“Thank you. Seriously. This was not how I planned to do this.”
“Yeah, well, we deal with facts and the situation in front of us. This is the situation. This is what we deal with.” Practical to the bone, it wasn’t that Luke didn’t understand—it was that they couldn’t change the situation from what existed. No matter how much Paul wished otherwise.
His phone buzzed and Lily’s name appeared on call-waiting. “I have to go, Captain. Lily’s on the other line.” He didn’t wait for the acknowledgement and swapped the call over. “Hey, you home?”
“Yeah.” Fatigue clung to the solitary word. “Walked in the door five minutes ago, but I think I fell asleep when I sat down.”
“Feet hurt?” He guessed.
“Yeah. I’m supposed to see the OB on Monday. Thankfully, I have tomorrow off.” A sigh drifted on the words.
“Any way they can scale your schedule back anymore?” He hated how tired she sounded. Considering she had just been coming off a three-day-straight schedule when he met her and she’d been run down then, he imagined the pregnancy made it worse.
“Not going to ask Jodi to do that. She’s already jumping through hoops for me now. I’m a trauma nurse, but at the moment I’m a glorified paper pusher. The more of those tasks I take on, the less gets done.” Irritation cropped up and he wasn’t sure who it was aimed at.
“On your side, remember?” Reminding her every chance he got, he wanted her to believe it.
“Sorry, I get cranky when I’m tired, and I’m hungry, and I always seem to be tired and hungry. I’ll be as big as a barn at the rate this baby demands food.” Her laugh made him feel better. “You know, they used to joke that when you’re pregnant you are eating for two, and that if you’re pregnant with a boy, you need to eat for three because of the calories burned. What do you think it means that I feel like I’m eating for a family of four?”
“That you’re carrying a Marine?” He grinned. “We know how to eat.”
Her soft chuckle brought another smile to his face. “That’s not improbable. My understanding is that Army brats eat a lot, too.”
“No, definitely Marine.” A surprising sensation flipped his stomach. Had his father felt this way about him? Paul hadn’t even seen Lillianna since their one night together and he’d never felt his baby’s kick and had no idea if it was even a boy or a girl yet—neither of them knew—but he was attached.
Seriously freaking attached.
“Does he kick yet?”
“She does, here and there.”
They did that, flip-flopping the gender. “What does it feel like?”
“Flutters? It’s hard to describe. Have you ever had butterflies in your stomach?”
“That’s a little to girly for me to admit to.” He didn’t try to keep the grin off his face, though. He could almost see her roll her eyes.
“But you know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I do. Like a rhythmic jittery sensation, one you can’t quite pinpoint.”
“Exactly. He does that. Usually when I’m trying to sleep. If I lay quietly, I imagine she’s trying to get my attention—you know making sure I’m still there.”
Paul considered that. “Not when you’re working?”
“No. Well, not a lot when I’m working. But I talk a lot on the job, so maybe he or she hears me then and doesn’t need to figure that out.” It sounded perfectly plausible to him.
“Is it keeping you awake?” She worked her ass off, she needed to be able to rest.
“Sometimes, but you know my mom says that’s how moms learn to be up with the baby when they get here. Pregnancy trains you to get by on less sleep, physically stresses you out, and makes everything more difficult.”
“So, you told your parents.” The last time he’d talked to her a week before, she hadn’t yet confessed it to them. She’d offered up any number of excuses, but he understood it. Same reason he hadn’t told his. Hard to live down parental disappointment.
“Yeah, they came to see me for a surprise visit.”
His gut clenched for her. “Oh. Hell.”
“Yeah, so I was like—surprise.” Beneath the thin veil of cheer, sadness crept through.
“How did they take it, Lily?” He should have been there for that. She shouldn’t have had to tell her parents alone. Another strike against him.
“Shocked. I know she tried to cover it, but Mom was really shocked. And I think she was more disappointed that I didn’t tell her when I found out, than she was that I am—you know—pregnant and unmarried. Dad on the other hand….” Silence crackled on the line. “Dad’s harder to read. He wasn’t happy.”
Anger tightened his muscles. “He didn’t say that, did he?”
“No, but you know when you’ve screwed up and your parents don’t have to tell you. You can feel it. He hasn’t been that quiet about something I did since I hot-wired that jeep and stole it from the motor pool. I remember his face when the MPs delivered me home and he had to report to his CO. This was a lot like that.” She sighed again. “But don’t worry, I didn’t tell him your name. I don’t want him to make trouble for you.”
“You go right ahead and give him my name. Hell, you give him my number. I’d love to talk to him.” And give him a piece of my mind. He did not need to make Lily feel bad. They didn’t do a damn thing wrong, and she carried so much of this burden on her own because Paul wasn’t there.
“Hey.” Her voice softened. “I’m okay. You don’t have to defend me. It’s okay. Dad’s old-fashioned. It doesn’t matter that I’m thirty and perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Women with a baby should also have a husband.”
“You can have a husband,” he promised.
“We’ve talked about this before….”
“I know you said no, but that offer is still there. I’m not taking it off the table.”
“You’re in Germany. I’m in Dallas.”
“For now.” The argument didn’t hold water. Yes, he was overseas at the moment. He would come back stateside and he would see her again. If they were married, then it would be easier to bring her to him. “If we’re married, we could move you here.”
“Yeah, Paul—we’re not getting married just because I’m pregnant.” The finality in the statement wasn’t lost on him. “I don’t want to come to Germany. I have a home and a life here.”
“And when the baby is born? You shouldn’t have to do this on your own.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have to do a lot of things, but getting married is not the answer either. We don’t even know if we like each other.”
“Maybe you don’t. But I enjoy the hell out of talking to you even when you yank the carpet out from underneath my feet. Imagine how much more fun we can have getting to know each other—learning all the little things that make us tick.” Who was he trying to convince? “You’re forgetting, I wanted to see you again. I want to see you. I want to spend time with you.”
“What about what I want?”
The question stopped him and he concentrated on counting back from ten. Twice. “What do you want, Lily?”
“I want the baby. I know that. I also know that means we’ll be tied together in some fashion. But I want romance, I want to love the man I marry, and I want to want him for him—not just because he’s the guy I was with when the condom broke.” Hard. Blunt. Reality.
Paul nodded. “I’m still coming to see you. It will be after Thanksgiving, probably closer to Christmas. And I don’t know how long I’ll have there, but I’m going to try for a couple of weeks and then to get leave again when the baby is due.”
“It’s okay.” She let him off the hook just like that and he shook his head. It was not okay. “It means a lot that you do care. I’m supposed to have another sonogram on Monday…maybe we can see what our shy and retiring one is. Do you want a copy? They can give me a digital one. I can email it.”
“Yes.” No question. “Absolutely. Did you get the records I had sent over?”
“I did
, thank you for that.”
She really needed to get over thanking him for caring. But he could show her that when he was there…in front of her.
“You’re welcome. You sound tired, maybe you should take a nap.” Not that he wanted off the phone.
“I would, but the kicker is awake and the fluttering is going crazy. If I lay down it will get worse.”
“I have an idea.” He stood and walked into his bedroom and stretched out on the bed, still dressed. “Go get in bed.”
“I am in bed—well on it, anyway.” She laughed and he smiled.
“Put the phone on your stomach and go to sleep. I’ll talk to him. Teach him to let his mother nap when she wants to.”
“What if she doesn’t listen to you?” Amusement warmed her voice.
“Don’t worry. She might be stubborn like her mother, but I’m a very patient man. I know how to get what I want.” And I want both of you in my life.
“This feels silly….”
“Maybe it is, but I can talk to baby. You can sleep. Let me do this.” It wasn’t a request.
“All right.” She acquiesced and he knew she was a great deal more tired than she let on. “I’ll talk to you Monday, after the doctor’s appointment?”
“I’ll be here. You call me. Doesn’t matter what time.” He would wake up for her. “Now put the phone on your belly and go to sleep. It’s Daddy time.”
She chuckled. “Good night, Paul.”
“Good night, Lily, sleep well.” He waited for the faint muffling sound of fabric across the phone. “Hello there,” he murmured. “This is your father calling. Mom needs you to settle in so she can nap and I think we should talk about how we’re going to convince her that I mean business….”
Chapter Eight
“Today is a holiday, ladies, as you know we’ll be overwhelmed by the violent results of drunken stupidity, the annual Mud and Zombie run and of course, our personal favorite—the College Dash for Cash highway games.” Jodi eyed all the nurses. “Some of you haven’t spent Halloween with us before, so be prepared. It’s bloody, it’s messy, it’s loud, and there will be no breaks.”
Lillianna nodded her head. She’d done her best to get plenty of sleep over the last two days because the next twenty-four hours would be insane.
“This means, don’t come tell me you’re tired. Don’t tell me you need a nap or your shift is over…your shift ends when the ER empties and not a moment before then. Surgical nurses will take over once patients are transported from the ER, so do not get attached to your patients, you’re not staying with them. We’re also going to be crawling in interns tonight and our residents and attendings will likely be busy for hours on the most severe cases. Lillianna…what does that mean?”
“That means we triage and we triage fast. We identify the most critical patients and get those to the residents. General stitches, labs and tests to the interns. The interns are new, most of them started at the beginning of summer and this will be their first time jumping in the deep end. Our job is to make sure they have a life vest and don’t kill our patients.”
Halloween, next to Thanksgiving and Christmas, was one of their bloodiest times of the year.
“All right. Everyone get to work and eat when you can, rest when you can, but if there are patients coming in those doors….” Jodi didn’t have to finish the statement, the nurses were dispersing and heading out to take on their duties. She waved to Lillianna, asking her to wait until the locker room cleared out. “Now, you will park it at the desk. I want you in charge of updating every patient status, checking them in, handling families if need be.”
Opening her mouth to object, she swallowed the words at Jodi’s hard look. “Fine.”
“Yeah, it is fine. You’re going to end up on the floor to help and we both know it. Conserve your energy and keep the traffic flowing. This isn’t a feel-sorry-for-you job. This is an I-need-you-to-do-this job…you’re also a good judge of when you need to be out there. Take one of the student nurses, park her right next to you. Make her learn everything you’re doing. If you have to turn the desk over, make sure you have someone with experience in place and have your student nurse stay there and follow up. Got it? Good.” Jodi didn’t give her a chance to a respond and moved out at a brisk clip.
Desk duty it was. Personally, Lillianna hated riding the desk. But Jodi was also right. Halloween meant chokes, burns, and allergies would merely be the start the day. She’d followed two screaming ambulances in at the start of her shift. The day blurred into fast forward. She checked in two anaphylaxis patients, and assigned them to nurses and interns. The board shuffled through the patients, and her student nurse ran her ass off.
A frantic mother arrived after receiving a phone call that her son had been rushed to the hospital. Fifteen minutes of calming and two phone calls later, Lillianna sent the mother to the correct hospital. More patients needed checking in, a minor school bus incident loaded with upset five and six year-olds. They only generated a portion of the noise. The tidal wave of parents coming in brought even more. Most of the children checked out clean and didn’t require admission to the hospital. It was late afternoon when the first real traumas, a pair of high school students covered in blood, stumbled through the door. Lillianna checked them both in then turned them over to the interns and fresh nurses returning to the floor.
“What the hell happened to them?” Jodi paused at the desk, turning in charts for the patient they were admitting. The charts had to be updated and sent with the patients to the surgical floor.
“It’s not real blood. Costumes for their murder party tonight. But apparently she’s allergic to it.” She initialed the last chart after scanning that the data matched the computer and passed them back.
“Ugh. We’re going to get more.” Jodi called over her shoulder.
“We always do.” Lillianna rolled the chair around and came face to face with Zane, one of the trauma attendings.
“We always do what, darlin’?” He might as well have been a cowboy for the way he rolled his words, but instead of boots and jeans, he wore deep green scrubs and a white lab coat.
“Get more crazies. You have patients in beds seven and twelve. Seven is more critical, but twelve may have a pelvic fracture. One of the interns is getting films for you right now.” She handed him the charts.
Zane scanned them. “Page Ortho and turn twelve over to Webb or Phillips. I’ll grab seven right now…what is that?” He pulled the X-ray sheet out and held it up to the light.
“A pin. At least as far as the radiologist could determine. He swallowed it because someone else gave it to his girlfriend and he didn’t want her to wear it. It’s perforating part of his esophagus. You’d think there are better ways to prove your affection.” She took the chart back for twelve and paged the Ortho on call.
The doctor shook his head. “His parents here?”
“Mom’s there with him, Dad went to get coffee and walk off his mad.”
“Got it. See you soon.” And Zane was off to deal with his patient.
She managed to grab some soup and a sandwich, courtesy of one of the nurses who ran across the street. Although Lillianna would kill for the espresso making the rounds—she’d been cut off for months. After six, a fresh wave of arrival ambulances delivered their first fatality of the day. A head-on collision and then the night went downhill.
All the beds were full and she turned the desk over to a night nurse and left the student to process papers as she triaged the incoming. A young man in a uniform arrived with a gash across his head.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled. “Just let me get back out there.”
“Sir, can you tell me your name?” She used a penlight to test his pupil response. Concussion and blood loss were the initial concerns, but the lack of pupil receptivity in his right eye suggested deeper issues.
An intern slid to a halt next to her, she filled him in on the vitals, and he started issuing commands. The younger doctor started his day out cocky,
but the series of traumas wore away the edge. She stepped aside to allow them to wheel the gurney on, and the patient lashed out and grabbed her arm.
“Ease up there, guy, it’s okay.” The intern braced his arm, ready to help.
“It’s okay.” Lillianna smiled down at him. “I know this is scary, just breathe. We’re going to help you. Can you tell me your name?”
“Justin,” he slurred. But she could detect no obvious scent of alcohol. “Jush-stin Monroe.”
“Okay, Mr. Monroe. My name is Lillianna, and this is Dr. Preston. He’s going to take care of you. Do you know a number I can call?” But his eyes were closing.
“We need to move, Hansen,” the intern snapped.
She extricated her arm and noticed the chain around the patient’s neck. Extracting it, she scanned the dog tags and wrote down the social security number. “Go, I’ll track the family.”
Fortunately, a military background helped. It took her ten minutes of calls, but she got in touch with the young man’s CO and he promised to reach out to the family. Back aching, she glanced at the clock.
It’s going to be a long night.
***
It was nearly four in the morning by the time she arrived at her apartment. Her body was one long, ache. And she didn’t think she’d ever been so tired. Several packages sat on the floor of her entry hall. A sticky note on top said her neighbor put them inside before the trick-or-treating started. Each package had been addressed to her, but said, do not open ’til Christmas.
Too tired to care about that. She paused in the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of tea. She’d showered and changed before leaving the hospital, but food was critical. She probably should have slept at the hospital, too. But she hated the narrow beds in the on-call room, her rapidly expanding stomach made sleep uncomfortable enough.
Still nursing the hot tea, she headed to her bedroom, stripped and climbed between the cool sheets. The beauty of a hellish Halloween shift was the freedom of three days off ahead of her. She could sleep for as long as she needed. Grabbing her phone, she tried to calculate the time difference…it had to be the middle of the day in Germany.
Marine Ever After (Always a Marine) Page 8