Deliver Me (Silver Oak Medical Center Book 1)

by Aiden Bates

  "Not too bad, actually. We've had a drama-free week, although I suspect it just seems like it because no one else has the balls to bring patient-related crises to me." Finn squinted at him. "You do know you're not in Texas anymore, right?"

  "I'm aware." Carter wrinkled his nose. "You get that it's still in the eighties in San Antonio, right?"

  "So you understand that you don't need the cowboy hat? I mean, no one's going to come around and check your credentials, you can take it off and no one's going to throw you in jail or anything." The corners of Finn's mouth turned down.

  Carter grinned. "I like my new hat. And someone dressed like a bad night at Studio 54 does not get to criticize my cowboy hat."

  "This is a bona fide Armani suit!" Finn squawked, pressing his hands to his chest. "I paid a small fortune for this suit! Or at least I would have if I hadn't gotten a great deal on it."

  "It'll look great with the cowboy hat I shipped to you this morning." Carter snickered. "To your house, don't worry. Our secret is still safe." He winked.

  "I'm not worried." Finn rolled his eyes. "Hey, look, that's McCloskey's flight."

  Carter repressed a sigh and adopted a more professional demeanor. The last thing that Finn would want would be for his boss to get any hint of the notion that he was sleeping with an employee. He kept the hat on, though. McCloskey should know what he was getting.

  Bill McCloskey deplaned a few minutes later, dressed in a suit and looking ready for battle. Carter didn't think that he'd ever seen an executive who looked so much like a warrior before. His hair was gray and a little longer than most CEOs would wear it, and his neatly trimmed beard matched it. His jacket had a hard time containing his powerful muscles, and his eyes were as gray as slate and about as forgiving. "Finn," he greeted, with a smile and a little hug. "Thanks for picking me up. You didn't need to do that."

  "Well, sir, I wanted to. And Dr. Idoni was coming back from a conference in San Antonio at about the same time as your flight, so I figured I might as well take care of both of you." Finn gestured to Carter, who stepped forward.

  "Ah yes, Dr. Idoni. I hear you're quite the celebrity in obstetrics circles. I read your article on co-morbidity of opioid addiction and high rates of birth complications in urban populations. I think I understood about a quarter of it, but what I understood was good stuff." McCloskey shook Carter's hand with a strong grip.

  Carter's smile turned more genuine. "Thank you, sir. I'm glad to hear it. You know, Syracuse is a great place to be, and a great place to live and work, but we do have high poverty rates in both our urban and rural service areas. We're seeing the effects of that poverty cycle across multiple generations now." He followed Finn's lead as the alpha led both of the travelers out toward the parking garage.

  "And that's related to the opioid crisis?"

  "Well, the opioid crisis strikes across social classes, but yes." Carter explained, in educated layman's terms, what he'd seen in his own delivery room as they made their way to Finn's Benz. "I did use data from other cities, with other population mixes, and these findings are pretty consistent. Cities with a stronger and less punitive anti-drug program seem to have a lower rate of birth complications in low-income populations." He shrugged.

  "That's fascinating. Did you speak about that when you were in San Antonio?" McCloskey gave Carter all of his attention. Carter felt a little bit like a bug under a microscope.

  Finn drove them to McCloskey's hotel first, to let him settle in after his long flight. McCloskey continued to pepper Carter with questions all the way there, and said that he looked forward to seeing him again later on that day before getting out to go check in and rest.

  Then Finn drove out to Carter's house, where Carter could change and wash up a little before he had to go into the hospital. "I hadn't planned to go in today," he said. "I mean, what's the point for a couple of hours?" He closed his eyes and rested his head against the seat.

  "I think it's going to be a long day for him and me." Finn grimaced. "There are a few things that I'm going to want to talk to him about. I'm glad you're home though, cowboy hat and all."

  They didn't have a lot of time to fool around at the house, just to kiss a little. Then Finn had to leave, or else McCloskey would have recognized that something was wrong and there would have been hell to pay.

  Carter washed up and stretched a little. Then he got dressed and headed back to Silver Oak, in his own vehicle.

  He had gifts for everyone, of course. Most of the gifts were small, because he only had so much room in his luggage. Drinkers got variations on shot glasses, with the Alamo, armadillos, or the "Don't Mess With Texas" theme. Non-drinkers got picture frames in a similar vein.

  He got more substantial gifts for his nearest and dearest, of course. They had a tradition of giving absurd souvenirs when they went on trips of any sort, and Carter wasn't about to be the one to let the tradition drop. He brought Allen a wooden bobble-headed armadillo. Rick Wade got a vase shaped like a pair of pink cowboy boots, which made him burst out laughing on sight. Vic Rinaldi got a wooden bowl shaped like a cowboy hat. Huntington, who was newer to the group and probably should have been warned, got a scale model of the Alamo.

  Once that was done, Carter sat back and tried to settle back into the rhythm of Silver Oak. It wasn't easy. Sibley had gone and put thoughts into his head, thoughts that Carter didn't need to be having.

  Did the world really need for Carter to teach? Would it be worth taking time away from direct patient care—not much time, to be sure, but the principal remained—in order to offer instruction about omega care to a greater audience? Was he really good enough to teach?

  He shook his head at his own false modesty. He was certainly good enough to teach. He was good at what he did. He was one of the best at what he did, but that might well be because there weren't very many people doing it. Sure, he worked on women too, and he was pretty good at it. When it came to omegas, there wasn't anyone better.

  Maybe it would be best to share what he did in that way, so that more lives could be saved. He might be able to structure his day so that he didn't have to let anything else slide. Even teaching one class per day would only add a little bit to his schedule, and it wasn't like he had anything else going on.

  Sibley had tried to be delicate about that too. Maybe it's time for a change of scenery. You never know. Carter tried not to scoff at that. Sibley was still single, and still child-free. He didn't seem to mind, and he'd never seemed to want for companionship when Carter was in medical school. Maybe he liked the life.

  Maybe it would be best to get out of Syracuse. Maybe warm Texas weather would put him in the way of some alphas who, if not in the mind to settle down, would at least have a relationship with him. A real relationship, not sneaking around in the background and such.

  Who was he kidding? He didn't want some Texan alpha. He could have had that if he wanted it. There had been that endocrinologist from Austin, who smelled like ferns. They'd shared a drink during the Cocktail Mixer, and Carter wouldn't have minded going there, but he couldn't stop thinking about the guy at home and the superiority of leather to ferns.

  There had been the urologist from Amarillo, too. Oh, he'd been divine, and he smelled just like coconut. Carter would have been perfectly happy to have him bring breakfast in bed sometime, but before the opportunity could come up he'd ensured he was never alone with the man. He and Finn didn't have any kind of agreement to be monogamous, but he didn't want to feel like he'd betrayed Finn, which was stupid.

  He didn't owe Finn anything.

  He didn't owe Finn, but he wanted Finn. He wanted Finn, and maybe it would be in his best interests to go and move someplace else and break himself of wanting men like him. Sure, Finn was doing things like picking him up at the airport. He was doing it because it was convenient, because he was going to be here to pick up his boss.

  Carter stood up and walked over to his window. Finn had said that the auditors had figured out what was going on, and that it
wasn't going to be pretty. He should probably go and be supportive. Finn had told him that he couldn't make it better, but he could at least let Finn know that he didn't have to shoulder everything alone.

  Finn might not welcome that from Carter. They weren't lovers. They weren't friends. They were just people who occasionally had sex. Finn didn't seem to have a lot of friends, or at least not close friends, as far as Carter could tell. Well, Finn didn't have to appreciate it. Carter wasn't doing this to get a ring out of Finn. He wasn't doing anything to get a ring out of Finn. He was just doing this to help out someone who was in his life, if in an undefined way.

  He texted Finn. You okay?

  Finn took a long two minutes to reply. You want to come up here maybe? I could use the support.

  Well that wasn't ominous or anything. Carter grabbed his lab coat and headed up to the executive suite. He didn't have any appointments to reschedule, since he wasn't supposed to be there today. Small mercies, he said to himself.

  Once he got upstairs, he found Finn with the auditors, McCloskey, two men in bad suits who had badges, and two uniformed Syracuse police officers. Carter froze. Had he been framed for something?

  McCloskey frowned at Finn. "Is it really necessary to have a physician present, however much of a superstar he is?"

  Carter snorted at the thought of himself as a superstar. Finn just looked at McCloskey. "I've known Gerig for years. I trusted him. If we're going to do this, I'm going to take all of the moral support I can. Besides," he said, with a little grin, "Dr. Idoni can keep me from knocking Gerig's teeth out, which will be a genuine temptation."

  McCloskey glanced over at Carter for a long moment, and then he shrugged. "I guess he might as well. Come on. Let's get this all over with." He led the way out of the executive offices.

  Carter fell into step beside Finn. The cops and auditors fell in behind them. Carter could feel the eyes of the admins and lower-level administrators on the little team as they marched away down the hallway, toward the Finance and Accounting offices.

  Carter's palms broke out in a sweat as he walked. He didn't know why he should be nervous. It wasn't his proverbial head on the block. Finn felt bad about this, though, and that was enough for him right now.

  ***

  Finn walked beside Carter as they marched toward Accounting. He couldn't hold Carter's hand. That would be too obvious. Even if Finn wanted to come clean about their relationship, and he didn't, this wasn't the time or place to do it. Bill was already in a bad mood, thanks to the fact that he was about to fire a long time employee and have him arrested. He wasn't going to be open to the idea of Finn doing something sketchy with an employee.

  But Finn wanted that comfort. Right now, he had to make do with the warmth of Carter's body as it moved by his side. He would have to content himself with the fact that Carter had chosen to be there, beside Finn.

  They walked into the department's office. Finn knew that he drew their eyes, and their fear, no matter what. Now he heard their startled gasps and he knew that their fear had merit. Their fear had a lot of merit. He'd come to sack their boss.

  Most of them hadn't worked for Gerig for very long. Would they mourn? Would they curse Finn for a tyrant? Before, he'd never cared. Today, he did. Maybe that was just the effect that Carter had on him. Maybe it was just because Gerig was almost a friend. Finn couldn't look at them. None of them would look up. Maybe it was the presence of policemen in their midst that had the accountants so tense and unhappy; accountants always knew that cops were a bad sign.

  McCloskey didn't knock on Gerig's door. He just barged right into the room. "Hi there, Robert. It's been a while."

  Gerig, damn the man, didn't even flinch. He just looked up at Bill with an expression of wide-eyed innocence smeared onto his face. "Good to see you, Bill. What brings you by?"

  Bill kicked out and dragged a chair over to himself with his ankle. "Seems there've been some exciting accounting irregularities, Robert. I'm surprised you didn't catch them."

  Gerig's mouth opened into a round, perfect O. "I have trouble believing that, Bill. I mean we've only been here since April, and we're still trying to get the data from the legacy system married to the new one. The entire accounting system's been locked down for days, for example. We haven't been able to do anything."

  "Oh, I know it's been locked down. You knew about the audit, Robert." Bill folded his hands together. "Did you really think they wouldn't figure you out?"

  "There's nothing to figure out." Gerig still didn't bite. He spread his hands wide. "I don't know what they think they found, but I'm telling you, there's no funny business going on here."

  "I think that the police department begs to differ." Bill stared at Gerig for a long moment, and no one in the room dared to breathe. "Here's what I don't get. You've been with Regent for a long time. You make a ton of money, so you can't come and cry poverty. You can't say you were worried about job security, because you would have to do a hell of a lot to get sacked after so long. Something like, oh, embezzle from the firm."

  "I didn't embezzle anything." Gerig put his hands on the table. "I didn't." He turned to Finn. "Tell them, Riley. Tell them I haven't done a damn thing. I've been a damn good partner to you."

  Finn sighed and looked away. "You've been helpful with some of the plans for internships." He met Gerig's eyes, and even though his stomach lurched he kept his countenance cold and his tone icy. He could still play the Iceman, even if he couldn't be icy as he wanted to be. "I can't ignore the evidence. It's right there."

  Bill stood up so suddenly everyone but Carter jumped. "You see, Robert," he said, slamming his knuckles into Gerig's desk and leaning forward, "that little glitch with the payroll system, that you tried to pretend was nothing to worry about, got you caught. It surprised Finn that you didn't catch it, since it impacted payroll and that's pretty important. That's why we got the auditors. They tracked you down, and it took some work. They showed Finn, he showed me, we showed the cops, and now—well. You're going to jail. You're going on trial. Your name's going to be in all of the papers, you'll never be allowed to work so much as a cashiering job again and all the money you stole? You'll have to repay. So you're screwed six ways from Sunday here. You might as well tell us what the hell you were thinking."

  Gerig looked down. Finn thought he was going to ask for a lawyer. Finn would have picked up the phone and called his lawyer right then and there. Apparently Gerig just wasn't that smart, though. "You know what?" He looked up and met Bill's eyes. "I went out for the CEO job here. It should've been mine. I've put in my time. Decades, I've put in, but instead you gave it to this… this child. I went out for the CEO job before that. And I went out for the CEO job before that. And the one before that, and so on.

  "Nothing. I got nothing. But when Finn Freaking Riley got the job over me, the first time he went out for it? No. I just… I couldn't. And I had to sit here and watch him with a property like this, that should have been mine? I would never have made the mistakes he had!" Gerig snarled at Finn, red in the face. "I wouldn't have needed a team of babysitters from Regent either!

  "But no. You looked over me again for the bright shiny little piece of whatever he's supposed to be. So yeah. I made sure it was his property I was stealing from, too. I wanted to make sure it failed. I wanted to make sure he failed. It was untraceable." Gerig sneered at Finn, hatred on display for all the world to see. "You'll never prove anything."

  "Except for the part where you just confessed it, dumbass," Carter snorted.

  Finn's whole body had been preparing to strike Gerig, and Gerig wouldn't have walked away. Instead, his jaw dropped as all of the tension drained from his body. That was Carter. He always knew exactly what to say and what to do.

  "The hell you say. They can't use that in court. They hadn't read me my rights yet." Gerig stood up, throwing his hands into the air.

  "They hadn't arrested you yet." Carter rolled his eyes. "They didn't ask you the question. Your boss did. I mean, it was s
till dumb to answer, but you're still screwed."

  "It's true." One of the detectives motioned for the uniforms to take Gerig into custody. "Of course, now you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything that you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning."

  "It's a little late for that, don't you think?" Gerig shrieked, as he was cuffed. "Do you have to march me out of my own office in cuffs?"

  "As a matter of fact, I think they do." Finn fixed Gerig with his best steely gaze and waited for the police to leave. Then he slumped.

  "Fun times." Bill looked downright gray. "Let's never do that again."

  Johnston nodded. "I'll include a list of recommendations in my audit report."

  Carter stuffed his hands in his pockets and flicked his pink tongue over his lips. "So." He paused for a long moment. "I'm not an executive type. I don't know how you executive types respond to situations like this. I can see that this was a deeply traumatic situation for all of you. I don't even know the guy and I found a lot of that hard to hear."