Never to Keep (Accepting Fate #1) (10 page)

“What’s the difference?” he asked.

“If you don’t know, then you probably aren’t. Sometimes, I wonder if we ever were truly
in
love with each other. We were apart most of the time we were a couple. I would think if we were truly in love, we would have made more of an effort to be together.”

“All I know is that I want to be with you.” His eyes were sadder than I’d ever seen them.

Ethan really was a wonderful man. He always had my back, even when he didn’t agree with me. He would do anything for Peyton and me. I had no doubt he would lay down his life for us. He may have caused my greatest heartbreak, but I knew it was his greatest regret. I wished I still loved him the way he deserved to be loved. We could have a happy life together if I did.

“I know.” I had no words to help him understand how I felt. I gathered my trash and stood from the table. “We’d better get to work.”

Madison

Saturday was my favorite day of the week. Peyton and I loved our weekly trip to the city to visit Olivia. We usually sang along with the radio and played word games during the hour-long drive. This week, however, Peyton was in an inquisitive mood.

“What’s my
abuela
like?” she asked.

“You know her. You video chat with her all the time.”

“I know, but it’s not the same. I wish she would move here with us.”

“She loves you very much, and she wishes she could be here.” I decided to indulge Peyton with facts I’d shared with her dozens of times before. It always made her feel better to hear them. “She likes to cook and sew. She also loves to dance,” I answered. Peyton was quiet with thought.

“Why did she go back to Spain?” she asked.

“Because her mommy was sick, and she needed to take care of her.” My mother left for Spain right after I turned eighteen. She took care of my grandmother until she passed. When
Mami
was ready to come home to the States, she ran into issues with finances.

“What about Grandpa?” This was the first time she’d asked me about my father, although I was sure Ryan had talked about him before. “How did he and
Abuela
meet?”

“Your grandpa was a soldier. He met my
mami
, your
abuela
, when he was stationed in Europe.”

“What happened to him?” she asked.

I hated my answer to her question. “When his time in the military was over, he signed up to be in the reserves. When I was ten, he got called for duty and died fighting in a war. He was a hero.”

“Do you miss your daddy?” she asked.

“Very much. I was my daddy’s girl, just like you were your daddy’s girl.”

“Did he teach you how to play football?”

“Your daddy taught me everything I know about football.” I smiled as I remembered Ryan’s pride when I finally got the hang of timing my routes.

“I miss my daddy,” she said with a shaky voice.

“I miss him, too, baby. He loves you more than anything and would have never chosen to leave you, just like my daddy didn’t choose to leave me. I know they still watch over us.”

“Like guardian angels?”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

I was relieved when I put my Camaro in park outside of the skilled nursing facility, a.k.a. rehab center, where Olivia was staying. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could fight back my tears.

As usual, Peyton took off at full speed the second her mother came into view. The facility was beautiful, but not excessively so. The most important thing was that it had the best team of medical professionals in the state. Olivia deserved the best care possible, so I didn’t protest when she used Ryan’s life insurance to pay for what her health insurance didn’t cover.

I strolled leisurely through the indoor garden to give them a few moments of privacy. I admired the vibrant colors of the leafy plants that surrounded the stone paths and made a mental note to find some for Dad and Ryan’s graves.

Peyton sat on Olivia’s lap with her momma’s arms wrapped tightly around her small frame. I was a few feet away when Olivia’s gaze met mine.

“Good to see you, sis,” I said as I reached out to her. She held my hand in one of hers as I took a seat beside her on the concrete bench. She kept her other arm firmly around her little girl. I gave her fingers a gentle squeeze.

“Thank you so much for coming to see me every week. I know it’s a long haul out here.” She pressed a noisy kiss to the top of Peyton’s head. “I miss you both so much.” Her grip tightened on my hand.

“There’s nowhere else we’d rather be.” Her eyes lit up at my words.

“Tell me about your first week at your new school.” Olivia gave her daughter another smile.

“It was okay. My teacher is really nice, because he doesn’t make me talk when I don’t feel like it. Next week, we’re going to take a big test and then go to the park. Mr. Ramsay said I can teach everyone how to play football.”

Peyton looked up at me with mischievous eyes. “Yesterday, I forgot my lunchbox in my cubby, and when I went back to the room to get it, I heard Mr. Ramsay on the phone. He told the lady that he couldn’t wait for her to meet the class. He said he might have the parents come meet her, too,” Peyton whispered, as if she was spilling government secrets. “Then he told her he loved her.”

My heart stuttered at her words. I would not be making a trip to the school to meet his fiancée. “You are such a gossip,” I said as I ruffled her hair in an attempt to hide my reaction. “I have no idea where you got that from.” I gave Olivia a poignant look over Peyton’s wild curls and suppressed a laugh.

“Oh, I made a new friend! Her name is Brianna. She says we fit together ‘cause she only has a daddy and I only have a mommy. Can she come over to play?” Peyton asked me with her best puppy dog face. She climbed into my lap. “Please, please, please?” I couldn’t refuse even if I wanted to.

“Of course, as long as your room is clean.” I had to get something out of the deal.

“Yay! You’re the best, Mama!” She hugged me tightly.

I turned my attention to my sister-in-law. “Brianna’s dad is Charlie Morgan. You remember him from school, right? He’s a doctor in the intensive care unit at the hospital.”

Olivia’s eyes widened. “Wow, I can’t believe he grew up to be a family man and a doctor nonetheless.”

“I know. I think he faked the dumb jock routine in high school to get the cheerleaders’ attention.” I covered Peyton’s ears with my hands. “He’s even hotter than he was back then,” I whispered. Giggling with Olivia felt just like old times.

Olivia looked between Peyton and me. Her eyes saddened.

“Hey, Pey,” I said as I pulled my phone from my pocket. “Why don’t you call Brianna to find out when she can come over?”

“Yay!” she exclaimed. I dialed Charlie’s number and handed her the phone. She scampered off to a bench a few yards away.

Olivia chewed on her thumbnail and diverted her eyes. “How did it go at court on Wednesday?”

“The judge extended my guardianship through the end of the year.”

She sighed with relief. “The doctor said it will still be a while before I can go home.” She tucked a loose curl behind her ear and studied her hands. “I know the original plan was for me to come home in September, but do you think you can keep Peyton a while longer?”

“Of course, I’ll take care of her for as long as you need.” I waited to continue until I caught her eye. “You know I would do anything for you and Peyton.”

“It makes me feel better knowing that you are there to take care of my baby.” She took me in her arms for several moments.

“I’m honored you chose me to take care of Peyton, but don’t forget she needs her mother.”

“There’s no one else in the world she loves more than you,” Olivia said. I wanted to correct her; Peyton loved her mother more than anyone else. It saddened me that Olivia thought otherwise. I let it go when Peyton came back.

Peyton climbed up into my lap again, surprising both Olivia and me. “She said she can come over every Sunday afternoon. She’s busy tomorrow and next Sunday.”

“That sounds like a plan,” I said. It would be good for Peyton to have time with her friend outside of school, and we usually didn’t have anything to do on Sunday afternoons anyway.

We spent the rest of the time talking about our plans for the following week. Peyton also recited her updated list of things she wanted to do with Olivia when she came home. All too soon, a garbled voice came over the loud speaker to let us know our time was up.

“We’ll come earlier next week,” I promised both Olivia and Peyton. My heart broke as I had to pry a crying Peyton away from her mother. The ride home was never as much fun as the ride there.

Madison

Wearing her Sunday dress, Peyton skipped up the walkway to Nana’s house. Olivia’s grandmother watched Peyton every Friday night while I worked and took her to church every Sunday morning. She firmly believed that Peyton shouldn’t lose her faith just because I’d lost mine.

“Would you mind keeping her until one o’clock today? I need to make up the hours I missed for the court appearance,” I asked as I entered the familiar single-story home. I’d spent a lot of time here as a kid.

“Not a problem at all, sweetie,” Nana replied. “I’ll make sure she has lunch before you get back.”

“Thank you. I don’t know what we’d do without you.” I leaned over and gave the small woman a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” I said as I planted a kiss on the top of Peyton’s head. “I love you both.”

*

The ER was almost always quiet on Sundays, and most of the patients we saw weren’t true emergencies. People came to us with minor aliments because every general practitioner’s office in town was closed on weekends, and the free clinic wasn’t open on Sunday.

The first patient came in about thirty minutes into my shift. Tiffani, the triage nurse, usually rushed every patient through, which often led to careless mistakes. It was a wonder she hadn’t been fired.

I unplugged my smart cart from the wall charger and checked my supplies one more time. A while back, an anonymous donor, needing a tax write-off, gave the hospital a state-of-the-art computer system along with top-of-the-line equipment, which was probably worth more than the hospital billed in a year.

The patient’s information popped up on my computer when Tiffani assigned him to a trauma room. My stomach churned when I saw the name at the top of the screen. Shit! It’d been over a week since the closet incident, and I had managed to avoid him until now. I took a deep breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth—and repeated it a couple of times.

Ethan walked by as I looked over the electronic chart. The way his white lab coat contrasted with his caramel skin made me want to lick him all over. I might not have been in love with him, but I still appreciated his masculine body and gorgeous face.

“Interesting case?” he asked with a quirked brow. It had been a ghost town all morning, and he was itching for excitement.

I got my hormones under control quickly before I responded, “Nah, looks like a minor flesh wound based on the triage report.”

He rolled his eyes. “Tiffani is up front. You’d better get in there to make sure the patient doesn’t have an amputated leg.” We laughed in unison.

“I was just getting ready to go in. I’ll be ready for you in about ten minutes.” Giving him a small smile, I pulled the sliding glass door open.

“Mr. Ramsay, what brings you in today?” I asked with a forced smile as I pushed the computer cart into the room ahead of me. I couldn’t afford a complaint about my bedside manner, no matter how much I hated him. I looked up when he didn’t answer right away.

He shook his head to clear the dazed look from his face. He held up his left index finger, which was haphazardly wrapped in a bloody tissue. “I had an altercation with my lawn mower.” He gave me a sheepish look, which I did
not
want to find cute.

“You do know they put safety guards around the blades for a reason, right?” I washed up in the sink and slipped a lavender glove over my right hand. I removed the tissue from his wound with my gloved hand. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, so I handed him a piece of clean gauze.

“Apply steady pressure, and hold it above your heart.” He pinched the thin material over the wound and then looked to me for direction. “Like this.” I guided his hands over his head, regretting the contact the moment I touched him. I disposed of the single glove and went back to the computer. I felt safer with the cart between us.

I lifted the scanner from its plastic stand on the cart, and then reached over to scan his ID bracelet. I scanned my hospital identification badge next.

I asked him the standard battery of questions needed for his records and flagged his penicillin allergy, which Tiffani had overlooked. I grabbed a red wrist band from the shelf on my cart, wrote “PCN” on it, and wrapped it around his wrist.

“What’s with all of the barcodes?” he asked as I typed notes into his chart. “I think I liked it better at the hospital back home. At least I was a number to them instead of a bunch of lines.” Was this his attempt at small talk?