RaeAnne Thayne - Evergreen Springs

“We’ll take care of her and try to keep you posted.”

“Thanks.” He nodded and shepherded the two children to the small waiting room, with his sister’s purse in hand.

Devin forced herself to put him out of her mind and focus on her patient.

Normally, the nurses and aides would take a patient into a room and start a chart but since she knew Tricia and the night was slow, Devin didn’t mind coming into her care from the beginning.

“You’re thirty-three weeks?” she asked as she pushed her into the largest exam room in the department.

“Almost thirty-four. Tuesday.”

“With twins. Congratulations. Are they fraternal or identical?”

“Fraternal. A boy and a girl. The girl is measuring bigger, according to my ob-gyn back in California.”

“Did your OB clear you for travel this close to your due date?”

“Yes. Everything has been uncomplicated. A textbook pregnancy, Dr. Adams said.”

“When was your last appointment?”

“I saw my regular doctor the morning before Thanksgiving. She knew I was flying out to spend the holiday with Cole and the kids. I was supposed to be back the next Sunday, but, well, I decided to stay.”

She paused and her chin started to quiver. “Everything is such a mess and I can’t go home and now I’ve sprained my ankle. How am I going to get around on crutches when I’m as big as a barn?”

Something else was going on here, something that had nothing to do with sprained ankles. Why couldn’t she go home? Devin squeezed her hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“No. You’re right.” Tricia drew a breath. When she spoke her voice only wobbled a little. “I have an appointment Monday for a checkup with a local doctor. Randall or Crandall or something like that. I can’t remember. I just know my records have been transferred there.”

“Randall. Jim Randall.”

He was one of her favorite colleagues in the area, compassionate and kind and more than competent. Whenever she had a complicated obstetrics patient in her family medicine practice, she sent her to Jim.

As Devin guided Tricia from the wheelchair to the narrow bed in the room, the pregnant woman paused on the edge, her hand curved around her abdomen and her face contorted with pain. She drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “Ow. That was a big one.”

And not far apart from the first contraction she’d had a few minutes earlier, Devin thought in concern, her priorities shifting as Callie came in. “Here we are. This is Callie. She’s an amazing nurse and right now she’s going to gather some basic information and help you into a gown. I’ll be back when she’s done to take a look at things.”

Tricia grabbed her hand. “You’ll be back?”

“In just a moment, I promise. I’m going to write orders for the X-ray and the fetal heartbeat monitoring and put a call in to Dr. Randall. I’ll also order some basic urine and blood tests, too, then I’ll be right back.”

“Okay. Okay.” Tricia gave a wobbly smile. “Thanks. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

* * *

HE TRULY DETESTED HOSPITALS.

Cole shifted in the uncomfortable chair, his gaze on the little Christmas tree in the corner with its colorful lights and garland made out of rolled bandages.

Given the setting and the time of year, it was hard not to flash back to that miserable Christmas he was eleven, when his mother lay dying. That last week of her life, Stan had taken him and Tricia to the hospital just about every evening. They would sit in the waiting room near a pitiful little Christmas tree like this one and do homework or read or just gaze out the window at the falling snow in the moonlight, scared and sad and a little numb after months of their mother’s chemotherapy and radiation.

He pushed away the memory, especially of all that came after, choosing instead to focus on the two good things that had come from hospitals: his kids, though he had only been there for Jazmyn’s birth.

He could still remember walking through the halls and wanting to stop everybody there and share a drink with them and tell them about his beautiful new baby girl.

Emphasis on the part about sharing a drink. He sighed. By the time Sharla went into labor with Ty, things had been so terrible between them that she hadn’t even told him the kid was on the way.

“I’m bored,” the kid in question announced. “There’s nothing to do.”

Cole pointed to the small flat-screen TV hanging on the wall, showing some kind of talking heads on a muted news program. “Want to watch something? I’m sure we could find the remote somewhere. I can ask at the desk.”

“I bet there’s nothing on.” Jazmyn slumped in her seat.

“Let’s take a look. Maybe we could find a Christmas special or something.”

Neither kid looked particularly enthusiastic but he headed over to the reception desk in search of a remote.

The woman behind the desk was a cute, curvy blonde with a friendly smile. Her name badge read Brittney and she had been watching him from under her fake eyelashes since he had filled out his sister’s paperwork.

“Hi. Can I help you?” she asked.

“Hi, Brittney. I wonder if we can use the TV remote. My kids are getting a little restless.”

“Oh. Sure. No prob.” Her smile widened with a flirtatious look in her eyes. He’d like to think he was imagining it but he’d seen that look too many times from buckle bunnies on the rodeo circuit to mistake it for anything else.

He shifted, feeling self-conscious. A handful of years ago, he would have taken her up on the unspoken invitation in those big blue eyes. He would have done his best to tease out her phone number or would have made arrangements with her to meet up for a drink when her shift was over.

He might even have found a way to slip away with her on her next break to make out in a stairwell somewhere.

Though he had been a long, long time without a woman, he did his best to ignore the look. He hated the man he used to be and anything that reminded him of it.

“Thanks,” he said stiffly when she handed over the remote. He took it from her and headed back to the kids.

“Here we go. Let’s see what we can find.”

He didn’t have high hopes of finding a kids’ show on at 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night but he was pleasantly surprised when the next click of the remote landed them on what looked like a stop-action animated holiday show featuring an elf, a snowman and a reindeer wearing a cowboy hat.

“How’s this?” he asked.

“Okay,” Ty said, agreeable as always.

“Looks like a little kids’ show,” Jazmyn said with a sniff but he noticed that after about two seconds, she was as interested in the action as her younger brother.

Jaz was quite a character, bossy and opinionated and domineering to her little brother and everyone else. How could he blame her for those sometimes annoying traits, which she had likely developed from being forced into little-mother mode for her brother most of the time and even for their mother if Sharla was going through a rough patch?

He leaned back in the chair and wished he had a cowboy hat like the reindeer so he could yank it down over his face, stretch out his boots and take a rest for five freaking minutes.

Between the ranch and the kids and now Tricia, he felt stretched to the breaking point.

Tricia. What was he supposed to do with her? A few weeks ago, he thought she was only coming for Thanksgiving. The kids, still lost and grieving and trying to settle into their new routine with him, showed unusual excitement at the idea of seeing their aunt from California, the one who showered them with presents and cards.