Stone Vows (A Stone Brothers Novel)

by Samantha Christy

  “Oh, my gosh. Is that what I think it is?” Elizabeth squeals.

  I smile at her as I walk across the room. She holds out her arms, her hands beckoning me closer. Or beckoning the food closer.

  I laugh. “Patience,” I say.

  “Screw patience,” she says with a giggle. “I’m starving. And maybe salivating.”

  I roll her tray table over to the side of her bed and unload the bag, her eyes going wide at the smorgasbord I’ve brought her. I have Lo Mein, Chow Mein, Kung Pao chicken, shrimp and broccoli, white rice, fried rice, and of course, egg rolls.

  She leans over as far as she can with a thirty-four-week belly and inhales the aromas coming from the little white boxes.

  “Oh my God, I love you,” she says. “You are my favorite human being that is not currently residing inside my body.”

  I laugh, mesmerized by her sheer joy over Chinese food.

  I reach inside to pull something else from the bag. I get all serious. “I have a question to ask you,” I say. “And your answer will tell me a lot about you as a person.”

  She sits upright and looks taken aback. It’s the same look she gave me when I brought up marriage in the ‘never’ game. I hold up some forks in one hand and chopsticks in the other. “Which do you want?”

  The sigh that comes from her practically echoes throughout the room. The smile that follows lights it up.

  “What self-respecting American would eat Chinese food with a fork?” she asks.

  I toss the plastic forks over my shoulder, hearing them bounce off the floor as I hand her a pair of chopsticks. “My kind of woman,” I say.

  She takes the chopsticks from me and when our hands touch, she blushes. I made her blush. Women don’t blush unless . . . hell, I don’t know. My kind of woman—did I actually just say that to her?

  I look at her as she tears open the paper package and removes the chopsticks from it. She breaks them apart and rubs them together as I take in her appearance. Her chin-length hair is pulled back in a clip with wisps of tendrils falling around her ears. Her blue eyes stand out even more with the makeup that she’s used to highlight them. Her cheeks and her lips are pink, matching her nightgown.

  Even her toenails are painted pink, as I see them peek out from under her bed sheet. Have they always been painted? Maybe I’ve just never noticed before.

  This woman—she looks anything but homeless.

  She looks dangerous.

  Dangerous for me. Dangerous for my career.

  Then I think of my brother, Chad, and what he used to say when we were kids. “I eat danger for breakfast,” he’d say.

  Breakfast, dinner, it’s all the same. I pull an egg roll out and hand it to her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “He was SO out!” Elizabeth screams at the television. She turns to me, a bit of soy sauce dotted on her chin. “Did you see that? He was out. Blue better have his eyes checked.”

  Before I even realize I’ve done it, I’ve reached over and used my thumb to wipe the brown sauce from her face.

  She picks up a napkin to finish the job I started. “Is something on my face?” she asks, wiping it.

  “It’s gone now,” I tell her. I nod to the TV. “I thought he was out, too.”

  “Stupid ump,” she says, pouting.

  “You seem to know an awful lot about baseball. Did you grow up around it? You said you played softball, is that what got you interested?”

  She looks up at the TV sadly and nods. “I’ve always loved softball, so I guess watching baseball just seems natural.”

  “Did you grow up in New York?” I ask, thinking this is a good opportunity to discover more about her.

  She shakes her head then conveniently takes a bite of food to keep from answering.

  “But you love the Nighthawks,” I say.

  “Who doesn’t love the Hawks?” she asks.

  I laugh, but on the inside, I’m upset that she keeps deflecting personal questions. “My friend, Griffin, actually. He’s an Indians fan. He got me watching baseball. Even took me to a few games.”

  She looks up at me like I said I walked on the moon. “You’ve been to some games? Hawks games?”

  “Yeah, last spring. One of their first games of the season I think.”

  “Who won?”

  “Not the Indians. Boy was Griffin pissed. He doesn’t get to go to many Cleveland games so he really wanted them to win.”

  “Was it . . . was it amazing? Seeing it in person?” she asks, longingly.

  I furrow my brows. For someone who loves baseball and seems to know the game so well, you’d think she’d have been to at least one game. They practically give away tickets from time to time.

  “You’ve never been?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Well, you have to go,” I say. “There is nothing more American than baseball. The whole experience from the funnel cakes to the hot dogs and beer. The fights over the foul balls and home run hits. The seventh-inning stretch. We should go sometime—”

  I shut up when I realize what I said. When I realize she looks downright fearful, and I curse myself.

  This is not a date, Kyle. She’s not your girlfriend. She doesn’t want to be your girlfriend. She’s here to have a baby and you’re here to make sure she has a healthy one.

  “Uh, what I mean is, you should go. You and the baby.”

  She nods, rubbing her belly. “Maybe we will one day.”

  When we’ve eaten all we can, I pull a handful of fortune cookies out of the bag. Elizabeth eyes them and smiles. I put them on her tray and pick one for myself.

  “You can only have one,” she says, choosing hers carefully among the three others that remain.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because only the first one you pick will be your fortune. The others don’t count.”

  I feel my face break into a boyish grin. “I didn’t know there were rules.”

  “Oh, yes. Just ask Sal,” she says. “You can’t trade fortunes with someone else. You have to eat the entire cookie before reading the fortune. And if your cookie is empty, that’s a sign of good luck.”

  We both open our cookies, taking great care not to peek at our fortunes while we eat them. “You first,” I say, nodding to her hand.

  She opens her slip of paper. “Your smile will tell you what makes you feel good,” she reads.

  She looks up at me and smiles. Then she realizes what she did and she blushes.

  I read mine next. “Love is like war, easy to begin, but very hard to stop.”

  “Huh,” she says, musing over the saying. “Did you ever wonder who makes these up? Probably some guy who lives in Boston.”

  I laugh as I pick up her fortune to toss it in the trash.

  She reaches out and grabs my hand, forcibly taking it back from me. “I want to save it.”

  I raise my brows at her. “Another one of Sal’s rules?” I ask.

  “No. It’s my rule,” she says. “I only throw out the bad ones.”

  I watch as she puts the piece of paper on the side table next to her bed. Then I tuck my fortune into my front pocket.

  I clean up her tray and box up the leftovers. There are a lot of leftovers. Maybe I can give them to someone on the street later. I put the food by the door so I don’t forget to take it when I leave.

  “Yes! Go, go, go, go, go!”

  Elizabeth is screaming at the television, practically standing on her knees on the bed, having dislodged the fetal monitor as she cheers on a player. It’s the same player who had that crazy double-play the other day. His name comes up on the screen as they show the replay of his triple that just landed him on third base, resulting in an RBI. His name is Caden Kessler. I recall the name. There was some press coverage about him early in the season as he changed his number, something that rarely happens in the majors.

  “You seem kind of obsessed with number eight,” I say, teasingly. “But seriously, you should calm down, you don’t want to sta
rt bleeding.”

  She sits back down, looking embarrassed as I walk around the bed to readjust the monitor.

  “It’s not just him,” she says. “I like all of them. They’re a great team.”

  As I fix the strap around her belly, the door opens and Gina walks in. Her eyes quickly shift around the room, first looking at me, then the television, then the bag of Chinese food.

  “I was walking by the nurses’ station when I heard her monitor alarm,” she says. “But it looks like you have it all under control, Dr. Stone.”

  I finish adjusting the strap as Gina’s eyes burn into me. I can tell she’s taking in my appearance. My street clothes. My clean-shaven face. My extreme guilt that I wouldn’t be feeling if I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  “Elizabeth, have you met Dr. Lawson yet?”

  She holds out her hand to Gina. “No, it’s really nice to meet you.”

  Gina walks over next to the bed and shakes Elizabeth’s hand, finally tearing her eyes away from me. “You, too.”

  I resume my spot in the chair next to the bed and pretend like me being here is a perfectly normal thing. “Gina and I are doing our residencies together,” I tell Elizabeth. “She’s also in emergency medicine.”

  “That’s nice,” she says. “Did you get assigned a babysitting duty as well?”

  Gina steps behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. Then she rubs it around to my back. “No, Dr. Stone was the only lucky one. We’ve had some good times in the program, haven’t we, Kyle?”

  My head is so messed up right now. Gina is touching me inappropriately in front of a patient. And she used my first name. Is she trying to stake her claim on me? Or is she simply reacting to the already inappropriate situation I’ve put us all in?

  Elizabeth is staring at Gina’s hand on my shoulder. She doesn’t seem upset about it. Doesn’t seem happy either. She just seems . . . pensive. Then she turns back to the television.

  “Do you like baseball?” she asks Gina after an awkward few moments of silence.

  “Sports aren’t really my thing,” Gina says.

  “That’s too bad,” she says. “I was going to ask you to join us. We have a ton of food leftover.”

  Elizabeth doesn’t seem nearly as uncomfortable as I am. Maybe I was reading this wrong all along. She hasn’t given me any indication that she sees me as anything more than her doctor. I’m overworked. I’m tired. I’m taking pity on a girl who has nothing and no one and it’s clouded my judgment.

  They warned us about this in medical school. Getting too involved with our patients. Making things personal. Damn Dr. Redman for putting me in this position.

  “I can see that,” Gina says, eyeing the mostly-full food containers. “Dr. Stone is always doing such nice things for his patients.”

  “I’ll bet he is,” Elizabeth says, eyeing me with a bit of a smart-ass smirk. “Do you take them all Jell-O?”

  I can’t help my laugh as I shake my head at the private joke.

  Gina’s pager goes off and I’ve never been so relieved to be saved by the proverbial bell. She bids goodbye to Elizabeth and then leans down to whisper something in my ear. “I know something we can do with Jell-O later. You can eat it off me. Or maybe out of me.”

  For the second time tonight, my dick twitches. And I watch her leave the room, wondering why I would ever dream of messing up the good thing I have going with her for a crapload of complication.

  “She seems nice,” Elizabeth says. “And she’s pretty. Is she your girlfriend?”

  My eyes snap to hers at the unexpectedly personal question. She doesn’t ask personal questions. Not even when we play ‘Never have I ever.’

  “Girlfriend? No. Gina is . . . to be honest, I don’t know what she is.” I sigh.

  “From the looks of it, I’d say she wants to be.”

  I nod hesitantly. I know. I’ve known for a while now. But for the life of me, I just can’t figure out if it’s the relationship I don’t want, or the woman.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Did Dr. Redman finally give you more patients?” Elizabeth asks when I check on her a few days later.

  “Nope,” I say, looking over the notes in her chart. “It’s still just you.”

  “Oh,” she says. “I figured since I haven’t seen much of you for the last couple of days that she must have finally let you out of the doghouse.”

  She’s right. I haven’t been to see her much. In fact, I’ve done everything I can not to see her. I’ve done my duty, making sure she and the baby are okay, but other than that, I’ve all but relinquished my babysitting duties to the nurses.

  I’ve even gone so far as to seek out more scut. Labs, blood draws, hell, even enemas. Anything to keep me busy enough so I don’t have time to socialize.

  I went too far. I’m sticking to professionalism from here on out.

  “No new patients,” I tell her. “Just a lot of busy work.”

  “Your other sister-in-law came to see me yesterday,” she says.

  I look up from her chart. “Charlie was here?”

  “Yeah, I like her. She watched a whole game with me.”

  I feel guilty that I left early the other night. But I had to. It wasn’t fair to Gina to have to watch me like that with another woman. It wasn’t fair to Elizabeth when what I was doing was crossing the line. It wasn’t even fair to me—putting myself in that situation.

  I’m grateful to my sisters-in-law for stepping up. Especially now that I’m stepping away.

  “That’s great, Elizabeth. You’ve got as many as two and a half weeks left here, so I’m glad to see you are keeping your spirits up.”

  “Two and a half weeks.” She puts her hands on either side of her growing belly. “Seems a long time to be here, but not nearly long enough to prepare for this one.”

  I put down the chart as something dawns on me. “Are you prepared, Elizabeth? I mean, when you leave here with the baby, are you going to be able to take care of it? Of yourself?”

  She gives me a sad smile. “I told you before, Kyle. I’ll be okay. You said yourself that you thought all things happen for a reason. There is a reason for this,” she says, rubbing her hand across her abdomen. “And I know everything will work out.”

  I can’t help the thoughts racing through my head. Thoughts of her taking a newborn to some low-rent crack-house apartment. Thoughts of angry drug-head neighbors who pound on her door in a rage because they hear the baby crying through the paper-thin walls. Thoughts of that baby crying because her mom isn’t producing enough milk due to her poor nutrition.

  A knock on the door keeps me from stepping back across the line. I look behind me and smile. Baylor is standing in the doorway with a basket of some sort.

  “Is this a good time?” she asks.

  Elizabeth sees who’s at the door and her face falls into that of a star-struck adolescent. Her eyes blink repeatedly.

  “Baylor, come on in,” I say. “Baylor Mitchell McBride, I’d like you to meet Elizabeth Smith.” Without thinking, I add, “Sorry, I don’t know Elizabeth’s middle name.”

  I stare at her in question.

  “Uh, no. No middle name,” she says. “Just Elizabeth.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Elizabeth with no middle name,” Baylor says. “Technically I’m just Baylor McBride, but most people know me as Mitchell, so I’m good with either.”

  “It’s an honor to meet you,” Elizabeth says, offering Baylor her hand. Baylor dumps the basket on me so she can shake it. I stare at the contents. Books. A lot of them. And what looks to be a tablet.

  Baylor nods to the bounty she brought. “Kyle said you like to read romance novels, so I brought you some. I didn’t know if you like paperback or digital, so I brought both.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes bug out as they peruse the basket. I place it on the bed between her legs and she picks up one of the books. It’s Baylor’s newly-published novel. She opens the cover. “You signed it?”

  Baylor laughs. �
��Sure did. Maybe it’ll be worth something when I’m dead.”

  “Are you kidding?” Elizabeth gushes. “I’ll bet it’s worth a lot now.”

  “You’re sweet to say so.”

  Elizabeth looks through the basket, pulling out not only books written by Baylor, but other authors as well.

  “Oh, my gosh, these are great.” She opens the cover on another and gasps. “Are they all signed?”

  Baylor nods. “Yup. I was at my publisher’s the other day and grabbed a handful for you. I hope you like them.”

  “I’m sure I’ll love them, just like I love yours. I’ve read all of them, well except the new one that just came out.”

  Baylor picks up the tablet and shows Elizabeth how to sign on to it. “I’ve loaded it with tons of books. I know you must be going out of your mind being stuck in here.”

  Elizabeth swipes her finger across the tablet, paging through the titles Baylor put on it. I watch the ease with which she uses the device. Like she’s done it a thousand times before. Yet . . . she has nothing. The girl is an enigma.

  She looks up at Baylor with sad eyes. “I appreciate this more than you know, but I can’t accept the tablet. It’s too much.”

  Baylor waves off Elizabeth’s apprehension. “Do you know how many of these things my publisher gives away? It’s considered promotional.”

  “Still, it’s too much,” Elizabeth says. “But I’d be grateful to borrow it during my stay.”

  “Of course,” Baylor says, winking at me. “Whatever you want.”

  I put my hand on Baylor’s shoulder. “Nice to see you, Baylor. I hope we can catch up later, but I have to run now and take care of some things.”

  “Sure thing, Kyle. Maybe we can grab a coffee later on my way out.”

  “Sounds good, just text me. See you later, Elizabeth.”