“Sheriff…” the doctor attempted to interrupt.
“She’s my life, Mack. My fuckin’ sun and the only goddamn moon in my sky – do you understand? Are you getting the picture?” Zeke barked. “Now, tell me how she is or I swear to God I’m gonna tear that fucking door off its motherfucking hinges and find out for myself,” he threatened, staring at the doctor with menacing eyes.
“Well, if you’ll shut up, maybe I can tell you,” Mack snapped, his own gaze glittering as he stared at the Sheriff. “I was going to say that while you aren’t technically family, nobody that knows you could deny that you’re her next of kin, so I’ll tell you straight, she’s lost the ovary and the fallopian tube on her left side. The tree limb just did too much damage to save it.”
Zeke and Abel both grimaced at that information.
“But she’ll be okay. Honor can live fine without those things, can’t she?” Abel countered as he placed a supportive hand on Zeke’s back. He was well aware where the other man’s head was at the moment. He loved Honor; one day, he hoped to have kids with her. And with what the doc had just told them, he was terrified that those chances had just been cut in half.
“Now, if this had to happen to Honor, it was better that it happened on the left side because that ovary was the one that was more severely scarred of the two after her rape. The scar tissue on the left fallopian tube alone probably would have prevented a conception from that ovary. Besides, she should be able to conceive easily with the right ovary if one day she chooses to have a baby. She’s in there with Dr. Sanderson and he’s good, man.”
“As good as you?” Zeke questioned softly, his gaze sharp on the doctor’s face.
“Yeah,” Dr. Daniels confirmed. “He’s as good as me. And Cain’s in there, too. Honor was having some bleeding issues, too. They’ve had to offer her a couple of pints of blood, too. When you guys go to the waiting room, you might wanna ask the family to donate some blood….replenish the blood bank.”
“And hopefully rack some karma points,” Abel muttered, shoving one hand in his pocket. “God knows, we’re grateful that the blood was there to offer our women.”
“I hear you,” Dr. Daniels agreed. “Also, like Patience, Honor is pretty bruised up, Zeke. We’ll be watching for post-operative infections in both women, too. Honor is probably looking at a week or so in the hospital as well. We’ll know more after she’s out of surgery. It should be soon; they were closing when I came out here.”
“I’ll wanna be there with her, Mack,” Zeke warned.
Dr. Daniels shoulders sagged. “Man, this charge nurse is gonna love me. Two fuckin’ chest-beating alpha males tryin’ to take over her Recovery Room. What could go wrong with this plan?” he grumbled aloud.
“We’ll behave. You have our word,” Abel replied smoothly.
“Yeah, I’m gonna believe the attorney that’s locked me into a contract to practice in this town for what equates to the rest of my natural life. Yeah, I’m gonna get right on believing you,” the doctor muttered to himself as he turned and walked back toward the door that led to the recovery beds.
“Now, Mack, you know our fair town is beginning to grow on you,” Abel said, finally finding the energy to chuckle. “Where else will you find patients like what we offer? And where else are you gonna find a nurse as pretty as Millie Robbins?” he teased, remembering how Patience had told him that she thought her OB was sweet on her friend, Millie.
Mack never turned around as he flipped Abel the bird. “Abel, you can bite me. Just ring the buzzer when you guys are ready for me to get you back here to see your women.” He pointed at the red button on the wall. “Somebody will find me. Zeke, you’re probably looking at a few more minutes before Cain and Dr. Sanderson get out here. Try to keep it together. It wouldn’t be politic for me to have to call the law on our own Sheriff.”
Zeke merely grunted in reply as Abel waved Mack off.
Looking at the other man, Abel murmured, “You wanna stay here or come with me and meet my kids?” he asked his friend calmly, knowing the other man was enduring a private Hell of his own.
“Can’t leave, man,” Zeke admitted hoarsely, his face haggard. “Not until I know she’s through it.”
“I get it, man. Our girls are gonna make it over this hurdle, Zeke. You gotta believe it,” Abel encouraged his friend. “You want me to brief the family yet?”
“Nah,” Zeke denied. “Let’s wait until we can tell them everything about Honor, too. I know you gotta be dyin’ to see your babies, Abel. You don’t need to babysit me. Go introduce yourself to your kids, daddy.”
“No other man on Earth knows a thing about what I felt tonight except you, Zeke. You got it. If you need me for anything, man, you sing out, okay?”
“I will,” Zeke agreed. “Now go before I kick your ass up there,” he ordered, jerking his head toward the elevator a few feet away. “And take plenty of pictures. Patience will want to see her sons and daughter as soon as she opens those eyes of hers. So will her sister.”
“On it,” Abel returned, holding up his phone before sprinting toward the elevators. God must have been smiling on him because the steel doors parted just as he reached them. Stepping inside, he jabbed the button for the third floor and tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator doors closed and the steel box he was inside began to rise.
Stepping off on the third floor less than a minute later, he quickly located the signs directing him toward the nursery, his long legs eating the distance between the elevator and his children quickly. Now that he was this close to his kids, his excitement had skyrocketed. Reaching the desk that guarded the nursery, he smiled at the elderly woman behind the desk.
She, however, did not return his smile. She scowled.
“Name,” she barked, her raspy voice almost too coarse to understand.
“Abel Turner. I’m the father of the triplet babies that were just delivered an hour ago. Dr. Daniels sent me up here to see them.”
“Bracelet?” the old lady barked, her eyebrows furrowing as she studied Abel’s face.
“What?” Abel asked, confused. He was supposed to have jewelry? Was he expected to make some weird pagan offering to the keeper of his babies? “Ma’am, I don’t have a bracelet.”
“Then you aren’t getting’ into the nursery,” the ancient woman replied, effectively denying him entrance.
“But my kids are in there,” Abel tried to reason calmly; though, if he was honest, his patience was quickly running out with the old bat in front of him. His kids had been part of this world for over an hour already, and he’d really like to meet them.
Huffing out an irritated breath, the elderly woman frowned at him. “This sounds like a problem to me. However, it isn’t MY problem. They should have given you a bracelet when your wife went into labor. It’s part of the process. If you’ve lost it, you’ll need to find your wife’s nurse and….”
“First of all, my wife isn’t my wife yet. She’s my…Well, she’s my….girlfr – no! As a matter of fact, she’s my fiancé,” Abel declared, taking some creative license with their labels. Patience technically would be his fiancé anyway as soon as he slid the ring in his pocket on her finger. “And she was in a car accident. She was brought in through the Emergency Room. And nobody gave me a bracelet. Time was of the essence.”
The Keeper of the Babies remained unimpressed. “You can’t go back without a bracelet that matches the one on your kid’s foot. So, if you’ve got three babies, you need three bracelets.”
Abel blinked as the pressure built in his head. “Honest to God, lady, I’m trying to be nice here, but…”
“Listen, Skippy, you can be nice. You can be mean. You can bust into a song and dance if you want. What you won’t do is walk through those doors,” she said, pointing at the double doors that led back to the nursery, “Not until you’re wearing three bracelets that match the id numbers three of those babies are wearing on their foot! Now, scat!” she ordered sternly, pointing toward the hall.
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Abel’s jaw dropped. Was he being fucking punked? Or maybe he was on Candid Camera? Looking around, he searched for a hidden video camera. When he came up empty on his scan, he turned his attention back to the blue haired ancient crypt keeper that was separating him from his children. “Call security,” he advised tightly. “Because one way or another, I’m going to get to my kids, Grandma.”
The aged woman smiled benignly at him as she leaned over to pull open one of her desk drawers. “Oh, sonny, we don’t need security,” she replied, her thin voice grating as she pulled something into her hand. “I’ve got a Taser and I know how to use it,” she warned, waving it in front of her.
“Eunice! Put that thing away,” a familiar voice commanded gently. “I have Mr. Turner’s bracelets right here.”
Turning, Abel shot Millie Robbins a grateful smile. He’d never been so happy to see Dr. Daniels nurse in his life. “Oh, thank God! I thought I was going to have to body check the nursery’s geriatric bodyguard. What the hell, Millie?”
Offering Abel a gentle smile, Millie shook her head. “Our Eunice takes her job very seriously. And honestly, it’s for the infants own security. These bracelets,” she explained, wrapping the first bracelet around Abel’s wrist, “are a security measure that hospitals employ to prevent newborn kidnappings. Basically, if you want to see a baby inside the nursery, you absolutely MUST be wearing the bracelet that matches your child. Or children, in your case. Of course, there are nicer ways to inform parents of these rules than threatening him with a Taser,” she added, offering an unapologetic Eunice a hard look.
Eunice shrugged. “My job is to keep babies safe, not stroke a parent’s ego. Sue me.”
Millie sighed. “Eunice is sort of her own institution around here,” she whispered to Abel as she wrapped the last bracelet around Abel’s wrist. Looking at the old lady behind the desk, Millie announced, “He’s all set, Miss Eunice. Let him back.”
“You sure?”
Abel watched as the cranky old woman leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed over her sagging bosom. “She’s sure,” Abel snapped.
Pursing her lips, Eunice reached under her desk and pressed the button to unlock the doors to the nursery. .
“You can go back now, Abel,” Millie invited softly, patting his back. “Congratulations, daddy.”
Nodding mindlessly, Abel quickly slid past the wooden doors and stepped into a room filled with plastic bins holding babies. It was like a babypalooza in there, little infants everywhere wrapped in pink and blue blankets. Motioning to the first scrub-clad nurse he spotted, he waved his braceleted hand in the air. “I’m Abel Turner,” he whispered loudly. “Three of these belong partly to me,” he announced, gesturing around at the roomful of newborns.
The nurse chuckled at his introduction. “Three at once, huh? That’s a lot. C’mon, I’ll introduce you to your babies.”
“One of them was a surprise,” Abel returned quickly as he followed the young brunette nurse across the room. He held his breath as they wove their way through the tiny basinets holding several babies until they reached the corner of the room.
“Here they are, sir,” the cheerful nurse said, indicating the small cluster of basinets forming a triangle in the corner. Another nurse was standing in the middle of the triangle, slowly circling from basinet to basinet, making notes on the charts hanging from the side. “Mandy,” she called softly as not to disturb the slumbering infants, “This is Mr. Turner, the triplets’ dad.”
“Hello, there, Poppa Bear,” the older black woman greeted him with a wink. “We’ve been waiting for you. Is Momma Bear still in recovery?”
Abel nodded as his heart leapt into his throat as the baby in the basinet closest to him stretched his arms over his head and yawned widely. He looked like a tiny old man lying there under the warming lights of the incubator. “Oh, my God. My first son,” he breathed, unable to tear his eyes away from his firstborn child, lying there squirming in a blue blanket, his tiny nose scrunched up in dissatisfaction. “He’s a little miracle.”
Mandy nodded at the other nurse as she left them and moved closer to the incubator where Abel stood over. “Every baby is a bona fide miracle, in my opinion. Having multiples, though….now, that’s quite a marvel. And knowing these three arrived five weeks ahead of schedule and are doing so well….well, that’s just a special dispensation from our God if you ask me.”
“Hello, princess. I’m your daddy,” Abel greeted his little girl. “So, they’re all okay?” he asked, looking up for a moment as he moved closer to the incubator and stared through the clear hard plastic to continue watching his little angel girl, swaddled tightly in her pink blanket. His daughter looked just like her momma, and Abel knew that he was gonna be screwed if her personality matched Patience, too.
“All three of these babes are doing far better than any doctor or nurse could hope, Mr. Turner,” the woman informed him with a happy smile. “All are breathing on their own. We’re giving them nourishment through those tubes attached to their bellies for now, but I expect it won’t be long before they’re either taking their meals from the teat or the bottle.”
“I can’t wait,” Abel whispered, moving to the third incubator and looking at his second son. “Hello, my little surprise. You took us off-guard, but I’m so glad you’re here, monkey,” he informed the newborn quietly. The baby was wrapped in a blue blanket and slept peacefully, completely innocent and unaware of any excitement his arrival might have caused.
“Our doctor, Dr. Millstead, stepped out for a few minutes, but she’ll be back soon,” the nurse shared quietly. “I’d offer to let you hold them, but we need to make sure their oxygen saturation levels stay up for a few hours before we try moving them around too much. I’d say by the time these children’s momma is moved up to her room, we’ll be able to let y’all spend some quality bonding time snuggling. In the meantime, you can touch the babies through the little holes on the side of the incubator,” the woman invited, demonstrating how to slide his hands inside with the babies. “If everything keeps going well, we’ll shift the babies over to a normal basinet later tonight. For now, we just want to make sure they can continue to maintain their temperature without any help from us.”
Abel nodded, overwhelmed by the amount of information there was to learn. He spent the next several minutes moving from incubator to incubator, stroking the soft, downy skin of his babies’ cheeks. Glancing down at his watch, he was surprised to see that he’d already spent forty-five minutes inside the nursery with his children. “Okay, Team Turner,” he said, keeping his voice pitched low as he looked around at his kids, “I’ve got to go check on your mother. She’s a great woman, but you all probably already know that since you’ve spent the last eight months with her. Anyway, I know she can’t wait to see you. Daddy and Mommy love each one of you, okay, and we’ll be back with you as soon as humanly possible. Be good for the nice doctors and nurses.”
Mandy chuckled from behind Abel. “Oh, I think they’ll be fine, Mr. Turner. I’m on shift until 7 am, so try not to worry too much. I’ll have you paged if anything happens or there’s any news before you make it back to us, alright? Just keep those bracelets on your wrist.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” Abel promised, slapping a hand over his bracelets. “Miss Eunice made the rules real clear earlier,” he muttered.
“Oh, yes, she does that,” Mandy chuckled. “We’ll see you soon, Mr. Turner.”
Abel nodded, taking one last look at his kids before hurrying toward the door. He’d seen his children and let them know how much they were loved.
Now, he couldn’t wait to let their momma know it, too.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Where the heck am I?” she grumbled loudly, her eyes straining to see an inch in front of her face as she carefully kept moving forward. All around her, the fog was as thick as that nasty pea soup Aunt Orla used to make her and her sisters eat as kids, Patience thought unhappily as she kept forging ahead. Man, sh
e’d hated that soup. Almost as much as she hated the nasty fog that swam around her body. She couldn’t even see her feet in this mess.
“Abel? Honor? Harm? Faith?” Patience knew screaming was useless, but she had been calling out for random members of her family for what felt like hours. Nobody answered. Not once.
Another chill ran down her spine and she tried to shake it off. Surely this fog would clear soon and she’d be able to figure out what the heck was happening and where the Devil she was. Nasty weather like this couldn’t last forever, could it? The strange thing was that she wasn’t cold. She wasn’t hot, either. The air just felt still. Stagnant. Stationary.
It was one of the weirdest feelings she’d ever experienced.
Opening her mouth, she began to call out names again. “Abel? Zeke? Cain? Ice? Anybody, can you hear me?” she screamed, her voice quickly getting hoarse the longer she shouted.
Maybe it was useless. Perhaps she was the only one here.
But that didn’t make sense either. Surely, she wasn’t the last person on Earth. Dropping her hand, she felt her still swollen belly (even though she couldn’t see it for the stupid fog) and tried to prod one of her unborn babies into moving, but they stubbornly remained perfectly still. If she was being honest, that was starting to worry her, too. Her munchkins were never motionless for this long. One baby or the other had always seemed to be kicking or rolling, punching or thumping. Earlier in her pregnancy, those moves would always startle her, but as the months had advanced, those little maneuvers the twins made would comfort her. One thing about it… when you were expecting twins, you rarely felt alone.
Ready, Willing and Abel (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnon Sisters Book 3) Page 43