Her eyes were closed, her dark lashes thick and velvety against her cheeks. She appeared to be sleeping comfortably. Looked sweet and vulnerable. And so very precious, this tiny baby girl.
A lump rose in Violet’s throat as she thought about everything the premature infant had already been through. It was one thing to accept responsibility of a child in theory, another to actually do it, live and in person.
Violet let out a tremulous sigh.
Gavin seemed similarly affected. His eyes still on little Ava, he reached over and took Violet’s hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Meg Carrigan, the nursing supervisor, appeared at Violet’s elbow. “You can come back and visit her as much as you want, but right now we’d like Ava to rest awhile.”
Violet nodded. The doctor in her understood the reasoning. But the “mom” in her wanted to stay. Forever.
Reluctantly, she stepped back.
Gavin took her elbow and led her out of the nursery and into the hall.
A crowd had gathered. Other parents. Staff. Visitors. Everyone wanted a glimpse of the little orphan. Mitzy was there, too, smiling. “Can you believe it?” She was practically gushing as she held up another sheet on her clipboard. “We’ve already had two dozen families calling, interested in giving her a permanent home. And they haven’t even seen her!”
“Great,” Violet managed to say, her treacherous heart clenching and unclenching like a fist in the middle of her chest.
Gavin nodded. Tightening his grip on her elbow, he escorted her down the hall and past the elevators, to a deserted corner. “You okay?”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
He edged closer. Head dipping toward hers, he asked quietly, “Are you going to be able to do this?”
Not sure whether to be insulted he doubted her or impressed he could so easily see her inner turmoil, Violet stammered, “O-of course!”
Gavin gave her a probing look that sent heat spiraling through her. “Really? Because, from my view, you already look a little too attached.”
* * *
HIS OBSERVATION HIT Violet hard, and while Gavin was sorry about that, he also knew it had to be said.
“You had tears in your eyes just now.”
She waved a hand. “You were choked up, too.”
Only because Violet had been choked up.
Gavin cleared his throat. He saw the vulnerability in her expression and wished there was some way to make this easier for all of them without admitting they might have made a mistake in agreeing to it at all.
Especially if she was this emotionally invested already.
Their eyes met and locked, generating another wave of heat between them. She stepped back slightly, but not before he caught the faint drift of the freesia perfume she favored.
“Look, I’m not going to deny I feel a little sorry for the kid...”
Her golden-brown eyes sparked with indignation. “A little?”
“Okay, a lot.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Being orphaned is a rough road.”
She inhaled shakily, reminding him, “As you very well know from personal experience.” Her dark brows knit together. “Which, maybe, is precisely the reason you should be involved?”
Chagrined, he dropped his hold on her. “Temporarily. In a very cursory—guardian in legal aspect only—way.” Otherwise, he wasn’t sure he could meet this child’s needs any better than he had his siblings’ in the aftermath of his parents’ tragic death.
She gave him an affronted look. “Well, that’s not my idea of being a guardian.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw several people heading toward them. Figuring this conversation did not need an audience, Gavin cupped Violet’s elbow once again, opened the exit door that led to the stairwell and guided her through.
Abruptly, they were surrounded by concrete—and silence. She swung toward him, shivering slightly, her full lips slanting downward. “You can’t get emotionally attached to this baby, Violet.”
“Actually, I can’t not have feelings for her.”
Watching a shadow cross her face, he wanted to protect her all the more. “You know what I mean.”
Violet folded her arms in front of her, the action pushing up the soft swell of her breasts. She released another long, quavering breath. “You think I should handle the situation the way you do your ER patients?” Clearly aware this situation was becoming far too intimate too fast, she paced away from him. Leaning against the wall, she propped her hands on the railing behind her. “Treat ’em and street ’em?”
Not about to apologize for doing his job, and doing it well, he replied in a low, matter-of-fact voice, “Patients come in. They have a medical problem that needs to be dealt with. I diagnose it, administer the proper care and then wish them well as they head either out the door or to another floor of the hospital.”
“In any case,” she accused, “you don’t have to see them again or get emotionally involved.”
“Actually,” Gavin corrected, matching her high-brow tone, “some of them I do see on a rather regular basis. Anyone with a chronic health problem. Cystic fibrosis, cancer and congestive heart failure patients tend to come into the ER at least once or twice a year, if not more, depending on the situation.”
She moved to sit on the floor and propped her folded arms on her upraised knees. “Okay. I’ll grant you that.”
He sat next to her; so close their legs almost touched. “I never give anyone less than my best. It still doesn’t mean, however, that I’m unnecessarily involved with my patients.” The way, he observed silently, she often seemed to be.
“Well, that’s true.” Violet rubbed at an imaginary spot on her jeans. “You do have a rep for having a barbed-wired heart.”
Her teasing tone did little to allay the sting of the words. He elbowed her playfully. “Actually, Penelope said I didn’t have a romantic bone in my body.”
“What did you do to make her think that?”
Pushing aside the memory of the bitter breakup, he shrugged. “I think it’s more what I refused to do.”
Interest lit her curious eyes. “Which was...?”
“Sugarcoat anything. Life is what it is.” Fate had taught him that. “I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”
Violet pivoted to face him, her bent knee nudging his thigh.
Trying not to think what it would feel like to have the rest of her touching him, in a much more intimate way, he admitted wryly, “I think the consensus is that I’m ‘emotionally unavailable.’ And therefore, profoundly undatable.”
She tilted her head and then rose slowly, dusting off the seat of her pants.
He noticed she didn’t argue the assessment.
“That’s too bad. Everyone should have a great love at least once in their life.” Were they flirting? It seemed as if they were.
He got to his feet, too. Glad to once again be towering over her. “At thirty-two, I hardly think my time has come and gone.”
Violet laughed, suddenly looking a whole lot more relaxed. “True. I suppose there’s still a chance you’ll open up in here.” She tapped his heart.
He quirked a brow. “Or not.”
She was about to say something else when his phone beeped. He read the text message, then said, “I’m needed in the ER.” He paused in surprise as another text followed. “And so are you.”
Chapter Three
The paramedics had just finished wheeling the gurney holding eighty-two-year-old Carlson Willoughby into an exam bay when Violet and Gavin walked in.
As usual, Violet noted, his wife, Wanda, was by his side. Both were dressed in tracksuits that zipped up the front. Hers was pink and white; his, a jaunty navy blue.
“Hey, Dr. McCabe.” Carlson lifted a hand weakly in greeting.
As always, he was impeccably clean-shaven, but his thinning, snow-white hair was damp with what appeared to be sweat.
Violet grinned at one of her favorite patients. “Back again?”
He grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
The paramedic handed Violet a chart. “He collapsed with pain on his lower right side. Because of his history, we felt it best to bring him in.”
“A lot of fuss over nothing,” Carlson grumbled, glaring at his IV. He winked at his wife. “Although I do enjoy an ambulance ride from time to time.”
“This is no joking matter, Carlson,” Wanda chided.
“Everything is a joking matter,” he returned with an affable grin.
“No fever,” the nurse taking his vitals said. “BP 140 over 100, heart rate 98.”
Gavin stepped in, as attending ER physician, to do the physical exam. “So what else has been going on?” he asked while palpitating the older man’s abdomen.
Violet noted Carlson seemed to be in pain.
“He’s had stomach issues the past few days,” his wife explained.
Carlson waved off the concern. “It was probably my cooking. I tried a new recipe as a surprise on our sixtieth wedding anniversary.”
“Congratulations.” Violet smiled, impressed at the longevity of their relationship.
Wanda told her husband, “Your tendency to overspice everything has nothing to do with this. If it did, you would be sick all the time.”
Carlson guffawed.
“Anything else of note?” Gavin asked, frowning as he checked the lymph nodes.
Carlson was mum.
“He’s had pain,” his wife declared. “I know he has for weeks now. He just won’t admit it.”
“Everyone our age has pain.”
Wanda dabbed her eyes. “I think the cancer has returned.”
Violet hoped that was not the case. She’d become very close to the older couple over the past five years. Too close, she sometimes thought.
“Which was why I asked for you.” Carlson looked pointedly at Violet. “I want you to tell Wanda that’s just not true.”
Violet forced a matter-of-fact smile.
“All this is, is old age and indigestion,” the patient declared stalwartly. “Tell her, Dr. McCabe.”
Violet wished it was that simple. “You know I can’t rule anything out from an oncology perspective until we do a few tests. Which you are about due for, anyway, aren’t you?”
Carlson groaned at the prospect. Defiantly, he attempted to sit up and shook his head. “Now that I’ve celebrated our anniversary here—”
Gavin gave the couple a curious look.
“We met in the ER sixty years ago, fell in love at first sight and married a week later,” Wanda explained. She patted her husband’s hand fondly. “And I have never regretted loving this man for an instant.”
“Nor I you. And now that we’ve commemorated that great day with yet another trip to the hospital, I just want to go home,” Carlson said stubbornly.
“And you will. In a day or so. After we make sure everything is as it should be,” Violet said soothingly.
Briefly, she and Gavin stepped out to consult and then she returned to the exam room. “Dr. Monroe confirms you are in no immediate danger. However, we both think you need more tests. So I’m admitting you on the oncology floor.”
“Thank heaven.” Wanda exhaled in relief.
Carlson scowled in mock aggravation. “Don’t be so anxious to get rid of me!”
“Hey,” Wanda replied, her usual good cheer returning now that her husband was in good hands. “Even I deserve a Carlson-free evening every now and then.” She winked at her beloved. “So stop trying to ruin it for me!”
The couple chuckled in unison. Their verbal one-upmanship continued, to the amusement of the staff.
Grinning, Violet stepped out to the nurses’ station to write the orders.
By the time she had finished, Carlson was already on his way up to a private room. Gavin had been called to stitch up a teenager who had accidentally thrown a baseball through a window, then cut his hand while cleaning up the broken glass.
And that was when one of his sisters, Bridgette, rushed through the emergency entrance.
She and her twin, Bess, were both nurses. But only Bridgette had returned to Laramie to live.
A nurse in the neonatal unit, the lively twenty-four-year-old brunette was usually enviably calm.
Not today.
In paint-splattered clothing, her keys in one hand, cell phone in the other, she strode toward the desk. “Where’s Gavin?”
“With a patient. What’s going on?”
“It’s Nicholas.” Violet knew she was referring to their nineteen-year-old brother. “He was in an accident.”
“Oh, no! Is he hurt?”
“I’m not sure. I got a call they’re bringing him in.”
In the distance, sirens sounded. Bridgette looked around, wild-eyed and teary.
“I’ll get Gavin,” Violet told her.
She grabbed a pair of sterile gloves as she walked through the exam room door. “Want me to finish up?” she said with a look that told Gavin he was needed elsewhere.
“Sure.” He handed off the task to her.
By the time Violet had finished with the stitches, the EMTs were wheeling Nicholas in on a gurney.
If the way he was arguing with the EMTs was any indication, she thought, he wasn’t badly hurt.
“—completely unnecessary.”
“Your pickup rolled and nearly went down a ravine. You’re getting checked out.”
Another ER doc followed the gurney into an exam room. She came out ten minutes later, announcing, “Except for a few bruises, he’s fine.”
“Thank heaven.” Bridgette sighed, rushing in, Gavin beside her.
Seconds later, sounds of arguing could be heard.
Knowing if it continued, other patients would be disturbed, Violet knocked on the door and breezed in. “How’s it going here?”
Nicholas looked at Violet and pointed at his two older siblings. “Tell them I have every right to drop out of college if that’s what I want.”
What?
Gavin gave Violet a look that said “Help me out here...”
She smiled. “Is this really the time and place to have this discussion? Because there are others in the waiting room still needing to be seen. So...”
“Violet’s right.” Bridgette looked at her younger brother. “I’ll drive you home.”
“I’ll take care of the paperwork,” Gavin said.
“Are you okay?” Violet asked gently after his two siblings had left.
Gavin rubbed a hand over his face.
For the first time she realized what it must have been like for him when his parents died.
Gavin had been about to enter medical school but his twin sisters and younger brother had still been in their teens. It had been up to Gavin and his older sister, Erin, who had been married with kids of her own, to finish raising them. Plus, manage the family’s ranch and Western wear store in town. Erin had insisted Gavin continue with his education, rather than forgo his dreams, and after some initial arguing about whether that was too much for his older sister to handle on her own, he had. He’d returned every few months to help out. And done his best to keep in touch, in between visits, but it couldn’t have been easy for any of them.
Yet never once had she heard Gavin complain.
Gavin dropped his hand to his side. “Yeah. It’s just the accident talking. He’ll be okay when he calms down and comes to his senses.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
Gavin shook his head. “Thanks for offering.” He inhaled. “I better call Erin, though. Before she hears abou
t it from anyone else.”
Violet watched him leave with newfound respect. For reasons she couldn’t really explain, she was tempted to stay around awhile anyway to make sure Gavin was really okay in the wake of the traumatic event. Offer comfort. Take him to lunch. Something. But that was ridiculous, she knew. The two of them didn’t have that kind of relationship. They were casual friends, nothing more. If Gavin needed to turn to someone for support, it wouldn’t be to her.
Meanwhile, there were places she was needed. She had things to do at McCabe House. She also wanted to check on Ava before she left the hospital.
To her relief, the newborn was sleeping peacefully.
Meg Carrigan joined her at the incubator. “Funny,” the sixty-year-old nursing supervisor mused, “how easily these little ones grab our hearts and then hold on with all their might.”
Which was considerable, Violet thought. She turned to the trim redhead, who was also a dear family friend. “It still gets to you after all these years?”
Meg nodded. She patted Violet’s shoulder. “Luckily, as each one of these little darlings leaves, another arrives, needing just as much TLC.”
That was true, Violet thought, for the nurses and doctors in NICU. It wouldn’t necessarily hold for her. And that was a good thing. Thus far, despite the fact that all her sisters now had families of their own—or in Poppy’s case, was actively planning one—she had yet to catch baby fever.
Given the fact she’d already had—and lost—the love of her life, she preferred it to stay that way.
* * *
FIVE HOURS LATER Violet opened a window on the second floor of McCabe House. She leaned out, video camera in hand, just in time to see Gavin getting out of his pickup.
He was wearing faded denim jeans, boots and an old button-down shirt, the shirttails hanging out. His clothes looked as comfortable and broken in as her favorite pair of flannel pajamas.
She let her gaze rove his tousled dark hair, broad shoulders and sandpaper hint of beard lining his handsome face. “I didn’t expect to see you again today.”
Lone Star Baby (McCabe Multiples Book 5) Page 3