Chapter 9
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At the end of the day Sammy remembered that Leland had headed to her house, looking for results of his search there. She sent him a text, asking if he found anything more in her place, and got the answer a bit too quickly. A single no, but she was happy with that.
If it were just one listening device, that’s something.
The fact that it was put in her bedroom was outrageous, but it did go along with the theory that maybe they thought her relationship with Burton had gotten to that point, though it sure as hell hadn’t.
Even now she had to wonder about the intrusiveness of it all.
By the time she was done with her shift, she turned to leave, picking up her keys and heading out to the parking lot, only to find Anderson standing there, waiting for her. She looked at him in surprise.
He smiled and explained, “Leland’s at home with the babies. He’s done all the checks, so I ran over here to make sure that you were okay to come home.”
“Of course I am,” she muttered, waving her hands. “Although, if there are no other bugs—”
“Nope, not a good idea,” he argued, before she could even ask to go back to her home.
“Obviously I can’t force you to stay with us, but it’s not a smart thing to consider right now because we still don’t know who’s behind it.
Somebody thought it was worthwhile to break into your house to plant a bug.
So, if they want to go back, what’s to stop them from doing it again? ”
“I was really hoping you wouldn’t bring that up,” she muttered ruefully.
“Yet I did,” he stated, with a smile. “I am heading out to the grocery store. Want to come with me? Then I’ll follow you back to Talia’s place—or we can go right there. Still, I wanted to check if you had any food allergies and what I should avoid picking up.”
“No, I eat anything,” she replied. “I’m just tired.”
“Good, I’ll follow you there, and you take a nap,” he suggested. “Leland’s there, and I’ll let him know you are leaving now.”
“It’s that bad, huh?”
“Let’s just say that we’re cautious. We’ve seen too much of the ugly side of life,” he noted somberly.
She turned, looked back at the hospital, and thought of some of the cases that had broken her heart over the last couple years and nodded. “So have I,” she murmured. “Yes, I will stay at least tonight while we figure out what the next option is.”
“Good enough,” he replied. “I’ll get pasta for us tonight. I want to see the babies with noodles in their hair.”
She stared at him in astonishment and then burst out laughing. “Well, that won’t be a hardship,” she admitted, with a smile, “because that will be one of the first things they do with it.”
“I don’t know about the first thing. I was kind of hoping they’d eat some initially.” And, with a big grin on his face, he walked her out to her car and then headed over to his.
She was quite stunned that he had even come to see her at the hospital. She knew Burton was still up there working and realized just how these three men were juggling things around the clock, trying to keep everything functioning.
And now she had just added to their troubles.
Frowning at that, but not sure it was wise to change anything right now, after waving to Anderson, he took off on his own for the grocery store, and she drove straight to Talia’s house.
The whole way here, Sammy had been wondering about how close she felt to this woman who didn’t even know her name, didn’t know anything about her, and yet here Sammy was, staying in her house.
Sammy wondered at the wisdom of actually doing that, wondered if Talia would wake up upset or would she wake up overwhelmed with joy that these people had stepped up to help?
Sammy figured it would probably be a mix.
How could it not be?
The poor woman had missed out on time with her triplets, at a point where everything they did was a milestone.
Thankfully the children’s care had been better than much of what she had seen at the hospital with her pediatric patients.
She felt sorry for Talia because she had taken a huge physical hit, essentially from her own husband.
That alone would be difficult for her to handle emotionally and physically when she woke up, and the adjustment would not be any easier afterward.
But she would wake up from this, and she would return to her triplets, and that was important.
It was also important that the poor woman got a chance to get home, and that was starting to look more possible.
She was doing much better, and, if she wasn’t awake tomorrow, the doctors would reduce the dosages again to help her along.
With any luck, that would do it, and they wouldn’t have to keep reducing the pain meds.
On the other hand, it was part of the job, and it needed to happen. So, the sooner Talia was awake, the better for her in many ways.
Sammy just didn’t want to be the one to tell her about everything that had gone on before that had landed her in the hospital.
But then, maybe Talia was more like Anderson and would understand that she had to look forward, had to get through rehab, and was damn lucky to have everybody who had stepped up to try and make her world safe again.
Sammy had no brothers herself, so just the thought of Talia having Anderson—who obviously would do anything for her—made Sammy’s heart warm.
The fact that all these men had basically shut down their own worlds to come and make this happen was amazing.
Sammy didn’t know very many people who would do something like that, at least not to this extent.
Lots of people would help for a time, but that help would dwindle very quickly, and that was a concern as well.
By the time she got inside the house, she heard Leland playing with the babies in the living room.
She immediately dropped her bag in the closet, stepped forward, and stopped.
He was lying on the floor, surrounded by toddlers.
She dropped onto the floor beside him. He was on his back, the babies using him to stand or sit on, depending which triplet her gaze landed on. She grinned. “Don’t you look happy.”
He looked over at her and laughed. “Good timing.”
“Why is that?”
“Because they’re all changed and clean,” he announced, with a big grin.
“Lucky me. You don’t look too worse for the wear. In fact, I think somebody told me something about you being a ladies’ man,” she teased, nodding toward the three toddlers on the floor.
His laughter boomed, bright and cheerful. “I don’t know about being a ladies’ man, but, when it comes to little ladies like these, they generally love me.”
“Well, these certainly do,” she said in fascination, as the babies climbed all over him, but they seemed willing to come over and check her out too.
She smiled, picked one up, sat her on her lap, and Lisa—God only knows if it was Lisa one, two, or three—immediately gave her a great big burbling laugh and tried to grab her nose. “What is it about noses?” Sammy murmured gently, as she nuzzled Lisa’s chubby fingers.
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
“It’s like a handle, I guess,” she said, half laughing. A second Lisa scooted over to Sammy, so she snapped her up too. Cooing in the babies’ faces, she chuckled as first one, then the other, tried to grab her hair and ended up smacking her face instead.
“How was your day at work?” Leland asked.
“Busy, tiring, and yet frustrating because my life has flipped in a way I never expected. It makes me look at things very differently. I think the biggest thing is the loss of innocence.”
He turned to her and narrowed his gaze. “That’s a really good point,” he muttered. “Most people don’t think of it that way, but that’s exactly what it is. Up until now, your world was calm and complete. You weren’t thinking about dangers. You weren’t thinking about anybody attacking you.”
“Exactly. Now, all of a sudden, people are out there who, I don’t want to say were trying to harm me, but—”
“Oh, they were trying to harm you,” he countered, “and, if they weren’t trying, they just hadn’t gotten to that point, but I suspect that was next.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I guess it’s more methodical than that,” she began, lost in thought. “If hurting me gets them what they want, they are apparently okay with it.”
“Exactly,” he agreed.
“And, just that fast, I no longer look at people the same,” she admitted, “and I think that’s sad. I caught myself today, looking at various patients, wondering if they had ever hurt anybody like these men have hurt Talia. I never really had that kind of perspective before, and I don’t like it.”
“Understood, and I’m sorry because it is literally the loss of innocence.”
“You’re right about that. It’s also a sadness that our lives have come to that,” she muttered. “It shouldn’t be that way. Why can’t people just get along?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s definitely one of the questions for the ages, isn’t it?”
“And yet if we look at life over the ages,” she added, with a wry look, “I’m not sure society in general was any kinder.
It seems like we have conquered civilizations, yet completely slaughtered the people who were there for no other reason than the fact that they were different.
And apparently being different in this instance is a negative. ”
“I don’t know if it’s even about being different,” he argued.
“In most of the cases I assume you’re talking about, it’s all about conquering and taking what they want.
So, it’s not that they were different, but they were weaker.
So, if you could take from them, you did—because that gave you whatever you thought you wanted, even though it didn’t necessarily give you anything at all.
Time and time again, it gave civilizations new worlds, new lands,” he explained, “and, for a lot of people, they wouldn’t need anything more than that. ”
“That’s sad, but how could they do that?”