by RJ Blain
Interesting.
“I’m a private consultant, and I’m specialized in personnel ethics.”
Senator Forester snickered. “She’s being modest, Deidre. She’s the woman the government hires when challenging prejudice in the system, specifically around null rights, although she’s gone to bat for other areas of legislation as well. She’s the mastermind behind the bill I told you about earlier today, and the wicked woman managed to dump the entire thing on my lap and put me on a deadline.”
Deidre’s expression brightened. “That bill is going to turn the congress upside down, and I can’t wait to watch the public sessions. Please tell me you’ll put Miss Little behind the podium for part of it. She always livens the sessions up.”
I blushed. “I created the concept. You’re doing the hard work, Senator. And don’t you forget you’re bribing me, because you’re a corrupt politician. I only accepted your bribes because I can’t stand when full-grown men cry like babies in my office.”
“Mackenzie has no regard for a man’s ego,” Senator Forester complained.
“Then you shouldn’t have put yourself in a position where you needed to beg for my help, Senator.”
Deidre snickered. “You’re delightful, Miss Little.”
“Mackenzie, please.”
“Don’t let Mackenzie fool you, Deidre. I had to beg her to accept the position of the head of the new auction committee. She took me for all I’m worth and then some, and she’s going to force me to like it by the time the auction’s over. The congress sacrificed me. I think they think she likes me.”
“I’m not sure where they got that idea,” I confessed.
“You were merciful on me the last questioning session.”
Deidre chuckled. “You were. I watched a recording of that session. You could’ve wiped the floor with him, and all you did was stare at him with a raised brow, waiting for him to realize he was being an idiot. You didn’t have to say a word. It was one of the best pieces of political maneuvering I’ve seen in a while. I still think Texas hosting the charity is a disaster waiting to happen, though. I don’t envy you one bit, Mackenzie.”
“If they force me to attend, I’m going to dress up like one of those cowgirls who fell off their horse and got dragged through the dirt. If they’re really unlucky, I’ll find a horse and bring it into the ballroom.” I inhaled, waited until my lungs burned, and sighed. “How do I find out if Mireya’s here?”
“We go inside and wait,” Senator Forester replied, gesturing to the glass doors behind him.
I hated waiting, but I nodded and went along with it. I had no other choice.
Chapter Twelve
Frigid air washed over my face, startling me enough I gasped.
Then I dreamed of Dylan, and I was so angry at myself for abandoning my habits out of fear for our daughter I forgot to kick him in the shins. I was either dead or dying, and it was my own stupid fault. I indulged in the sort of temper tantrum my daughter reserved for when I cruelly denied her a trip to the library while a stunned Dylan watched and waited.
As always, I couldn’t see him, but I could feel he was there.
He waited until I worked my way through every last one of my failings as a parent before he sighed and said, “You’re something else, Mackenzie.”
“I’m stupid, that’s what I am.”
“For the record, you’re not dead. If you were dead, you certainly wouldn’t be dreaming.”
Fantastic. Even in my dreams, Dylan insisted on bludgeoning me with fact and reality. “You’re part of a dream. Can’t you take it easy on me even in a damned dream?”
“No, I don’t think so. If the air conditioning in a yacht club is this bad for you, you need to see a specialist. I’m almost positive there’re medications that can help mitigate the symptoms. Why haven’t you gotten them?”
“I can’t afford it on top of Mireya’s schooling,” I wailed.
I was so, so tired of scraping to barely get by, every last penny accounted for and my emergency fund already battered from the extra expense of a car rental.
“Dip into Mireya’s college fund,” Dylan ordered. “Our daughter would rather have to work her way through college and have a mother who can help her rather than have no mother at all.”
“I can’t. It’s not her college fund I’d be dipping into. If I touch that money, I might not be able to get her through high school.”
“All right. All right. Calm down, Mackenzie. There are options.”
The bitterness of raising a little girl alone welled up, but I bit back my anger and waited until I could speak without snapping at Dylan.
It was only a dream, and it wasn’t his fault I hadn’t been able to find him.
As always, it was only a dream, but in my dreams, sometimes Dylan had the little pearls of wisdom I needed to find solutions to difficult problems. A little nudge from him so often made the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
“All right. What options?”
“There are different schools in different cities.”
“I have to be able to attend congressional sessions, Dylan. That won’t work.”
“There are boarding schools in different cities, Mackenzie. She’s brilliant. Any school worth its salt wants a girl like her among their numbers. You told me she scores off the charts. Frankly, I’m impressed she hasn’t skipped grades.”
“I won’t let her.”
“Why not?”
“Right now, she’s the best of the best. She studies higher levels because she wants to, not because she’s forced to. All I’d do is put her with a bunch of bloodthirsty sharks. With her intellect, she’s equal with the elites she goes to school with, even though no one treats her like she is.”
“She’s not their equal, Mackenzie.”
I flinched, but I clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t snap at him.
It was only a dream, and it wasn’t his fault he was who he was and I was who I was.
Dylan snorted, and he circled me like one of the sharks I compared most elites to. “She’s so far above them they should be honored to share the same air she breathes.”
“For fuck’s sake, Dylan!”
“Well, she is.”
“You’re only saying that because she’s your daughter.”
“Our daughter,” he corrected. “And no, I’m saying that because it’s the truth. She’s ten, and she’s so far ahead she should be in college already.”
I really wanted to kick Dylan in the shins. “I’m busy dying here, and you want to send her to college? No. Screw you. She’s going to enjoy being a child. Deal with it.”
He dared to laugh. “You’re not going to die, Mackenzie.”
“You don’t know that. I was stupid. I walked right into a cold building without my scarf. Bam. Here I am, spending the last moments of my life dreaming about you.”
“During your lovely and rather explicit rant, you informed me there was a senator with you. You had your pens in your purse, correct?”
“Well, yes. I always carry two.”
“Senators are typically smart people. You also mentioned most members of congress are aware of your allergies. Logically, were you to collapse, someone smart, like a senator, would know enough to check your purse for a pen. As senators can read, he’d be able to stab you with said pen. As you had the sense to step into an overly cold room at a yacht club, where accidents can happen, it’s probable there was someone medically trained on staff. As a result, you’re probably in a hospital with a tube shoved down your throat while the swelling goes down. I’ve recently learned that’s your favorite thing in the whole wide world.”
“You’re being insufferable and sarcastic again, Dylan Mason.”
“If you hadn’t forgotten your scarf, I wouldn’t have to be insufferable or sarcastic. You deserve it for putting your life in danger. Next time, don’t forget your scarf and have someone check if the entry is cold.”
No matter what, I couldn’t win. “Fine.”
“I really should punish you for that.”
I bit my lip, as in my dreams, Dylan’s idea of punishment involved a bed and wasn’t a punishment at all. “I panicked.”
“Of course you did. You didn’t know where our daughter was. I’m being serious here. What are you going to do?”
“Do?”
“About these allergies of yours.”
I scowled. “Nothing.”
“Wrong answer.”
“Dylan!”
“No. You’re not going to ignore them. Our daughter needs her mother, and I need to know you’re safe. No more of your bullshit. Dip into her school fund. If you have trouble paying for it, ask for a raise. You’ve earned one ten times over, and we both know it. You can’t take care of Mireya if you don’t take care of yourself, and nothing would hurt our little girl more than losing her mother to something that could be prevented.”
I hated my dreams. Without fail, Dylan sank a little deeper into my soul, feeding the delusion there could have been an us if things had been a little different.
And, as always, I couldn’t deny him what he demanded, not when he was right.
He usually was.
“Fine,” I muttered.
“Promise me you’ll see a proper doctor and take medications for it, Mackenzie.”
Damn it, how could he always see right through me? Oh, wait. He was a part of my dream. My subconscious hated me.
Then again, it made sense.
I wanted to live, too.
“I promise,” I whispered.
“Bad girls get punished, but good girls get rewarded. Which are you, Mackenzie?” Dylan purred, and he prowled closer, every inch a stalking predator.
If he was aiming to distract me, he was doing a stellar job of it. The game between us always ended the same away.
I’d run to get caught, and he’d chase to catch me, and I’d forget about the world for a while.
Then I’d wake up alone with my regrets, once again wishing I’d been able to find him after I’d left for Texas.
Bursts of sound stole Dylan from me, and as I often did when drifting in a medicated haze, I resented the beeping machines keeping me alive. Oxygen hissed, and the doctor had remembered to avoid the cooled tanks that would extend my stay in ICU by several days. The steady beep of a nearby machine reassured me I’d stabilized.
The beeps never lied, and steady meant my heart was doing its job. If my heart was able to function, my lungs were also doing their job, which meant my throat wasn’t swollen shut. Even with a tube, my lungs and heart strained to keep me alive, and I’d learned the true meanings of the machine’s various beeps.
Damn Dylan anyway for being right yet again. I wasn’t dying, and he’d be a smug bastard about it the next time he showed up in one of my dreams.
Maybe Mireya had the right idea, and once I escaped the hospital, I’d take that corporate credit card and scour the earth for the bastard. I’d become a stalker, find out if he’d moved on like I hadn’t been able to, and if he hadn’t, maybe I’d lure him off and try to convince him a null was good enough for him.
If he was anything like my dreams, all I’d have to do was show a little leg. I’d even shave first.
Dreams were always kinder than the reality, and no matter how many millions he thought my legs were worth, a child changed everything. The Dylan I dreamed of loved the daughter he’d never met.
I had no way of knowing if the real man would be the same way, and I was terrified to find out, not just for my sake, but for Mireya’s.
Time slipped away from me, and when I regained enough coherency to string two thoughts together, the beeping had changed to infrequent medication notifications rather than the steady tones of machines monitoring my vitals. If they’d shoved a tube down my throat, I was free of it, and I wasn’t hooked to life support.
Hallelujah.
I could handle a standard hospital stay. I forced my sluggish body to cooperate, straining to make sense of the sounds around me. Beeps I expected.
Waking up to a lively argument was a new experience.
“It’s my fault.”
I’d heard that line before, but usually it was my daughter vying for the title of grand champion of the blame game, not a man. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the man was Senator Forester.
“I should’ve had sent someone to be with her after she called the office,” my boss chimed in.
Mireya would love having two married men arguing over me, and first chance she got, I bet she’d tell me I needed to make it single men instead of married ones.
“I noticed she didn’t have her scarf, and I had been in the club,” Senator Forester countered.
“And I told them it was miserably hot outside and asked them to blast the AC,” a woman added.
I lost track of the argument while I tried to puzzle together where I recognized her voice.
“Enough!” a man barked. “Why are you three crying over this more than Miss Little’s daughter? Miss Little will be fine, and you’re pests. You, sir, only needed to use one pen. The second is a spare. You, ma’am, had no idea she suffers from cold urticaria, so you can’t take any blame for this situation. And as for you, Mr. Smithson, if you could kindly keep these two out from under foot, I would appreciate it. Miss Little needs her rest, and at the rate you three banshees are wailing, you’re going to disturb her. Please leave and come back tomorrow morning when you’re capable of behaving like reasonable adults.”
I suspected the doctor spiked my IV with sedative to ensure I did what he wanted, as I slipped back to sleep.
I dreamed, but most of the details slipped away. In my drugged delusions, I found Dylan’s presence comforting, and I clung to my memories of him. Had I’d gotten my way, I would’ve stayed safe and secure with him forever, but Dr. Glaskow had other plans. The drug cocktail he used to reverse sedation and treat my allergies energized me, and I fidgeted through a string of tests, which started at dawn and finished a little after noon.
My patience wore thin, and by the time I finished, the restlessness faded to exhaustion.
I wanted to go home and sleep, but sleep wasn’t in my plans. First, I needed to escape the hospital, and the presence of clean clothes from home promised the doctor meant to kick me out the instant he believed I wouldn’t end up in his ER again.
Unlike the other doctors I’d had, Dr. Glaskow went straight to the heart of the matter, and like Dylan, he refused to accept no for an answer.
He had a prescription, and he meant to use every underhanded trick in the book to make certain I accepted it—and took my medication as prescribed.
“We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way, Miss Little, but we’re doing this.”
I glared at Dr. Glaskow, who smiled at me. He was one of the youngest doctors I’d had, and he was attractive enough for a blond. I tried to compare him to Dylan, but my memories of Mireya’s father failed me as usual. “I’ll take them.”
“Your records mention no prior treatments for your condition. This tells me you typically refuse. Why?”
With slumped shoulders, I lowered my eyes and stared at the floor. “None of my previous doctors suggested it.”
I spoke the truth, too. I hadn’t asked for treatments, nor had any of them offered.
“Idiots,” Dr. Glaskow grumbled, slapping his leg with the clipboard holding my documents. “This could have been completely avoided if those braindead morons had done their jobs properly. The prescription I’m giving you was designed for strong waveweavers and some flameweavers. They sometimes develop similar aversions to cold temperatures. The treatments have proven effective in patients with mundane cold urticaria. If you take it as prescribed, you’ll be able to function normally. You still won’t be able to have iced drinks, and I recommend caution around any freezers, but a refrigerator shouldn’t pose much of a risk to you.”
I stuck to hot beverages as a rule, and when I did need something from the freezer, I bundle
d up or recruited Mireya. “All right.”
“The side effects include drowsiness, but that will ease after several weeks of use. Until you have a chance to adapt, you shouldn’t drive any sort of machinery. I’ll also be giving you a note to give to your employer that’ll excuse you for however long you need to adapt to the medications. It is not uncommon for patients new to the medication to spend the first week sleeping at home. As the medication is known to hamper the patient’s ability to function for the first week or two of treatment, you’ll be given a form that’ll grant you fully funded childcare until you’re able to function.”
“That won’t be necessary,” my boss announced behind me.
I squeaked. A moment later, my daughter’s full weight slammed against my back, and only an intervention from Dr. Glaskow kept me from falling off the table.
“Mommy!” my daughter wailed, and she slithered around me, taking up my lap and shunting Dr. Glaskow out of her way. At ten, she had several inches on other girls her age, but I often forgot how much she’d grown. She barely fit on my lap, and even holding her, I feared we’d both slide off the table.
Dr. Glaskow sighed, shook his head, and dragged over a stool, which I used to brace myself.
My daughter cried and spluttered gibberish, and until she regained the ability to speak, I’d hold her and wait out the storm. If I did anything other than serve as a living chair and offer her hugs as needed, I’d drag her hysterics out. She’d tire herself out eventually, which would lead to the problem of getting her home.
The instant she fell asleep, my boss would take over. He always did.
“Sorry, Mackenzie. I tried to contain her in the waiting room, but she was on the edge of a breakdown, and I doubted I’d be able to stop one of her tantrums. I tried telling her you were being discharged, but she was convinced they were sending you back to the ICU.”
“If you apologize again, Douglass, I’m recruiting you as her babysitter for life.”
“I’m pretty sure I just volunteered to be your caretaker until your medications stabilize, so it’s not a far leap. How are you feeling?”