Tricia shook her head. “I don’t want anybody else. I know she’s young but I trust Devin. In fact, I’m going to ask her if she’ll deliver my twins when the time comes, unless they end up coming early and I need a specialist.”
“Why? You haven’t seen her in years. You know nothing about her on a professional level.”
“I’m not a complete idiot. Everybody who comes into the room raves about her, from the nurses to the receptionist to the ob-gyn we consulted.” She held up her smartphone. “I also looked her up on Google, and she has excellent reviews online.”
“And being married to a tech guy, you know you can certainly trust everything you read online.”
“I trust my gut. That’s the important thing.”
He shook his head. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”
“I have.”
The woman had been very kind to stay with the kids—which reminded him that he needed to find them before they became wrapped up in another show.
“Are you okay here? I’m going to go grab the kids and get them some dinner, and then we’ll be back.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine tonight. Take the kids home to their own beds and I’ll be in touch with you in the morning with an update.”
“Are you sure? I don’t feel good about leaving you here by yourself.”
“I’ll be fine. To be honest, after all this excitement—plus the medicine they gave me—all I want to do is sleep.”
That didn’t completely convince him, but he didn’t know what else to do but take the kids home to preserve as much routine for them as possible. He couldn’t spend all night in the waiting room with them, especially if Tricia didn’t need him.
“You’ll call or text me right away if anything changes, right?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
“If you send me a list of what you need to be more comfortable, I can run it back tonight.”
“Just my bag from the car.” She gave him a sheepish look. “I’ve had an emergency hospital bag packed for weeks. Even before I came out here, I brought it with me to Idaho and grabbed it on impulse on the way out the door this afternoon. It’s got my phone charger, a robe and some slippers and a couple of magazines I’ve been meaning to get to.”
This didn’t surprise him. Tricia was just about the most organized person he knew. It was what made her brilliant at her job as director of a nonprofit charity in San Jose.
“I’ll grab your bag. If you think of anything else, call me.”
To his alarm, she started to tear up again. “I will. Thank you, Cole. For everything. You’ve always been the one person I can count on in this world.”
He managed not to snort his disbelief. She must be on some serious drugs if she could say something so ridiculous. He hadn’t been around when she needed him. First he had been too busy partying on the circuit, then he had been paying the price for all that hard living. A good chunk of their relationship over the past decade and a half had been long-distance.
He couldn’t repair all that he had done. If he had learned one thing in prison, it was the lesson that a guy could only fix what was in front of him. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You know I love you, squirt.”
“I do.”
“Your only job right now is to take care of yourself and those little spudnuts in there, got it?”
“Is that an order?”
“If that’s what it takes. Just rest. I’ll be back in a minute with your bag.”
“Thank you.”
She leaned back against the pillow, looking pale and fragile. Her foot was up on pillows and her big abdomen stretched the sheets.
He again fought the urge to find her SOB husband and knock some sense into the man. Barring that, the only thing he could do was bring her bag back and then take care of his children.
CHAPTER TWO
“THAT WAS A good show,” the adorable boy declared when the closing credits to the animated Christmas show on the television started to roll.
His sister gave a dismissive shrug. “I guess. I thought the elf was kind of stupid. I mean, why didn’t he just give the girl’s letter to Santa in the first place instead of trying to answer it himself because he was trying to be such a big deal?”
“People can make all kinds of crazy choices in stories,” Devin pointed out. “If Elvis had given the letter to Santa, the story would have ended there and he never would have learned to care more about helping other people than about how important he looked to them.”
“Maybe.”
Jazmyn looked doubtful, not particularly swayed by Devin’s thoughtful analysis on the nature of elves in fiction and the character journey of this particular elf.
“When is Aunt Tricia gonna be done here so we can go home?” the girl asked. “We haven’t even had dinner yet and it’s almost Ty’s bedtime. I’m okay, but Ty is starving. He has to keep his blood sugar steady or he gets crazy.”
“I do not,” Ty protested.
“You do. That’s what Mom used to say all the time, remember?”
“I guess.” He looked upset at the reminder. From what she had seen, the boy was extremely sweet, with those big soulful dark eyes and endlessly long eyelashes. “I guess I am hungry.”
“If your dad doesn’t come out in a few moments, I’ll grab some crackers and cheese for you. Maybe that will hold you over until you can get some dinner.”
“But when can Aunt Tricia go home? Is she done with the ’tractions?” Jazmyn asked.
“Did she have to get a big cast on her leg?” Ty asked before she could answer his sister. “My friend Carlos broke his arm on a trampoline and had to get a big cast. It’s camel-flage.”
“Camouflage, you mean,” Jazmyn corrected him.
“That’s what I said.”
“Your aunt has to stay the night so we can take care of her leg—which isn’t going to need a cast but will probably be in a brace that she can take on and off. I’m not sure if we have one in camouflage but I can see.”
“What about her babies?” the girl asked. “She’s not going to have them tonight, is she?”
Devin hoped not. “I don’t think so. They’re a little too small right now.”
“She’s having a boy and a girl,” Ty informed her. “The boy is going to be Jack and the girl will be named Emma. That was my grandma’s middle name. I never met her because she died. Aunt Tricia said I can hold them anytime I want.”
“I’m sure you’ll be a big help.”
“I’m going to. She said I could even feed them a bottle if I wanted.”
“Lucky.”
“You don’t even know how to feed a baby a bottle,” his sister said skeptically. “I do. I fed you when you were little.”
Since Jazmyn was only a few years older than her brother, Devin doubted the veracity of that claim, but she wasn’t about to call her on it.
“With two babies, there will be plenty of chances for everybody to hold them and feed them.”
“Don’t talk about food because I’m starving,” the girl moaned dramatically.
“I’m sure your dad will be out soon to take you back to your house for some dinner.”
“It’s not my house,” she muttered.
“It is so,” Ty argued. “Dad said so. We live with him now.”
“Not for long. Grandma Trixie says she’s going to fight for custody so we can come live with her in California, just as soon as she finds us all a good place to stay.”
Why would a grandparent think she could possibly win a custody fight against a parent? What was the background? Where was their mother, first of all, and why hadn’t they been living with their father before now?
Cole’s life seemed a mad tangle of complications.
�
�I don’t want to live with Grandma Trixie. I like living with Dad,” Ty said, his voice small. “We have our own rooms now, which we never had before, and a yard to play in and Dad says I can even get a horse of my own after I learn how to ride better.”
“Who wants a stupid horse?” Jazmyn tossed her brother a disgusted look. “With Grandma Trixie in California, we could go to the beach every day, even in the winter, and maybe even see movie stars.”
“I’d rather have a horse and live with Dad,” Ty muttered. Devin had the feeling this wasn’t the first time the two of them had engaged in this particular argument. To keep the peace, she opted for distraction.
“Let’s go see if we can find some crackers and juice. Ty, why don’t you give me a hand?”
The agreeable boy slid off his chair and followed her to the reception desk. “Hey, Brittney. My man Ty here is hungry and so is his sister. Any chance we could grab a few of those cracker packs and maybe some cookies from the food room?”
“Sure, Dr. Shaw.” The young receptionist hopped up. “I should have thought of that. What a dope I can be. I’m sorry. Just give me a sec.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
The receptionist hurried away. While she was gone, Ty became interested in the small Christmas tree on the desk, made entirely of inflated nonlatex gloves cascading down with an elastic bandage garland.
“Are those all balloons? Did somebody have to blow them all up?”
“I would guess so,” she answered.
“I bet that took forever.”
“It’s not that tough. Here, I’ll show you.” She grabbed a glove from the box tacked to the wall and quickly showed him how to bunch the end together and blow it up, then tie the end like a balloon. “And now look.” She grabbed a Sharpie from the canister on the reception desk and doodled a face on it, with the thumb sticking out like a long nose, much to the boy’s delight.
She might not be able to knit, but who said she wasn’t crafty?
She had learned the fine art of glove creature creation during her first surgery, when she’d ended up staying ten days because of an infection. In the children’s hospital in Boise, she had met Lilah, another teenage girl with cancer. It was Lilah, she remembered, who had shown her the trick of creating creatures from surgical gloves. They used to make them for the younger kids receiving treatment.
Lilah had lost her battle just a few months later.
Devin thought a silent prayer for her friend and for the others she had said goodbye to along her cancer journey.
“Can you make one for Jazmyn?” Ty asked.
“You bet.”
In a minute, she had another inflated glove. This face she drew with long eyelashes and puckered lips. Ty quickly took it over to his sister just as the receptionist came out with a handful of treats.
The kids were eating crackers and cheese with enthusiasm—pausing every few moments to bop each other on the head with their inflated glove creatures—when their father walked back into the waiting room.
She suddenly felt as if all the air had been sucked from the room, which she was fully aware was a completely ridiculous reaction to a gorgeous man.
“Hey, kids.”
“Where’s Aunt Tricia?”
Cole glanced at Devin, looking rather endearingly uncertain, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to tell his kids. “She’s sticking around here for the night. Dr. Shaw wants to keep an eye on her and the babies a little longer.”
“Who’s going to fix us breakfast and get us on the bus?” Ty demanded. “We don’t even have Mrs. Lynn to help us anymore.”
“I can do that just as well as Tricia or Mrs. Lynn.”
“Aunt Tricia said you can’t even make toast without burning it,” Jazmyn informed him.
“Aunt Tricia talks too much,” he muttered. “Between you and me, we ought to be able to handle things for a few days, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” she said doubtfully.
“Get your coats and gather up your things so we can take off,” he ordered. “We need to get Aunt Tricia’s bag out of the car, then grab some dinner so I can get you two to bed.”
“Can we take these?” Ty asked Devin, holding out his inflated glove.
“Of course,” she answered. “I’ll warn you, they might start to lose air pretty soon.”
When they were just about ready to go—mittens found, beanies adjusted—Jazmyn turned contrary.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she suddenly declared. The girl was quite a character. She could have gone anytime in the past fifteen minutes but she had waited until she knew her father was in a hurry.
“Can’t you wait until we get home?” Cole asked.
“No. I have to go now.”
“Fine. Go ahead.”
She headed to the ladies’ room just off the lobby. “You need to go?” Cole asked his son. The boy shook his head, content to toss the rubber glove balloon into the air and catch it again.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on them,” Cole said to her.
“No problem. They’re fun kids. How old are they? I didn’t have the chance to ask.”
“Jaz is eight going on about thirty-six and Ty just turned six.”
“Those are fun ages at Christmastime. Still young enough to believe in the magic and old enough to appreciate the wonder of it all.”
“I guess. I’m not sure any of us is in the mood for Christmas this year,” he said, his tone rather bleak.
Why? What was the story here? She wanted to ask but decided it wasn’t her business. “You said you had a bag of your sister’s?”
“Yeah. I guess she’s had a hospital bag packed since before she came out to Idaho. She threw it in the truck before we left the house. Mother’s intuition or something. Apparently it contains a few necessities like magazines and slippers.”
“Handy.”
“I guess.” He looked around the empty waiting room, then back at her. “I’ve got to tell you, Doc, I’m still not convinced this is the best place for her and the twins. I can’t help thinking maybe the smartest thing would be to pack her up right now and take her to a bigger hospital in Boise.”
Devin ignored the little pinch to her pride. “I understand your concern. I told Tricia that’s a decision she can certainly make. I will tell you, we have a state-of-the-art facility here, brand-new in the last two years, with every possible advanced fetal and maternal monitoring capability and a couple of excellent specialists in the area who will be taking a look at her tomorrow. If at any time your sister feels uneasy about the care she’s receiving here, I would be the first to encourage her to transfer to a different facility. At this point, we’re dealing with a sprained ankle and contractions that currently appear to be under control. I would advise against moving to another facility far away from her family, but that’s, of course, her choice.”
“Yeah, she was quick to remind me of the same thing,” he said, his voice wry.
“Sisters. What can you do?”
He almost smiled but seemed to catch himself at the last minute as his daughter came out of the ladies’ room, wiping her just-washed hands on her coat.
He unpeeled from the wall. “Thanks for keeping an eye on them for me. Come on, kids. Let’s grab the bag for Aunt Tricia, then take off back to the ranch before that snow gets any deeper.”
Devin watched them walk outside, their faces colored by the blinking Christmas lights around the front door as snow swirled around them.
“I can’t believe how much snow has already fallen,” Brittney said, looking out after them.
Before Devin could answer, Callie appeared. “There you are. We just got a call from Dispatch. Paramedics are on their way to the scene of a three-car accident and they’re warning us to get ready for multiple injuries.”
So much for her relatively quiet evening.
She put the very sexy cowboy and his cute kids out of her mind so she could focus on the job at hand.
* * *
SHE DIDN’T HAVE the chance to check on Tricia again until several hours and two more weather-related accidents later.
Devin’s friend had been moved to a room on the obstetrics floor, the third floor of the hospital, where each room had big windows offering lovely views—in daylight, anyway—of the Redemption Mountains and the beautiful unearthly blue waters of Lake Haven.
On a quick break, Devin took the elevator up and headed to the obstetrics nurses’ desk. She found Tricia’s chart and saw that the contractions appeared to have stopped. Dr. Randall, the ob-gyn, had made a visit a short time ago and Devin sighed when she read his recommendation. As she had feared, Dr. Randall agreed with her and thought this was one of the rare cases when hospital bed rest was indicated.
That wouldn’t be easy for anyone—especially not Tricia.
Thinking she would just take a peek inside to see if her patient was sleeping, she cracked the door only a little. A light was on above the bed, she discovered. Tricia sat upright in the bed with her leg propped on a couple of pillows, hands clasped over her distended abdomen.
When she spied Devin, she gave a small smile and quickly tried to wipe away the tears on her cheeks.
Devin didn’t give another thought to the peanut butter and honey sandwich she had planned to eat during the break. Her patient was in distress and that was far more important.
She pushed the door open and walked inside. “Oh, honey. What’s wrong? Are you having pain? How’s the ankle?”
Tricia shrugged. “It hurts, mainly because I don’t want to take any heavy pain medication that might harm the babies. But at least it’s not broken. Mostly I’m upset because this isn’t the way I planned to spend the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Alone, on bed rest in a strange hospital.”
Evergreen Springs Page 3