“So, Jeremy. How are things going for you in Bagley? Do you like your apartment?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s not too far from work, and it’s furnished, so that’s nice—saved me from having to find some furniture.”
“That’s good. And have you found a church out there yet?”
Jeremy grinned. He’d thought the question about girls would come first. “I haven’t been yet because I was busy moving in last Sunday, but I saw one in town that I think I’ll check out next week.”
Hannah took a bite of her chicken, then turned her attention back to him. “Any nice girls?”
“I was waiting for that question.” Jeremy chuckled. “There seem to be a lot of girls in Bagley, but I haven’t asked any of them out yet—I just got there.”
“But there is someone,” Hannah persisted. “I can see it on your face.”
“How can you see something like that on a person’s face?” Thomas asked. “Let the boy eat his dinner.”
“I think Mom’s right,” Greg said. “Look—Jeremy’s turning red.”
“I’m not turning red.” Jeremy shook his head, knowing he’d get no peace until he said something. “I did meet a girl at the hospital today—a nurse in the ER. But I only talked to her for a few minutes, and I don’t know anything about her.”
“But you’re going to go back, right?” Hannah asked.
“I’m sure I’ll see her a lot. And yes, I’ll find out more about her.” That was definitely a promise he intended to keep—the mystery of Rebekah McClain was going to nag at him until it was solved.
“Well, that sounds promising. You’ll bring her for dinner sometime, of course.”
“If we start dating, which isn’t guaranteed, and if it starts getting serious, which isn’t even on the table right now, yes, I’ll bring her.” Jeremy turned to his brother. “Time to take the heat off me. How are your ham radio classes going?”
“Good,” Greg replied. “I’ll have my license next week, and then I can help out with natural disasters and all kinds of things from right here at home. My way of giving back.”
“And it’s much safer than your way,” Hannah said, turning back to Jeremy. “The way you’re constantly running toward danger . . .”
“Mom, I’m not the one in danger,” Jeremy replied. “I’m helping people get out of danger.”
“Well, I still worry. It’s my prerogative as a mother.”
“We know that, and we love you for it, but we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” Jeremy replied. They’d had this conversation several times as well—it seemed that most of their dinnertime conversations were repeats of things they’d already discussed quite a bit—but he knew she’d never really understand. The call to be a first responder wasn’t the same as the call to do something else, and it wasn’t something he could explain.
They finished up the meal with a peach cobbler, Jeremy helped his father move some heavy boxes out to the garage, and then he told everyone goodnight. He laughed and shook his head as he walked out to his car. He loved his family, even though they had their little moments of strangeness. He supposed every family did.
***
Rebekah braced herself before knocking on Dr. Hunsaker’s door. She’d been trying to think of a way to explain her actions, but short of telling him about her powers, she didn’t know what to say. Her sisters were the only ones who knew what she could do—well, the men in her older sisters’ lives also knew, but that didn’t help her out now. She didn’t know what would help. How could she explain it in a way that wouldn’t sound like she’d lost her mind? More importantly, would she be able to keep her job, or was she about to be fired from doing something she loved?
Knowing she couldn’t delay any longer, she raised her hand and knocked, entering when she heard, “Come in.”
Dr. Hunsaker sat behind his desk and took off his glasses when she came in. “Have a seat,” he said, motioning toward the chair across from him. Rebekah sat down, trying to decide if she should speak first or wait for him. He solved that problem by starting to talk as soon as she was in her chair.
“Nurse McClain, you’ve been with this hospital for three years. You excelled in nursing school, you came to us with excellent references from Dr. Gardner’s office, and you’ve never missed a day of work. I can’t find any patient complaints in your file, and your supervisors never have anything negative to say about you. Yes, I’ve done a little digging over the last twenty minutes. Tell me why it is that over the course of the last . . . year, let’s say, I find myself constantly at odds with you? You’re contradicting my orders, you’re doing things without authorization, you’re making wild speculations . . . and perhaps the most confusing thing of all is that you’ve been right an amazing number of times. I don’t understand what’s going on. Should I fire you for insolence, or give you a raise for your excellent work? Being chief of staff is a pretty hard job, and you’re not making it any easier on me.”
Even without touching him—because that would be awkward—Rebekah sensed that he was getting a bad headache, and she knew she was the cause. She had to think of a way to make this right. “Dr. Hunsaker, I’m sorry—I know I’m putting you through a lot. I don’t mean to contradict you or make things harder for you. I’m just . . . a very opinionated person, and sometimes my instincts steer me in a different direction.” That was a terrible answer, but the words wouldn’t come.
“You realize that by taking that man into the operating room, you could have introduced any number of germs, subjected him to new diseases, and ruined the entire procedure all because you believed you were saving his life?”
“I do realize that, sir. But tell me—when you got in there, what did you find?”
Dr. Hunsaker sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The bullet had gone through the left coronary artery, just like you said. Yes, he would have died if we hadn’t operated immediately.”
She didn’t reply. There was nothing more to be said.
He finally met her gaze square on. “You’re not fired, but I will be watching you closer than you’ve ever been watched before. I can’t have strange things happening in this emergency department. We have too many people depending on us.”
She nodded. “I understand. And thank you for the reference you gave me for my med school application.”
“You got it mailed in on time?”
“Yes, I did. Now the wait to hear back.”
“I believe you’ll be a fine doctor. I just hope this . . . whatever it is . . . gets straightened out soon or you’ll be kicked out of the program. You need to fall in line, not flout authority and do your own thing without regards to orders. There’s a reason why the system is set up the way it is, Nurse McClain.”
“I understand, sir.”
Actually, she didn’t understand. In her years of nursing, she’d noticed that doctors were revered as deities, and nurses were considered too far beneath them to be recognized. That didn’t seem right at all—weren’t they all there to work for the good of the patients? Shouldn’t they be on the same team?
Apparently, that wasn’t how things were in the real world, and she was becoming less enchanted with the real world all the time. Maybe once she was a doctor and had some clout, she could make some changes . . . but she was a woman, and a female doctor would never carry the clout of a male one. It was infuriating.
“Go get some rest,” Dr. Hunsaker said. “I see your day starts early tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. It does. Thank you.” She stood up. “I promise I’ll do better.”
He gave one sharp nod. “See that you do.”
Chapter Three
“I might as well just hang a sign around my neck that says, ‘Ask me about my special powers!’ I was so obvious today—I usually hide it better, but with two such dire situations back to back, I had to act quickly, and . . . I probably blew it big time.”
Tracy handed Rebekah a cherry 7-Up and sat down next to her on the couch. “Okay, so, Dr. Hun
saker is starting to get a little suspicious, and you’ve got one paramedic asking questions. That’s just two people, right? You can handle two people.”
“Yes, I can handle the paramedic—I barely know him, and I’m only going to be seeing him in passing when he brings in more cases. Dr. Hunsaker, though? He’s my boss. I work with him every single day. How am I supposed to handle him?”
Tracy shook her head. “I don’t know—I fix things, not people. It’s too bad one of us didn’t get the power to wipe someone’s memory clean. We could take care of your little problem in a jiffy.”
“Have you ever wondered why we got the powers we did? Mine makes sense because I’m a nurse, and yours makes sense because you sell cars, but none of the others really seem to fit, you know?”
“They might not seem to fit, but I think we’re each finding ways to use what we’ve been given.” Tracy tilted her head to the side. “Have you thought about telling Dr. Hunsaker the truth?”
Rebekah had been taking a sip of her drink and nearly choked on it. “Tell him the truth? Can you imagine how that would go over? We’re a walking, talking episode of The Twilight Zone. He would never believe me.”
“Does he believe what you’re telling him now?”
“No. He knows I’m still holding something back.”
“Then would it really do any harm?”
Rebekah put her drink on the coffee table and leaned back again. “If he thinks I’m crazy, I’ll lose my job. But . . . I could lose it anyway for being impertinent. I don’t know, Tracy. What should I do?”
“We could call Marti. She should be back at her dorm by now. Or we could talk to her this weekend when she brings her laundry home.”
“Can’t believe she’s about ready to graduate. Everything’s changing so fast.” Rebekah thought about her options. “Would her precog tell me what to do, exactly? How does it work?”
“I don’t know. That’s why you’ve got to ask her.”
Rebekah nodded. There was still so much they didn’t understand about the benefits and limitations of these gifts. Peter, their cousin, was lucky—he’d known he was a precog his whole life, and it was the expected thing in his family. As the seventh son of a seventh son for generations back, his destiny had almost been foretold. Rebekah and her sisters had broken the mold—they weren’t even sons, let alone all of the rest of it.
“I’ll talk to her this weekend. It’s a hard conversation to have long distance, and I probably couldn’t afford that phone bill anyway.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to solve the problems of the universe in under two minutes.” Tracy rested her hand on Rebekah’s shoulder. “Whatever you decide to do, just remember that we’re all here for you. Even Heather clear out there in faraway Idaho, land of the potatoes. And wherever Jessica and Gaylynn end up, now that they’re all smitten and stuff. We stick together.”
“You aren’t going to start singing ‘We Are Family,’ are you?” Rebekah teased.
“No, but it’s the perfect moment for it.” Tracy grinned. “Shouldn’t you be going to bed about now?”
“Yeah, I should.” Rebekah stood up and stretched. “Thanks, Tracy. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. You know you can always count on me to be here when you need me. Unless I’m not home. In which case, you have other sisters to choose from. Pretty sure that’s why Mom and Dad had so many of us—so we’d never run out of options.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that had something to do with it.” Rebekah smirked and shook her head. “Goodnight.”
Her apartment wasn’t too far away from Tracy’s house, but she was tired enough that it felt like miles. She went inside, kicked off her shoes, and flopped onto her bed, not bothering to do anything else. Using her gift always made her tired, and she’d been pushed to the limit that day. It was time to sleep like a dead thing.
***
Jeremy felt like a heel, wishing that someone would need to be taken to the emergency room so he could see Rebekah again. What kind of paramedic actually hoped bad things would happen to people? When the first half of his shift went by without a single emergency, he knew he was being punished for having such uncharitable thoughts. By the time his shift ended, he knew his fate was sealed—he was headed straight for hell. He’d better not tell his mother that.
He clocked out, then drove straight to the hospital, hoping Rebekah would still be there. He was in luck—he pulled into the parking lot just in time to see her exiting the building.
He parked the car and jogged across the lot to catch up with her. “Hey,” he said when he was still several yards away.
She turned and looked at him, clearly surprised. “Hi. What are you doing here? I didn’t hear an ambulance pull in.”
“No, I’m not here on a call. I actually hoped I could take you out to dinner.”
She shook her head. “Jeremy, please don’t make this awkward. I told you yesterday that this wasn’t a good idea.”
“I’m not trying to make this awkward, and I respect that you have secrets. But . . . I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about it, and I just hoped that maybe if I asked again . . .”
She looked down at the ground, then back up at him, and he could see that she didn’t know what to do. “Okay, how about this—I’ll have dinner with you, but I can’t promise you anything else. No deep conversations, no sharing of secrets, no revelations or shocking announcements, okay? Dinner. Just one dinner.”
He grinned. “That’s a great start. Where would you like to go?”
“Comida. I need Mexican.”
“Perfect.” He held out his arm and motioned toward his car. “Would you like me to drive, or should we go separately?”
“Let’s each take our own cars. I don’t want to have to come back later to pick mine up.”
“Perfect,” he said again. “I’ll see you at Comida in a few minutes.”
As he retraced his footsteps to his car, he couldn’t believe that she’d said yes. Of course, that had been the outcome he’d been hoping for, but it was still hard to believe. He was going to have dinner with Rebekah McClain, who was without a doubt the most fascinating woman he’d ever met. Not to mention one of the prettiest.
He parked at the restaurant, then waited by the front door until she pulled up so he could escort her inside. After they were seated and they each had a glass of ice water in front of them, he asked, “So, how was your day?”
“Pretty quiet, actually. We didn’t have any ambulances dropping off half-dead people, so that helped.” A slight smile told him she was in a good mood. “I fished a pinto bean out of a little girl’s nose, I helped do inventory on boxes and boxes of gauze, and I picked up some litter in the parking lot. It was all very eventful.”
“Not like yesterday,” Jeremy replied, hoping to steer the conversation to what he really wanted to talk about.
“Not at all like yesterday. Speaking of which, how was dinner with your parents?”
Oh, she was good—she deflected it right back to him. Okay, he could allow her that for now. “It was great. My mom made some chicken and mashed potatoes, and Greg’s doing all right—well, mostly.”
“Greg?”
“My brother.”
“And he was in a car accident, right?”
“Yeah. It did some damage to his spinal cord. He’s in a wheelchair, but he also deals with a lot of pain.”
“And that’s why you said he was mostly doing well—because of the pain?”
Jeremy nodded. “They’ve put him on some new meds, but my mother says they haven’t noticed a difference.”
“Hmm.” Rebekah looked thoughtful. “I’d like to meet him sometime. Does he have any plans to come here for a visit?”
“Not that I know of. It’s hard for him to go places in cars because of the wheelchair and everything. Even his doctor appointments take all day because of the logistics.”
“I can imagine. He lives with your parents in San Antonio?”
“Yeah.”
/> She took a sip of her water and went back to perusing her menu.
When the waitress came back for their orders, Rebekah asked for a taco and enchilada platter, and Jeremy ordered the flautas. Then he said, “If you really want to meet Greg, I could take you with me on my next visit.” He hoped he said that casually enough that she wouldn’t think he was pushing the issue. He had the feeling that she wasn’t a woman to be pushed.
“I might like that.” She took another sip of her water. “How was your day?”
“Pretty much the same as yours, except I didn’t have to pull beans out of anyone’s nose. I’m a little jealous of that, actually. It might have livened things up a bit.”
“Oh, trust me, you don’t want any part of that. There were boogers involved, and long tweezers, and let’s just say, it’s nothing like playing a game of Operation. I want to know who invented that thing, anyway. It’s given a lot of people a very false idea of what it means to be in the medical profession.”
Jeremy laughed. He liked this girl’s dry sense of humor—but he supposed he shouldn’t think of her as a girl. She was a woman, but he was so used to hearing his mother call them girls. “I was never very good at that game anyway.”
“I rocked it. I beat every single one of my sisters until they wouldn’t even play with me anymore. But I still have issues with it because of the expectations it created. There’s no blood in that game, no one’s crying in pain . . .”
“And there are no boogers,” he finished for her.
“Exactly.”
The waitress brought their food, and Rebekah dug in. “Haven’t eaten since breakfast,” she said by way of apology after she shoveled in her third bite.
“I get it. I live on fruit snacks and Tab most days—there isn’t a lot of time to eat.” He watched her, amused. “You aren’t afraid of spice?”
She raised an eyebrow, picked up the bowl of salsa from the table, and dumped it all over her enchiladas. “I’m a McClain from Bagley, Texas,” she replied. “Spice should be afraid of me.”
Rebekah (Seven Sisters Book 4) Page 2
