Deliver Me (Silver Oak Medical Center Book 1)

by Aiden Bates

  Carter wanted to see the baby as a source of joy. Every time he saw a patient's face break out in smiles at the sound of a fetal heartbeat, or at the sight of a kicking little bean on a sonogram, he had to turn away to repress his envy. None of these parents had a ticking time bomb attached to their womb. Sure, Carter had no reason to believe that he would face the same fate that Toby'd suffered, but he had no reason to believe he'd escape it either.

  What if he did escape? What if he survived? What if the baby survived? What if he actually went on and raised a beautiful little child, out in the bucolic paradise that was the Onondaga Valley?

  He shook his head at his own folly. Why not go back in time and resurrect Tobias, too?

  At least Finn had been oddly supportive. Maybe they couldn't tell anyone about the baby, or at least about Finn's relationship to the baby, but Finn made a point of checking in with him every day. He didn't seem to need anything. He just wanted to see if Carter was doing okay, or if he needed anything. It was sweet of him, and Carter hadn't thought that Finn and sweet could be spoken in the same sentence.

  He sat back on Saturday morning, after a long run and workout against the heavy bag, and called his parents. His mom answered the phone, of course. Dad only used the phone in a dire emergency. "Carter! It's delightful to hear from you, darling. How are you?"

  Carter fought back hysterical laughter, just like when he'd spoken to Allen. He couldn't be honest with his mother, not now. "I'm doing okay, Mom. You know how it is. I just missed you."

  "Is that fool of a CEO making trouble for you again?" Rhoda's tone was sharp as she spoke, and Carter knew that he should probably keep his mother and his baby's father separated for a good long while.

  "No, Mama. We're working on our differences. You know, like adults?" Then, because he apparently loved pain, he tested the issue. "I mentioned that he's an alpha, right?"

  "So what?" Rhoda snorted. "You don't have anything to do with any guys these days, unless they come into your office. You're past all of that now."

  Carter winced. "I'm thirty-three, Ma. Not dead." The image of his own face superimposed over Toby's sprang to his mind again, and he shuddered away from it.

  "I know that, baby. I do. But Carter, you know how those guys are. They only want young men, the kind who don't know any better. And they want young men who can give them lots of babies. You made the choice to focus on your career instead, and that was the right choice. You've saved so many lives, Carter, and you didn't have to risk your own. If Toby had known, before he took that chance, he would still be here with us today."

  "I know, Mom." Carter wiped tears away from his eyes. "I know. It's not always easy to be alone, but you're right. No alpha's going to want to be with someone my age if they could have someone younger."

  "It's not your fault, son." Rhoda's tone softened, and Carter could just imagine her sitting down at her kitchen table. "It's the way they were raised. You're better off. Besides, you wouldn't seriously think about getting together with someone who you thought had no soul, would you?"

  "No." Carter scoffed. He had said that Finn had no soul, hadn't he? He wasn't sure that he'd been wrong, either. Of course, he wasn't sure that he'd been right. "That's not the point, Ma. I'm just thinking that maybe the whole alpha thing is at least partly responsible for his nonsense. You know how alphas are."

  "Oh yes." Rhoda chuckled. "I do know how they are. Thank God I don't have to deal with them on a regular basis."

  "I envy you." That, at least, Carter didn't have to feign. "How's that foster kid you had, what was her name. Sarah, was it?"

  "She's doing well. Her bio parents agreed to terminate their parental rights and we're going through the process to keep her here with us. I hope you come to meet her soon, Carter. She's a delightful girl. I think you'll be proud to have her for a sister." Carter could hear the smile in his mother's voice. "She's been through some stuff, but she's coming through it and she's so kind."

  "Well then I'm glad. You and Dad deserve some good in your life." They made some small talk and exchanged some gossip about people Carter hadn't seen in over a decade, and then they hung up.

  Carter puttered around the house for a little while, doing chores that he'd let slide during the week and working in his garden. Then he put his feet up and relaxed on the back patio for a little while.

  Naturally, Finn called just as Carter settled into a comfortable position. "Is the hospital on fire?" Carter asked him.

  Finn huffed out a laugh. "No. But I'd set it on fire to make an excuse."

  Carter translated that statement in his mind. "Your folks are still there."

  "I told them I needed to go and take care of some business. Now I'm hiding in a bar on Wolf Street and I'm pretty sure that the guy at the other end of the bar wants to gut me."

  Carter considered that for a moment. "If you're dressed like you normally dress and you're on Wolf Street, he probably does. Do you need a ride?"

  "No, no. Is it all right if I come over? I, ah. I don't know where else I could go."

  Carter closed his eyes. "Yeah. Come on by." He didn't want Finn to come over. He didn't want to be reminded of his own bad decisions, and he didn't want to be reminded that he was so worthless as a partner. His hormone-enhanced libido didn't need the extra boost, either.

  Finn showed up twenty-three minutes later. He pulled several shopping bags from mall stores from the back of his Benz and waved them at Carter with a grimace. "My parents wanted to go to the mall. I happened to glance at something in that baby-related store, and that was the end of it."

  Carter cringed. "You didn't tell them?"

  Finn shuddered. "Oh God no. I told them that one of the doctors at work was expecting. My mother has baby fever in the worst way. She decided that since this was 'as close to a grandchild as I can get, I'm going to enjoy it.'" He shoved the bags at Carter. "Go on."

  Carter opened the first bag. "It's a blanket." He blinked. "It's a stack of receiving blankets."

  "Apparently babies need them or something. I don't know." Finn sat down in the other Adirondack chair and waved a hand.

  "They're good to have." Carter chuckled. "You've really never spent any time around babies before?"

  "Not even a minute, except that one you made me hold during the hostage situation." Finn stiffened. "I'm an alpha, and an only child. No one expects an alpha to spend time around kids. In fact, they discourage it."

  Carter couldn't argue with that. He'd known some alphas who were good with kids, but they were few and far between. "I guess not. Did you ever want to?"

  Finn looked off over the valley for a long moment. "I don't know. I think I was so busy with school and everything that I didn't think about it one way or another." He licked his lips. "You have to understand something, Carter. My dad came over here with twenty dollars in his pocket and a chip on his shoulder. He made himself a multi-millionaire. He always had a kind of… well, I guess a strong value for hard work and focus."

  Carter could see it. He'd met that kind of man a few times. He had a lot of admiration for them. They came with nothing, and against all odds they carved out a life for themselves that was the envy of those around them. They epitomized the American dream. "I guess I've got a little bit of that in me myself," he said after a second. "I mean, we were on food stamps, and I worked hard and got myself scholarships. And here I am." He gestured toward the valley.

  "Yeah. It's true." Finn flashed him a quick grin. "But you have outside interests. Like your kung fu stuff."

  "Muay Thai, Finn." Carter rolled his eyes. "But yeah." He'd seen the men who got obsessed, too. Sure, Carter had worked damn hard to get to where he was. He'd sacrificed, and he'd sacrificed quite a bit. The end goal hadn't ever been to get rich, though. The end goal had always been to become a damn fine obstetric surgeon and save lives.

  He didn't think that he'd want to grow up as the son of the other kind.

  Finn almost seemed to read his mind. "It wasn't a bad life, you know? I m
ean, he wasn't abusive or anything. He just encouraged me to do things that would eventually lead me to be successful. He wanted me to learn about the stock market, not baseball. He wanted me to learn about real estate, not babies." He huffed out a little laugh. "He was ecstatic when he found out that I was an alpha, because there was no way that I'd be saddled with dirty nappies."

  "I see." Carter repressed a smirk, or tried to repress a smirk. He didn't think he was all that successful. "Did he get the memo that fathers are allowed to take care of their children these days, even in Ireland?"

  Finn scoffed, an easy grin falling onto his face. "He hasn't been back to Maghera in thirty years. I think that in his head it's this static place. It never changes, and in his head people still dress the same way that they did in the 1940s when he was a little kid."

  Carter snorted. "I suppose that must be an interesting way of looking at the world." He stared out at the Valley. "My folks are adopting a foster child." He wasn't sure why he shared that with Finn. Finn wasn't going to meet his mom and dad. Finn wasn't going to meet anyone from Dyersburg. "Once I was able to get them a house, they were stable enough financially to become foster parents. They just about fell in love with this one, and they're moving to adopt her permanently."

  Finn's eyebrows knit together in obvious confusion. "Are you okay with that?"

  Carter laughed. He could understand why Finn wouldn't get that, especially not if his father had raised him with a strict eye toward profits. "Hell yeah. When Toby died, they were devastated. They've got so much love to give, Finn. Toby's dead, and I'm way the hell up here, I'm just happy that they're not alone. And with Sarah, they'll have someone else around full time, you know?" He relaxed.

  "Do you think you'll bring the baby back to meet them?" Finn turned in his seat to look right at Carter.

  Carter bit his lip. "I don't want to go making plans, you know? I don't want to jinx anything. I'm still… I mean, I don't feel like I can get my hopes up yet."

  Finn frowned and took Carter's hand. "You're in the best possible hands, Carter."

  "Allen's pretty damn good, I'll give you that."

  "I meant yours." Finn squeezed his hand. "You're the best when it comes to omega care. I think it's okay to relax a little and get your hopes up. At least to think about the baby as something that's going to happen, as opposed to something that's not real."

  Carter blushed and looked away. "It's hard, Finn."

  "So was med school, and residency. So was getting all of those scholarships. You managed. So keep managing." He grinned again, and Carter's heart melted. "You can do it."

  Carter laughed. "You make it sound so easy that I could almost believe it."

  "Awesome." Finn stood up. "I'm going to go and get a beer, unless you've gotten rid of them all."

  "No, they're still in there. Go ahead. Grab me some water while you're at it, if you wouldn't mind."

  Finn headed back into the house, and Carter was left alone in the sun again. He couldn't believe that any of this was safe, but he could believe that Finn believed. Finn's belief would be enough for both of them.

  ***

  Finn waited for his parents to go to sleep on Tuesday night. Then he grabbed his laptop, locked himself in his bedroom, and went to the greatschools.com website. He loved his big, opulent house, with all of its little touches of the days gone by. His child would be proud to bring friends home to a palace like this, wouldn't they?

  He frowned when he saw the score on the nearest elementary school. He frowned deeper when he saw the score on the local middle school, and on the high school. A quick zoom out to look at other public schools in the area told him that the local school might be the best public elementary school in the city.

  It was the best, with a rating of four.

  Finn shuddered. He started a search for private schools in the area, but there weren't many that weren't affiliated with a particular religion. He wasn't religious at all, and his parents could hardly be described as believers even if they kept trying to drag him to church in an attempt to recover their childhoods. He had no idea if Carter was religious, or what particular type of religion he might be. He wasn't going to try to press him into sending their child to Catholic school.

  What to do?

  He typed Carter's address into the search tool and lifted his eyebrows at the results. The elementary schools—hell, all of the schools—near Carter were top notch. He wouldn't have expected that, out in the country as Carter was.

  Could Finn really move out to the country? Did he want to live in an unassuming, if spacious, Cape with no visible neighbors?

  He shook his head and closed out of the browser. He was putting the cart before the horse and he knew it. Sure, he'd gotten Carter pregnant. Sure, he liked the guy. That didn't mean that they were going to move in together. They hadn't spoken about that. They hadn't even talked about the baby, or about making arrangements. They hadn't agreed on keeping or surrendering the baby.

  Finn was pretty sure that he'd made his feelings on the subject perfectly clear when he'd shown up at Carter's house with a pile of baby things, but maybe not. He'd passed them off as something his mother had gotten, but the reality was that he'd gone a little overboard.

  He put his laptop away and climbed into bed. He'd always liked king-sized beds precisely because of the space. He could spread out in them and never touch the sides. Now he found he hated it, with a passion. It felt like an island, a vast and empty piece of land on which he'd been marooned.

  He'd never minded sleeping alone before. When he felt an urge for sex, he found a willing partner and satisfied that urge. Then he went home again. He never brought them home. On the rare occasion that he spent the entire night with his partner, they went to the other guy's place. Finn had never wanted to be reminded of the partner after the fact.

  Carter had been different even before Finn found out about the baby, and he knew it. He just didn't know if he liked it. Was it possible for him to focus on his career or on his job if he was thinking of the warm arms of his omega, or of the smiling face of his child? Finn had done well for himself already, and he knew that most guys would have been content with what he'd achieved. CEO of a regionally significant hospital was a pretty decent crown to a meteoric career, no matter how one looked at it, and the fact that he'd pulled it off before forty had been amazing.

  It wasn't enough. Not for him. There was so much more that he could still do, still accomplish. So much more money to be made.

  Was it worth missing out on seeing his only child's first steps, or his child's first teeth in a wide smile at the sight of Daddy?

  He fell asleep dreaming of Carter, nestling a tiny baby in his wiry arms as they looked out over the Onondaga Valley together.

  The next morning he got up and headed into the hospital. Jerry had sent three auditors, not two. Finn had set them up in a spare office in his own suite, mostly on a hunch. He didn't have a great reason to keep the trio out of accounting, but something about the situation made him squirm. How could Robert have missed signs of embezzlement? Hadn't he looked for that as soon as they'd taken over?

  The auditors were keen folks, and had been working hard ever since day one. They'd made it clear that they were on site for a full audit, and as far as anyone but Finn was concerned their audit was routine and not related to any particular issue. They'd already found some potential waste in Housekeeping, areas that wouldn't put patient health in jeopardy but would cut down on costs significantly.

  Finn knew, because he'd run it by Carter.

  The audit team lead, Johnston, frowned at that. "You have a Chief Medical Officer. Shouldn't he be the one making the determination about patient care?"

  Finn smirked at that. "Absolutely. The thing is, Dr. Wilkins didn't catch some things that Dr. Idoni did. When I brushed Dr. Idoni off, we got hit with a very expensive lawsuit that was entirely deserved. I think it's best to consider information that comes in from all sources, don't you?"

  Johnston n
odded once, conceding Finn's point. "I can't argue with that. Maybe it's not a bad idea to start up a hospital-wide patient care review team. Doctors will feel that they have more input into administrative decisions that could impact patient care, and they'll be able to limit our exposure to risk in that way. You could ask Dr. Idoni to chair it. That would be good for his career."

  Finn had to think about that one. There was part of him that hated the idea of giving up that much control, but he had to admit that the idea had merit. "As an advisory panel? I think that sounds good, actually. I'll talk to him about that later. I don't think you'll find a doctor with less ambition, in that way, than Dr. Idoni. You won't find one with more passion for his patients, either. Have you made any progress on the embezzling?"

  The other auditor, Wyszniewski, rolled her neck to crack it. "We've made some. We've managed to prove that it's happening. What we need to do now is prove who, and how much."