by Anna Edwards
Completing all my prep, I take the first bite into the wood with my circular saw and slice into my finger.
Chapter Two
Gracie
“Oh, shooty mcshooterson!”
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Pipper asks, looking up at me, her blue eyes animated as she tugs on my skirt.
Our time at the park most definitely over for today, I bend down so we’re face to face. “That was work on the phone, honey, I have to go in today.”
Her little face crumples, her pink lips turn downward, and I stare at the freckles across her nose as it wrinkles with distaste. “But Mommy, I hate going to Mrs. Lowe’s house. It’s stinky, and she falls asleep watching Jeopardy. It’s boring.”
I bite my lip, stifling a giggle. “You mustn’t call someone’s home smelly, honey. It’s rude,” I tell her.
Her gaze wanders as she seems to consider what I’ve said. “Can I still say it’s boring?” she asks, quite seriously.
This time I don’t control the giggle, and maybe I’m the worst parent when I answer, “Yes, but don’t tell her you think that.” I end with a wink. “Come on, baby. I’ll make mac and cheese when I get home and you can stay up late and eat it with me,” I finish, standing up.
I hate leaving Pipper with Mrs. Lowe, but as a single parent I can’t afford to turn down the extra shifts I’m offered at the hospital.
“Quick, the bus is coming,” I urge her and we skip to the stop just as it arrives.
An hour later and I’m walking through the automatic doors at St Anne’s Medical Center. The whoosh is familiar, almost comforting.
“Hey Gracie, they asked you to come in then, huh?” Carmela calls out as I pass the nurses’ station and head to the back room, dropping my bag in one of the lockers.
“Hey. Yeah, I got a call an hour ago and here I am,” I say walking out front and giving her a little spin.
She smiles, then it drops slightly. “How’s Pipper?”
Carmela knows Pipper and I don’t get as much time together as we should, she understands that some days I have to hold back the tears when Pipper clings to me because she doesn’t want to let me go. Carmela understands because she’s been there.
We don’t share the exact same history, unlike mine, Carmela’s story is tragic. Growing up Daniel was her best friend and when they were fifteen, their relationship changed, in a way that they would have been together forever. Three years ago, Daniel and their seven-year-old son Jack, were killed when their car was hit by a drunk driver. They were on the way back from buying a Christmas tree, a surprise for Carmela, who had to work that evening. The worst part was that none of us knew who was coming in that night, as far as we were concerned it was someone else’s poor family who was going to get that gut punch. That was until Carmela took one look at the little seven-year-old body and started screaming uncontrollably.
I think I knew first.
We’d always been close, and although I had only been working at the hospital a few months at this point. She had waxed lyrical about her husband and son, talking about them at every opportunity and showing me lots of photos.
The child on the stretcher wasn’t Jack, not anymore.
I had to pull her away and let her take her pain out on me.
She’s never been the same. Not that I blame her, if something happened to Pipper… I stop that thought straight away, my brain can’t go there, and I wouldn’t want it to.
Carmela is the closest thing I have to family, except for my precious Pipper.
“She was okay. She complained that Mrs. Lowe’s house was smelly and boring.”
“Kid’s probably got a point.” Carmela winks at me.
“Well, I haven’t got a choice.”
“I know, honey,” she soothes, squeezing my shoulder.
Chapter Three
NOAH
I fucking hate hospitals. Being prodded and poked and made to feel like less of a man. Maybe that wasn’t the hospital’s fault, more like the woman who I allowed to lead me around by my balls. Claire Turner. Figures that I see her in the morning, then this afternoon I’m sitting in another fucking hospital.
“So, Mr. Eason, you’ve sliced off the top of your finger?” I bring my head up from the text I was writing to Donnie asking him to check on Lassie, but I don’t expect what I see.
You know there’s that moment in a film when the guy meets the nurse and she’s hot, all busty and gorgeous, a body like sin and a kind heart and the guy falls over himself to be near her, imagining how she’d look bent over his workbench.
Well, that’s not exactly how this goes.
Does she have the body fit for sin? Check.
Does she have the beauty? Check.
Does she have thick luscious hair? Well yes, what I can see of the deep auburn strands slipping out the band she has it tied back in.
Does she have a kind heart? If her soft grin, bright blue eyes and a slight blush to her cheeks is anything to go by. Check.
Did she used to date my best friend? Check and double fucking check.
“You know you’re really not supposed to have your phone on in the hospital, sir,” she teases, her grin blossoming into a wide smile.
“Gracie Daniels. Is that you under that giant clipboard, scolding me?” I tease back, my lips curling despite my finger stinging like a son of a bitch.
She opens her arms and throws them around my body. She was always soft and kind. And always far too good for Charlie ‘Dickhead’ Dempster.
“How are you?” she sing-songs pulling away. I hold up my finger, and she seems to check herself like she’d forgotten where she was, and what she was supposed to be doing. The smile drops off her face and I curse myself, wishing I hadn’t said anything.
Gracie Daniels should always be smiling.
“Right, okay.” She sits on the stool next to the chair I was asked to sit in after being brought through from triage. She grabs my left hand and immediately I notice her soft skin against my rough palm. “Is this your dominant hand?” she asks, without looking up.
“No.”
She nods and ticks a box on the form she’s got pinned to a massive clipboard. “How did your injury occur?”
Finally, she looks at me again and I sense calm come over me.
What is that shit?
Some kind of nurse voodoo?
“Mr. Eason?” Gracie prompts.
I narrow my eyes. “Really, Gracie? Mr. Eason. You met my dad, he was a dick. You know that. Hell, everyone at school knew that. Do you think I want to be called by the name he made everyone, including his own son, call him?”
“S-Sorry,” she whispers and once again I know I’m going to hell. Only this time the woman in question doesn’t deserve my verbal lashing.
I huff out a sigh. “No, Gracie, I’m sorry. I was being an ass. It’s just you of all people should know to call me Noah.”
Her eyes creep upward until our gazes connect. “That was a long time ago.”
“Ten years,” I reply, sullen and a little lost in memories of an easier time.
We’re both quiet for a moment, then Gracie breaks the mounting awkwardness. “So, Noah…” she emphasizes my name and I can’t help grinning, “… how did the injury occur?”
“I was working in my shop and cut it with a circular saw.”
“Your shop?”
“My woodwork shop.”
“You still do that?” She breathes out, her eyes widen. I don’t reply verbally, nodding instead as she stares at me like a god, and I have to admit I’m loving it. “I remember when Charlie and I used to go visit you at your grandpa’s workshop. I always came away smelling like sawdust.” A glaze slides across her eyes. “God, I miss that smell,” she mumbles wistfully.
“Well, you’re always welcome to visit,” I offer shrugging.
Gracie doesn’t reply. Instead, she looks back at my hand. “Do you smoke, or use tobacco products?”
I raise my eyebrow at her.
“I have to ask
,” she replies, her cheeks pinking.
“No. Not since I was fifteen and my grandad died from lung cancer after smoking for years.” I tell her a story she knows all too well.
“Do you have any problems with arthritis, diabetes, or any other medical conditions?”
“Nope. I’m in tip-top shape,” I reply, my lips twitching as her eyes wander down my body. The stain on her cheeks is back again, and my fifteen-year-old self gives a fist bump.
Gracie looks back up at me again. “Are your immunizations up to date?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. So, I’m going to give you an injection to numb the finger so I can clean it out to reduce the risk of infection,” she explains. “You don’t look like you’re in a massive amount of pain and I think you just need stitches. However, when I clean the wound it will hurt, so it will be better if I give you the injection first.”
“Just clean it,” I reply.
“But the injection.”
“Clean it,” I snap. I don’t mean to be a dick, but contrary to what she thinks or what I am portraying, my finger does hurt. What she doesn’t realize is that I hate fucking needles and hospitals. I had enough of the both of them when I was with Claire and I don’t need the reminder.
“Okay. Sign here.” She thrusts the clipboard in front of me and I sign. Thanking my lucky stars it wasn’t my right hand I injured.
We sit in silence as she washes out my wound and I grit my teeth at the pain. Other than a few words explaining what she’s doing, she remains silent while stitching and bandaging me up.
“There you go, sir,” she says, keeping herself formal, while not using my father’s name. It’s a slap in the face, and also her way of putting me back in my place. She doesn’t know me, not anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I know myself.
With the ink barely dry on my hospital forms—when the receptionist hands me directions of how to keep my wound clean and when to come back and get the stitches removed—I’m out the door without a backward glance.
Chapter Four
GRACIE
The breeze tickles my cheeks as the swing rushes forward. Other parents watch me, a couple of women glare. I’m on a kid’s swing with Pipper on the one next to me. We’re having a blast, and there’s another swing free so screw them. Screw them all.
“Mommy, I puffed out,” Pipper tells me, her cheeks are flushed.
Digging my heels into the ground, my swinging comes to an immediate halt, and I grab Pipper’s swing stopping her.
I crouch down. “Do you need your puffer?” I question.
She shakes her head. “No, Mommy.” Slowly I return to standing and Pipper grins up at me goofily. “My tongue needs an ice cream, though.”
Constraining my smile I look at her. “Oh, your tongue needs ice cream, huh?”
She nods vigorously and I can’t help but giggle. “Come on,” I say, grabbing her hand and pulling us toward the ice cream stand.
Pipper has asthma. Thankfully it’s not too bad, she’s only really affected on days with a high pollen count, when she’s unwell, or if she’s overexerted herself. But as a single mom with no one to turn to, I panic about every little thing.
“Mommy, why don’t we have a car?” She asks as we walk back to our apartment.
“Well, we don’t need a car, baby. We can walk everywhere we need to go. Plus, riding the bus is fun, right?”
Pipper looks at me with confusion. “Last week you said you were surprised that there wasn’t wildlife living under the bus seats.”
I bite my lower lip. “Yeah, well, it keeps things interesting.”
She seems to mull over that answer before shrugging her shoulders and skipping a few steps in front of me, still licking her ice cream.
“Stay near me, Pipper,” I warn her.
“Yes, Mommy,”
I smile. I have the most wonderful child in the world.
I have the most monster-like child in the world.
“Nooo!” she screams. “I don’t want to go to Mrs. Lowe’s house.”
“Pipper, I need to go to work, baby.”
“You always go to work,” she shouts again, stomping her foot for good measure.
Part of me wants to tell her off but a larger part of me wants to cry for both her and myself. I sink to my knees and grasp her upper arms gently. “I know you hate it, and I know you wish I were at home more with you, but I need to work to buy nice things like ice cream.”
Her yelling has downgraded to sniffles as snot gathers at the end of her nose. I grab a tissue and wipe her face, causing her to frown. I stare at her freckles as she scrunches her nose like I do every time she gets annoyed. For some reason, those twelve little freckles—yes, I have counted them because I’m her mom and we do weird stuff like that—always calm me down.
“Ice cream?” she questions suspiciously.
I smile back at her. “Yes, and other things. Plus, summer break is nearly over. School will be here soon and you won’t miss me as much because you’ll be there when I’m working.”
She folds her little arms across her chest and pouts. “Yes, but then you’ll be called in for emergencies at the weekends and I’ll miss you even more.”
I sigh quietly. She’s not wrong. Less time together is something I can’t control. I try to organize my shifts when she’s at school, but I always end up being called in and I can’t turn down the extra work. We need the money.
“I’ll try to do better,” I tell her before she breaks my heart and I have to choke back my tears.
“I just want to see you more, Mommy. I miss you.”
Dragging her little body into my own, I curse Charlie Dempster for the seventy-billionth time.
I hand Mr. Chaney his meds and roll my eyes when he offers- not for the first time - to take me away for the weekend.
“Now, Mr. Chaney, that sounds lovely, but I think Ms. Sanders would be jealous,” I whisper nodding toward his daily visitor as she chats with Carmela outside his room.
“Hmmm… maybe I should ask her instead,” he returns, his forehead furrowing.
I tap his hand lightly. “I think that would be a fabulous idea.”
“A nurse and a matchmaker?” The deep masculine voice scares me, and I make a silly little eeep sound, jumping backward and throwing my hand across my heart.
A little dramatic? Maybe.
Glad I didn’t have an actual heart attack? Totally.
“Geez, Noah, you know I hate when people do that to me,” I exclaim, frowning.
Noah rubs his chin in thought. “Oh, yeah… guess I forgot that about you.”
I’m not going there, I’m not indulging him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask instead. I’m aware that the last time we spoke he walked off barely sparing me a glance and I have no idea why.
Noah crinkles his nose, much like Pipper does and it makes me miss her, sending a pang through my chest. “I was a dick last time I saw you.”
Quickly I glance around, aware of where we are. Carmela raises an eyebrow and smirks, biting her bottom lip and guiding Ms. Sanders back to Mr. Chaney.
I grab Noah’s arm. “Come on,” I urge him. He doesn’t grumble only follows me wordlessly. “Here.” I drag him into an empty room. “Well?” I press, needing to get back to work.
“Listen Gracie, I wanted to apologize for walking off the other day.” He sighs deeply, sitting on a free chair, he lays his forearms diagonally across his knees and leans forward, letting his head drop so he stares at the floor. “I have… baggage. Sometimes it fucks with me and I don’t deal with it in the right way. I shouldn’t have acted like that with you.” Finally, he raises his head and his eyes meet my own.
My shoulders slump when I see his sincerity. I wave a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about it. I’m over it,” I tell him a white lie. I mean, I am over it now he’s apologized, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about him or our encounter once or twice since the other day. “How did you find me?” I ask, pu
shing my wandering thoughts away.
He shrugs. “Well, I knew you worked at the hospital, and as you weren’t in the ER today, I just asked at the front desk. Said I was your brother.”
My eyes widen, looking at his tall, fit frame. The light brown, almost dark blond hair which is short, but the front hangs slightly in his eyes. A sun-kissed tan and chocolate brown eyes round off how we look nothing like each other. If my pale skin, freckles, bright blue eyes and short, slightly curvy frame didn’t shout ‘we are not related’ then my long, red—bordering on ginger—locks should have rung the bell in their heads. Still, here we are.
I look down at myself and back to him, my eyes running from his eyes down to his feet and back up again. “Yeah, I can see why they told you exactly where I was working.” I snort. “No chance they should have considered that we weren’t related and you were coming to kill me,” I reply, sarcasm lacing every word.
Noah grins. “Over exaggerate much?”
“Whatever,” I fire back.
Our situation dawns on me, standing in the empty patient room, awkwardness starts creeping up my spine. “Well, thank you for coming and apologizing. Consider it accepted. I should probably…” I raise my hand and point my thumb behind me over my shoulder, “… get going back to work.”
“Have dinner with me.” He throws the words out and by the widening of his eyes it looks like he’s as surprised by his offer as I am.
“I-I’m not sure—”
“Come on, Gracie.” His voice is firmer this time. “Just dinner.”
Thoughts run through my mind at a million miles an hour. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, okay. But you’ll have to come to my apartment for dinner. I’ll cook. Are you good with that?” I offer.
“When I offered dinner it was on me, Gracie.” He looks down at himself. “I know I look messy, but that’s only from work, I can afford to pay for us to eat.” He grins, but there’s an underlying tension.
