It was time. Regardless of what Nikkie Jean had wanted—she’d wanted a six-week stay for Izzie—it was time. For one thing, she suspected how much this was going to cost.
Her health insurance wouldn’t pay for more than the basic amount of care. Especially since Fin had agreed that Izzie could go home a week ago.
Nikkie Jean had offered to talk to Billing and have the bill stricken from the records, if that would keep Izzie there.
That wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t going to let Nikkie Jean use her new position as owner of the hospital to give Izzie charity. Especially since Nikkie Jean kept vowing that she wasn’t the owner and wasn’t going to be.
Well, Nikkie Jean couldn’t have it both ways. She couldn’t claim not to want the power, then try to use the power in Izzie’s favor.
Instead, they’d agreed that Izzie would go home with Nikkie Jean and Caine.
The two of them would keep an eye on her when they were home. When they weren’t, Caine’s uncle Henry would be there. Caine’s younger sister, Pen, had agreed to spend a week or two with them, helping Henry with the kids. It worked out well for Pen, too. There had been a visiting lecturer at the main campus for Finley Creek University that Pen had wanted to hear, about paranormal activity.
“All set?” a male voice asked behind her. Jake stood there, looking tall, strong, and gorgeous. Cranky. He’d been on Nikkie Jean’s side—he’d wanted her to stay put another week or so. Well, that wasn’t happening.
Her best friend was being forced out of her home today. Izzie was going to be right there next to Annie while it happened. That was all the real motivation she needed to get her rear out of bed and back to living.
Annie needed her there. So that’s where Izzie was going to be.
“I think so. Let’s get out of here.”
“You know the rules,” Fin said from right next to him. She had a wheelchair all ready. Izzie wouldn’t admit it, but the sight of the chair was a blessing. She’d been on her feet a bit too long already. “Let’s do this.”
Annie had made a special trip in on her day off, even though she should have been finishing up at her house, just to see Izzie get paroled. She firmly took the chair from Fin and shot Izzie a look.
It mattered. Like being there for Annie when she lost her home was pretty damned important, too.
Izzie settled into the chair, her bag on her lap. She held it lightly, gingerly, away from the worst wound on her stomach.
It would be a while before she was fully back to her old self again.
If she would ever be.
What Wallace Henedy had done had changed her forever.
Allen was in the lobby of the temporary ER when everyone paused for a moment. Wild clapping ensued around him.
He was tall enough to look over the heads of Felicity and Gwyn, two of the day-shift nurses he’d worked with many times before.
A small parade of people was coming down the hall from the elevator.
A dark-haired woman was in a wheelchair at the front of the crowd, being pushed by Annie—who was dressed in street clothes. Nikkie Jean and Fin walked on either side of them.
He smiled, mood lifting immediately.
Izzie looked great. From the looks of things, she was being discharged.
Into Nikkie Jean’s care, as Nikkie Jean had penciled herself off the schedule for a few days. For some reason, seeing the four women gave him an immense rush of hope.
Despite the odds, Izzie was going to be fine.
Hopefully, she’d be able to heal from the ghosts this would have caused. Nikkie Jean would make sure of it.
Allen joined the little procession in time to reach out and open the rear seat of Caine’s truck.
He leaned down until his eyes met dark ones. “I’m glad to see you’re getting out of here, Nurse Izzie.”
“Oh, I’m always ready to go home after a shift here, Dr. Jacobson. Sometimes, more eager than others.”
He took her bag from her hand as her uncle rounded the truck. Detective MacNamara shot Allen a mistrustful look. “Thanks again, Dr. Jacobson, for what you did. We’ll be taking care of Izzie now.”
Allen knew a warning when he heard one. The other man was a real piece of work. He nodded and stepped back. Caine was there next to him, gently lifting Izzie from the wheelchair, in spite of her protests.
“We’ll see you when you’re fully recovered, Izzie. And good luck.”
She looked at him one more time and nodded.
There wasn’t much else either one of them could say now.
32
Izzie had had enough. She’d stayed with Nikkie Jean for over two weeks. That had been her limit. Not because she hadn’t felt welcomed with Caine’s family—the exact opposite was the truth—but because she’d always been able to stand on her own two feet.
Jake hadn’t known what to do with a fiercely independent teenager all those years ago, and he’d continued to give her independence.
She was used to being able to take care of herself.
It was time to find her normal again. That was something mentioned at W4HAV all the time.
Normal was a fallacy. Normal didn’t truly exist.
Her sixth week had rolled up, and her medical leave was over. There was no one to pay her bills while she sat around her apartment, with Jake in and out hovering.
Even though her uncle was having problems of his own. Something was up with Jake.
Izzie would bet her entire savings—pitiful though they now were—on that. He’d said it was a case. She wasn’t so sure.
She’d learned a long time ago not to push, though. He wouldn’t discuss his work with her at all. Said he didn’t want to burden her with the seedy side of life.
Hell, she saw seedy every other day in the ER. She wasn’t exactly naive. Jake was insistent. He kept his secrets.
She was glad life was falling back into some semblance of normal. Even if he had taken to coddling and babying her, far worse than he had ever tried when she’d been a teenager.
He was starting to give her gray hair.
She had to get her normal back.
She had to get back to work. That was her first goal.
She was down to two hundred seventy-three dollars and eighty-two cents in her savings. She’d already had to make the first payment for her three-week stay at FCGH. That was after Nikkie Jean had gone behind her back and negotiated the bill down to a third of what it had originally been, claiming the hospital had liability because they’d employed Henedy. It had been very weak, but no one wanted to go against Nikkie Jean right now.
The woman was almost as much a force to reckon with as an F1 tornado.
It had almost made Izzie sick to sign that check.
So much for health insurance. Hopefully, with Carrington Medical Group now the owners, a better benefits package would be on its way. Carrington was supposed to have one of the best benefits packages in the country.
Jake was making noises about her trying to get something from the Crime Victims Compensation fund, but she didn’t hold out much hope for that.
Jake had already covered her share of the utilities and rent for the last two months. He paid seventy percent of everything while she was in school anyway. He’d insisted on it. Said it was his job as her uncle.
He had made a great pseudo-dad, but she wasn’t about to keep taking advantage of that. She was an adult.
It was big-girl-panty time.
It was time she stood on her own two feet. Time she put her dreams away and settled for reality. School…she was finished. It wasn’t going to happen again anytime soon. Maybe someday…but someday wasn’t now. She had a good career where she was at, could support herself, and could be proud of what she did.
It was time to start doing that again.
She’d called and spoken with both Wanda and Cherise on Friday. They were hesitant, but...she was back on the schedule first thing Monday morning.
She wanted her life back.
Izzie spent most of Sunday prepping herself mentally. She wasn’t nearly up to speed physically. She wouldn’t lie to herself. She had no choice.
She needed money. Fast.
That meant getting her butt back to work.
She was going to be paying for what Wallace Henedy had done for a very, very long time.
Years. By her calculations, she’d be forty-two by the time the bills were completely paid off. Possibly forty-three if she couldn’t make an extra payment now and then.
That was without paying tuition to finish her degree and licensing. At any time during the next ten years.
Turner had mentioned quietly that she should consider a civil suit against Henedy. Once the criminal trial was over. She might be able to get him to be responsible for the majority of the bills; Turner had said that the Henedys had more than enough to pay for it all.
Izzie didn’t know how long she wanted to drag everything out with Wallace Henedy. She wanted the nightmare to be over.
Then again, signing a check to the hospital every month until she was forty-two was more than she wanted to do, too. After what he’d done to her, he should have to make it right somehow.
Even if that was with money.
Tomorrow, she’d go back to the ER. Where everyone would be staring. Watching her.
Wondering what had happened to make Wallace Henedy try to kill her. Nikkie Jean, Annie, Lacy, and Jillian had kept her up to date on all the rumors.
The most disgusting was that he’d been having an affair with both her and Nikkie Jean. Nikkie Jean had told him to get rid of Izzie. That Nikkie Jean had provided her own father’s gun to make it happen.
Revolting through and through.
Another tabloid stated that Izzie was his illegitimate child and his wife had ordered her killed. Yet another stated that she was Jennifer Henedy’s illegitimate daughter—the hair and eyes were the main evidence, apparently—and she had given Izzie up for adoption. Jake had adopted her, apparently, but they kept it secret so the Italian mob wouldn’t find out. When she’d been an infant. Never mind that Jake had been all of eleven and living in Italy when she’d been born.
The more idiotic members of the staff speculated that Wallace had shot her out of jealousy because Jake was involved with Henedy’s wife.
FCGH could really be a soap opera.
Dr. Henedy had walked in, raised the gun, and fired. That was it.
No one knew more than that. According to the prosecutor, Wallace wasn’t saying anything else—other than grief had made him insensible for a time.
She gave a frustrated growl and flopped over on her bed again. Her chest still twinged. Mel, who’d had her own brush with a .38 bullet a few years ago, had told her that it probably always would. That it got a little easier. Mel had sought her out to make certain Izzie knew that counseling helped. It had helped Mel, who had been left partially paralyzed.
Some of Izzie’s flesh had been destroyed. Muscles and nerves ripped in two. Scars would always be a reminder of what happened.
She had eight visible scars. The bullet holes and the scars where Cage and Virat had shoved tubes or scalpels into her body to keep her alive and breathing.
One hand went to the worst of the scars. The wound that had almost killed her.
If she could just figure out why.
Maybe she wouldn’t still feel like she was in stasis, wondering.
She’d get back to work and try her best to forget that she had almost died. She’d try to replan her future somehow.
Somehow.
She finally fell asleep, to relive it all again in her dreams. She woke as gray eyes filled her nightmares. Again.
She wiped tears off her cheeks and willed herself back to sleep.
Sleep never came.
33
There was a Welcome Back, Nurse Izzie banner draped over the ER intake desk. There were dozens of signatures on it. It made her want to cry. Izzie stopped there first and just read the names. There was Rafe’s, big and bold and very center.
Nikkie Jean’s was near his, her I’s dotted with stars. No tame hearts for Nikkie Jean.
Annie’s was there, the biggest name visible. Jillian’s nearly illegible scrawl was next to her husband’s. Lacy—who had the characteristic horrible surgeon’s handwriting. Someone—she suspected Nikkie Jean since it was in the same pink ink as her name—had drawn a cartoon heart around Fin and Virat.
Cage had drawn an alien playing a guitar next to his. He was such a big kid sometimes.
Wanda, Cherise, Vince, Dominique, Amy, Courtney, Gwyn, Felicity, Allen, Layla—all names she recognized.
Some names she didn’t.
Wanda saw her first and rounded the desk. She pulled Izzie into a hug. “Baby girl, we have missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” She hadn’t been alone even a single day until this past week. She’d been in the hospital three weeks, and someone—usually multiple someones—would visit her several times a day. When she’d come home, there had been an actual schedule put in place by Nikkie Jean to ensure she wasn’t ever left alone.
Not that anyone could ever be alone fully at Nikkie Jean and Caine’s. Caine’s uncle Henry had taken it on himself to hover over her that first week. Pen was absolutely hilarious once one got to know her. She’d made a fine babysitter for Izzie when Nikkie Jean and Caine couldn’t be there.
“You are to take it easy. I’ve stacked the schedule, with Rafe’s permission, so that if you are too tired, you are to rest.”
“I don’t want any fussing, Wanda. I need...” She blew out a big breath. “Hell, I need things to go back to as normal as possible. I’m going insane sitting around at home.”
She felt like the entire world had tilted on its side with the pull of a trigger.
Because of Wallace Henedy.
“Three hours on your feet. Then you are working the switchboard here at intake. I’ll take patients. No arguing. You have to build your strength back. And you need to eat. You must have lost twenty pounds.”
Izzie knew better than to argue. Wanda had that warrior mother look in her eyes that Izzie had seen before. She’d been the same way when Jillian and Lacy had both been so badly injured. And Annie, after the storm.
“I’m good, Wanda. I even made lasagna yesterday. I froze it in portions to bring for lunch. I’m good.”
“You’d better be.” Wanda’s voice hitched. “It wasn’t the same without you here. That bastard. Deserves whatever he gets. I hope they fry him for what he almost did.”
Those were sentiments she heard over and over as the day went on.
As well as the question of why? No one could believe that she didn’t know what had made Wallace Henedy try to kill her that day.
By the time the end of the day rolled around, she was ready to scream. And that was before Annie called.
34
Izzie studied the swanky condo complex and swallowed the lead that suddenly hit her.
A man like Allen Jacobson would live in the most exclusive condo complex in the city.
The man had money practically pouring out his ears. It was a far cry from the two bedroom she and her uncle shared two blocks from the hospital. They probably could afford to upgrade, but Jake was a curmudgeonly creature of habit. Getting him out of that apartment would take an act of God.
That had been before Henedy had destroyed all her plans and depleted her savings. A part of her had wanted to eventually buy a house near Annie’s and fix it up into her own little sanctuary.
That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Annie had called her as she was clocking out for the day and told her in a tight voice to grab antibiotics and a tetanus booster—in Allen Jacobson’s name, that he’d cleared it with the pharmacy department already. She’d given Izzie the request, and then an address. Then told Izzie to get her rear in gear—fast.
Izzie wasn’t going to question or argue.
Not with Annie.
She trusted her friend compl
etely.
She buzzed the intercom, the bag of supplies clutched in her hand. It had only been thirty minutes since Annie’s call. Izzie was ready for some answers.
Like why Annie was at Allen Jacobson’s in the first place when she’d told Izzie and Nikkie Jean both that she was having another meeting with the mayor to go over his plans for her block. It was a hopeless battle.
Annie was about on the edge of giving up. Izzie had already thought she had. For herself—but Annie wouldn’t go down without a fight when fighting for the Hendersons and the others on the block that she loved.
Izzie wished she could make it work. Annie hadn’t deserved to lose the house she’d worked for a decade to buy.
Allen lived in number seven.
The door opened before she could knock.
Allen stood in the door, dressed in old jeans and an FCU T-shirt that showed off his well-defined chest rather nicely. “Izzie, should you really have gone back to work today?”
“Fin said I was perfectly fine. Where’s Annie? Who’s hurt?” Izzie didn’t wait for the invite. She pushed passed the tall, broad-shouldered man and deliberately told herself to ignore the scent of mint and man that surrounded him. “What’s going on?”
Annie was leaning over another far too beautiful man sitting in a kitchen chair, her hands busy at work on the bloody bandage. There was blood on her friend. Lots of it. Izzie tried not to panic.
“What’s happened?”
Turner and Allen shared a look.
Izzie crossed her arms, tucking the small bag with the two syringes under her arms close to her breasts. “You two are not getting the presents I brought unless you level with me. What’s going on?”
She looked at the one person who had never kept secrets from her. “Ann?”
“He’s been shot!” Annie jerked to her feet. “He’s too stupidly stubborn to go get it x-rayed. No. We had to come here to Allen’s kitchen table because someone didn’t want to report it over the TSP radios.”
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