“Are you saying…Ok.”
She tried to nod. That was a stupid choice. No more nodding. She could barely talk but she forced out the words. “Yes. Keep it quiet. Blood test. Just to make sure. Only been two months since my last…twelve percent…twelve percent really isn’t much.”
Her head hurt. She listened to the explanations but didn’t speak. Someone said her name. It sounded like Caine again. Saying her name, insisting she look at him.
Her eyes opened; she looked at Rafe as he slipped his hands beneath her back and helped Allen and Virat lift her onto a gurney that had just magically appeared.
Dark eyes looked at her from a too-familiar face.
“You just look too much like…him, Rafe. Too much like Caine for my sanity.” Nikkie Jean looked up at him again. His eyes were just like his brother’s.
And that hurt, too.
But she had never confused them. Never would.
He was Rafe, not Caine. Rafe would make everything ok. Because Jillian would make him do that.
“Do you want me to call Caine for you?” he whispered the question in her ear. “Get him here?”
“No! I don’t. He doesn’t want me at all…I’m not good enough for him, either…”
“Then he’s dumber than I thought, baby. You’re too good for the likes of him. And don’t you forget it.” Rafe’s hand was warm and strong on hers. Comforting. Nikkie Jean tried to remember why. It had to be because of Jillian. “Just close your eyes, kid. We’ll get you taken care of right now. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“Isn’t there a song like that…?” Nikkie Jean tried to remember as they rolled her across the parking lot, her hand wrapped in Caine’s brother’s the entire way.
28
IZZIE NEEDED A PHYSICIAN to sign off on the blood test. And that meant finding one circling the intake desk. The right one.
Lacy, bag in hand, took one look at her. “What do you need, Iz?”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to blow Nikkie Jean’s secret, or gossip about her friend. Lacy was completely discreet, but the only man Nikkie Jean had mentioned meeting at all had been Rafael Holden-Deane’s brother. Two and two did add up to four. Or rather…one and one suddenly made three. Especially considering the timing.
“I need you to sign off on a quantitative hCG for a patient for me.”
“Ok. Why me and not the attending?”
“Because the attending is now Dr. Holden-Deane and…the patient is Nikkie Jean.”
“What?” Lacy took the chart and looked at it quickly. “Possible impact injuries? We were in surgery together forty minutes ago and she was fine. What happened?”
“Someone almost hit her and Fin in the parking lot. And she’s concerned about X-rays.” Izzie started to whisper why, but Lacy held up a hand.
There was a look in her eyes that told Izzie Lacy already knew why.
“Done. I’ll head over there and check on her myself. Shoo any of the guys away. Nikkie Jean…won’t like all those guys standing over her.”
“It’ll cause more trauma than she needs,” Izzie said quietly. Lacy just nodded.
Nikkie Jean’s hurt was a sharp one. Her friend was far stronger than anyone Izzie had ever met. Maybe that was one reason Izzie felt so protective of the older woman. “She say anything to you about meeting a man lately?”
Lacy shook her head. “No. Not that I can think of.”
She’d been hoping Lacy would confirm what Izzie suspected. But if Nikkie Jean hadn’t told Lacy about Holden-Deane’s brother, Izzie wasn’t going to ask. “I’m going to go do the blood draw.”
“Let’s go.”
Nikkie Jean was barely awake when they made it in. Allen Jacobson glanced at Lacy, that weird expression she’d noticed he’d get whenever Lacy or Jillian or their friend Ariella were around on his face.
The guy was seriously messed up after what had happened recently. Everyone knew it. Izzie had trouble not feeling for him; he’d been good friends with Logan Lanning before that man had gone off the deep end and almost killed Lacy.
It was hard not to feel awkward around Dr. Jacobson, though.
“Out, boys,” Lacy said to Dr. Jacobson and Dr. Holden-Deane. “We’re taking over from here. Go see someone else. It’s girl time in here now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dr. Holden-Deane said, after sending Lacy a significant look Izzie wouldn’t even hope to understand. “I’m sure you have everything in control. I have a phone call to make.”
Nikkie Jean opened her eyes for a moment. “Don’t call him.”
“I won’t. Unless you tell me to.”
“Thanks. I’m good. I have Lacy and Jillian and Annie and Izzie and Fin and Ari and Bailey. People who have my back. He doesn’t need to know anything. I am not his problem. Ever. Just going to stay far, far away from him.”
Izzie got the feeling Nikkie Jean didn’t have a clue what she was saying—or revealing—to those listening.
Dr. Jacobson moved to the left side of the bed. Nikkie Jean was facing away from him. He put his hand on her shoulder.
Nikkie Jean let out a loud, keening cry the instant his hand landed on her that had chills raising on Izzie’s neck. It wasn’t a sound of pain—it was fear. Pure terror.
Everyone froze.
Lacy jumped into action, immediately moving between Rafe and the bed.
“Nikkie Jean, look at me. You look right at me. No one else. Just focus on me.” Lacy said, firmly. Nikkie Jean did. Her eyes focused on the other woman instantly. She mouthed Lacy’s name and pulled in a shuddering breath. “You are safe. Safe. I’m going to take care of you. Just me, Izzie, Annie, and Jillian. No men. Not even in the room. No men will touch you, I promise. Rafe will make them all stay out.”
“Rafe can do that. I’m…I’m good, Lace. I promise. I’m not going to fall apart now. I’m safe here. I know that.”
Izzie bumped her way between Dr. Jacobson and Nikkie Jean. “Ok, boys, you heard Lacy. Out.”
She waited until the men were out of the room, just holding Nikkie Jean’s hand. Izzie just talked to her softly while Lacy did the examination. Until Nikkie Jean’s breathing leveled out and she stopped shaking.
Then in a small, flat tone she told them exactly what tests they needed to order.
And why.
Lacy’s eyes met Izzie’s over Nikkie Jean’s gurney. Why had Nikkie Jean never told them the extent of what she’d gone through?
Nikkie Jean was good at keeping secrets, thinking she had to deal with everything by herself. Izzie knew what that was like. Izzie squeezed Nikkie Jean’s hand.
Nikkie Jean was so afraid.
Izzie took the blood test to the lab herself.
And called in a favor to get the results back as fast as possible. Then she waited for those results, making it clear to the tech that it had to be kept confidential.
She looked at the results herself. She hurried back, knowing her friend was waiting, terrified.
And Izzie had the answer.
29
ANNIE AND JILLIAN showed up together. Lacy had never left. They all waited for Izzie to return. The acetaminophen Lacy had ordered had started to work. A little. She was going to be really sore for a while, but she’d refused anything stronger than acetaminophen.
Just in case.
Her friends had just circled the wagons around her. Something was about to go down.
She forced herself to sit up in the bed, regardless of the pain in her head. Lacy had said mild concussion and contusions. She’d survive.
She was going to face this head-on. No matter what. She looked at Izzie. “Either I’m pregnant, or the cancer is back. Which is it?”
Izzie handed the single sheet of paper to Lacy, who read it quickly.
“HCG is through the roof; I’d say it is definitely a positive indicator of a pregnancy,” Lacy said. “But with your history, we’re keeping you for a while. I’m ordering a full workup, including ultrasound, just to be sure. And rule out every pos
sibility.”
Nikkie Jean nodded. She’d had two major fears since she’d been sixteen. Another assault, and another battle with ovarian cancer. She even contemplated having her remaining ovary and tube removed as a preventative measure, even though that wasn’t a guarantee. She just hadn’t done it yet.
Either way, what those tests would reveal would change her life completely.
Izzie wrapped a hand around hers. “Hey, no matter what, you’re not doing this alone.”
Nikkie Jean got her thoughts around herself enough to be able to look at the two women who’d stayed with her. Lacy and Jillian were calling for the tests Lacy wanted to run. It would take some time.
But her best friends; the closest friends she’d ever had, had stayed with her. So she wouldn’t be there alone, no matter what she found out.
No one had stayed with her before. Not even her own mother.
Izzie and Annie knew some of the story of what had happened to her. The sexual assault that had ended with her needing surgery. She’d revealed it in group therapy sessions she helped lead for those whose traumas were newer than her own. But she hadn’t told them the extent of why of the surgery.
She did, now. By the time she was done, both were in tears. For her. If she’d had them back then, they would have been completely on her side. That mattered. “Thanks. I…should have told you.”
“No. It’s yours, not ours. We’re just here to support you,” Annie said. “We’re here to listen if you want to tell us, though.”
“I…after I was attacked, I was bleeding. My mother…the housekeeper took me to the hospital. Not the one where my father and the man who attacked me worked. I…freaked. I didn’t want any doctor near me at all. Especially the men. I equated the rape with the fact that my attacker was my father’s partner in his practice. So I fought. They had to put me under. I needed exploratory surgery to find out why the damage was as bad as it was. That was when they happened to find them. I had two small tumors on one ovary. Cancerous. Dysgerminoma. Teetering between stage one and two. Laparotomy revealed it was in one ovary and had spread into the fallopian tube on the left side. I had six months of chemo and a unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. I still have my right ovary and tube, but the chances of a pregnancy were so slim, especially after the chemo. The rate of recurrence on the cancer was about the same. I told him that after the condom broke.”
“Who?” Izzie asked.
“None of our business, unless you want to tell us,” Annie added, shooting a firm look at Izzie.
Nikkie Jean shook her head a little. “That’s over. It never really was to begin with. Just a major mistake.”
“Then he’s a jerk and this kid doesn’t need him.”
Izzie, always Izzie, willing to fight to protect.
Nikkie Jean had never had anyone bother to protect her before. Just Izzie.
“The baby will have us. We’ve got your back, Nik. Remember that. No matter what,” Annie added softly. Izzie and Lacy seconded that.
Izzie to protect, Annie to support. The closest friends she’d ever had.
Jillian returned, with Courtney, a supervisor from radiology. Courtney would do the actual ultrasound. The other tests would take a few days to make it back.
Lacy had already told her she wasn’t going anywhere until everything was tested and back. Just in case.
Lacy was being thorough.
“I’m here to give you a lift downstairs. You ready?” Courtney asked.
Nikkie Jean looked at the friends surrounding her. This was so different from the last time she’d had procedures this terrifying done. Back then, she’d just had her mother, who’d been impatient and inconsistent, although she’d tried to be there for Nikkie Jean.
At least half the time.
Her brother had shown up sometime when she’d been under sedation, having flown in from Johns Hopkins where he’d been studying.
Her brother had punched her father in the middle of the hospital waiting room, after the older man had finally bothered to show up one afternoon. Six days after her surgery.
Her father had invited Jim to their house for the party that night, knowing the man had been having alcohol problems. Her brother had blamed her father for exposing her to Jim in the first place.
It had been the only time her brother had ever done anything to defend her in any way that she could remember. And she hadn’t even been there to see it.
Her father hadn’t said two words to her for six days after his best friend had assaulted her. After she’d learned she had ovarian cancer. He’d barely looked at her the two times he’d visited that first week.
He’d blamed her, for everything that had happened to Jim after the housekeeper had found him hurting her. He’d never said it, but Nikkie Jean had figured it out over time. He’d been trying to help Jim, a friend of his for more than twenty years. Nikkie Jean had gotten in the way of that.
She’d stopped trying to get her father’s love after that day.
It wasn’t like that now. Annie was holding her hand. Izzie was getting the wheelchair ready. Jillian was getting her a blanket from a cabinet so she wouldn’t be cold. Or overly exposed to the eyes of the people she worked with.
Lacy stood at the door, like a commanding general, ready to stop anyone from entering who didn’t belong.
These were her people now. Her tribe.
Her family.
Nikkie Jean battled back the tears.
No doubt they’d go every step of the way with her. She had a family now. She mattered to them, too.
The tears slipped free. She’d have to take her contacts out before they floated away.
Those tears flowed unchecked just fifteen minutes later, when she saw what was on the screen.
Nikkie Jean almost didn’t believe what she was seeing.
It was real.
Twelve percent had just morphed into one hundred.
And she would be seeing Caine Alvaro again very, very soon.
And now they really did have something to talk about. Something that was going to change the whole world for the both of them.
30
CAINE STARED AT THE man he considered one of his few close friends. “So, can you do it?”
“The question isn’t whether I can do it. It’s whether I can do it on your time frame.” Thor Laughlin had emerged over the last eight years since they’d first served together as one of the best medical fraud investigators in the nation.
He just kept that reputation to himself. Only a select few knew that the lanky man nearly as tall as Caine was even a doctor let alone a consultant with the FBI located out of Austin. It had been a position he had fallen into after his younger brother, a physician in Amarillo, had been falsely accused of Medicare fraud by a former senior partner.
Thor had been instrumental in getting Tennyson’s name cleared.
He’d come across some investigators with the OIG and FBI agencies who’d liked how he’d handled himself.
Medical fraud investigations suited Thor like a second skin. He’d eventually pulled Ten in that direction, as well.
If anyone could figure out the discrepancies in the billing at Barratt County, it would be Thor and Ten Laughlin.
“I need it soon. We’ve had buyers interested in the hospital. But something isn’t adding up to me. I want a second opinion before I go making accusations. A man of Ralstone’s reputation—there’s not a single cloud on his record. He transferred to Finley Creek to work with Allen Jacobson.”
“I can’t say I blame him. Jacobson’s reputation is expanding.”
“So you can’t go making accusations yet,” Ten said quietly.
Ten Laughlin was always quiet. Caine was used to it.
“There’s something else. I can’t make accusations against a Finley Creek physician without damned good reason.” Caine pulled out his phone and googled a name quickly.
“Why is that?”
Caine handed over his phone. “Because that’s the COM of Finley
Creek now. If he’s known about this and done nothing about it, it won’t look good originating with me. And that is a powder keg of problems I’m not ready to open up just yet.”
“I owe you one, Alvaro. Otherwise, I’d have to say no right now. But I can’t do that to you. A man’s brother—that’s a relationship you just don’t want to screw with.”
“Thanks. I was hoping you’d say that.” And Caine would turn over the entirety of the audit and anything related to it over to someone who actually knew what he was doing.
He had an entire hospital to run, after all.
Billing was just a small part of it.
Caine felt…itchy. Like he needed to call FCGH and talk to the man himself. Because something major was about to go down.
That was a move he just wasn’t ready to make.
31
SHE WAS MUCH MORE alert the next day, thanks to an actual full night’s sleep. She hadn’t slept well the previous two weeks, worried. She should have just gone to Lacy and had the tests requested a week ago. She hadn’t had to go through the anxiety this last week.
Fear could be a darned irrational motivator.
Fear robbed you of the future.
She so had to remember that.
Last night’s antiemetic in her IV had also made her drowsy. Nikkie Jean had slept good last night.
She was halfway back to being Nikkie Jean again. Although she was a very sore Nikkie Jean at the moment, and would be for a while.
She looked at Fin when she led Vincent, the head of security, into her hospital room the next afternoon. “What’s going on?”
There was a man dressed in a TSP uniform next to Vincent who looked enough like him to be his son. “I just had a few questions for you, Dr. Netorre. We’re trying to figure out who almost hit you.”
“Of course.” Talking with the police always brought back the memories of that day when she’d been sixteen and first in the hospital.
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