25. Luc
25
LUC
CLEO
“ S o your plan was to…” Just like Blake did back then, Jess inhales and fills her cheeks, shaking her head in surprised exasperation. “You were just walking in and setting up camp, no matter that no one wanted you there?”
“She wanted me there. She just wouldn’t admit it yet because she was in pain and her stubborn streak made it impossible. But I’d known her for more than half my life at that point. I knew who she was beneath the words she spoke.”
“Also known as disrespecting a woman’s clearly spoken boundaries,” Kane chuckles. “Smooth and effective, like a battering ram and ten men breaching a door.”
“I’m typically a fierce advocate for boundaries and respect. I was raised with too many women around for me not to be. But Kari was saying no to what I knew would be our entire lives together. And she was saying no because she was scared.”
“So you considered it your job to talk her around?” Kane’s lips curl a little higher on the left. “Gentle encouragement.”
“Battering ram style.”
I wait in the hall just outside the emergency department on Kari’s first day. Her first shift. The first hour of what she worked so hard to achieve. And with my radio pinned to my shirt, my hands in my pockets, I kick one ankle over the other and grin as doctors and nurses and patients wander by.
Yes, I have a job to do.
Yes, I should be on the bus with Mitch.
No, we don’t have any active call-outs right now.
Yes, I have my radio turned up and my ears pricked. If I need to go, I’m only ten seconds away. But until then…
“You’re a stage three creep at this point.” Mitch comes around the corridor corner and looks me up and down with a smile. He’s in a uniform just like mine. Cargo pants with more pockets than we can count, and a navy button-up shirt with a patch on the shoulder, his name sewn above the breast pocket. In the winter, we would have high-vis jackets, and hats that cover our ears. But this summer is still holding on, so even in just shirts, we still sweat. “She’s working, Lenaghan. She doesn’t need you hovering around and throwing her off her game.”
“I haven’t let her see me yet.” I fold my arms and grin. “I can hear her, though. I know she’s doing the job. Janey’s giving her the tour.”
“They have time.” If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em . Mitch comes to stand on my left, his shoulder almost touching mine and his fresh aftershave hitting my senses. Then he presses his back to the wall and settles in. “Things are pretty chill around town right now. So until we get busy, she won’t be busy.”
“I like that she gets a minute to breathe. She’s worked her ass off for this, so she deserves to be eased in , so to speak.”
“What about that other guy she’s supposedly dating? He here?”
“He doesn’t have a job yet.” I angle my head forward and glance along the hall when the ED doors swing open. A fleet of doctors finishing their rounds stream out, but Kari doesn’t move with them. And she doesn’t hover by the door where I can get a glimpse.
Which is both good and bad.
“Kari got her job because she has a history in this town, she graduated at the top of her class, and she aced her NCLEX. Blake is an implant from the city, doesn’t have a foster brother as chief of police, and the dude failed his exams… twice.”
“Doesn’t make him bad at his job,” Mitch mediates. “Maybe he just doesn’t test well. ”
“Maybe. But the data is the data, and for right now, he’s unemployed. He’ll probably land one soon. It’s not like folks are flocking to this town and locking themselves down.”
“Yay us,” he chuckles. “We get the cast offs and flunkies because no one else wants the job.”
“Nah.” I peer across and grin. “We get Kari, the cream of the crop who could work in any hospital in the country, but she chooses to be here with us. Come on.” I tap his arm and push away from the wall. “Rounds are complete, which means she’s likely to come out that door soon. I don’t wanna be here when she does.”
“Afraid she’ll kick your ass back outside where you belong?”
I scoff. “Afraid I’ll pick a fight on her first day and land her with a lecture from Nurse Janey. Kari and I aren’t… getting along right now.”
He laughs. “Ya think?”
“She and I tend to shout at each other when we’re in the same space.” Then she cries. And fuck, but I don’t want more of her tears on my conscience. “I don’t want to get her in trouble.”
“Ambulance three,” a voice crackles over the radio. “This is dispatch. Motor vehicle accident on Third and Grey.”
“Shit.” I grab my radio and take off toward the ambulance bays out back. Pressing the button on the side, I respond, “Ambulance three responding. ETA four minutes.”
“Ambulance three, acknowledged.” Dispatch crackles and calls in trucks. Police. They create their fleet of first responders while Mitch and I scramble onto the dock, and I make a beeline for the back of the bus. Mitch runs for the driver’s seat. “Victim is reported as a six-year-old female,” dispatch continues as I yank the doors shut. “Hit by a motor vehicle.”
“Dammit.” I hold the walls of the ambulance when Mitch starts the engine and zips across smooth concrete. “Just a kid!”
“She’s alive,” he responds. “Alive is good. Alive is wonderful.”
“Alive is a temporary fucking existence, especially when you’re six years old and have been mown down by a one-and-a-half ton vehicle.”
“Two minutes out.” Mitch brings us around a tight corner, racing other sirens toward Third. “We’re gonna be looking for internal injuries. Lots of little bones, Luca.”
“Yep.” I don’t even have time to sit. I don’t bother with my seatbelt, though official protocol says I’m supposed to. I balance in the back, my hands on the ceiling and wall, and the moment we come to a screeching stop, I burst through the doors and unsnap the stretcher to bring it out with me.
Mitch slams his door and bolts toward a woman screaming and covered in blood.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” I toss a med bag on top of the stretcher, and the straps atop that, so they don’t get caught up in the wheels. Then I start toward the sweet baby girl plastered to the road. Her leg bent unnaturally to the left, and her arm folded the opposite way. Gashes on her forehead practically spray blood and make the scene so much more disturbing.
But for me, the absolute worst fucking horror in my eyes, is the torn and bloodied blanket clutched in her hand.
“This one’s gonna sting.” I set the brakes on the stretcher and snag the med bag, then I kneel by the girl while Mitch deals with the woman. “Hey there, Sweet pea.” I release a shaking breath when her lashes flutter and her eyes crack open. She’s too calm. Too broken. But she clings to me with glittering, silver eyes. “You’re awake. That makes me so happy, baby girl. Can you tell me your name?”
Her eyes swell in an instant, filling with tears as her face screws up. “I want my mommy.”
“ O h god.” Jess looks at her girls and breathes too heavy. Too wounded. “I know this case. I know what story you’re about to tell us.”
“It became the talk of the town,” I acknowledge with a dip of my chin, holding Billy just that little bit more closely. We have to get up soon. Get dressed. Consume something other than coffee—me, not her—then head over to the hospital. But it’s still early, and I’m not quite ready to move yet. “It definitely became the talk of our family, since that was Kari’s first day on the job.”
“The similarities were too much,” Jess murmurs. “It was too close.”
“But it was handled.” I firm my jaw and refuse to allow anyone else to question that day. Kari already questions too much. “It was handled really fucking well.”
M itch and I burst through the emergency department doors, little Cleo strapped to our stretcher and my heart thundering in my throat. But instantly, like she knew I was coming, and like I knew she’d be the first thing I see, my eyes stop on Kari’s as her cheeks turn sheet white.
But we’re working now. We have too much responsibility sitting on our shoulders for me to do anything except the job.
“Six-year-old female with a sustained head injury and loss of consciousness for less than one minute, according to witnesses. Alert and oriented now, though she complains of a headache.” I release the stretcher as Mitch steers the girl into an emergency bay, then I stop in front of Kari and block her view. For just a second. Just long enough to prepare her. “No nausea or vomiting. Two-inch laceration above her left eyebrow. Suspected fractured left leg. Suspected fractured right arm. Not open.”
“Why are you standing in my way?” She doesn’t spit her words at me like she so often does lately. She doesn’t shoulder barge and try to get past me. She stays with me, studying my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Home invasion.” Mitch steps up and hurries through his report. “Mother was home with her daughter. Father was at work. Perps helped themselves to the family home and attacked the mother.” He waves over my shoulder as the next ambulance and set of paramedics roll in. “GSW to the stomach, but that’s not your case.”
“H-home invasion?” Kari’s eyes widen and search mine. “But she was hit by a car, right?”
“She ran out of the house to get help.” I step to my left when Kari glances that way. “She’s okay. And Mom will be fine, too. But now you gotta do the job.”
“I don’t…” Instead of moving toward the little girl, she looks at the mother, wailing and filling the ED with her cries of anguish. “Luc, I don’t?—”
“Bear.” I grab her chin— wildly inappropriate inside this building —and force her eyes back to mine. “Do the job. The girl is yours. The mother is someone else’s. What are your next steps?”
“I want my mom,” Cleo sobs. She attempts to move on her stretcher, leaning toward her mother’s screams. “I want my mommy!”
“Kari!” I catch her eyes and snarl, “What’s the fucking job?”
“Move her.” She takes a long, heady breath and releases it with a shudder. Then she nods and turns toward the girl. “Let’s transfer her across to our stretcher, then hook her up. I want to hear her heart, then I want all her vitals.” She waves to another nurse. “Let’s get started.” She stalks toward her patient and leans over the little girl, a kind smile on her lips, though her eyes scream a thousand traumas. “Hey there, cutie.” She flashes a penlight in the girl’s eyes and checks for dilation. “Can you tell me your name?”
“C-Cleo.” Cleo’s chin and cheeks quiver, smattered in blood and smudged with tears. “I want my mommy.”
“I know, honey.” Kari had wanted her mommy, too. Way back when she was almost the exact same age and terrified, I bet she’d have done anything to see her mommy one more time. “My name is Kari.” She stows her penlight away and goes to work inspecting the deepest gash on the girl’s forehead. “And I would be so lucky if you agreed to be my friend. My other friend told me you were six.”
“Let’s go.” Mitch comes up on my left, tapping my arm. “We gotta go, Lenaghan. We’ve handed her off.”
“I want five minutes.” I back up to stay out of the way. But I watch with my heart in my throat and pride swelling in my chest. “I just wanna watch.”
“She was the same, right?” He keeps his voice low, tilting his head when Kari commands a doctor like she’s a fucking drill sergeant and rattles off orders for x-rays. “Home invasion?”
“When she was seven. She wasn’t harmed, though. No broken bones.” I draw a long breath and reach up to silence my radio as it crackles by my ear. “She had Marcus there to protect her.”
“Lucky.” Mitch brings a hand up and scratches the stubble on his jaw. “Good thing she had him.”
“All a matter of perspective, right? Lucky, she had Marcus. Lucky for Cleo, her mom and dad will live.” I firm my lips and fall head over heels, irreversibly fucking stupid when Kari looks across and meets my eyes. She’s insane if she thinks I can walk away from us. Delusional if she thinks I’ll even consider it. “I met her just a few days after her parents were murdered. And it was just… It was our normal. I didn’t even stop to pat her on the head or tell her to be brave the way I want to with Cleo.”
“Because you’re grown now.” He leans back and folds his arms. “Cleo’s a little girl you wanna protect. Kari, back then and always, was your equal.”
“I probably could have been nicer to her. Even a gentle, ‘ sorry your parents died ’ would’ve been better than she got.”
“You were a kid, too. And hindsight is always around to make us feel like a dick. Come on.” He claps my chest and drops his hands. “We have to keep moving. Let her do her job. We’ve gotta do ours.”
“But she’s so beautiful.” I turn and walk, my head swiveling on my neck and following the girl I vow to marry. Obsessed with the woman she grew to become. “She’s so powerful.”
“Let’s get her up for an all over CT!” she commands. “We need a look inside. Right now.”
“Dude.” Chuckling, I spin and speed my steps to follow Mitch. “She’s ordering Dr. Eastgate around on her first fucking day.”
“He’ll eat her for breakfast unless she cools it.”
“Or he’ll worship at her feet because she’s so fucking incredible.” I cast one last glance back before the door closes, grinning when Eastgate nods and does as he’s told. “She’s queen of the ED, Mitchy. She’s gonna be amazing.”