by Janice Lynn
“He fell. His hand and knee are cut. Not too badly but he’s going to need stitches. Can you get me set up in Bay...” he glanced around the ER to see which bay was empty “...Two?”
“Don’t you think he should see the doctor on duty?” Cindy asked, eyeing them all curiously.
Ross ignored her. “After you get Bay Two set up, bring a clean scrub top for Brielle to change into.”
“Right,” Cindy answered, her gaze telling Brielle there was no way she was going to be put off this time.
Yeah, yeah, she got the message. All week she’d put off Cindy’s questions about Ross being Justice’s father, but there would be no more delay in giving an explanation.
Ross motioned for Brielle to sit on the hospital bed then he handed Justice to her.
“Son, I’m going to wash my hands, glove up, then clean your leg and hand. I need you to be very brave like I know you are, okay?”
“Like—” He named his favorite superhero.
“Exactly like him.”
Determined to make his father proud, Justice sat very still in Brielle’s lap, taking in everything Ross did.
Cindy tossed a clean scrub top onto the hospital bed beside them then gloved up also. “I have everything I thought you might need set out on the tray.”
“Thanks,” Ross said, sliding his hands into his gloves. “If you need to go and take care of your patients, I think Brielle and I have this.”
Cindy gave them a reluctant look. “You’re sure?”
He nodded. “We’ll be fine, but if we need you, I’ll call. I know you have other patients as this was the only open bay.”
She nodded, her gaze going back and forth between them. “I do, but...okay, call if you need me.”
“Is he allergic to anything?” Ross asked Brielle.
“Penicillin is his only allergy.”
“You’re not allergic to anything,” Ross remembered. “He gets that from me. I’m allergic to penicillin.”
Ross sounded a bit incredulous, in awe that his son had one of his traits. Ha, Justice had a lot more of his father than just an antibiotic allergy.
He removed the bandage from Justice’s hand. The bleeding had stopped and the torn skin had lifted away from the palm.
“Ouch,” Justice whimpered, then seemed to recall that he was being brave and sucked his lower lip into his mouth.
Ross rinsed the wound out with saline solution, making sure there was no foreign debris. Next he swirled iodine solution from the center of the wound outwards so as not to drag any bacteria into the wound. He picked up the anesthetic-filled syringe to numb the area prior to suturing the skin back together.
“I don’t want a shot.” Justice forgot about being brave and began scooting back against Brielle as tightly as his little body would go. “Mommy, don’t let him give me a shot.”
“I’m just going to squirt a few drops into the tear to begin with. It’ll sting a little, but won’t be too bad,” Ross promised.
Justice still didn’t want any part of the needle and Brielle had to forcibly hold his palm out while he squirmed, saying “Ouch” over and over.
Ross squirted a generous amount of anesthetic into the open wound, waited a few seconds then injected the area to the sounds of his son screaming.
Brielle cringed at her son’s pain, wishing yet again she could take his pain for him.
“No. Stop! I don’t like you. No. Ouch. Ouch. Daddy, stop!”
She winced at him calling Ross “Daddy” in the middle of their workplace. No way had all their co-workers not heard his cries. Then again, they all suspected something was going on between her and Ross. May as well have it all out in the open so they could move on to some new tidbit of gossip.
“You need help?” Cindy asked, poking her head into the bay, her dark gaze going straight to Brielle.
“We’re fine,” Brielle and Ross said at the same time.
Ross finished injecting the area and set the syringe down. Justice had already calmed down somewhat.
“Alrighty, then,” the nurse said, disappearing again. “Justice, sweetie, if you need anything, you yell for me, okay?”
Justice nodded, wiping his face on Brielle’s shirt. “I don’t want ’titches.”
“Justice, does your hand still hurt?” Ross asked.
Not looking at Ross, he nodded again.
“It does? You’re sure? The magic potion medicine I put in should have put a spell on your hand and made it stop hurting completely.”
Justice seemed to consider that. “Maybe it worked a little.”
“That’s good, son. I want you to tell me if your hand starts hurting again because the magic potion is to protect you so your hand doesn’t hurt at all, okay?”
Justice eyed his hand as if expecting a glow or puff of smoke to be emitted from the wound.
Ross began to do his magic for real. He pulled the skin flap down, lining up the wound edges as perfectly as possible then began putting in suture after suture.
On the first suture Brielle distracted Justice’s attention to something elsewhere in the room rather than at what Ross was doing, and he was halfway into the second one when Justice noticed the needle.
“No.” Justice tried to pull his hand away, but Brielle kept a firm grasp on it.
“You’ve got to hold very still, son. Remember the magic potion,” Ross urged in a gentle but firm voice. He didn’t stop what he was doing. “You didn’t feel the first suture and you won’t feel this one either. You’re under the protection of magic, remember?”
Justice didn’t look completely convinced but he let Ross finish, his tiny body relaxing against Brielle’s. During the eighth suture his eyes closed.
“He’s exhausted,” she informed Ross as he tied off the last stitch and cut the Ethilon.
“No wonder. Fishing and this.”
“He never even cast his line.”
“Fossil hunting can be exhausting, too,” he said, obviously trying to go for lightness.
Something about them being alone with their son sleeping between them made Brielle feel nervous.
Moving gently so as not to wake Justice, Brielle repositioned herself so Ross would have easy access to the cut on Justice’s knee. He cut the knot, releasing the material of the makeshift bandage. The knee had bled enough to stick the fabric to the wound and he poured saline over the area to re-wet it so he could remove the fabric more easily from the area without tugging on the wound.
He repeated the steps he’d taken on Justice’s palm, first cleaning the wound, then disinfecting it, then squirting anesthetic into the open wound to provide some numbness before he anesthetized the area properly by injecting anesthetic around the wound.
Justice sighed in his sleep, but Brielle comforted him, singing softly and rubbing his back as she’d done his entire life when holding him, and he didn’t wake up completely.
Ross sutured the knee while Brielle watched, still singing softly to Justice.
“You’re very good with him,” Ross praised when he’d trimmed the Ethilon on all the sutures.
Something warm and gooey moved in her chest. “I was thinking that about you. That was brilliant with the magic potion.”
“He likes magic. Almost everything we played this week ended up involving some type of spell or magic force field.”
“Most children are fascinated by such things.”
Ross’s gaze dropped to their sleeping son nestled against her chest. “You’ve done a really good job with him, Brielle. A man couldn’t ask for a better mother for his child.”
Heat infused Brielle’s face. Whether from his praise or from the way he was looking at her, she wasn’t sure, just that she was getting the warm fuzzies inside and Ross was causing them.
Then again, th
is man had always caused her to get warm fuzzies of one kind or another.
“It was nice having you here today to help me with him,” she admitted, stroking her fingers along Justice’s back to occupy her hands. “Much easier than if I’d had to deal with his cuts on my own.”
“I should’ve been there every time you needed help with him, Brielle.” He grimaced, sighed, then stared directly into her eyes. “I would have been there from the beginning if I’d known.”
“I know.”
She did know. Only she’d wanted him to be there because he’d wanted to be there, not because he’d felt obligated to be there.
Men who stayed because they felt obligated ended up leaving and the ones left behind were all the more devastated for having believed in for ever and always.
CHAPTER TEN
ROSS CARRIED HIS son’s limp body to his bedroom, waited while Brielle pulled back his bed covers, then gently laid the boy down. Brielle helped to position him in the bed, fluffing his pillow beneath him, adjusting the comforter that Ross had pulled up over the boy.
His son.
It was crazy that just two weeks before he hadn’t known he had a son. Already he couldn’t imagine going back to an existence without Justice. The child had won his heart completely.
He couldn’t imagine going back to an existence without Brielle either.
His gaze lifted to her, caught her watching him. Her eyes were glassy, as if she fought tears. Then she lost the battle and a wet streak slid down her cheek.
“Don’t cry, Brielle. He’s okay.” He wanted to take her into his arms, but she’d only push him away. Despite their moment of peace at the hospital, she’d clammed back up, sliding the walls she held between them back into place.
“I know.” She nodded, swatting at her tears. “It’s not that. It’s...”
“It’s...?” he prompted.
She glanced toward their sleeping son, shook her head, then quickly slipped past Ross without looking at him.
Ross watched her go, realized that more than anything he didn’t want her to go, so he went after her.
“Brielle?” he said, knocking on her bedroom door.
Not having been properly latched, the door fell open. She sat on the edge of her bed, her face buried in her hands as she sobbed silently.
Ross gave in to the need to hold her.
He gave in to the need to feel her in his arms and breathe in her scent.
He gave in to everything that was inside him that said this was the woman he wanted.
Without waiting for permission, he crossed the floor, sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into his arms.
Her gaze lifted to his, startled as if she hadn’t realized he was there until he held her. Had she been so lost in her misery?
“Don’t cry, Brielle. I can’t stand to see you cry,” he said gently, brushing his fingers lighttly across her cheeks to dry her tears. “I never could.”
“Don’t be nice to me,” she surprised him by ordering in a low but firm voice.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t deserve your kindness.”
He held her tighter to him. “Sure you do.”
She huffed, not meeting his eyes.
He put his hand beneath her chin, lifted it. “Look at me.” When she didn’t, he repeated, “Look at me, Brielle.”
She looked up, meeting his gaze and wincing.
“You deserve my kindness because you are the mother of my son, because when I chose to walk away rather than to fight for us, you didn’t make the wrong choice. You gave our son life and you have done an amazing job of raising him by yourself without any help from me when I should have been by your side the whole way.”
“You would have been if I’d told you. I know you would have.”
“But that isn’t how you wanted me, was it, Brielle?”
She shook her head. “No, I wanted...” Her voice trailed off and she averted her gaze.
“You wanted what?” he prompted, tilting her chin, realizing that the distance between their mouths was closing. He could feel her breath teasing his lips, could feel the warmness of her mouth beckoning him.
“You,” she answered simply, closing her eyes and looking as if she was in agony.
Agony that Ross understood. He was feeling pretty agonized himself.
“I wanted you,” she whispered, eyes still shut.
He leaned forward the slightest amount, putting his lips in direct contact with hers, and ended his agony.
Her lips felt amazing against his.
Her eyes shot open, searched his for answers that he doubted she’d find because he didn’t have answers, not to any of the questions shining in her eyes.
All he knew was that he had never stopped wanting this woman. That for five years he’d wanted her but had been too stubborn to admit that he’d needed her all those years before.
He needed her now.
Her mouth remained perfectly still and he couldn’t stand it. He wanted to taste her, to put his tongue into the sweet recesses of her mouth and conquer all.
As if sensing his need, she parted her lips and Ross growled his pleasure.
“You taste so good,” he groaned, supping on her lower lip. “So perfect.”
“Don’t talk,” she ordered low against his mouth. “Please, just don’t say anything. Just...just kiss me.”
Ross might have stopped to analyze her comment had he been thinking straight. But he hadn’t been thinking straight from the moment he’d taken her into his arms.
No, longer than that. He hadn’t been thinking straight for years, since the first time he’d laid eyes on his roommate’s kid sister who had just been finishing nursing school and had literally taken his breath away. What had happened to make him forget that?
To forget how she’d affected him? How he’d instantly known he’d have her? Yet he’d been the one to walk away, and for what?
At the moment nothing seemed as pressing as loving this woman, familiarizing himself again with everything about her.
Her lips. Her mouth. Her face. Her neck.
Oh, her neck. How he’d always loved her neck.
What a sweet arch she had.
When he kissed her collar bone, slid his hands under the borrowed hospital scrub top to push the material out of his way, he groaned. Brielle had more curves and slopes than a geometry textbook.
Her fingers tangled in his hair as he breathed in the lovely scent between her breasts.
Fuller, he thought. Her breasts were fuller than when they’d been together before. Had time or childbirth done that?
Either way, he was going to reap their bounty.
His fingers found the clasp to her bra and freed her beautiful breasts. He stared in appreciation. “You’re beautiful, Brielle. So beautiful.”
“No talking,” she reminded him, pulling his mouth back to hers and kissing him so thoroughly, so hungrily that the constriction of his shorts grew painful and he had to adjust himself.
He pushed her back on her bed, leaned forward and kissed her belly, then lifted his T-shirt over his head, wanting to feel his skin against hers, his body against hers with nothing between them.
“You’re the one who is beautiful,” she murmured, tracing her fingers down his chest. “You always were so beautiful, Ross.”
He started to correct her, to tell her he was a man and far far from beautiful. Then her fingers found their way to his waist. All he could do was suck in his breath in eager anticipation of what she’d do next.
No, he thought. This wasn’t about him. It was about Brielle. About how much he wanted to make her feel good, about how much he wanted to give her pleasure. He wanted Brielle so caught up in him that she was as hungry for him as he was fo
r her.
Hungrier. Starved.
His hand covered hers just as she slid his zipper down and he shook his head.
Her brow lifted in question.
By way of answer he tugged on her elastic-waisted shorts, sliding them over the curve of her hips, down her toned thighs and calves, and tossed them onto her floor.
Lying on the bed in only her bright pink cotton panties, Brielle was easily the most beautiful sight his eyes had ever been lucky enough to behold.
Beautiful.
His.
He may have been stupid enough not to acknowledge the connection between them when he’d been younger, but now he knew. He and Brielle were meant to be together. Always and for ever.
This time he was wise enough to embrace that fact rather than try to run from something so powerful.
Love.
He loved Brielle.
Always had. Always would.
He slipped his fingers beneath her panties and slid them down the same path as her shorts.
Immediately, he realized he’d been wrong.
Looking at her, completely naked, lying on the bed waiting for his touch, that was the most beautiful sight he’d ever been lucky enough to behold.
She watched him, her skin flushed with desire, her eyes half-lidded and her lips parted.
So beautiful.
He ran his hands over her legs, going slowly, enjoying every glide of his skin across hers, growing more and more excited with the goose-bumps that prickled her skin at his touch, at the way her nipples puckered and strained upwards, eager to touch him, to be touched by him.
As much as he wanted to explore every inch of her body, slowly and surely, kissing her breasts, bringing her to the brink of pleasure and then toppling her over time and again, he couldn’t do it.
Because he couldn’t resist the tantalizing pull of between her legs.
He bent, dipped his tongue between her pretty pink lips, and suckled the swollen flesh.
“Ross,” she murmured, her fingers back in his hair, working across his scalp as her hips writhed against the thrust of his tongue.