As soon as she confirmed someone would be up in a few minutes, he hurried back to the bathroom, hoping Jessie hadn’t taken the opportunity of his absence to escape and disappear until it was time to go home.
After the initial shock of finding out he was the father of a pre-teen girl, Lewis had actually gotten kind of excited at the prospect of sharing the city he loved with his daughter, taking her on bike rides in Central Park and to museums and shows, the ballet and opera, of immersing her in culture and introducing her to new experiences, teaching and nurturing her, and guiding her into adulthood.
At least until he’d met her.
Lewis rounded the corner and stopped short at the sight of Jessie standing in the hallway, facing away from him, talking to a brown-haired female hospital employee he didn’t recognize. But she wore light blue hospital scrubs covered by a short white lab coat typically worn by staff in management or supervisory positions.
“Now he won’t make me go to stupid Lake George,” Jessie said. “I’m too bad. His parents won’t be able to handle me.”
Rage like he’d never before experienced forced him forward. “That’s why you broke the law?” he bellowed as he stormed toward Jessie. “That’s why you risked getting arrested and going in front of a judge and having to do hours of community service or some other punishment? To get out of a fun Memorial Day weekend trip with your grandparents and cousins? Of all the stupid—”
Jessie crossed her arms, locked her left leg, and jutted out her left hip, taking on her defiant pose. “I told you I don’t want to go.”
“Well I’ve got news for you, young lady. My mind is made up and my decision is final. You are going to Lake George.” In eleven days. Because Lewis needed a break and sex and a few days to re-visit his old, relaxed, likable self, to clear his head and come up with a new approach to handling his daughter, calmly and rationally.
“He wants to get rid of me.” Jessie threw herself at the stranger who barely managed to get her arms up in time to catch her.
Not permanently. Just for a brief respite. “I—”
“He doesn’t want me,” she cried. “He never wanted me. My mom told me so. Now that she’s gone I have no one.”
Lewis’s chest tightened at the devastation in her voice. No, children were not part of his life plan. But since the paternity test had proved Jessie to be his biological daughter, even though she’d gotten her pretty face and unpleasant temperament from her mother, he was determined to do the best job he could raising her. A task that’d turned out to be much more difficult than he’d ever imagined.
“Jessie—” He reached for her, wanting to be the one to hold her and comfort her.
But Jessie held up her hand as she sucked in a few choppy breaths and cried out,
“He says I have to stay there. No matter what. And I can’t come home early.”
“Because I have to work,” Lewis lied. But it sounded better than, “Because I need some time away from you to regain my sanity.”
“You work all the time,” she accused, scowling at him over the stranger’s shoulder.
“And why should it matter if I do?” Lewis shot back. “It’s not like I can get you to go anywhere or do anything with me when I’m not working.”
“See how he talks to me?” Jessie said. “He hates me.”
“You’re laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?” the woman asked, peeling Jessie’s arms off of her and stepping away, giving Lewis his first view of her name tag. Scarlet Miller, RN, BSN, MSN, CCRN. Head Nurse NICU.
“I’m totally serious,” Jessie said, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “He told me so.” She glared at him. “In the taxi on the way here.”
Scarlet turned her assessing gaze on him. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “And all this time I’ve been telling Jessie you couldn’t possibly be as big a jerk as she was making you out to be. I stand corrected.”
Her keen blue eyes locked with his in challenge. Her face—an attractive mix of natural beauty and intelligence—in full view for the first time, Lewis lost track of the conversation for a few seconds, moving his focus to her chocolate brown hair and pleasingly trim figure. Her confident stance as she berated him. Her statement of “all this time” registered bringing him full circle to wonder why a professional adult female, who looked to be closer to his age than his daughter’s, would befriend a little girl.
“If he makes me go I’ll run away,” Jessie said to Scarlet as if Lewis wasn’t standing right there.
“No you won’t,” Scarlet said firmly.
Good. Another adult on his side.
“You did,” Jessie accused.
What kind of nut job shared that information with a confused little girl?
“Did you not listen when I told you what a dangerous and stupid move it was?” She took Jessie by the shoulders and turned her. “Look at me, Jess.”
Jess. So familiar. So caring.
The vulnerable expression on his daughter’s face as she obeyed, gave him his first opportunity to see beneath her tough-teen anger and defiance to the scared little girl she’d hidden away so effectively, from him, but not this stranger. Why?
“You have what I didn’t. You have me.” The woman dug into the pocket of her lab coat, pulled out a business card, and wrote something on the back. Then she held it out to Jessie. “On the front is my work number and on the back is my cell phone number. You can call me anytime for any reason. I didn’t offer earlier because I didn’t want to interfere between you and your dad.”
As it should be.
“You are not all alone, Jess. You have your father and you have me.” Scarlet glanced at him before continuing. “And if, while you’re on vacation, someone tries to make you do something you don’t want to do or in any way makes you feel uncomfortable and your dad won’t come up to bring you home, I promise I will.”
Oh no she would not. “My daughter will be driven to and from Lake George by her grandparents. And she doesn’t need your telephone numbers because if she needs to talk to someone anytime for any reason, she can talk to me.” Lewis grabbed for the card.
Jessie thrust it behind her back.
“This entire situation is getting out of hand, Jess,” Scarlet said. “You need to tell him.”
Lewis stopped and looked at her. “Tell me what?”
“What’s said between us stays between us,” Jessie yelled at Scarlet. “You promised.”
“That was before you got yourself picked up by the police and threatened to run away.”
“You mean you know—?” Lewis started only to be cut off when an urgent voice came through the overhead speakers. “Scarlet Miller to the emergency room. Stat. Scarlet Miller to the emergency room.”
“Saved by the hospital operator,” Scarlet said with a wink to Jessie. “Talk to your father,” she added before turning her back on him and walking away.
CHAPTER TWO
SCARLET JOGGED THE short distance to the large nurses’ station in the center of the busy emergency room. “I’m Scarlet Miller,” she said to the Scarlett she’d given the flowers to a few minutes earlier. Dr. Jackson and Jessie came to stand beside her.
“They need you in trauma room three,” a nurse replied. “Pregnant teen. Walked in alone already crowning. No identification. No prenatal care. Unsure of gestation but estimated to be around thirty-three weeks. Dr. Gibbons called for a NICU team.”
“And my staff must have been called into the high risk multiple birth scheduled for this afternoon.” Triplets, one in distress, being delivered by Cesarean section at twenty-nine weeks. Scarlet removed her lab coat and handed it to Jessie. “Looks like I’m it. Please call the NICU and speak with Ashley,” she directed the unit clerk. “Tell her I’m here and to alert Dr. Donaldson and Mac from Respiratory Therapy that I’ll have them paged if I need them. And ask her to send down an incubator.”
“What can I do to help?” Dr. Jackson asked.
“Would you please have someone turn o
n the warming table and get me a disposable gown, gloves, and heated towels?”
“Done.” He turned to Jessie. “Wait for me in my office. Do. Not. Go. Anywhere.”
Scarlet entered the room and introduced herself to the staff, “I’m Scarlet from the NICU.”
A young girl with short black hair maybe fifteen or sixteen years old lay on a stretcher. Two nurses held her bare pale legs bent and open. An older heavyset doctor stood between them.
The girl cried out, “It hurts.”
Scarlet quickly washed her hands, hurried to the head of the bed and took the girl’s hands in hers. “Breathe through the pain,” she said. “Like this.” She demonstrated.
The girl looked up, her eyes wet with tears, her face red, her expression a mix of pain and fear. “I can’t do this,” she said.
“You can, and you will,” Scarlet answered. “Squeeze my hands as hard as you can. You won’t hurt me.”
“Here comes another one,” she cried out.
And as she squeezed Scarlet’s hands, the memory of experiencing this very same situation when she was around this girl’s age squeezed Scarlet’s heart.
“Bear down and push,” the doctor instructed.
“Push, push, push,” Scarlet encouraged. “Just like that. You’re doing great.”
When the contraction ended Scarlet introduced herself, “My name is Scarlet and I’m the nurse who will be taking care of your baby when it’s born.” She used the corner of the sheet to blot the sweat from the girl’s forehead and upper lip. “What’s your name?”
The girl hesitated but answered, “Holly.”
“Why are you here all alone, Holly?” Scarlet asked, fearing the answer. “Tell me who to call. A family member? A friend?”
A panicked look overtook her face. “They don’t know,” she said. “No one can know.” Scarlet recalled her own seventeen-year-old desperation, hiding her growing pregnant belly from her high school classmates and family, dealing with the overwhelming, all-consuming fear of someone finding out, of giving birth, and of where she’d go afterwards and how she’d care and provide for her baby. Without a job. Without a high school diploma. Without the help and support of anyone.
How naïve she’d been, actually looking forward to running away, to finally having someone she could love who would love her back.
But that dream had been ripped away when she’d gone into labor months earlier than she’d expected, when her irate, powerful, and medically connected father had accompanied her to one of the many hospitals he worked with, when she’d awoken three days later with little recollection of what’d occurred after her baby had been whisked away other than her weak cry echoing in Scarlet’s ears, only to be told her infant had died. According to one of the nurses—who’d had trouble looking her in the eye—she’d been so distraught when she’d been told about her baby’s death she’d required sedation, and so as not to upset her further, her father had arranged for private burial. Without allowing Scarlet to see or hold the baby she’d carried inside her body for months, to say goodbye or gain closure.
And her father had never revealed the location of the grave, a secret he and her mother had taken with them to the hereafter eight years ago, leaving Scarlet to always wonder—
“Oh, God. Here comes another one,” Holly cried.
“Just like before,” Scarlet said, wishing it was possible to bolster this child’s strength with some of her own.
“You’re doing great,” the doctor said at the end of the contraction. Holly flopped back onto the stretcher. “I think one more push should do it.”
Holly turned her head to Scarlet, exhausted, her eyes pleading. “Promise me you’ll take good care of my baby. Promise me she’ll be okay.”
A wound so big and so catastrophic it’d taken years to heal broke open deep inside of Scarlet at the memory of her own desperate pleas to the nurses caring for her during delivery, pleas that had fallen on deaf ears. ‘I don’t want my father in here.’ ‘I want to see my baby.’ ‘Please, bring me my baby.’
“Promise me you’ll find her a good home.”
Why not Holly’s home? Her. Wait a minute. “You know it’s a girl?” She could only know that if she’d had a prenatal ultrasound. “Who told you it’s a girl?” A medical facility would have documentation and contact information.
“I want her named Joey.” She ignored Scarlet’s question. “I want her to grow up happy, with a family who loves her.” She stiffened. “Oh, God. Another one. I’m not ready.”
“Yes, you are, Holly. Come on. It’s time to have your little girl.”
“Let me take over here,” Dr. Jackson said, holding up the same type of light blue disposable gown he now wore.
“I’ve got to get ready to take care of your baby, Holly.”
She didn’t release Scarlet’s hands. “Promise me she’ll be okay.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Promise me.”
She couldn’t promise that. “I’ll do my best,” she said. And with a small smile she added, “I’m going to need my hands.” Holly loosened her grip.
Scarlet stepped away from the bed to slip into the gown and turn so Dr. Jackson could tie the back. While she donned a mask and gloves, Dr. Jackson did indeed take over for her, talking quietly and supportively while offering direction and praise. Why didn’t he show that care with his daughter?
“Don’t push,” the doctor delivering the baby said.
“What’s wrong?” Holly asked, frantic. “I have to push. Get her out.”
“The cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck,” the doctor answered. “Don’t. Push.”
Dr. Jackson held Holly’s hands and instructed her to breathe. “Perfect. You are doing perfect.”
After a few tense minutes the doctor delivering the baby said, “Okay, we are good to go, on the next contraction push out your baby.”
In no time baby Joey entered the world with a tiny cry of displeasure, her cord was cut, and she’d been handed into Scarlet’s waiting towel draped arms. She did a quick assessment and determined it’d be okay to show her to her mom before taking her into the next room. “Do you want to see your baby?” she asked walking up to the head of the bed, knowing sometimes a woman planning to give her baby up for adoption did not.
“Chest…hurts,” Holly said, struggling for breath. “Can’t…breathe.”
“What’s happening?” Scarlet asked, holding Joey close.
“Don’t know,” Dr. Jackson said. “But whatever it is, Dr. Gibbons will handle it. We need to stabilize the baby.” He set a large strong hand at her back to guide her toward a side door leading into another room. “The warming table is this way.”
“No pulse,” the nurse standing by the head of Holly’s bed said. “Initiating CPR.” She clasped her hands together and began chest compressions.
Scarlet stopped and stared. Please, God. Don’t let her die.
“Come.” Dr. Jackson urged her forward, pushing open the door. “We need to focus on the baby,” he reminded her.
“I know.” But that didn’t mean she could completely turn off concern for the mother, a young woman she’d connected with for a brief few minutes. Luckily when they reached the warming table Scarlet clicked into auto-nurse, wiping down the too quiet newborn to stimulate her as much as to clean her. “I’m going to need her weight.”
“The baby scale was in use,” Dr. Jackson said. “Let me go grab it.”
When he left the room, Scarlet listened to Joey’s chest to count her heart and respiratory rates. Then she found the equipment she needed and fastened a pulse oximeter to her tiny hand to evaluate her blood oxygen level.
The baby lay on the warmer with her arms and legs flexed, her color pale. Not good.
When Dr. Jackson returned with the scale he placed a disposable cloth over it and Scarlet carefully lifted the naked baby and set her down. “Four point one pounds.” Scarlet jotted the number down on a notepad by the warmer and reported the other findings she’d noted there. “Pul
se ox ninety. Heart rate one hundred and eighty. Increased respiratory effort. Color pale. Initial Apgar score a five.” All of which were abnormal for an infant.
“Let’s get a line in to give a bolus of normal saline and get her hooked up to some supplemental oxygen.”
While Dr. Jackson inserted a tiny nasal cannula in Joey’s nostrils, taped the tubing to her cheeks, and set the flow meter to provide the appropriate level of oxygen, Scarlet started an intravenous in Joey’s left arm—noting she didn’t flinch or cry.
While she taped it down and immobilized the appendage in an extended position, Dr. Jackson did a quick heel stick to evaluate Joey’s blood sugar level.
They worked quickly, quietly and efficiently like they’d been working together for years.
“Blood glucose twenty-five,” he reported and began rummaging around a drawer in the warmer until he found the reference card for the recommended dosages for premature infants by weight. “Add a bolus of dextrose.” He called out his orders and Scarlet filled the syringes and administered their contents via the newly inserted IV line.
“Come on, Joey,” she said, rubbing her thighs in an attempt to perk her up.
The door slammed open and in rolled an incubator being pushed by Cindy. “You okay down here?” she asked.
“Better than expected,” Scarlet replied, considering who she’d had to work with. Luckily, Dr. Jackson’s reputation as an excellent physician came well-deserved.
“Good.” Cindy turned to leave. “The NICU is nuts. I talked to Admissions. Baby Doe,” a placeholder name since Holly hadn’t shared her last name, “will be going into room forty-two.”
“Call Admissions and tell them it’s Joey Doe. Holly told me she wanted her baby to be named Joey.” And following through on that was the least she could do.
“Roger that.” She saluted then walked over to take a look at their soon-to-be new patient. “Too bad about her mom.”
“She’s…?” Scarlet couldn’t continue.
Cindy looked between her and Dr. Jackson and slowly nodded. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet Page 2
