by Natalie Ann
“She was fine. I put her to work and got everything unpacked and put away.”
“I think she missed you the most.”
“She always was up my butt,” he said.
They were in the kitchen now, him helping himself to another beer from his father’s stash, his mother pouring herself a glass of wine. He didn’t remember her doing that before dinner, but times had changed for them all, it seemed.
“Grey and Colt were just that much older than her when she came around. They wanted no part of the baby sister. You got stuck with her the most.”
He never considered himself really stuck with Alexa, but understood what his mother was saying. He was seven when Alexa was born, Colt was nine and Grey eleven. His mother was right; he ended up with Alexa the most.
What he never said was that he chose that too. That his older brothers didn’t want to necessarily be bothered with him, often leaving him out in the cold. Alexa ended up being someone he could have to himself.
“So why did she leave? Did she think she’d get in trouble for being here when we all agreed we wouldn’t?”
He looked at his mother’s stylish bob as she sipped her wine, her eyes twinkling. She didn’t look a day over forty-five in his eyes, but she was pushing sixty. She was in great shape, wonderful health, and took the best care with her appearance.
“She said she was going to get some more wine and beer. She and I put away a few bottles this afternoon unpacking.”
“You let her leave here after she’d been drinking?” his mother asked, lifting her eyebrow fast and sharp. A grown man will always want to take a step back from that look from his mother.
“She had one beer, I had three. Well, we kind of split the first one, then she had another and I had two. She was fine.”
His mother turned and put her glass down. “If you say so. But I’m sure it won’t go to waste. Your father and brothers will be here soon. They were going to try to get out early, but you know how it can be with Grey and Colt.”
“Two important jobs, duty calls,” he said, a bit of sarcasm to his voice.
“Jake. Don’t start. You all have important jobs.”
He snorted. He’d once thought he did. Thought he had the most important of them all...until he failed. “Not me. At least not currently.”
“Why don’t you help me get dinner started?” his mother asked, smart enough to let the subject drop.
The two of them worked together like old times getting a roast in the oven, potatoes peeled and cubed into the water. His mother would start on the cheese sauce for the broccoli and cauliflower soon. She was pulling out all the stops on his favorites for the night.
When his father came home, he didn’t hesitate to come over and give him a big hug. Everyone was tall in the family, even his mother at five foot seven. Poor Alexa seemed to stop growing at five foot two and no one knew why. But the boys were all over six foot. Jake the tallest at six foot three and the most muscular from years in the service.
“Good to have you home, Jake,” his father said.
“Good to be home,” he said and meant it.
But he wasn’t so sure he meant it forty minutes later when they were all sitting at the table and started arguing about politics. He forgot how much his two older brothers could go at each other.
He hadn’t seen everyone at once since he was home nine months ago. For Rob’s funeral. Where he had to face his best friend’s parents, see the judgment in their eyes and feel the pain in their hearts.
Rob had never planned on going into the Army, but Jake talked him into it. His parents weren’t thrilled over it, even though they supported their only son. They voiced their opinion hard and heavy in the beginning and then dropped it after.
Rob’s parents never said they blamed Jake, but how could they not? They hugged him, they cried with him, and they told him they were sorry for his loss. He couldn’t get past the fact that he was to blame whether anyone believed it or not. Not just that he talked Rob into enlisting but that he shouldn’t have abandoned him when he was held captive. He should have stayed on and fought until every man was brought home.
Leave no one behind. He did.
Many called him a hero for saving the lives of those he did that day, but to him...he failed the one person who hadn’t been in the line of fire that he was protecting during the fight, the one person that he’d wanted to save most. His gut told him something was off and he should have listened to it.
“So what are your plans?” his father asked.
“Furniture shopping seems to be at the top of the list. I’ll pick a few things up this week.”
“We can move some furniture up there for you,” his mother said. “We have plenty here. More than your father and I need.”
“I’ll get what I need,” Jake said. “No worries.”
“I told you he’d say that,” his father said.
He looked over and grinned at his father, picked up his beer and took another sip. Dinner was great and going smoother than he thought it would.
“I can’t believe you managed to get that apartment we all fought over,” Colt said.
It was said as a joke, Jake knew, so he tried to joke back. “All I had to do was go to war for it.” Yep, wrong thing to say when the silence was thick enough to cut with the knife his dad used to carve the roast beef. “Sorry, that was in poor taste.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Alexa said. “We’re glad you’re back. If you’re joking, then we’re happy regardless of if it’s in poor taste or not. Right, guys?”
Everyone laughed because it was hard not to with Alexa crossing her eyes at the table. She spent too much time around young kids getting them to giggle.
“So what places did you visit?” Grey asked. “Tell us about it.”
Grey had always been the more diplomatic of the boys. Colt loved to argue, which was why he made such a great lawyer, but Grey was a calming presence more times than not able to diffuse situations as long as it didn’t involve his brothers.
“Not much to say. I just picked places at random and stayed a few weeks.”
“Come on, Jake,” Alexa said. “You were all over the US. No place caught your eye?”
“Not particularly,” he said. He waited a few minutes, debating if he should say what he’d been trying to do. What he was hoping to accomplish. Would they laugh at him? Would they think he was nuts? “I was doing research more than anything.”
“Research for what?” his mother asked.
“A book I want to write.”
Silence again around the table. Was it shock? Were his brothers trying to hold back some crack?
Nope. His father said, “That’s great. You always had a skill at storytelling. What kind of book?”
He looked around at everyone’s face, but all he saw was encouragement. “Mystery. Crimes. My biggest problem is I can’t focus.”
“You?” Colt said. “You’ve always been the most laser focused of us.”
“Colt,” Grey said, narrowing his eyes.
“It’s fine, Grey. Yep, PTSD, I’ve got it. It’s not the boogeyman in the room. It can be said.”
“We’re here if you need us,” Alexa said.
“I know. Thanks. I’m getting there. But the lack of focus comes from having too many ideas. Too many storylines. I’m not sure which one I want to tackle first. I can’t decide on anything in my life, it seems.”
“You decided to come home and that’s a start,” his mother said.
“Don’t worry,” Grey said. “Run with it. You’ll land on what you want and it will fall into place.”
“I hope so.”
“So that’s what you’re going to do?” his mother asked. “Be the big successful author of the family?”
He snorted. “Not sure about success. Not sure if it’s what I’m going to do full time either. All I know is I’ve got to keep myself busy and that is helping.”
There were a lot of glances around the table again, but he chose to igno
re them. “You’ll figure it out,” his mother said. “You always do.”
Too bad later that night when he was in bed he wondered if he’d ever figure anything out. The only thing he was positive was he couldn’t get the image of Rob’s headless body out of his mind and didn’t think he ever would.
Looking the Part
“What do you think so far?” Rachel Chapman asked the young cardiologist just finishing up his residency and looking for a place to belong. It was Rachel’s job to recruit and make sure Albany Medical Center was where he ended up.
It wasn’t just doctors that she was tasked with finding. It was high-level executives, department heads, IT, any hard to find position. It fell on her shoulders to pull out all the stops, bring them on board, show them everything this facility and city had to offer and get them to sign on the dotted line.
Did she love her job? She absolutely did. She loved to talk to people. To meet people. To sell them. What she didn’t love were the cocky sons of bitches that thought she was a little lady that would do anything to get them to commit here.
“Not bad,” Dr. Ty Rice said. He was on the shorter side, thin, not bad looking, a few years younger than her. He wasn’t nearly as good looking as he thought he was. “It’s a lot bigger than I thought it’d be.”
“We’ve been growing by leaps and bounds over the years.” They were walking outside of the hospital right now on the sidewalk. “I’ll take you over to the surgical pavilion where the offices are housed. You can see the new apartments right here that went up in the past few years. Nice and convenient for employees to walk to work.”
“Noisy,” Ty said.
“Well, you will hear the sirens and all. The traffic. You can see Washington Park at the end of the street. Easy walking distance. Nice trails for running if you’re one of those people.”
She gave him a once over glance like she was admiring his body, knowing he’d take it for what it was. Nothing like feeding his ego. All part of the job. If she hated that part, she kept it to herself, but it was harmless enough.
“I did notice the park, definitely a nice side benefit. So the hospital pays for the apartments?”
She held back her snort. “The hospital owns a few and allows specifically designated staff to stay for a short period of time while they make other living arrangements. It’s a perk, but a short-term one.”
“How short term?” he asked.
“A few months tops.”
“I want a year. If I decide to come here.”
“Negotiations are done between you and the hiring committee. My job is to show you around,” she said smiling, but she jotted down a note. “I will of course mark it down as something you may be interested in.”
He nodded his head, they waited for the flashing light for them to cross the street, and made their way across. “You sure do walk steady in those heels.”
He’d been throwing out compliments from the moment she picked him up at the airport. She was used to it by now and just smiled. “Years of practice.”
“They look real nice on you too.”
His eyes moved down her once again. She was happy she had on a fitted coat over her black pants, hiding most of her body from him. Though he’d seen enough when they had lunch. It’d been hard not to miss the way his eyes roamed over her chest, waist, then the slight flare of her hips as her jacket was removed.
She never dressed sexy by any means. No way. But she was professional and she prided herself on looking good. Looking the part.
Her slimming tailored black pants, light blue cashmere sweater, and black heels fit the image she was going for.
“Thank you,” she said, knowing that was answer enough for him. Or answer enough that he was getting.
He held the door open for her to the five-story building that housed most of the surgeons’ offices. Not all, there were other buildings around on campus, some a few blocks away, but he’d be here if he took the job.
“It’s a nice building,” Ty commented.
“One of the newer ones,” she said. “As I said, we’ve been growing for years.”
They walked to the elevator for doctors, she swiped her badge, then entered when the doors opened. “That’s a nice touch. So I wouldn’t have to ride up with patients?”
“No. Of course you could if you want, but we do try to make it so that the doctors can move around faster. Emergencies and all. We wouldn’t want anyone standing around waiting for an elevator when they needed to be in surgery.”
The doors opened on the fourth floor. She walked off and turned down the hallway, nodding her head at several staff. She couldn’t possibly know everyone by name, but many knew her. She was always walking around campus and had to show her ID plenty enough times.
“These offices are pretty small,” Ty said when she pushed open a door to an empty one.
“The big boys get the larger offices,” she said with a massive grin on her face. “From what I hear, you’ve got the talent to be there one of these days.” She congratulated herself on saying that with a straight face.
“Damn straight,” he said. “Sooner than later too.”
“So what else can I show you? Do you have any questions for me?”
“I’d like to see the OR,” he said.
“I figured you’d ask that. I did pull up the schedule of surgeries today. In about an hour we should be able to slip in and look around before the room is in use.”
“No, I want to observe a surgery,” he said, standing firm, his voice a bit stronger than it’d been.
She knew he’d say that too. It was her job to be prepared for everything. “I’ve got a call in to Dr. Miller’s office. He is the surgeon scheduled at three. If we get his clearance, we can stay and observe.”
Personally, she hated doing that. At the heart of it she was kind of squeamish, but found other things to look at. Most times she could sit down and take care of emails and such, anything to distract herself from the blood and action happening behind the window.
“Make it happen,” Ty said.
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
Over an hour later, she was taking a deep breath as Ty watched the surgery being done behind the window. She was looking at her phone, reading emails, and hoping he’d had enough, but she wasn’t going to push him.
By four-thirty, he said, “We can leave now if you want?”
“Thanks. Did you see what you wanted?”
“Enough. So do you have plans tonight?”
Here we go again. “I’m afraid I do.”
“Then what are my chances of you setting me up with someone tonight?”
“Excuse me?” she asked. This was a first.
“Some company for the night? You’ve got to know of someone that would be interested in having...dinner with me.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t part of my job description,” she said, trying to keep her voice from snapping. “However, I’ll be glad to give you a list of restaurants and bars where you might happen to find someone on your own.”
He snorted. “I suppose that would do.”
She walked back to one of the apartments he was going to be staying in for the night rather than getting a hotel. Thank God she didn’t have to get in the car with him again and could wipe her hands of this tour.
She was just ready to open her office door when her boss, Mitch Morgan, called her name. “Yes?”
“How did it go with Dr. Rice?”
She rolled her eyes. She got along with Mitch well enough. He was in his fifties, been married for over twenty years and was a true family man. He also happened to know her father, which worked in her favor when it came to conceited pricks of doctors who wanted to hit on her.
Mitch knew the type of woman she was, the family she came from, and knew she would never do what so many wanted from her. Or what so many thought she did. He supported her and stood by her and more than once he’d put some potential new hires in their place even if it meant costing them the new recruit
.
“There’s a first for everything and today was it.”
“Come into my office,” Mitch said. “What did he ask you to do?”
“Find him some company for the night,” she said, then started to giggle.
“What did you say?”
“I told him that wasn’t part of my job description but recommended several establishments where he could find his own company for the night.”
Mitch chuckled. “What was his response?”
“He laughed at me and then said, ‘I like you’ before we parted ways.”
Mitch shook his head. “You do have a way about you. That is what makes you so good at your job. You can insult someone, or put them in their place with that sweet smile on your face.”
“Thanks. I think.” He was buttering her up and she wasn’t sure why. “What do you need?”
“You know me too well. We need a Medevac Pilot. Just a part-time one.”
“What?” she asked. Talk about a tall order. “Where am I going to find a part-time pilot?”
“That’s your job,” he said. “We’ve got three full timers and they are covering for each other nonstop and pulling all sorts of overtime. It was decided to bring someone on part time, someone that could be close by to be called in if needed, but on site at times too. Cover holidays and vacations.”
“Talk about an impossible task in this area, requiring them to be a certain distance to the hospital. How soon do you need one?” she asked, already trying to figure out where to go to even start searching for this.
“The sooner the better, but we know it could take some time.”
She stood up when he did, knowing the conversation was done. “I’ll get to work on it.”
“I know you will. And Rachel, good job with Ty today.”
“We don’t know if it’s a good job or not. I’ll write up my report tomorrow and let you know all the things he commented on or wanted, wished we had, and so on.”
“He is already signing,” Mitch said.
“What? When?” It’d only been about thirty minutes since she’d left him.