by Aimie Grey
She sighed with relief. “The doctor said it will still be a while before I can go home.” She tucked a loose curl behind her ear and studied her hands. “I know the original plan was for me to come home in September, but do you think you can keep Peyton a while longer?”
“Of course, I’ll take care of her for as long as you need.” I waited to continue until I caught her eye. “You know I would do anything for you and Peyton.”
“It makes me feel better knowing that you are there to take care of my baby.” She took me in her arms for several moments.
“I’m honored you chose me to take care of Peyton, but don’t forget she needs her mother.”
“There’s no one else in the world she loves more than you,” Olivia said. I wanted to correct her; Peyton loved her mother more than anyone else. It saddened me that Olivia thought otherwise. I let it go when Peyton came back.
Peyton climbed up into my lap again, surprising both Olivia and me. “She said she can come over every Sunday afternoon. She’s busy tomorrow and next Sunday.”
“That sounds like a plan,” I said. It would be good for Peyton to have time with her friend outside of school, and we usually didn’t have anything to do on Sunday afternoons anyway.
We spent the rest of the time talking about our plans for the following week. Peyton also recited her updated list of things she wanted to do with Olivia when she came home. All too soon, a garbled voice came over the loud speaker to let us know our time was up.
“We’ll come earlier next week,” I promised both Olivia and Peyton. My heart broke as I had to pry a crying Peyton away from her mother. The ride home was never as much fun as the ride there.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Madison
Wearing her Sunday dress, Peyton skipped up the walkway to Nana’s house. Olivia’s grandmother watched Peyton every Friday night while I worked and took her to church every Sunday morning. She firmly believed that Peyton shouldn’t lose her faith just because I’d lost mine.
“Would you mind keeping her until one o’clock today? I need to make up the hours I missed for the court appearance,” I asked as I entered the familiar single-story home. I’d spent a lot of time here as a kid.
“Not a problem at all, sweetie,” Nana replied. “I’ll make sure she has lunch before you get back.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what we’d do without you.” I leaned over and gave the small woman a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” I said as I planted a kiss on the top of Peyton’s head. “I love you both.”
*
The ER was almost always quiet on Sundays, and most of the patients we saw weren’t true emergencies. People came to us with minor aliments because every general practitioner’s office in town was closed on weekends, and the free clinic wasn’t open on Sunday.
The first patient came in about thirty minutes into my shift. Tiffani, the triage nurse, usually rushed every patient through, which often led to careless mistakes. It was a wonder she hadn’t been fired.
I unplugged my smart cart from the wall charger and checked my supplies one more time. A while back, an anonymous donor, needing a tax write-off, gave the hospital a state-of-the-art computer system along with top-of-the-line equipment, which was probably worth more than the hospital billed in a year.
The patient’s information popped up on my computer when Tiffani assigned him to a trauma room. My stomach churned when I saw the name at the top of the screen. Shit! It’d been over a week since the closet incident, and I had managed to avoid him until now. I took a deep breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth—and repeated it a couple of times.
Ethan walked by as I looked over the electronic chart. The way his white lab coat contrasted with his caramel skin made me want to lick him all over. I might not have been in love with him, but I still appreciated his masculine body and gorgeous face.
“Interesting case?” he asked with a quirked brow. It had been a ghost town all morning, and he was itching for excitement.
I got my hormones under control quickly before I responded, “Nah, looks like a minor flesh wound based on the triage report.”
He rolled his eyes. “Tiffani is up front. You’d better get in there to make sure the patient doesn’t have an amputated leg.” We laughed in unison.
“I was just getting ready to go in. I’ll be ready for you in about ten minutes.” Giving him a small smile, I pulled the sliding glass door open.
“Mr. Ramsay, what brings you in today?” I asked with a forced smile as I pushed the computer cart into the room ahead of me. I couldn’t afford a complaint about my bedside manner, no matter how much I hated him. I looked up when he didn’t answer right away.
He shook his head to clear the dazed look from his face. He held up his left index finger, which was haphazardly wrapped in a bloody tissue. “I had an altercation with my lawn mower.” He gave me a sheepish look, which I did not want to find cute.
“You do know they put safety guards around the blades for a reason, right?” I washed up in the sink and slipped a lavender glove over my right hand. I removed the tissue from his wound with my gloved hand. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, so I handed him a piece of clean gauze.
“Apply steady pressure, and hold it above your heart.” He pinched the thin material over the wound and then looked to me for direction. “Like this.” I guided his hands over his head, regretting the contact the moment I touched him. I disposed of the single glove and went back to the computer. I felt safer with the cart between us.
I lifted the scanner from its plastic stand on the cart, and then reached over to scan his ID bracelet. I scanned my hospital identification badge next.
I asked him the standard battery of questions needed for his records and flagged his penicillin allergy, which Tiffani had overlooked. I grabbed a red wrist band from the shelf on my cart, wrote “PCN” on it, and wrapped it around his wrist.
“What’s with all of the barcodes?” he asked as I typed notes into his chart. “I think I liked it better at the hospital back home. At least I was a number to them instead of a bunch of lines.” Was this his attempt at small talk?
“It’s all for safety. I scan your bracelet to verify your identity; then, I scan my badge to record that I worked on your case. We pretty much scan everyone that comes into the room except the janitor and cafeteria lady. We also scan medications and certain supplies.” I spoke in detail, hoping he would find it boring and shut up.
“That sounds more like an accounting system than a safety measure.” He seemed genuinely interested instead of bored, which pissed me off.
“You’re right in a way. They do use it to monitor inventory in the pharmacy. The safety features are more important, though. For example, now that I’ve noted your allergy, the computer will yell at me if I try to give you a medication that could cause a reaction.” He simply nodded his head. “Or, if Tiffani had given you a shot of something earlier, the system would warn me if I tried to give it to you again.”
I pulled on a clean pair of gloves, told him he could lower his hands, and carefully removed the mostly white gauze from the long finger that had once brought me intense pleasure. I shook my head; I had to stop thinking about sex. I couldn’t risk making a mistake because I was distracted, and I also couldn’t let either Sawyer or Ethan break through my defenses again. “It looks like you are going to need three or four stitches.”
I cleaned the wound and covered it with a new piece of gauze before I tossed the gloves and washed my hands. “It’ll help if you wear a splint for a few days, since the cut is on the inside bend of the knuckle,” I said as I gathered a suture kit and then retrieved a box containing splints of various sizes. I held several different lengths next to his finger until I found the splint that would fit the best.
“How long until it’s fully functional again?” he asked with a lascivious look on his face.
“You’ll have to ask the doctor,” I replied with a polite smile that I hoped didn’
t look completely fake. I didn’t want him to know how much he affected me. “Dr. Madden will be with you in just a few minutes.” I turned to flee before he had a chance to respond, but I didn’t quite make it.
“Wait,” he said, sounding a little nervous. “I’m sorry for what happened at back-to-school night.”
An apology was the last thing I’d expected. I stared at him blankly for a while before I came up with a response. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” He ran the fingers of his uninjured hand through his dark, messy hair. “Even though you didn’t say no, I knew you didn’t want it.”
“I deserved it.” My eyes were trained on my fingers as I fidgeted with one of the cords on the cart.
“No one deserves to be treated that way.” He released an angry breath.
“I did. I used you the day we met. I didn’t care about your feelings. I guess we’re even now.” I didn’t wait for his response.
Ethan walked toward me as I came out of the exam room. He stopped in front of me so I could scan his badge. “Male, age twenty-six, with a deep laceration on his left index finger,” I reported efficiently as he pulled up the chart on his tablet computer. “Everything is set up for you.”
“Thanks, Mads. I need you to assist with this one. Samantha isn’t here yet, and I don’t want the guy to have to wait an hour. Will you go grab the lidocaine I ordered from the pharmacy cart?”
“Sure.” Crap, crap, crap.
Ethan slid the door partway open. He turned to face me and looked me over from head to toe.
“You’re getting too skinny, babe. How about I take you and Peyton out to dinner tonight?” The noise coming from my stomach answered for me. “Sounds like you need to eat now. We can go to the cafeteria for breakfast after we take care of these stitches, my treat. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I hated feeling like a charity case, but the truth was I needed to eat. “Sounds great. Thank you, Ethan.” Turning down the offer of free food wasn’t an option when I couldn’t count on having three meals a day.
“Oh yeah, I switched shifts with Mark, so I don’t have to be in until ten tomorrow morning. I’ll come home with you after dinner tonight and take Miss P. to school tomorrow, so she doesn’t have to go to latchkey. I think I have a change of clothes at your place.” He opened the door the rest of the way and stepped in.
Sawyer had a scowl on his face when I came into the room a minute later, pulling the cart behind me. I scanned the syringe into the computer as Ethan finished explaining the procedure.
“Are you up to date on your tetanus vaccination?” Ethan asked as he tied the third stitch.
“Not sure,” Sawyer replied gruffly.
“Madison, will you please get a tetanus booster for Mr. Ramsay?” He pulled off his gloves, typed the order into the computer, and then gloved up once more before continuing with the procedure.
“Of course, Doctor.” I bolted from the room, relieved to have some distance from Sawyer and his current mood swing.
I took my time walking to the pharmacy cart to retrieve the vaccine, even though I was only delaying the inevitable. On my way there, I found the charge nurse to unlock the cabinet for me again. I walked slowly back to the room once I had the vial and a syringe.
“Mads, did he have this rash when he came in?” Ethan asked when I stepped through the door.
I leaned over to take a closer look at Sawyer’s hand. “No, that’s new.”
Ethan pulled off his gloves and examined Sawyer’s hand and wrist. “It looks like a mild latex allergy. Do you have issues with condoms?”
“I’ve never used one,” Sawyer said as he smirked at me. I would never have been with him had I known how unsafe he really was. It was too late to do anything about it now.
“As a doctor, I’m required to tell you that you should always use condoms unless you are in a monogamous relationship. That being said, if you use condoms in the future, you’ll want to avoid latex. Polyurethane condoms are just as effective as latex and shouldn’t cause a reaction.” Ethan had no idea how much tension his speech was causing. “The skin on the penis is very sensitive, and a rash down there would be extremely uncomfortable.”
“Noted. I’ve had reactions to Band-Aids. I thought I was allergic to the adhesive.” Sawyer held up his hand. “I’ve also had a few weird rashes that looked like that over the past couple of years.”
“It’s probably the latex. Bandages also come in latex-free versions. It probably wouldn’t hurt to see an allergist to run some tests. You should also let your primary care physician and dentist know about the allergy, so they can use latex-free gloves.” Ethan turned his attention to me. “Give him the vaccine and dress the wound. I’ll have his discharge paperwork ready by the time you’re done. Find me after you finish, and we’ll go eat.”
I nodded and watched him leave. Sawyer looked me over from head to toe and grimaced. Ignoring the anger I felt at his judgment, I gave him the shot with as much care as I gave every patient. The hum of the printer on the bottom of my computer cart did little to ease the awkward silence as I carefully wrapped his finger in a bandage and put the splint in place.
“You’re all set. You’ll need to have your primary care physician remove the stitches in seven to ten days.” I said while handing him the discharge instructions I’d plucked from the printer.
He grasped my wrist as I turned to walk out of the room. “Can’t you take them out when you come to pick Peyton up from school?”
“I’m not allowed to perform any medical procedures outside of the hospital. If you don’t have a family doctor, you can stop by the clinic down the street, and they’ll do it for you.”
“It’ll be less hassle if you do it. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Sorry. I’m not willing to risk Peyton’s future to save a few minutes of your precious time. They have these rules for a reason, and I’ve already compromised my ethics enough for you.” Shit, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“You mean sleeping with a stranger? If memory serves, that was all your idea. You basically said so yourself a few minutes ago.”
The blood rushed to my face as the humiliation set in. I needed to get the conversation over with; even if the hospital was the least appropriate place in the world to have it, it was on my turf. Shutting the door, I whirled around to face him, wanting to slap the smug grin clean off of his face.
“No,” I growled in a shouting whisper. “I meant sleeping with an engaged man!” I slammed my hands on my hips. The smug look on his face quickly morphed to confusion and then anger. “I was wrong to take advantage of you, but you were wrong for cheating.”
“So, it’s okay to sleep with your boss, but not an engaged guy?” he challenged.
“My personal life is none of your business.”
“Oh, but I think it is. You accuse me of morally corrupting you, yet you’re willing to screw Dr. Madden. Are you fucking him to get ahead? Are your medical skills so lacking that you have to impress him in the bedroom to keep your job? Maybe you’re just doing him for his money. What are you teaching Peyton with that kind of behavior?”
Bringing up Peyton was a low blow. If it hadn’t been for Peyton, I would have given him the need for more stitches. I was formulating a response that would get my point across without getting me kicked out of the program when I saw a brief glimpse of a new emotion cross his face. Jealousy.
Un-fucking-believable.
I was done fighting. “Why do you care?” He had no right to be jealous of anyone but his future wife.
He shoved his good hand through his hair once more, his clear blue eyes glaring at me. “You’re right; I don’t care,” he snapped as he stormed past me and out of the room.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Madison
I managed to go almost a week without seeing Sawyer. My luck ran out Friday afternoon when I received an email from the moody bastard.
Ms. Miller,
I need to speak with you about Pe
yton’s score on the assessment we took a few days ago. I’ll meet you in the classroom tonight at seven.
Sawyer Ramsay
Fuck. Of course he didn’t bother to ask if I was available. I didn’t want to see him, especially not alone, but I had to do what was right for Peyton. I quickly called the club to let them know I’d be late for work and then checked the ER schedule. Ethan had to work the late shift, so he couldn’t come with me. I sent Sawyer my one-word reply.
Fine.
The hospital was slammed thanks to a multiple car pileup on the nearby freeway. I was over an hour late leaving, but still managed to pick up Peyton, take her to Nana’s house, get ready for work, and get to the school at five after seven. I was tempted to run down the long hallway to the classroom, but decided against it when I remembered the four-inch stilettos on my feet. Sawyer could wait an extra minute or two.
“You’re eight minutes late,” he growled as I entered the room. “I have better things to do than sit around waiting for you.”
“Can we just get on with it? I’m also in a hurry.” My glare was unwavering. “Next time, I would appreciate it if you asked before setting an appointment.”
His heated gaze scanned my body. His clenched jaw twitched as he took in my shiny shoes and fitted wrap dress. “Got a date…or maybe a john?”
“There’s no need to insult me. Just tell me about Peyton’s test scores.” I was drained from my day at the hospital, and my usual Friday night dread was sinking in.
He babbled in extreme detail about every item on the report he’d placed on the desk in front of me. It was close to eight when he summed up her test scores in two sentences. “Peyton is performing significantly below grade level. I think she’s dyslexic.” Why couldn’t he have led with that?
“I know she’s dyslexic. She went to a private school for dyslexic kids for the past two years. You would have known all of that if you’d read her fucking file!” I was beyond pissed.