The Bears of Blackrock, Books 1 - 3: The Fenn Clan

by Michaela Wright

  Joe swatted the nurse’s hand away and reached for an IV needle taped to her inner arm, ripping it from her skin as blood appeared. Hands appeared at all sides, pinning her to the bed as straps were fastened around her wrists. She screamed at the figures as the fluorescent lights came on overhead.

  “She’s waking up? Oh, Jesus. Theresa, dear. You’re not healed enough to be moving about like that. Sedate her.”

  The man in the white lab coat spoke softly to the nurse, and she responded instantly, producing a syringe of something. Joe screamed in protest, but it did no good. They weren’t listening! Why weren’t they listening? Rory…

  Her mind grew swimmy and warm, leaving her to slump back onto the bed as her eyes begged to close.

  “I can’t stay here,” were the last words she could force from her lips.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “You’ve had enough! Besides, if I give you another two, then I’ll only have five, and I need at least six for my own breakfast.”

  Rory glared at him over her half-eaten pancakes, appalled by his senseless act of selfishness. He’d grown accustomed to this glare – the feigned, scandalized look she gave when she didn’t get her way. It was ten-year-old Rory’s favorite joke, and it was one of the most endearing things he’d ever encountered.

  “I’m a growing woman. I need more food than you!”

  “I’m six and a half feet tall. You’re, what? Two feet tall? I could eat you for breakfast, and still need another four pancakes to keep myself alive for the day.”

  Rory gave an offended gasp. “I say good day to you, sir!”

  And with that, she turned her back to him, only turning to fork another bite of pancake every few seconds. Kirk lifted the last pancake to be sure it was done. Then Kirk flipped the pancake up, turning the spatula toward the kitchen table, and with a flick of the wrist, tossed the pancake across the table to her plate.

  It landed perfectly at the plate’s center. They both went slack jawed a moment before demanding high fives of each other in awe of his slick moves.

  “That was awesome!” Rory cried.

  “I know! I totally meant to hit you in the face with it, but that was way better,” Kirk said.

  Rory rolled her eyes at him.

  He shut off the stove and set his plate down on the table across from her just as the house phone rang over the kitchen counter.

  “Hey, did you pack your school bag?”

  Rory nodded, her mouth full of far too large a bite of buttermilk and chocolate chip pancake.

  Kirk hopped up to take the call, pointing at Rory.

  “Don’t choke, meatball. Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Kirk Fenn available?”

  Rory began to sing to herself at the table, forcing Kirk to bring the old spiral corded phone around the corner into the living room to hear.

  “Yes, this is Kirk Fenn. To whom am I speaking?”

  “Hey, Mr. Fenn. I’m sorry to call so early. This is Amanda Ross. I’m Peter Vance’s assistant?”

  Kirk’s heart shot into his throat. “Hey there, Amanda. How can I help you?” He’d had Rory for long enough to fall in love with the child. He wasn’t ready to see her leave.

  Amanda slowed her speech, betraying her caution as she rustled papers around to find her information. “We’ve been informed by the hospital that Mrs. Little has woken up.”

  Kirk slumped against the wall. He was overwhelmed with relief to hear Rory’s mother was awake. Still, he felt that familiar pain. He’d experienced this moment before, having to return children to their parents after fostering them in his home for anywhere from a couple days to a few months. Mrs. Little’s coma left Rory in his care for nearly two months now. He squeezed the phone and closed his eyes.

  “Theresa is? Really?”

  “Josephine. Not Theresa,” Rory muttered to herself from the kitchen.

  Kirk leaned into the phone, trying to quiet his voice. “Is she awake enough to have visitors?”

  “She is, yes. If it would be possible for you to bring her down to Bangor, that would be spectacular.”

  Kirk turned into the kitchen, watching Rory pack her papers and folders into her Captain America backpack. He imagined the relief and the joy the little one would feel at hearing her mother was awake – at hearing her mother was going to be ok.

  Then he imagined the way it would feel to hug this little girl goodbye. His chest tightened.

  “We’ll head out, momentarily. Thank you for the call, Amanda.”

  Kirk stood there a moment, waiting to get his wits about him.

  “Mr. Fenn? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m still here.”

  “When you arrive at the hospital, Mr. Vance has some things he’d like to speak to you about. Can you give us a call back when you arrive at the hospital?”

  “I’ll do that -”

  “We’re gonna be late,” Rory said, appearing at his elbow. Kirk jumped at her appearance. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing, sweetheart. You just startled me.”

  Kirk said a quick goodbye on the phone and returned the receiver to the kitchen. He turned back to Rory, and took in the splash of freckles across her cheeks with new eyes. “Hey, I’ve got some good news for you.”

  “You want me to what?”

  Kirk stared at Peter Vance and the well-meaning Dr. Krivna, his eyes wide.

  “I understand if you’re not comfortable, but we thought to ask, nonetheless. We know you take children in from time to time.”

  “Yeah, children. Not grown women.”

  Kirk glanced down the hallway at Theresa Little’s open hospital door. Rory was perched on the edge of the bed, her body slung across her mother in a full body hug. She’d been lying like that for twenty minutes now.

  “I wouldn’t make such a suggestion if the circumstances weren’t exceptional,” Peter said. “She will be well enough to send home this week, but only with supervision. They’ve no family, no car. There’s nowhere for them to go, at this point. Given her state, she can’t go home alone for at least another two or three weeks – maybe even a month.”

  “So you want me to babysit this woman?”

  The doctor and Peter both shook their heads.

  “No, no. She just needs to have someone close by for the next two weeks or so. Make sure she isn’t overexerting herself.”

  Kirk took a deep breath. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?”

  He felt torn. On the one hand, he was a Fenn, and Fenn’s didn’t invite random strangers over for a slumber parties, for very good reason. They had secrets that weren’t meant to be shared. Yet, on the other hand, he imagined the joy on Rory’s face when she learned her mother would be there every morning to see her to school.

  The doctor seemed to sense his wavering. He pressed on. “Look, I’ll level with you, Mr. Fenn. This woman is one of the most difficult patients we’ve ever had. She tries to leave her bed every time she is conscious, verbally accosting our staff and threatening us.”

  “Wow, you sure know how to sell a guy.”

  “You care about the girl, no?”

  Kirk stopped. He nodded.

  “Well, I can tell you right now, that girl’s mother is afraid of something. We have reason to believe she is running from something. Her ID says Theresa Little, but she doesn’t answer to it. They have nowhere to go. By month’s end, when she can be discharged safely without supervision, that woman and her daughter will be homeless. I wouldn’t suggest it if I thought there was any other option. She will fight, and potentially harm herself to get to her daughter. This will kill many birds with one stone.”

  Dr. Krivna’s Hindi accent made arguing with him almost impossible, as the lilt of his voice was too endearing. Kirk mulled over one detail – she doesn’t answer to her name. He remembered Rory’s comment earlier that morning, but didn’t say anything.

  Kirk ran his hand over his face. He’d already made his decision. “You actually think this lady will go home
with a complete stranger?”

  Dr. Krivna and Peter smiled, and a nurse at the station behind them made a tiny celebratory gesture. Apparently, Dr. Krivna wasn’t the only one who wanted Theresa Little out of the hospital.

  “She will if it means being with the girl.”

  Kirk relented, and the doctor shook his hand, heartily, before turning for Theresa’s room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The blipping was back.

  Why in Sam hell can’t these bastards remember to shut the damn thing off?

  Joe shifted in her bed, feeling the same brutal stab in her side as her muscles contracted to move. She could just hear Frances’ syrupy tone, ‘I’d rather you press the button and bother me than hurt yourself, if you don’t mind.”

  God damn it, I’d like to throttle that pleasant bitch, she thought.

  She glanced around the room, refusing to acknowledge the blipping machine at her side, as though they’d had some verbal disagreement and were no longer on speaking terms. Joe spotted the water jug by her bed, and reached for the cup of water, the tape and needle tugging at her arm as she moved. She could wait for Rory to get back from the bathroom, but she didn’t want her daughter to see her helpless.

  “Mrs. Little? You have a visitor.”

  Joe startled, dropping the cup down the side of her bed. She felt the ice cold water drop down over her hip and the pain seared through her leg as her muscles tensed. “God fucking damn it.”

  Frances gave her a stern look, like some Victorian nanny who couldn’t truly scold the spoiled children in her care. Joe met the glare just as a massive man appeared in the doorway beside her nurse. Joe was taken aback by not only the sight of him, but the feel of him. The room felt almost smaller in his presence. He offered his thanks to Frances, and without introduction, her nurse skedaddled out the door, leaving her with the giant in red flannel. The startlingly handsome giant in red flannel.

  “Ms. Little?”

  She stared up at him, fighting to keep her brow set. He was dark, his hair curly and somewhat wild about his head. His jaw and lip were lined by a well-kept mustache and beard, framing a jawline that seemed to travel for days. He moved across the room with trepidation, as though he half expected to break things simply by standing near them. He pulled a chair over to the side of her bed and sat down.

  Joe watched him warily, waiting for explanation of his presence. She’d met with several people that day, all of them specialists and experts, all of them with bad news – you’ve a punctured lung, a broken collar bone, a fractured tibia, you suffered a concussion, you’ve been in a coma for two months, your daughter is in protective custody, we’ll need to do further tests, we can’t legally let you leave without a caretaker.

  Load of bull shit, she thought. Still, the rest of them were dressed in lab coats with stethoscopes and clipboards. This one looked like he just came from chopping wood.

  What the hell did this guy want?

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” He asked.

  She raised a brow. “Should I?”

  He exhaled. “No, probably not. I’m Kirk Fenn. I’m the one that found you guys – after the crash.”

  Joe swallowed. She took a breath, silently scolding herself for her immediate judgment of the man. She’d heard from the doctors and nurses – that her car had dropped twenty feet off the shoreline, that she’d been almost killed on impact, and that had she not been found when she was, she surely wouldn’t have made it.

  Joe glanced down at her hands, lying half useless in her lap. “Well then. Thank you – for that. I’m told you’re my guardian angel.”

  She cringed at her own sarcastic tone. It was practically reflex now.

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I’ve had Rory for the past couple months as well.”

  Joe’s eyes went wide. She took in the size of the man anew. Dear God, if anyone could protect her child, it was this bulldozer of a man. “Oh my god. Is she coming back?”

  Kirk nodded, glancing back to the door.

  “When? She should be done by now, no?”

  He frowned, leaning forward, his hands perched on his elbows. “I was sent in to speak to you first.”

  “Why? What could you possibly have to say that is more important than my being with my daughter?”

  He shot her a strange, almost foreboding look. “Well, that depends – Josephine.”

  Joe’s jaw dropped, and she stared at him. Her breath began to shake in her throat, but she fought with everything she had not to betray her fear. “Why did you call me that?”

  Despite her battle to show only calm, the man seemed to sense her upset. He reached for her arm, touching her wrist in a gesture of camaraderie. Joe snatched her arm away, sending a stabbing pain down her side as reward.

  “The hospital says they’ve been unable to find any family or home address for a Theresa Little. Rory says you two left your apartment back in Portsmouth. Do you have any idea where you were headed?”

  She set her brow. “Is that any of your business?”

  “It is, yeah. It’s just recently become my business, anyway.”

  Joe’s lip curled. “We were heading north. Canada.”

  Kirk Fenn nodded. “That’s what she said. No particular place though, I take it?”

  There was something authoritative about the man, almost cop-like in his demeanor. “I don’t see why my travel plans are any of your business.”

  Kirk leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath. “Because the hospital has informed me that they will not discharge you unless you have somewhere to go and someone to keep an eye on you.”

  “I have that. Once I get to Canada, I have that just fine.”

  He nodded. “Rory says differently.”

  “Well, she’s a child. She doesn’t know any better.”

  He scoffed at that. Joe seethed to see him react in such a familiar way. Who was he to know her daughter?

  “Look, I can tell you’re pissed at the world right now, but I’m trying my best to help you.”

  “Oh, is that what this is? I thought I was being interrogated.”

  Kirk’s eyebrows shot up. His expression softened. “I’m sorry if I came across that way. It wasn’t my intent.”

  The two of them sat in silence a moment.

  “Alright, the thing is – see,” he paused, glancing around the room as though he’d hidden cheat sheets for this conversation on the walls. “I have an apartment – it’s over my garage. It’s nothing massive. Just two bedrooms, but it’s there and it’s free. Enough to help you until you get yourself settled – and the hospital says they’d be willing to discharge you at the end of the week if they knew that’s where you were heading.”

  Joe shook her head, vehemently. Jesus, why was this random stranger so hell bent on saving her day? “I couldn’t. I couldn’t impose. I’d just as soon climb back in my car and head north, just as I was planning.”

  Kirk furrowed his brow. He opened his mouth to speak, but paused, betraying the weight of his coming words. “The car was totaled.”

  Joe took a sharp breath. She’d heard word of the accident half a dozen times that day, but somehow the reality of it was only sinking in now. Those were some damn good drugs she was on.

  “Can it be fixed? I have some money. I could have it fixed.”

  Kirk shook his head. “It’s totaled. The engine caught fire shortly after impact. By the time the fire truck arrived, the front half of the car was burned.”

  “The front half -?”

  Joe’s words caught in her throat. The place where she’d been lying, helpless and bleeding - unconscious. It had burned. Her daughter had been safe in the backseat, but alone. Had someone not come, her baby would have been helpless there – unable to save her mother as the car caught fire around her. Joe fought to still her lower lip, but lost control. Before she could wipe her eyes, tears were streaming down her face. She felt a warmth at her shoulder. Kirk’s hand was massive and gentle.

  “
Hey. You’re alright. Everybody is safe.”

  Joe heard his words, patient and kind even after her gruff treatment. Now, she succumbed in front of him, sobbing in her hospital johnnie, realizing just how dire her circumstances had been. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and thank him, to squeeze him so hard his bones cracked, but she knew such would only cause her pain. She reached for his hand, taking it and clutching it tightly as she cried.

  “Momma? You ok?”

  Joe’s heart cracked open, and she began to cry twice as hard as Rory appeared at the foot of her bed. She held her arms out to her baby, who hustled around the bed, sheepish at the sight of her mother’s tears. Rory came to the side of the bed, leaning over to her mother to be held. Joe pressed her daughter’s head against her chest, ignoring the pain she felt in every muscle just for the chance to smell her daughter’s hair. She stroked her daughter’s hair, humming to herself, an old trick her grandmother used to still her tears.

  “Will you come home with us?” Rory asked, her voice muffled into Joe’s chest.

  Joe took a deep breath. “Did anything get salvaged from the car?”

  Kirk, who had distanced himself from the bed, turned back, nodding. “We got a couple suitcases from the trunk and your phone.”

  Joe blew out through pursed lips, her breath still shaky. “My purse? Our passports?”

  Kirk shrugged. “If it wasn’t in the trunk, it didn’t make it.”

  Joe closed her eyes. There was no way to flee for the border now. There was no car to flee in. Even a bus ticket would offer naught. It would take 90 days for new passports, at least a few weeks if she could afford to expedite. And above all, as long as she was cooped up in this hospital bed, she couldn’t protect Rory.

  Jesus, what was she doing?

  “Are you sure it wouldn’t be putting you out?” She asked.

  The massive man’s face cracked in the whitest, most perfect smile she’d ever seen.

  CHAPTER SIX