Chapter 14
Ryan was exhausted by the time he arrived home. It was after ten, and although he was starving because he’d missed dinner, he headed straight for the shower to wash the day off.
Twenty minutes before he was off duty, a multicar crash sent six victims to the emergency room, two in critical condition, one in serious, and three with non-serious injuries. He’d stayed on to help out the overwhelmed night staff.
After his shower, he stuck a frozen dinner in the microwave, and when it was hot, he ate the Mediterranean rice bowl while standing at the kitchen counter. He followed that with one scoop of caramel salted ice cream. He could eat the whole carton if he let himself, but he never did.
With his stomach happy, he headed straight for his bed. His head had just hit the pillow when his phone buzzed. He’d put it in the charger on his nightstand, and he glanced over at it to see Matti’s name on the screen.
“Matti, is everything okay?” She’d never called him before, so his first thought was that something was wrong with Sam.
“Yes, well, kind of. Am I calling too late?”
“No, not at all. What do you mean kind of?” He hadn’t made plans to see her tonight, which had been just as well since he would have had to cancel when the ambulances started arriving with the car crash patients.
“Sam said something tonight that I can’t stop thinking about. He said he’s happy, but he doesn’t think he should be since his parents are dead.”
“That’s pretty heavy for a six-year-old. What did you tell him?”
“I told him his parents were happy now, so he could be, too.”
“That’s a good answer.”
“He asked if they were in heaven.”
“Doubtful.”
“I know, but I couldn’t say that to him, so I just answered with a yes. When he was telling me all that, I wished you were there so you could answer his questions.” She chuckled. “Like whenever we asked Mom something she didn’t want to talk about, she’d tell us to go ask our father.”
“I don’t think I could have handled it any better than you did.”
“Thanks, that makes me feel better.”
“What’s your plan for tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure. Everything is so new to Sam, that whatever I do with him is like an exciting adventure. Oh, I took him to the fire station this afternoon, and you should have seen him, Ryan. He was walking on air. Aiden—”
“Who’s Aiden?” Was that jealousy he was feeling? It had better not be because he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. But if he was…
“My brother. He’s a firefighter, and he let Sam sit in the fire truck, turned the siren on, gave him a tour of the station, then sent him home with gifts that Sam wanted to sleep with.
I convinced him to put them on the dresser where he could see them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I look in on him before I got to bed to find his new things cuddled up with him. ”
Okay, Aiden was her brother. He’d heard Jon talk about his firefighter son before. “He’s had so little in his life that those things are precious to him.”
“I know. I love seeing him happy, but it makes me sad that it takes so little. I was thinking about taking him to the park tomorrow. There are swings and seesaws he can play on.”
“He’ll enjoy that. Wish I was off so I could come with you.”
“I wish you could, too. What time is your shift over? Six?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you come over for dinner? He’d love to show off his new toys.”
“I’d like that.” And not just to see Sam’s new toys.
“Great. See you then.”
“Looking forward to it. Good night, Matti.”
“As I said to Sam, sweet dreams.”
“Aw, can you come over and kiss my forehead?” He was positive she’d kissed Sam’s when she’d put him to bed.
She laughed. “Some other time. You sound tired, so I’ll let you go.”
He was tired, and after putting his phone back in the charger, he closed his eyes. He’d trained his mind and body to go instantly to sleep during whatever hours he could snatch in his intern days, so he expected to nod right off. He didn’t.
Matti was in his mind, stealing his sleep.
Sam was there, too. She was so good with the boy, and when it came time to turn him over to a foster family, it was going to break both their hearts.
He could see that coming plain as day. He understood why she couldn’t keep Sam, but he wished there was a way because it felt to him that those two were meant for each other.
As he finally drifted to sleep, a hazy image of a pretty woman with a big heart and a boy who desperately needed a family to love him was there in his mind, and a whispery voice that sounded a lot like his said, What if?
Ryan woke up feeling unsettled and unrested.
Usually, once he fell asleep, he slept deep, never waking up before the alarm sounded.
Not last night. Dreams kept waking him up.
In one, he, Matti, and Sam lived in a firehouse with firefighters, and when a fire alarm went off, he and Sam jumped on the truck.
Sam laughed as the fire truck sped down the street, and it made Ryan happy to see the joy on the boy’s face.
In another dream, the three of them were being chased by men with guns.
He didn’t know how that one ended because he sat straight up in bed, heart pounding in fear.
In yet another, Matti and Sam were missing, and as he searched every place he could think of that they might be, his panic grew at not finding them.
Between his exhaustion from his extra hours at the hospital yesterday and his sleep disturbed by his dreams, when the alarm did go off, he did something he’d never done before. He hit Snooze. And then he did it a second time.
Sleeping in those extra minutes put him behind when he finally did crawl out of bed, and he rushed through his morning routine. He made it to the hospital on time, but barely.
“Good morning, Dr. Palmer,” Sarah, one of the emergency room nurses said.
He grunted.
“Oh, someone’s grumpy today.” She grinned at him.
That he was, and he stayed grumpy for the rest of the day.
Part of it was the exhaustion and part of it was the turmoil happening in his mind.
The turmoil he blamed on a woman with sexy messy hair and a quick smile.
He didn’t want to be attracted to her. A relationship wasn’t in his short-term plans.
Until Matti, he had this idea that in five years, he’d get serious about settling down with a wife and family.
Matti was messing with his plans. He didn’t have to let her change his life, though. It was his choice to friend-zone her or try for more. He thought about it as he took ten minutes to eat an apple and drink a cup of coffee. No reason to decide anything today. Just see how things play out.
With that decision made, he got over his grump and returned to the emergency room. A few minutes later, a boy Sam’s age came in with a broken arm. Both parents were with him, and their love for their son was apparent as they fussed over him while Ryan examined him.
The boy’s name was Jesse, and he was scared. “Well, Jesse, we’re going to have to send you up to X-ray. Have you ever had an X-ray before?”
“No,” the boy said, his voice quavering. “Will it hurt?”
“It won’t hurt at all, and I’ll be able to show you a cool picture of the bones inside your arm.”
“Really?” He looked over at his parents. “I’m gonna get to see my bones.” His gaze swung back to Ryan. “Do I want to see my bones?”
“It’s pretty cool if you ask me, but it’s your choice. I don’t have to show you the X-ray.” There were tear tracks on his cheeks from crying when he’d been brought in, but the medication he’d been given had dulled the pain.
“I want to see it.”
“All right.” An orderly came in. “This is Victor. He’s going to take you up to the X-ray department. Victor, you take good care of my man Jessie.”
“Our man Jessie is going to get the VIP experience, Dr. Palmer.” The orderly rolled Jessie out of the room.
“How bad is it, Doctor?” Jessie’s mother asked.
“I don’t think it’s a bad break, but I’ll be able to tell you more after I see the X-ray.” He walked them to the waiting area. “I’ll come get you as soon as they bring him back. There’re coffee and snack machines down the hall.”
When he returned to the emergency room, Jon was there, talking to Anna Sanchez, another ER doctor. He glanced up when Ryan approached them. “Got a minute?”
Ryan nodded. “I’m good until my patient comes back from X-ray.” He followed Jon into one of the empty rooms. “What’s up?”
“Wanted to talk to you about something.” He perched on the edge of the bed.
“Okay.” Ryan leaned against the wall.
“It’s about Matilda and that boy.”
“Sam?”
“Yes. She’s getting too attached to him. I want you to convince her it’s time to find him a foster family.”
This again? He admired Jonathon, respected his opinions, and considered the man a mentor, but on this, he wasn’t willing to involve himself on what Matti should or shouldn’t do where Sam was concerned. She was perfectly capable of making her own decisions.
“Why are you concerned that she’s getting attached to Sam? He’s a bright, delightful boy.”
“For two reasons. The first, Wyatt believes the people who killed Sam’s parents think Sam can identify them. If that’s true, then they’re most likely looking for him, and if they find him with my daughter, she could get hurt…or worse.”
That was true, and it worried Ryan, too. However, even if he pushed Matti to put Sam with a foster family, she would still do as she pleased. She wasn’t a woman you could force to do anything she didn’t want to. He respected that in her.
“What’s the second reason?”
“She’s getting too attached to Sam. She has a tendency to do that, get attached to the children under her care. There was a little boy—”
“Mikey. Yes, she told me about him.”
Jon gave him a considering look. “That’s interesting. She never talks about Mikey.”
“She isn’t planning on keeping Sam, but she refuses to turn him over to a foster family until she’s sure there’s no longer a threat to him. You know your daughter, Jon, so tell me, do you really think I can make her do anything she doesn’t want to?”
Jon sighed. “No, I guess not. She’s always had a mind of her own, even when she was a little thing.
” He chuckled. “One time, I think she was about five or six, she got it in her head that she wanted to play with the neighbor’s dog.
It was a Rottweiler and there were Beware of Dog signs all over the fence.
She was told no, she could not go into that yard and play with a dangerous dog. ”
“But she did?”
“She sure did. Don’t know how, but she managed to climb the privacy fence.
Her mother found her over there, playing chase with the dog, both of them having a ball.
When she was fourteen, she decided she wanted a cat.
We already had a cat and a dog, but she wanted her own cat.
She was told no. To this day, we don’t know how long she managed to hide a cat in her room because she refused to say, but the end result was that she got to have her own cat.
The point is, I’d like you to try to reason with her on putting the boy with a foster family, but knowing my daughter, I guess I don’t expect miracles. ”
“That’s good because I doubt I could deliver you a miracle where Sam’s concerned, but I’ll talk to her.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
After Jon left, Ryan thought about his Matti stories and grinned.
Young Matti was apparently a handful. Still was, and he liked that about her.
As for talking her into turning Sam over to a foster family, he very much doubted she would agree, but he’d try.
He was worried about faceless bad men coming after her and Sam, too.
Her argument would still be that she wouldn’t put a foster family in danger, and he didn’t have a good argument against that.
He didn’t see a solution that would make anyone happy.
The good news on Jesse, the break was a hairline fracture, and Ryan put a splint on his arm, then gave the parents care instructions.
The boy thought seeing his bones on the X-ray was super cool.
Ryan loved it when he could lessen the trauma of being in the emergency room for his patients, especially the children.
At the end of his shift, he texted Matti to tell her he was stopping by his apartment for a shower, then he’d be over.
He waited for her to respond, and when she didn’t, he wondered if dinner was still on.
With a shrug, he slipped his phone in his pocket, then headed home for that much-needed shower.
Unless she canceled, he’d still go over.
He hoped she didn’t. After he’d showered and dressed, he texted her again, asking if tonight was still on.
The message he got back from her sent him racing out the door, believing Matti and Sam needed him.