Chapter 7
Seven
Due to personal reasons, I’m evil now.
—Sage to Gentry
Sage
I saw him everywhere now.
And I guessed the whole “ex-husband” thing worked out, because no one asked questions as to why I was hostile when I saw the ‘sexy deputy.’
That was what they called him in the emergency room department.
All the nurses made it a point to go on and on and on about him.
That department was my least favorite, mostly because I saw him every single day.
Being a sheriff’s deputy meant that I saw him more than I ever expected to, and since the ER was where the hospital I had the contract with was short-staffed, I was there more often than not.
The worst of it all was, someone, somewhere, found out about Gentry’s little ‘lie’ and now everyone in the hospital knew that he was my ex-husband.
It pissed me the hell off.
They always looked at me like I was dumb.
Especially when he came in and flirted with the nurses in front of me, they’d always look between us, as if wondering if I would react or not.
He was always cordial.
Always said hi, how are you? Small talk.
But it was annoying as hell, because the ER nursing staff were a bunch of bitches.
Every last one of them.
It was hard to work for them because of how awful they were.
There was no wonder that the hospital had a nurse shortage. If they treated all the workers that didn’t fit into their little clique like they treated me, then again, there was no wonder!
Today was an especially hard day.
There were hard patients—that somehow always got passed off to the travel nurses.
Today, I’d had to deal with a man who saw people that weren’t there and was violent.
I’d had to deal with several stomach flu cases.
I’d had to deal with a woman that was a frequent flyer—someone that came in all the time.
I’d had to deal with every patient they didn’t want that came through the door.
By the time that Gentry showed up to take our violent patient to the county lock-up, I was looking up the amount of time that I had left on my contract.
I officially had three weeks left of a four-month contract.
I could do it.
But I knew one thing for sure, I would not be working in the ER when I was through.
I had decided to stay.
Gentry was right about one thing.
I was safer here.
There were Dixie Wardens everywhere.
“Ohhh, he’s back.”
I didn’t bother to look up from the charting that I was doing.
I knew who ‘he’ was.
I also knew that he was on his way, so it was only logical to assume I knew who it was.
“He’s so sexy in that uniform,” one of the other nurses said. I hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names. “How could you give that up, Sage?”
I gritted my teeth.
If they only knew…
“I’ll bet he’s a monster in bed,” someone else chimed in. “Sage, tell us. Does he have a big dick?”
I continued to ignore them.
My typing got angrier and angrier, though.
“Those feet and hands?” someone whispered, mostly because I could hear his boots getting closer. “There’s no way he isn’t wrangling a monster cock.”
My fingers hurt with how hard I was typing.
“Ladies,” Gentry drawled when he got to the nurses’ station. “I’m here to do a pickup.”
The “ladies” giggled.
I felt Gentry’s eyes on me.
“What has everyone blushing?” Gentry asked, all congenial and nice.
He was anything but.
“We’re just wondering,” one nurse chimed in from the back. “Which one of us you want to have your babies. Because we all volunteer. Except, for obvious reasons, Sage.”
I felt the temperature around me drop several degrees.
Shit.
I looked up to see devastation written all over Gentry’s face.
There was one thing in this world that I knew he missed beyond belief, and that was his son.
Just the thought of having another sent cold chills through him.
“Seriously?” I barked, bringing attention to me. “Did you ever consider that there were issues that caused us to not have children? Or, how about this? Did you ever think about keeping your damn mouth shut? Or is that just one of those mythical things that never fucking happen in this hospital?”
Silence. Utter and complete silence.
“Y’all are fucking sick.” I stood up, closing down my chart. “This way, Gentry.”
He followed me in silence.
We got to the room and stopped in the door.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
I shrugged. “It was nothing.”
He caught my arm, and I stopped my forward momentum. “It’s not ever nothing. So thank you.”
I nodded once, throat thick.
“This happen a lot?” he asked as he leaned his shoulder against the wall right outside the patient’s room.
“You mean, where they talk about you like you’re a piece of meat in front of me?” I asked. “Yes. They ‘just don’t understand’ how I could ‘leave you when you’re so perfect.’”
His lips twitched, but I could see the sadness in his eyes when he said, “I mean, I am perfect.”
I shook my head. “I hate it here. I’m glad that I’m done in three weeks.”
My complete disgust with this job must’ve shown on my face because he looked worried all of a sudden.
I waved it off. “I’m not leaving Bear Pass. I am, however, getting the hell out of this hospital. There’s a freakin’ reason why they’re always short-staffed when it comes to nurses, and four of those women right there are why.”
He squeezed my shoulder and I looked at him with what I was sure was a surprised look on my face.
He hadn’t touched me since the day he’d saved me from Mario’s brutality.
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
Pushing off the wall, I slid the patient’s privacy curtain to the side.
It was the magic action that had the man in the room leaping off the bed.
He didn’t get far, because he was restrained to the bed with arm and leg restraints.
Which meant, as he launched himself off the bed, the restraints caught him, and he was dangling over the side by both arms and legs in a really awkward hold.
I groaned. “I hate the ER. They always give me the worst patients that they don’t want to deal with.”
I did, too.
When he was done, he turned and looked at me before saying, “Hey, you know there’s another doctor in town. Maybe you can go work with him?”
I tapped at my lip with one blunt fingernail. “That might be too boring.” I thought about it. “And not the kind of pay that I’m used to. I am pretty materialistic.”
He snorted, eyeing my makeup-free face, my slicked-back ponytail, my natural nails, normal-sized eyelashes and my white Crocs.
I was probably the least high-maintenance woman he’d ever met.
“Okay, so maybe I’m not materialistic, but I am having to purchase special dog food once a week because Neo has to have a shiny coat.”
He chuckled. “That makes more sense.” He eyed me from beside the patient. “Maybe I should’ve offered child support, since I brought him into your world.”
My eyes rolled at his words. “I can handle buying food for my dog.”
“I don’t want to go to the fuckin’ jail! They’ll probe me there!”
I scratched at my head with one fingernail. “It was mentioned he thinks he was abducted by aliens, right?”
Gentry sighed. “Yes.”
“Have fun with this one,” I said as I started to unlatch the restraints.
Gentry’s handcuffs replaced the restraints, and it was like the patient completely transformed from the troublemaker he’d been for me all morning to this sweet, docile creature.
Of course, he would act normal when there was a large man here more than capable of dealing with any tantrums he might throw.
I mean, he even walked normally out of his room and down the hall.
The nurses’ station was quiet when we passed it.
I wonder why…
“Later, Gator,” he called to me as he kept walking while I came to a stop at my computer station for the day.
I flicked two fingers at him in acknowledgment. “Bye.”
The rest of the day was incredibly awkward with the rest of the nurses.
Even second shift that came in to relieve some of them noticed the tension.
To say that I was happy to leave by the end of the day would be an understatement.