him. He jabbed her with the needle.

  “Ow!” she snapped, and he smiled brightly, dropping the needle and then getting ready to stitch up her cut.

  “Sorry. I’m usually a lot gentler,” he said as he dabbed away some of the blood still oozing. “Whatever would have distracted you so much that you cut your finger like this?”

  She took in the calm of this handsome stranger, who had a touch that was somewhat welcoming. “Well, she just left the exam room, and I’ll give you two guesses as to who it was.”

  He said nothing as she took in his concentration, then the smile again as he glanced her way. “Let me guess, your mom?”

  Oh, wow, those eyes. She’d never seen any like them. Everything in them seemed to reach inside her and make her feel special, wanted, and she thought she could have sat there all day with him, just talking and looking into those eyes.

  “Yeah, but it’s more about the news she now knows,” she said. Then her gaze went right to the smaller needle he was now holding, about to stick into her finger, ready to stitch. She felt her chest tighten as if the air had thinned, and she just stared at the steel, the surgical thread, the tools, and her bloody finger. Then she did something she’d never have expected to do: She yanked her hand away.

  Click here to order your copy of IN THE MOMENT and keep reading!

  More upcoming Friessen Books!

  IN THE FAMILY - Those we love always come home. Release date: December 22, 2017

  Click here to order your copy of In the Family, A Friessen Family Christmas

  IN THE SILENCE - In the silence, love hears everything. Release date: January 25, 2018

  Click here to order your copy of In the Silence

  IN THE STARS - Now that he's found her, he'll do anything to have her. Release date: February 13, 2018

  Click here to order your copy of In the Stars

  IN THE CHARM - He's used to having everything he wants. This time it won't be so easy. Release date: March 30, 2018

  Click here to order your copy of In the Charm

  * * *

  Stay tuned for more from the much-loved big family romance series!

  Other Works Available

  It begins May 31 - A BRAND NEW SERIES

  The Parker Sisters, a spinoff of the romance series Married in Montana from a Readers’ Favorite award—winning author and “queen of the family saga” (Aherman)

  * * *

  Thrill of the Chase

  The Dating Game

  Play Hard to Get

  What We Can’t Have

  Go Your Own Way

  * * *

  The Parker Sisters: The Complete Collection

  He stopped for an accident and stumbled upon the one woman he’d been looking for all his life.

  From a Readers’ Favorite award-winning author and the “queen of the family saga” (Aherman) comes The Parker Sisters, a new spinoff of the Married in Montana series.

  * * *

  To everyone who doesn’t know her, dependable EM
T Taz Parker is strong, capable, and confident. However, everything about her job terrifies her. She lives in a small Wyoming town, with four sisters, an overprotective father, and no dating prospects on the horizon, considering the lack of available men in the area. That is until one rainy night, while transporting a patient to the next town, she stumbles upon an accident.

  * * *

  Jerry O’Rourke is only passing through town when he witnesses a roadside accident. When he stops to help at the grisly scene, there’s only so much he can do, so he flags down a passing ambulance. A pretty EMT stops to help, and Jerry is unable to resist her.

  * * *

  Even though he lives in another state, Jerry seeks out Taz just one more time—but what he encounters is a naive young woman from a big family. Taz is beautiful and innocent, and he wonders where she’s been all his life. When he sets his sights on her, he soon realizes that the strong ties Taz has with her family could make having her far more difficult than he could have ever imagined.

  * * *

  Click here to download your copy of Thrill of the Chase.

  * * *

  Or scroll to the next page and read the first chapter:

  Chapter 1

  Taz wanted a hot bath, a good book, and a slice of Hoover’s Meat Lover’s Paradise, the specialty pizza at the Dog House. In fact, she could see herself wrapped in her fluffy lavender robe, wool socks on her feet, curled up on the sofa, digging into that first slice, which would comfort her after a lousy day at the station. Her workplace was a run-down double wide, all the town of Kaycee could provide for its EMTs, and her arrogant partner from Buffalo was four years her junior.

  Today, she had rushed to a scene only to be turned away by a chauvinistic good ol’ boy who’d rather have died than be rescued by a woman. Taz hadn’t minded the fact that the idiot saw her as a member of the weaker sex or the fact that he’d insisted Bradley Dunlop, a.k.a. her arrogant partner, who was still in training, be the one to administer first aid. It hadn’t been a big deal, even considering the man had had a hatchet sticking out of his back. How he’d managed that feat, she hadn’t a clue.

  Even though Bradley looked about twelve and weighed only one twenty, the balding overweight man had insisted he was his guy because, being male, he’d know more about what he was doing. That was laughable, considering Bradley still had to be reminded of some pretty basic rules—for example, that when he stepped out of the ambulance after getting the call, he needed to assess the scene and take a few commonsense steps. Look left, look right, and don’t forget to look up.

  She could hear the victim caterwauling and listened to the back and forth as she stood five steps away, that is, after she’d cut down the smoldering tree branch the guy had been sitting under. If Bradley had only looked up and assessed the scene as he was supposed to have done, he’d have seen it was only moments away from falling onto the shirtless idiot, whose fat belly was sticking out over his ripped blue jeans. She took in what she supposed was the barn, or rather a shed with rotted boards, a door hanging from one hinge, and rusty farm implements and piles of black garbage bags scattered everywhere, obviously the source of the rank odor that had hit her as she first stepped out of the rig.

  “So how, again, did you get an ax in your back?” Bradley asked. He was on the ground, squatting, wrapping the gushing wound. Blood was pooling on the gauze, and the man was glassy eyed. Taz had to bite her tongue, fighting the urge to correct Bradley. It was a hatchet, not an ax. Big difference.

  “I tripped. Goddamn fool woman didn’t put the thing back, and next thing I knew, I had this blade jammed in my back.”

  Taz took in Wilma, the wife of the idiot on the ground, who was also standing five feet back. She wasn’t a looker and appeared to be in her fifties, with salt and pepper hair that seemed to give her a bad hair day every day. She was wearing a faded house dress with an apron overtop, her face overly wrinkled, her eyes tired. She crossed her bony arms across her skinny chest. Her lips were thin, and she was shaking her head.

  “Hap, you were weaving out here, dragging that thing and throwing it around, drunker than a skunk—”

  “Oh, you hush up there, woman,” Hap snapped.

  Taz couldn’t figure out why Wilma had stuck around, not that she knew these folks well. They had four grown boys, one doing a nickel of hard time for holding up a liquor store, another having enlisted in the army and been shipped off to some godforsaken country overseas, and the other two having fucked off somewhere. They had obviously been smart enough to realize that sticking around here with parents who took dysfunctional to a whole new level would get them a life in prison, living hand to mouth, or, if they were really lucky, following in their parents’ footsteps.

  Taz hoped they’d found a better life as she watched Wilma pull a cigarette and lighter with a shaky hand from a torn pocket of her apron. She slipped it into her mouth, lit it, and took a heavy drag. Taz could hear her lungs scraping, and then she coughed deep and long, waving her hand at Taz when she started toward her. It was always the same with Wilma: the cigarettes, the coughing, the wheezing—and then there was the booze. Wilma just hid it better, but Taz could smell the cheap gin from fifteen feet away.

  “Bradley…” Taz said and gestured with her chin to the spilled beer off to one side and what looked like dozens of empties tossed everywhere. “How much you had to drink there, Hap?” she added, wondering how people could live the way they lived.

  “I ain’t going to tell you again there, missy. You let this young feller handle things and learn your place. Ouch, be careful!” the man shouted when Bradley bumped the head of the blade. Served him right, she wanted to say, and she was about to say something to Bradley when he stood up, gloves covered in blood, and stepped over to her.

  “You think you could give me a hand securing that ax and then loading this guy up?” he snapped, always an asshole, acting as if he were the one who had been wronged.

  “Why? What was it Hap said? I’m just a girl. You’re the expert. Pretty sure by your laugh that you agreed with him,” Taz said. She could hear the feline growl in her head. It wasn’t often she stooped to this bitchy level. She ground her teeth, feeling the pinch in her jaw. “You seen the beer cans, the mess. Guarantee by that glassy-eyed look he’s at least three times over the legal limit.”

  Bradley said nothing as he stared at her. It was two, three seconds before he turned his head and took in the scene, the one he was supposed to have assessed before stepping from the rig. She knew he’d missed it, considering taking direction from her didn’t sit that well with him. He was young and thought he knew everything, just another asshole who fit in with what seemed to be a way of life out here.

  He said nothing as he looked back to her, taking on the pissed-off expression that shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did. Heavy clouds had started drifting in shortly after they’d pulled in, and the wind was whipping up. The temperature was dropping, too, and she expected rain to spit from the sky any second.

  “Hmm,” Bradley said and then gave her his back, walking over to Hap just as the first drop of rain hit the ground. “Grab the stretcher, bring it on out here, and let’s load him up,” he ordered, obviously accepting the promotion Hap had bestowed. In Taz’s mind, this put Bradley somewhere between a shithead and a dung beetle.

  Wilma gave her a pathetic look that seemed to say, “Come on, girl. Hurry the fuck up.” Then she lifted her hand to keep the gathering rain from soaking the cigarette still dangling from her lips, an inch of ash ready to fall.

  With Hap now loaded in the back, Taz was behind the wheel, leaving Bradley with his newfound friend for the trek to Buffalo, where they would dump this idiot in the ER and get him off their—correction, her hands. She’d done the drive in thirty minutes before, but with the rain now pelting down in buckets, dropping visibility to piss poor, she’d have to tack on at least another ten as she kept the speed to something manageable. Even though the highway was flat and the traffic light, with t
he sun gone and the heavy clouds, the visibility was about as bad as it could be.

  Then she saw something just ahead as she approached a sharp hairpin turn. There in the blind spot in a thick of trees was a car, hazards flashing. Someone was on the side of the road, waving. She gripped the wheel as she pressed the brakes, feeling the water under the wheels just as she rounded the bend. She thought it was a man waving his arms. One car was silver, small, and another was upside down in the ditch, smoke rising. The man waving his arms ran toward the rig. She pressed the brakes harder, slowing to a stop.

  “Why are you stopping?” Bradley poked his head into the front.

  “Looks like an accident,” she said as she pulled in behind the car, turning her flashing lights on.

  “Just radio it in,” he said. “We’re already full up, and Hap needs to get to the ER now.”

  “I will call it in, and Hap will see a doctor, but I’m stopping,” she said as she put the rig in park. Then she stepped out, looking up to see that the man was tall, gorgeous, and dripping wet. He ran his hands over his head, sweeping back his dark hair, water running down his face. Taz was already soaked from the two steps it had taken to reach him.