Chapter 1 #2
After admitting her for her concussion, he decided to check on a couple of his patients.
One had had their tonsils taken out this morning, and he released her so that she could be pampered at home.
The other was his nephew, and since he was also doing fine, he decided that he’d release him in the morning.
He would get more than enough care at home, and he wasn’t worried about him not getting the care that he needed.
Kayce was only a phone call away and knew that Hudson or Ivy would call him if anything came up.
On his way home, he picked up something to eat. It had been a long day, and he was exhausted. It wasn’t until he’d had his shower and eaten that he went up to bed. Soon he’d be able to shift, and he couldn’t wait until all the aches and pains of helping out at the hospital were gone.
He’d been in the emergency department when a man came in who had been high on something.
He had been able to get a gun into the place and had planned to kill himself and whoever tried to stop him.
Since he was the only shifter on site, he wrestled the gun away from the man but sustained quite a few injuries himself in the process.
Broken ribs and a bloodied nose were only a few of the injuries that he’d gotten when the man tried to kill him.
Lucky for him, he’d not been shot in the process, but it was for the good, he kept telling himself, and that was all that mattered.
No one else was hurt, for which he was grateful.
After waking up the next morning, he was happy to feel better.
The ache in his shoulders was still there, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been a week ago when he’d been hurt.
Even his mouth felt better than it had previously.
Getting ready for work, he was glad that he wasn’t on call anymore until the end of his time with the group he was in.
He couldn’t wait to get out of the place and hang his own shingle out where he could pick and choose his own patients.
The day started off all right. Of course, the doctors didn’t talk much to him.
He was fine with that as he didn’t care for them in the first place.
As soon as lunch rolled around, he’d seen three patients, and most of it was minor stuff.
One of them had to have a physical for the upcoming sports season, and he was happy to tell the young man that he passed.
He remembered playing football in high school and sort of was jealous of the boy to be able to play something that he obviously loved.
After lunch, it wasn’t much different. After two, when his last patient was gone, he made his way to the hospital to check on Molly and Hud, his nephew.
Both were doing well, and he got to see Mr. William when he was there visiting his granddaughter.
She wasn’t in a good mood, having talked to her boss, he was told, but he was glad to be able to release her as well.
Once he signed off on the paperwork, he was free for the rest of the evening.
He could use it as he was still trying to catch up on sleep that he’d missed for the last few days.
As soon as he was home, he crashed on the couch and went to sleep.
It didn’t matter to him that he had a nice, comfy bed to sleep in.
He was just too tired to go up and get into his tonight.
As soon as his head hit the pillow, he closed his eyes.
After tomorrow, he only had two more days, and he couldn’t wait.
He was going to take a month off just to relax and chill out until he found himself a building that he could work in.
It might take him that long as there were very little empty buildings around town nowadays, and he was happy for that as well.
Getting up once to go to the bathroom, he had no trouble at all making his way there and back to the couch.
He’d been sleeping so hard that his shoulder was a little stiff, but other than that, he was doing fine.
Still sleeping on the couch had better appeal for him than going up to his bedroom and going to sleep again.
He was just too tired and didn’t care if he had to sleep on the floor, so long as he didn’t have to go up any stairs to get there.
~*~
Molly was feeling better than she had in the last couple of days. Her pop-pop was pampering her a bit too much, but she loved him and could forgive him most anything. As soon as he was out of the room, getting her a cup of coffee, she sat up higher on the couch and looked around the vast room.
This room had always been her favorite. When she was just a child and staying with her pop-pop and Grannie, they had the best times watching television and eating popcorn.
Of course, back then they’d had staff. Pop-pop had told her once that he’d outgrown having someone wait on him, and that was why he’d let them go.
She thought it had more to do with him having very little money, but she never said that to him.
Things were tight around the house, and she knew it by helping him pay his bills every month.
It didn’t help that her two brothers, Seth and Ryan, were forever trying to take Pop-pop’s social security check along with her dad.
She thought it would have been better for them if they just got a job, but she didn’t tell them that.
The one time she’d suggested it, she’d been barely sixteen and had nearly died from the beating that they’d given her.
All three of them had taken turns knocking her around until she had to spend a week in the hospital.
Never again did she suggest they do anything.
But she was trained now in how to defend herself and never passed up an opportunity to show them how much training she’d had.
“I was just having a look at my leg. I’m telling you that it’s nearly healed up, and the bruising isn’t as bad as it was either.
That doc must have used some of his mojo on me and got me to feeling better, too.
I feel like I could take on William Toby and come out on top.
” He laughed. “I won’t, mind you, but I was just thinking about how much better I’m feeling.
Did you know that the doc is a lion? He’s about the nicest shifter I ever known. ”
“How many shifters do you know, Pop-pop?” He said that he’d been around them all his life and never had a problem with a single one of them.
“I know a couple, too. Most of them are nice, but every once in a while, you run into a bad apple. They are usually mean to everyone, so I don’t give them much mind.
How about for dinner we have us a pizza?
I’ll pay for it. Dad didn’t get all my money the other day, only what I wanted him to have. ”
She stretched her jaw and felt it pop. It was feeling better, too, after the beating that she took from her dad.
She could eat now and wasn’t above slicing her pizza with a knife and fork just so she didn’t have to eat any more leftovers.
The women around town had been bringing Pop-pop food every week since her grandmother had passed away, and she wanted some real food.
Pizza was about as real as it got for her nowadays.
Molly had gotten an extra week off when she’d called her boss.
She’d been set to go back out of the country as soon as she visited her grandda, but it had been hard to do much of anything after she’d gotten beaten up.
He wasn’t happy that she had been hurt, but he knew about her family more than anyone else did, and she figured that if anyone understood her getting knocked around, it would have been him. Her father was a prick.
Seth and Ryan weren’t nearly as bad as their dad, but they would be egged on by him when things needed to be taken too far.
Seth was the youngest and by far the stupidest of the three of them.
She’d thought that he’d had some mental issues, but the doctor said he was smart for his age, just mean.
She believed it. He was as mean as their dad when it suited him.
Ryan would stand back and watch what the other two were doing before he joined in.
Ryan, unlike Seth, had spent some time in prison and swore he’d never go back.
She figured that he’d learned something about being behind bars, but she couldn’t figure out what that might be.
He would kill her if given the chance, and that was why she never gave them the opportunity to do much more than knock her around until this last time.
They’d caught her off her guard. While in the kitchen making grilled cheese for her and her grandda, something had hit her from behind and she’d been knocked out.
It wasn’t until the pain she was in woke her up that she knew that she’d been beaten badly.
It still surprised her that she didn’t have any broken bones.
They’d kicked her while she was down, and she would swear that some of her ribs had been broken while out.
“I’d love to have some pizza. Some of that hot sauce on it that we like too.” Molly told him that they had the hot sauce in the cabinet and would get it out when it arrived. “I’ll call and order it for us, and you can pay. I’d do it, honey, but I’m on a tight budget as you know.”
“I know. I understand what it’s like to be on a budget.
” He ordered them a large pie that they’d share with onions and mushrooms on it.
The hot sauce that they’d enjoy on it was nothing more than hot wing sauce, but it was better than just a plain old pizza, and they’d both have a good meal.
As soon as it came, she got up to get the sauce while he was clearing a place at the table for them to eat.