The Doctor's Unexpected Family: (Inspirational Romance) (Port Provident: Hurricane Hope) (3 page)

It fascinated Pete.

In fact, it inspired Pete. Maybe there would be a new beginning like that for him soon. “I was thinking about puzzle pieces.”

 “Gloria!” Angela raised her voice a bit and waved her hand. “Did you get those for Marisa?”

Gloria nodded and waved a bottle of blue liquid. “Yes, I was able to get some sports drinks from Rigo’s stash at the temporary Beach Patrol headquarters. Rigo will actually be here in a few minutes and we’ll take her to Mainland Medical, if you’ve got everything set up, Pete.”

“Just got off the phone with Dan Mitchell. Everything’s set. Great thinking on having Rigo take her there—I assume he’s got emergency medical training because of his work on Beach Patrol, right?”

Gloria nodded. “Absolutely. An extra level of precaution, just in case. We could even flip the lights on the truck on if we needed to.”

“I’m pretty sure you won’t need to, Gloria. She’s pretty stable. Just needs a saline IV, some real food and some TLC.” Pete took the bag and bottle from Gloria’s hands and turned back toward Marisa’s tent.

Within minutes, Rigo drove his truck over the narrow strip of grass at the fenceline and parked nearby.

“Pete,” Gloria called, “Rigo’s here. It’s time to get Marisa in the truck.”

Marisa shuffled out, Pete supporting her under one arm and Rodgie, her husband, holding up the other side. A duffel bag was slung over Rodgie’s shoulder, and a deep poke of pain hit Pete’s heart as he realized that duffle bag likely held all of their few remaining possessions.

Gloria darted over to the passenger side door and opened it before Marisa got there, then everyone took care to get the young mother-to-be in the truck and make her comfortable. Pete watched Rodgie tuck the duffel bag on the floorboard at Marisa’s feet and felt that sting of sharp metal in his chest again.

Please keep them safe and healthy, God,
Pete thought silently.
Give them some rest and renew their spirit—just like we all need right now.

Rodgie climbed in the back seat of the truck behind Rigo, and Gloria closed the passenger side door in the front seat, and just like that, they were off.

“Brought you something.” About two hours later, Gloria stuck her head through the flap of Angela’s tent. She held up a small cooler and wiggled it.

“I hope that has an iced coffee and a real dinner in it.” Angela laid down the folder of papers she’d been reviewing.

It had been a few hours since this afternoon’s drama, and as her blood sugar rose, Angela had decided to just sit on her sleeping bag. She needed to go over the data she’d been given that morning by FEMA about temporary housing sites. She couldn’t decide if her headache was a lingering effect of the earlier insulin rollercoaster or a result of the frustration over the red tape wrapped so tightly around a program her constituents so desperately needed to quickly come to fruition.

Gloria shrugged. “Well, no, but I passed the Samaritan’s Cross food truck when I turned on 51
^st
Street. I guess they’ll be here within the hour or so.”

“I said a real dinner. I miss food. Real food. I just want to go to Porter’s and have a shrimp po-boy or to
Huarache’s
and eat my weight in those amazing pork tamales your
madre
makes. I should miss real things, like my daughter’s baby book or my parents’ wedding portrait that used to hang in my hallway. But no. Food. I think about a real meal morning, noon, and night.”

Gloria ducked and came inside the tent. “Well, most people think about food morning, noon, and night. It’s called breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” 

Angela’s stomach gave a little gurgle. “Not quite what I meant. So, what’s in the cooler if it’s not something iced down and caffeinated?”

“Insulin.” Gloria gave the blue and white rectangle a little shake. “There’s a glucagon kit in there too.”

Angela raised her brows. “Insulin? Did you go to City Hall and get my last vial or something?”

“Nope. Pete called the pharmacy at Mainland Medical and had me do a pick up for you while we were dropping off Marisa. This is Rigo’s cooler. There’s no ice in here because I didn’t want it to freeze, but I didn’t want it to get too hot. September on the Gulf Coast is brutal on everyone, especially something delicate like insulin.”

Angela blew out a strong, deep breath. “Yeah, it is. Thank you, Gloria. I’ve been asking for a few days if there was a resource to get me more insulin. I’ve been skipping doses to stretch it. Of course, I’ve been skipping a few meals too, so I tried to tell myself it all balanced out.”

“Angela, you’ve got to take care of yourself. Times are crazy right now, I know. But you can’t sacrifice your health.” Gloria sat down, cross-legged, on the end of Celina’s sleeping bag. “Especially for Celina. She needs her mother, and she needs her to be well.”

“I know, Gloria. I’m trying, really, I am. But it’s like everyone has a question or a need or something right now. I’ve been hiding in here reading these FEMA briefs, and I think it’s the longest stretch of alone-time I’ve gotten since Hope hit.”

Gloria shifted slightly, opening her mouth, then closing it again without speaking.

“What?” Angela questioned.

“Do you think it would help if Celina went and stayed with her dad for a few weeks until the worst of this is over?”

Angela felt a lick of fire flare in her chest. “Absolutely not. Gloria, if you think I’m overworked and inattentive, you can’t possibly think David is a good option. He is a workaholic. He doesn’t even know Celina—by his own choice.”

“I know he’s not involved, Angela. I just know he’s got a good job and I assume a good house and such now. I thought maybe getting Celina out of the elements and this crazy tent city might be better for her, just temporarily.”

Angela picked up the FEMA paperwork and waved it. The pile made a satisfying slapping sound as she threw it back on the sleeping bag. “What will make things better for everyone is for the bureaucrats to cut the red tape and get the trailers here so people have real shelter. Celina belongs with me, Gloria. Not someone who is biologically related to her, yet doesn’t know anything about her.”

She pushed a hand through her hair and tried not to let her frustration with her ex-husband get the best of her. He was not worth tanking her blood sugar over. The time for that had been six years ago. She had the well-being of thousands of constituents to worry about now, not one selfish man.

“You’re probably right, Angie. I just hate seeing you here. I wish I had a bed to offer you, but I’m still crashing in the guest room at Inez Vasquez’s house. My parents are crowded into a garage apartment with my sister, Gracie, and her husband and their baby. I just wish that our area of town hadn’t been so badly hit so you could get out of here.”

Angela cracked a wry smile. “There’s no place I’d rather be than here, Gloria. I had the option to get a room at the Grand Provident. I gave it to Lola de la Vega. She needed it more than I did. She’s been my assistant since my first campaign, and I owe her so much. I was glad to let her have my spot.  This is a mess, but it’s home. These are still my neighbors, still my constituents. And in a way, it’s more important than ever that I’m here with them. I have a little fireside chat every night and tell them what happened today at City Hall. People don’t have good access to TV or radio or phones or internet like they’re used to. I keep them informed, and they tell me what they need. I can’t leave them.”

“So when do you think FEMA will bring the trailers?”

“I hope soon. They’ve backed out of two locations because of elevation concerns. This proposal is to clear out the old municipal baseball fields and put the trailer park in there. I don’t really like that because it’s so far from town, and there’s no public transportation, obviously, so it’ll be hard for people to get to grocery stores and work. Plus, we’ll be starting from scratch, so it’ll take a while to put in electricity and water and such. But it looks like the best option right now.”

“And you’ll go there?”

“That’s my plan. We should have room for more than 150 trailers there. So that would be a good start.” She tried to smile at her friend, but she was too tired to do more than tug the corners of her mouth upward. It had only been just over a week since the hurricane made landfall, but it felt like Angela had been sleeplessly living in a tent behind an elementary school her whole life. “Our community needs stability now, any kind we can get.”

“The new normal, huh?” Gloria twisted her smile like a corkscrew. “Do you think you’ll be okay here, Angela?”

Gloria gave the cooler a subtle push toward Angela.

“I’ve been diabetic practically my whole life, Glo. I was diagnosed when I was nine. I’ll be fine.”

Gloria pulled out her cell phone and tapped at the screen. “I just texted you Pete’s contact information. Promise me you’ll call him if you need anything? I’m going to be off the island tonight at a family dinner in Houston, and since the curfew will be on before I would get back, I’m just staying with my cousin Carla on the mainland.”

Angela nodded. “Really, Gloria, I’ll be fine. But I appreciate the concern. And thank you for bringing me a refill.”

“Thank Pete. He took care of everything. I’m just the delivery lady.” Gloria stood as much as she could, and then shuffled awkwardly to the door of the tent.

“And I appreciate it. Thanks for everything today, Gloria. I’m lucky to have a friend like you.”

Gloria ducked out, then stuck her hand back through the curved fabric arch and waved her fingers in a gesture of good-bye.

Angela picked up her folder again, and tried to focus on reading the documents on the temporary housing options FEMA was putting on the table. She could hear the sound of the Samaritan’s Cross truck rumbling up. As soon as they were set up, they’d be swamped with a mass of hungry people from all over the tent community. The lines had been averaging almost two hours the last few nights.

As the person elected to represent the majority of the people now calling this patch of grass behind Provident Elementary School home, it made Angela’s blood boil like a stock pot full of soup. She wanted her friends, her neighbors, her constituents to have their dignity and their lives back. The solutions presented in that manila folder weren’t good enough.

There was so much that needed to be done in the wake of this huge, life-altering natural disaster. Knowing how long and winding and bumpy the road ahead would be, Angela paused and swallowed past the small lump forming in her throat.

Was
she
good enough to get it all done?

Chapter Two

The late summer sun still stretched brightly in the streaked sky as Angela finished her dinner. Tonight’s offering from the Samaritan’s Cross mobile kitchen had been simple, but filling: a cheese sandwich with a surprisingly crisp leaf of lettuce and a cheerful wheel of bright red tomato, a cup of tomato soup, and an orange.  Angela gave the orange a quick toss from hand to hand as she walked back to her tent.

Should Angela save the orange as a snack for Celina later, or should she eat it herself now as a sweet, juicy dessert?

Angela could almost taste the drips of fresh orange juice on her tongue. She looked at the gently dimpled peel of the orange and stopped herself before she dug in. Considering all of today’s blood sugar drama, she should probably check her levels first. She’d headed to the food truck without taking her insulin shot first, and now that Gloria had replenished her supply, Angela mentally chastised herself. She knew what would happen if she didn’t keep up with her regimen. Like many diabetics, she’d skipped a shot here or there and just stayed on top of her monitoring. But the batteries had run out of her monitor and she hadn’t been able to find anyone with extras—which led to the scare earlier today. And goodness knows there wasn’t a big box store or corner market open in Port Provident to get any replacement batteries.

Relying on a lifetime of instinct and observations when it came to insulin was not a recipe for success, and she knew it. Angela blew a heavy breath out of pursed lips. She was stuck. In a big way.

For the first time since Hurricane Hope rolled past, Angela was scared. She needed to keep her blood sugar in check. While one missed shot wouldn’t hurt her, forty-eight hours without shots or monitoring could actually kill her. But what could she do?

Back in her tent, she sat down and pulled out her phone. Could she call the police and report a battery emergency? They probably got plenty of assault and battery calls, but probably not many three-volt lithium battery calls.

Seriously, Angela,
she muttered to herself.
The police force is overwhelmed these days. You can’t call them because you’re out of batteries. If they have batteries to spare, they’re probably double-As or nine-volts or something common like that. You can’t be a pest.

Absently, she scrolled on her phone. Then she saw the contact card Gloria had texted her earlier.

Well, obviously Pete Shipley had a working glucose monitor. And she had to admit that calling him made more sense than calling Port Provident PD.