by Oakes, Tara
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I dress in my scrubs for formality’s sake. My procedure is scheduled for early enough in the morning, that it coincides with what time I would normally leave the house for work. Clink is sprawled out, bare ass up with the sheets sprawled around him. The tattoos on his back expanding and contracting with each shallow, sleeping breath. I trail my finger over the ink, the moniker for the club that brought me to him.
He stirs, “Sugar, you leaving?”
I take a deep breath,“Yeah. I’ll text you later. I’ll be bouncing around today, covering a bunch of floors, so don’t try to find me if you visit Vince. I’ll be stuck for at least two shifts, so….”
I hate lying to him. I hate knowing that the last words we share before things change are lies.
“I got it covered, babe. I’ll take care of the kid,” he mumbles half-awake into his pillow.
I nod in the pre-dawn darkened room. Tears begin to flow down my cheek. I bend to kiss him. His dry lips are weak, but sincere. “I know you will,” I tell him. “I love you, Clink.”
“I love you, too, Sugar.”
I turn to leave as the tears begin to fall freely. I open Brendan’s door to see him sleeping in the exact same position as his daddy. Back up, sheets strewn about, little cheeks puffing as he breathes. The room is still dark enough where the night light is helpful. I place a kiss on top of his sleeping head.
“I love you, kiddo.”
I hurry to leave the room before my sobs wake him. I leave my house key on the wall hook by the door and close it behind me.
******
CLINK
“What do you mean, she’s not scheduled today?” the shift nurse in front of me looks scared. “She left for work this morning.”
She searches the schedule once more, “No…I’m sorry, she’s not working for the next week.”
What the fuck?
“I want to speak to your supervisor.” Now the girl looks terrified.
“She…sh-”
“Is there a problem here?” An elderly woman in matching uniform joins us, taking the shaking clipboard from the younger woman’s hands.
Maybe this woman can actually be of some use. “I’m looking for my woman. She’s a nurse here. She’s working today.”
The nurse looks confused. “I know who you are. I’ve seen you with Charlie. But, why are you down here? She’s still in the O.R. You should be waiting in the family area up there.”
Finally, someone knows where she is.
I nod to her, “Thank you for your help. You should teach that young one over there learn to read a schedule.”
The woman squints her eyes, as if I’ve just spoken a foreign language. Normally, I don’t go bothering Sugar at work, but she’s not answering her phone. Lil’s started to go into labor right here, right in Vince’s room, and she’s been asking for her friend. It’s not like Charlie to ignore so many calls. But, if she’s assisting in the O.R. today, I can understand why. No cell phones.
I follow the wall signs up to the fourth floor where the general operating waiting rooms are. Since when does Sugar work there?
The large room is sparsely filled with people trying to busy themselves. One woman sits in the corner knitting a blanket, another reads a magazine. Several men have their eyes glued to the muted television with news playing silently on it.
There is a nurses window at the far end of the room. I stand it at for a moment before one of the ladies working behind his takes notice.
“Yes, can I help you?” she nonchalantly asks.
“‘I’m looking for nurse Griffith. I was told she’s working here today?” I make my request.
The woman looks at me and furrows her brow. What is it with people looking at me like that today?
“I’m sorry? Nurse Griffith? We don’t have a nurse Griffith on this floor.” she informs me.
I’m starting to get pissed! “Nurse Charlie Griffith. Charlize Griffith!”
Her eyes slant, I can tell she’s a bitch and doesn’t like my tone but I don’t really give a shit.
“Are you a relative?” she asks coldly.
I nod, “I’m her ol’man.”
She smiles bitchily. “I’m sorry? Ol’man? What is that exactly? Are you her father?”
I grit my teeth. This bitch is playing with me. “I’m her boyfriend. Is that easier to understand?”
She mockingly shakes her head. “I’m sorry. We don’t give out patient information to non-relatives.”
I slam my hand down on the ledge. “She’s not a goddamned patient! She’s a nurse!”
“Brian?”
I turn fast and hard to the person who spoke my name.
What the ever-loving fuck is she doing here?
“Dana?”
Something’s not right. Something’s downright wrong, I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. I see her eying the patches on my cut with curiosity. There’s something hidden behind her eyes.
“Tell me what’s going on. Now,” I demand.
******
The wires going into and out of her body scare the shit out of me. The machines around her, scare me even more. But what scares me the most, watching her sleeping, is knowing that she was able to fool me into believing that she could never do what she’s done.
What am I supposed to feel right now? I want to shake her so hard that she’ll wake up so I can scream and fucking yell at her for everything she’s done. I want to thank God that she’s all right and hold her and tell her she’s gonna be OK. I want to go back in time to the day she stepped into the yard, looking for her car, and tell her to go fuck herself and take off. But what’s sick is, I want to go back to the moment I told her I loved her and stay there forever.
She’s a liar.
She came here to ruin someone. And…she did. She’s fucking ruined me.
Everything she said, everything she did. All a part of her game. None of it was real. I’ve done some pretty fucked-up shit in my time. But I never would have believed that someone was capable of this. It’s evil. It’s….
I can’t. I can’t go there. It’s done. I’m done.
“Clink?”
I’ve had my head in my hands and didn’t even see her start to wake. She moves. Her face winces in pain and I just want to grab out to her and hold her to help her through it.
But I don’t.
I don’t answer her. I just stare. She closes her eyes, and tears begin to roll softly down her cheeks. I can see her throat clenching and spasming from the quiet sobs. We don’t speak. I just watch her cry.
“Please…” she begs, not able to look at me.
I don’t respond. I give her nothing.
“Please…” she asks again.
“I’m leaving,” I let her know. Her eyes clench tighter. “I’m taking Brendan, and we’re gonna get out of town for a while. You’ll have plenty of help while you recover. Everybody knows. They’d be here right now, except Lil’s is having the baby…so….”
She opens her eyes to finally look at me, “Lil’s is having the baby? Right now?”
I can’t do this. I can’t have a conversation with her. “Charlie….”
She shakes her head, “Don’t call me that. I’m still- I’m still your Sugar.”
Anger swells in me and I laugh to myself. I shake my head. I want to hurt her just as much as she’s hurt me.
“You were never my Sugar. There’s nothing sweet about you, Charlie. You’re fucking bitter. You’re bittersweet.”
I leave her. I have to. I don’t trust myself. If I stay a moment longer, I know I’m gonna cave and throw myself to her, begging her to tell me that it wasn’t all a lie.
I hear her sobbing and crying openly as I make my distance from her curtained corner in the recovery room. I bite my lip hard to hold myself together. I taste the blood.
Dana is waiting in the family area for me to take my leave so she can take my place at her sister’s side. Good. I’m glad she’s here. I’m glad Suga-I’m
glad Charlie won’t be alone.
Dana passes me and disappears through the swinging door. I stop at the nurse’s window, glad to see someone other than Nurse Bitch-face from earlier. I borrow a pen and paper, scribbling my phone number down.
On my way out, I spot an orderly, cleaning an area on the floor.
“Hey,” I call to him as I approach. I reach in my back pocket and grab a handful of hundred dollar bills. “You looking for a little side job?”
He eyes the bills in my hand before nodding, carefully looking around us to see if there are any witnesses.
“Good. There’s a patient in the recovery room. Names Charlize Griffith. You text me updates every hour on the hour until she’s left. We clear?”
He nods and takes the cash, concealing it in his pocket.
I throw my shades on, continue on my course to leave the hospital, get out of here. I’ve already stopped to see Vince and Jean, said my goodbyes. I even got to see Jay’s new kid. If I thought I was surprised, holy shit was Vince surprised. Dana spoke to him for a while to clear things up.
I know she won’t be alone.
She doesn’t deserve my concern. She’s never thought about anybody but herself, but I needed to know that she wouldn’t be alone. She has them now.
And me…I just need to get the fuck out of town.
PROLOGUE
CHARLIE
THE NEXT DAY
“You can’t keep refusing them, Charlie. They just keep coming back. They want to see you,” Dana argues.
I shake my head. “I’m not ready to see them, Dana. I can’t…”
She looks exasperated. I’m waiting on the discharge nurse to stop by so I can get the hell out of here. Jean and Jay have stopped by at least a half dozen times each asking to be let in to see me. Each time, I turned them away. Vince is in surgery, receiving the donation I’d given yesterday.
Lil’s is still down in maternity, recovering from her c-section from yesterday.
And Clink…Clink is gone.
“All righty, Charlie,” the nurse finally returns with the papers. “You know the drill. Wheelchair just for precaution, my dear.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I don’t make an argument about sitting in the vinyl seated chair. It’s policy. Even though it sucks.
Dana gathers my things and places them on my lap, before kicking up the break and beginning to wheel me forward.
The elevator empties as people see an approaching wheelchair and I shy my eyes to the side to avoid their looks of pity.
“Dana, please just get me out of here,” I beg my sister.
She backs me into the elevator and presses the number 2 button before the door begins to close.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
She exhales, “Something that needs to be done.”
I move to raise myself from the chair. I’m not doing this.
“Sit your ass down, sis.” She is firm in pushing back down on my shoulder. “Nobody’s there. Vince just got out of surgery. Everyone’s gone to see him. She’s alone. I checked.”
I bite my tongue. The elevator has a couple of other occupants and I’m not in any rush to make a scene.
“I won’t do it,” I whisper to her.
She laughs. “Yes, you will. Because you know you will never forgive yourself if you don’t.”
The elevator door dings open and she supplies the momentum necessary to push us forward. I’ve worked the maternity ward often enough to know which way she’s leading. The door is open, warm sunlight filling the room. Lil’s is in the far bed by the window. Dana parks the chair close enough, where I can see the white blanketed bundle in Lil’s arms.
“I’ll just leave you two for a bit,” Dana retreats and Lil’s nods her thanks.
She sets her eyes on me, her arms bouncing the swaddled baby in her arms. She looks beautiful. Radiant.
“So…did they leave you crippled?” she eyes the wheelchair.
I exhale. “No,” I stand and leave the chair behind. “Just a precaution. Lil’s I….”
She waves me off. “You came to meet your niece.”
My eyes widen. “My niece? It’s a girl?” I move to close the distance between us, to get a better look. Lil’s angles the baby so I can see through the excess material folded around her. Her tiny little eyelids are closed, fluttering. Her perfect miniature nose twitches and her plump cheeks are rosy pink.
She’s…perfect.
I look up to her momma. “She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”
Lil’s frees her hand from supporting the baby to wipe a small tear from her eye.
“Charlize. Her name is Charlize.”
My heart stops. My mouth drops. I stare at her.
“I named her after her aunt,” she tells me.
I look again at the baby, and just now take notice of the little beanie hat, embroidered with the letters of my name.
“But-but why?”
Another tear rolls down her cheek.“I told you I would just know. When the right name came, I would just know.” She swallows. “I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done, Charlie.”
What? I stare at her again. What is she talking about.
“When your sister and Clink came to tell us…I can’t tell you the relief we had. Jay- he…” she looks away to collect herself. “You have no idea what you’ve done for him, Charlie.”
I shake my head, “I didn’t do anything. But…I’m glad your family will be OK.
She looks at me, confused. “My family? Our family. We didn’t know about you, Charlie. I swear. Nobody knew about you.”
I shake my head. She may want to believe that, but I know the truth. I know what Vince did.
“Look at me, Charlie,” she demands. “Nobody knew. When Clink told your dad-”
I interrupt her, “Please don’t call him that.”
She pauses, but nods. “When Clink told Vince, he- he pulled out his IV and rammed through three orderlies to try to get to the elevator to go see you before they stopped him. He neverknew, Charlie. He didn’t want to go into surgery this morning because he didn’t want to risk not seeing you again, if….”
The little baby begins to stir in her arms. Lil’s readjusts her and sets her in close to nurse.
“He looked each one of us in the eye and swore on anything that’s ever mattered to him, he never knew.” She searches my face. “You don’t need to believe me right now. You’ll see for yourself. All you need to know right now, is you are family. You’re one of us. We need you.” Her eyes dart down to the suckling baby in her arms. “She needs you. And whether you want to admit it…you need us, too.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK 5
OF THE KINGSMEN MC SERIES
BITTER SWEET CRAVINGS
SUMMER 2015
Please enjoy this sample from
BABY V
Book one in the Chianti Kisses series
bu Tara Oakes
PROLOGUE
The definition of an arranged marriage:
Marriages in which family members take a significant role in bringing a couple together. Relatives, particularly parents, often take the initiative to find, evaluate, and approve potential spouses for their children.
CHAPTER ONE
The church bells finally finish chiming but I can still feel their metallic vibrations course through me. At least I will never have to hear those god awful bells again. Ever. Four years of listening to the slightly off-beat tolls have been enough to drive me to loathe them on more than one occasion. In the beginning, they were charming... that lasted all of a week. Soon after, I could sense the daily noon ringing like a well-tuned internal alarm clock, as it usually meant that I was late for class. If I was really lucky, it meant only that my rare, but desperately needed afternoon nap was about to be interrupted. I know I’m not alone in my lack of affection for the old bells, because whenever anyone refers to them... it’s always as the “damn bells.”
I look around at all of the other girls
lined up with me and wonder if any of them are thinking the same thing about that last ringing. It was just another one of those “last” memories we would all share before graduation. Our last exam, last night in our out-dated but charming dorm rooms, last assembly-line styled breakfast, and our last days as students at St. Bart's. Until today, we had all been heading down the same path. In about two hours, we would splinter away into a hundred or so different ones.
“Well, do I?”
I snap out of my daze with a confused “Hmm?” to my right.
“V... do I look like I have too much lipstick on? I want to be able to see my lips in the pictures, but not to look like a cheap pin up doll. Christy says I have too much on. I don't think I have too much on. Do I really have too much on?”
And this is the last time I would have to listen to Katherine Lang ask me one of her mind numbing questions.
“No. It’s not too much. The photographers are like ten feet away from the stage and I don't think they're taking close up shots.” I really have no idea what kind of photos they were going to take, but I probably wouldn't have worn as much of the pale pink lip lacquer that the petite blond slathered on herself.
Thanks to the inescapable alphabetizing of last names, I have had to endure random questions like this for the last four years. I look down the line of endless burgundy gowns toward the coveted“T” section of the group with envy. Stephanie catches my eye, giving me an overly enthusiastic and sarcastic thumbs up.
I would give anything to change my name right now. Nothing too crazy... something generic like Tate or Thatcher will do. But nooo. I'm a Lombardi and stuck with the“L”s for just under two more hours. I hope.
I don't think this can last longer than that. Father Cross is known to give a long-winded Sunday morning sermon but even he wouldn't want to stand out here in the blazing sun any longer than he has to.
Before I can finish rationalizing the merits against a drawn out graduation day, the familiar orchestrated beginning of“Pomp and Circumstance” begins to play loudly. Taking a deep breath, I follow Katherine's lead toward the stairs of the newly erected stage. As I grab hold of the bannister, I stand tall on my toes to try and see out into the crowd.
