Room For You (Cranberry Inn)

by Beth Ehemann

  I curled my hand around that fortune, vowing to cherish it forever.

  After Alexa rubbed it in my face a dozen more times about how right she was, she tore Derek away from the girls’ toys and left.

  Brody walked up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I’d say the party was a success, the twinkies seem pretty happy.”

  “Absolutely. Look at their little faces.” I rested my head against his chest and watched the girls grinning and chattering about their new haul.

  “After they go to bed, remind me to hide that big purple case,” he sighed.

  “Why?”

  “It’s full of nail polish and makeup—they already asked if they could try it on me later.”

  Tossing my head back, I laughed heartily. “You started that.”

  “Started what?” Mom asked, walking into the kitchen with Fred trailing right behind her.

  “Well, look what we have here,” Brody teased. “The two lovebirds.”

  Mom blushed as Fred wrapped his arm around her.

  “I’m happy for you two, I really am. I didn’t mean to sound weird before, I was just taken aback,” I said to my mom.

  “I know that, honey. It’s okay,” she walked over, pulling me in for a hug. “I should’ve told you. That wasn’t exactly a good way to find out.”

  “It was a little shocking.” I squeezed her back.

  “So, Fred … what are you doing in the morning?” Brody asked.

  Fred looked at him blankly. “Nothing, why?”

  Brody clapped him on the shoulders. “I was just thinking that maybe we should go fishing. There are some things I’d like to talk to you about now that you’re dating Sophia.”

  Fred laughed and shook Brody’s hand. “I’ll fish with you anytime, Brody.”

  Standing in the kitchen with my arm around my mom, I watched Brody and Fred devour a chunk of cake while listening to the girls giggling behind me. Overcome with a sense of happiness, I reached in my back pocket and fingered the fortune from Alexa.

  Thank God for rainstorms … and puddles.

  “Stop obsessing, you look terrific.” Brody walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist as I stopped to check my refection in the mirror for the hundredth time that morning.

  “I’m just so nervous, I feel like I’m gonna puke.”

  “Then kiss me now.” He laughed as he spun me around by my hips and planted his lips firmly on mine, causing my stress to evaporate faster with each gentle swipe of his tongue.

  “Oh my God,” I said against his lips. “I’m gonna be late.”

  “It’d be worth it.” He groaned as he trailed kisses down my neck.

  “I’m sure it would.” I let my head fall back, enjoying the feel of his lips exploring my skin. “But, it’s my first day. I can’t be late.”

  I gently pushed him off of me and kissed the tip of his nose. “Save that for later, okay?”

  “Deal.” He grinned.

  I checked my appearance one more time.

  New blue scrubs, check.

  New shoes, check.

  Lucky silver necklace, check.

  Today was the first day of my externship and my nerves were a mess. I wanted to make a good first impression, but there was no chance of that happening if I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking long enough to put eyeliner on, let alone insert an IV.

  “I think I’m ready,” I said a few minutes later as I walked into the kitchen. Brody and the girls were sitting at the island eating waffles, the cozy smell of syrup loomed in the air. A morsel of jealousy sat in my stomach as I packed up my lunch and thought about them hanging out here all day while I was at the hospital. I was also incredibly thankful that Brody was willing to babysit my kids all day. Figures the one day my mom had a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t help me would be the first day of my program.

  “Thanks for staying with them today.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  “My pleasure.” He grinned at the girls. “We’re gonna have fun today, right?”

  “Yay!” They cheered.

  “I’m thinking we mow the lawn, give Diesel a bath, clean out the gutters, then have a bunch of broccoli for lunch. Sound good?” He wiggled his eyebrows at them.

  Lucy and Piper looked at each other with disgusted faces. “Noooo!”

  “I think you should make them wash the dishes too, they’re six years old now, they can handle it,” I teased.

  They just shook their heads back and forth, their eyes wide.

  “I’m gonna head out. Girls, you go easy on him today, okay?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Lucy said.

  “Piper, you too.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she mumbled, shoving a giant bite of waffle in her mouth. It had only been a few weeks since her accident and I was so thankful she finally had her appetite back.

  I kissed each of their cheeks and grabbed my purse. “If there are any problems, I have my phone with me.” I leaned down and kissed Brody’s cheek. Both of the girls giggled. They still weren’t completely used to our moments of affection toward each other, but we weren’t hiding anymore. I loved him, he loved me and we were going with it.

  “We’re good.” He grinned and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me in tight. “Good luck today. I know you’re gonna do great.”

  “Thanks,” I sighed, my nerves starting to get the best of me. “I just want this day to be over. I’m anxious to come home and snuggle up with the three of you tonight.”

  “Sounds like a date,” he said.

  I smiled at him and turned to head out when he pulled my hand back toward him. I spun around and locked eyes with him; his jet-black pupils swam in a sea of brilliant green and focused right on me. I pulled my browns together and looked at him curiously.

  He looked at the girls, then back at me. “Pay the toll.” He cupped my rear and drew me in close to him, planting a firm kiss on my lips, while the girls squealed and covered their eyes.

  The automatic doors of the hospital slid open and the familiar smell hit me. It’s unmistakable, that hospital smell, a weird combination of latex and iodine and death. If colors had smells, I think white would smell like the hospital. Pink would be flowers, yellow would be fresh air, blue would be the sea.

  White … definitely the hospital.

  I walked up to the registration desk where a girl sat chomping on her gum like a cow, looking bored out of her mind.

  “Hi, my name is Kacie Jensen. I’m supposed to start my externship today, but this is my first time here and I’m not exactly sure where to go.”

  She glared up at me from her cell phone and without responding, pointed toward another large set of automatic sliding doors with EMERGENCY ROOM painted above them in bright red. “Thanks,” I said as I looked back at her.

  She rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to her phone.

  Brat.

  I slowly crept through the doors like a timid sixth-grader who was scared of walking into the wrong classroom. The hallways formed a big square that surrounded the nurses’ station that was decorated with fake plants and cardboard cut-outs of apples and rulers for Back-To-School time.

  “Help me, help me, help me!”

  I spun around to a woman walking my direction, balancing a stack of file folders two feet high in her hands that started slipping out of her hands. Dropping my lunch bag and purse where I stood, I lunged forward and caught the manila tower before it spilled all over the floor.

  She sighed. “Oh, thanks. That would’ve really sucked.”

  “No problem.” I smiled at her.

  I guessed she was in her early forties, though her face was youthful and could’ve passed for a twenty-year-old. She was a little chubby with a bright, contagious smile.

  “I’m Darla.” She grinned as she set the files on the counter. “You are?”

  “Oh, I’m Kacie Jensen.”

  “You’re the new girl, huh?”

  “That’d be me. A
m I in the right place?”

  “Yep, this is it. Fancy, ain’t it?” She rolled her eyes.

  “Where should I set my stuff?” I looked around.

  “Come back here, we call this the Square. Everyone has a shelf to put their crap on.”

  I followed her into the nurses’ station and set my bags down in an empty space.”

  “Kacie Jensen?” A woman bellowed as she came around the corner.

  “Yes.” I spun around nervously.

  “I’m Maureen, you’re with me. Let’s go.” She waved as she strolled past the Square.

  “You’re with Maureen?” Darla whispered as I walked past her.

  I nodded.

  “Good luck,” she mouthed.

  I quickly stepped in behind Maureen. “Hi, Maureen. It’s nice to meet you. I’m very excited to work with you,” I said to the back of her tight gray bun as she continued walking.

  “No chit chat, we’re very busy today. Just follow my lead.” She didn’t even turn her head when she spoke to me. “Don’t expect me to coddle you, this is the real world. If I tell you that you did a good job, it’s because you did. If you need someone always telling you how great you are, call your mother.”

  Whoa, she was tough.

  My first day was filled with cleaning up puke, changing out bedpans and perfecting the art of blood pressure taking. What it lacked in excitement, it more than made up for in how fast the day flew by. Before I’d even had a chance to look at the clock once, Maureen was telling me to go sit down for a thirty-minute lunch break. I didn’t know exactly where I was supposed to go, so I grabbed my lunch bag and sat at the desk next to Darla while she continued transferring all the files she almost dropped into the computer.

  “You married?” she asked, staring straight ahead at her computer screen.

  “Nope.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Yep.”

  “He got any cute single friends?”

  I giggled when I thought of Viper, the only single friend of Brody’s that came to mind. And he wasn’t exactly single … it really just depended on the day and Kat’s mood, from what I understood.

  “Nah, not any good ones.”

  “Bummer. By the time I leave here at night, I’m too damn tired to go out and all these damn doctors are married. Maybe I’ll become a lesbian.”

  I chuckled and chewed on my carrot sticks while I people-watched. A young girl came in needing stitches from a dog bite, a construction worker shot a nail through his hand with a nail gun and a little old man was severely constipated. The day was not quite as eventful as I’d hoped it would be.

  “Break-time’s over, Jensen,” Maureen called out as she went from room to room. “A woman with chest pains is being brought in by ambulance any minute, can you prep Room 4 and get her vitals for me?”

  Hopping up eagerly, I tossed my carrots in the trash. “I’m on it.”

  I went into room 4, turned on the monitors and got the blood pressure cuff ready. There wasn’t much else to do.

  A minute later, the curtain pulled back, startling me as a young man with curly black hair pushed a stretcher into the room. Another EMT who wore a baseball cap over his blonde hair, had his back to me as he pulled the other end of the stretcher and called out stats.

  “Female patient in her early sixties complaining of chest pains. BP is 220 over 130, temp is 99.2, pulse is 110.”

  I awkwardly tried to stay out of the way as they swiftly transferred the patient from the stretcher to the bed. My pulse was probably as high as hers at the moment because I was so damn nervous.

  The curly-haired paramedic smiled at me and left the room as quickly as he came in.

  “Okay, she’s all yours,” said the blonde EMT as he turned around.

  I locked eyes with him and stopped breathing, my body grinding to a halt.

  Oh. My. God.

  Zach.

  Writing this book was a long, often stressful process for me and it would not have been possible without help from several people…

  Thank you to Kelsey Kukal-Keeton at K. Keeton Designs for the wonderful cover photo.

  Thank you to Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations for working your cover design magic on that photo.

  Thank you to Angela McLaurin at Fictional Formats for taking me and my book on totally last minute and for being one of the sweetest people ever to work with.

  To my editor, Lori Sabin… The whole editing process made me nervous, but I could write a whole chapter about how amazing you were. Not only did you make it easy, you made it enjoyable. Thank you a million times.

  To my betas… Michelle, Megan W, Megan S, Melissa, Julie, Janna and Happy. This book wouldn’t be what it is without you guys. Your input and suggestions were beyond helpful and I’ll be forever grateful for the time you took to read and give me feedback. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  For all the blogs that participated in my cover reveal and blog tour… You are the heartbeat of the book world. Thank you for all the unanswered hours you put in.

  To Pam Carrion from The Book Avenue Review… You are one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Your generosity and selflessness know no bounds. The hours you put in organizing cover reveals and blog tours and doing countless other things to help authors are immeasurable. The world would be a better place if there were more people like you walking around.

  A special thank you to Michelle Kisner Pace who answered a million questions and helped me make sure certain parts of the book were accurate.

  My wonderful CP, Janna Mashburn. You’re a little secret weapon when it comes to the brainstorming process. You have this amazing ability to step back and see what direction the story should go in. I so appreciate all the time you put in reading and critiquing everything.

  Melissa Brown. I don’t even want to write this paragraph because there is no way I’m going to properly give you the thanks you deserve. When you invited me to this little Indie Author event in Chicago a little over a year ago, I had no idea my whole life would change in that weekend, all thanks to you. You were the first person I told about writing this book and since then, you’ve done it all. You’ve brainstormed with me. You’ve read every word of this book, sometimes two or three times. You named it. You put my first chapter at the end of your book. Most importantly, you believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I will thank you and tell you I love you every day for the rest of my life and it still won’t be enough. I might have to buy you a pony. We’ve already been friends for 25 years, I can’t wait to see what the next 25 have in store.

  Julie Hill… the Cliff house… you and me, roomie.

  To Happy Driggs. You are my very best friend on this entire planet. We can have whole conversations with very few words, though I suppose that’s what happens when you share a brain. I want to list all of the insanely wonderful things you’ve done for me but we both know that’s not how we work. The one thing I will always be grateful for is the way you tell me to just shut up and get it done. You get me, completely. You’re my favorite asshole. #Namaste.

  To my mom… You’ve been my rock every day of my 35 years on this planet. You’re more than just my mom, you’re my mentor and my best friend. Thank you for believing in me and always sounding interested in my book, even when I’d already talked about it 3,206 times that day. Everything I’ve always done has been possible because I knew no matter what, you would be in my corner, cheering me on.

  To my incredible husband, Chris. You have been my co-pilot in this journey we call life for the past 16 years and I couldn’t be happier to have you by my side. When I first told you I needed to do this, you jumped right in and eagerly asked what you could do to help. I don’t think you thought it would be so much cooking and cleaning, but you didn’t complain, most of the time. Thank you for always having my back, regardless of how insane my ideas can be. I love you a little more every single day.

  Lastly, thank you to my four kids who listened to me say, “I’ll be there in a minute,”
or “Just a second,” for months while I was typing away. You guys are the reason I breathe. I love you more than anything in this world.

  Beth Ehemann lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago with her 4 children and her husband, Chris, who is really a big kid himself most of the time. She enjoys reading, writing, photography, martinis, and all things Chicago Cubs.

  Twitter: @bethehemann

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/bethehemann

  Blog: Coming Soon!