Nickolas-1 (16 page)

“That after the tests, you will give up all rights to the child. I think she’s giving it up anyway, so that shouldn’t be too hard. Also, that you’ll pay for the tests. I didn’t think you’d have a problem with that either. Was I right?” Morgan wasn’t keeping her baby? That didn’t make any sense. Hadn’t she gotten this way to have something to hang around his neck for all time? He didn’t know what to think about that.

“Yeah. Fine, whatever.” He was still frowning as he followed Devin out of the office. How was she paying for any of this? Were the adoptive parents paying for the bills? Maybe that was her angle.

The phone was ringing when he came into the kitchen. His Aunt Pea asked him to answer it for her; she was expecting a call from her friend about some auction or something.

“Grant. Hummm...Parker residence.” He almost hung up when there wasn’t anything at the other end for several seconds.

“Dr. Grant? It’s Shannon Fist from the hospital. You need to come here now.

I think that fool is trying to kill her,” Shannon was whispering urgently.

“I think you have the wrong Dr. Grant. Let me get my brother.” He started to put the phone down, but her yelling suddenly had him putting it back to his ear.

“No, you have to tell him to get here now. She’s in bad shape and he... Yes, Dr. Simon, I was just giving the results from the hemoglobin tests to Dr. Grant.

He needed them stat. Yes, I’ll make sure that Ms. Becky is released as soon as billing talks to her.”

Nick’s heart skipped several beats when she mentioned Morgan’s name. She was hurt, in bad shape. Christ, what had she done now? He realized he was holding a dead phone when the beeping started.

“
Damon
! We have to go now. Morgan’s hurt and some guy named Simon is going to kill her.” He knew he wasn’t making any sense, but Damon was following and that was all that mattered. He was getting into his SUV when he noticed his entire family was rushing out the door after him.
Shit!

“Mom, you don’t need to come. I’m sure that...”

“You will not finish that sentence, or so help me, Nickolas Patrick Grant, I will paddle your butt but good. Get in this monstrosity and let’s get moving.” She simply opened the front door and crawled in.

“You are such a dead man when she finds out about Morgan. You’d better hope the kid is yours, because it will be all that’s left of your lineage when Mom skins you alive.” He watched Damon get into the car next to Devin and Jamie.

Spencer, Dan and Meggie were in their own car. Shit, he was so dead.

The hospital was busy, extremely busy. As soon as they pulled in, Damon jumped out of the car and flew through the ER doors. Everyone else followed.

Nick was just parking his vehicle when security stopped him.

“You can’t leave that car there. It’s for doctors and emergencies. You can park over in the visitor’s lot over to the South,” Officer Carlton told him.

“My brother is a doctor here, Damon Grant. He’s just inside. I brought him in for an emergency.”

“That’s right nice of you, but you still ain’t parking there. There’s a visitors lot over on the South side of the building. You just hop back on in that thing and park it over there.” He started to argue that he was one of the Grants who paid for the entire neonatal clinic, the Grant Neonatal Clinic, but didn’t think it would be worth the effort. He’d still end up on the South side of the building in the visitor’s parking lot. It was a good twenty minutes later before he walked into the ER.

“They won’t let us see her yet. Damon is upstairs with the head of medicine arguing about her care. Did the nice person tell you what happened? They won’t tell me anything.” He pulled his mother to him. If by the end of the day, she killed him, he wanted to have this one warm memory to take to his grave with him.

“Mom, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about Morgan. You’re not going to like it, but Morgan is...” They all turned as one toward Damon as he came striding toward them talking.

“She’s now in my care. I’m having her transferred to the second floor right now. As soon as I see her, I’ll be right out to tell you what I can.” And he disappeared through the doors again, this time to emergency.

No sooner had they started to sit down when they were up again. Even from where they were sitting, they could hear Morgan scream. Nickolas was through the doors and moving toward her before anyone thought to stop him.

Someone was holding one of her arms above her head and someone else was trying to—it looked to Nick—put a needle in her arm. She looked at him and screamed again.

“Get away from her! You’re terrifying her, damn it.” He moved the needle guy out of the way and moved beside Morgan. “I’ve got you, no one is gonna hurt you. Let her arm go. She can’t stand to be touched like this. Morgan? Look at me, honey. No, not at him. Look at me.”

When she turned to look at him, he saw with horror that someone had beaten her up. Her lip was swollen and bloody. It looked like her cheek was cut open to the bone and her right eye was swollen completely shut.

“Oh, baby, who did this to you?” He gently touched her jaw and when she whimpered, he wanted to hit someone.

“I wanna go home. Make them let me go, Nickolas. I wanna go home now.” He wanted to give her anything she wanted, but knew that her injuries were worse than they looked.

“Let Damon look at you first. Then we’ll see. Oh, honey, who did this?” He was going to find the person responsible and beat them to a bloody pulp.

“Nicky, I need you to step out, please. I need to examine her,” Damon told him gently. Nick didn’t want to leave her, but knew that he couldn’t stay and watch either. Looking at her injured face was bad enough.

Nick nodded at his brother and walked around the curtain. He could hear Damon talking to her, not what he was saying, but talking gently to her. He walked out into the waiting room to talk to his mom.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was carrying your child?” Okay, maybe he didn’t want to talk to his mom just now.

“I don’t believe it’s mine, that’s why. We’re having a paternity test done next month to determine who the father is.” He just realized that he hadn’t even noticed she was pregnant. Maybe the whole thing was a lie. She had also lost weight. He knew for a fact that pregnant women grew to as big as houses when they were expecting.

“So, there must be a possibility if you’re having a test done. Am I correct in that at least?” He looked down at her. He was suddenly ten years old again.

“Yes, ma’am. Thanksgiving.” He blushed. Christ, he’d just told his mother he’d had unprotected sex at her house on Thanksgiving.

“I see. This is May. Mother’s Day, as a matter of fact. In the past, let me see, five months, you didn’t think to mention that maybe you’d fucked a girl in my house, and knocked her up? Maybe at least mentioned it in passing how you got a girl, whom I’ve missed dearly, pregnant.”

“It’s not mine. So, no, I didn’t think to mention it, in passing or otherwise.” He looked over at Devin.

She turned on him like a hawk. “Did you know about this?” Devin looked panicky. He’d never been a good liar, which was why he becoming a lawyer had surprised everyone so much.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m representing Nicky in the case of wrongful slander against her.” That sounded much worse than it was, he thought.

“I see. Who else knew about this? Damon, I presume. Who else? Which of your other brothers were in on this?” It was the look. She was penetrating his brain, he just knew it.

“Byron. He was the first one to figure it out. He told Damon. I didn’t find out until I was served with papers. She informed me and whoever else she’d slept with over the past year that she was pregnant.”

“So the only two sons who didn’t know about this were the two away at school. I see. No, I don’t, but I will.” She started to walk away, over to one of the really ugly green chairs, when she detoured around them and out the doors. He started to follow, but Dan’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“I’d let her go if I was you. She’s really mad, and if you follow her, she’ll say things she’ll regret.”

He nodded. Nick had never disappointed his mother before. He ached like he never had about anything before in his life.

Morgan was put into a private room on the maternity floor two hours later.

She had protested long and hard, but, of course, no one listened. She pulled the blue sleeper up to her uninjured cheek and rubbed it there for several seconds, gathering her tears on the little garment.

The room was beautiful really. The TV was state of the art and huge. She didn’t own a TV set herself. Had never found a reason to purchase one, not that she could afford one anyway. There was an overstuffed chair next to a fold out couch. The pretty little aide had told her it was there for anyone to spend the night if Morgan wanted them to. She was sure it would never be used. The floors were a very nice wood and the bank of cabinets behind her bed held all the equipment to use in case there was an emergency, she’d been told. The bed was a standard hospital bed, narrow and uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure anything would be comfortable at this point, so didn’t say anything when asked about it.

Nickolas had been in to see her twice since she’d been moved to this room.

She hadn’t spoken to him either time. He’d tried hard to get her to answer him, but she didn’t have the energy, so she just closed her eyes and ignored him the best she could.

“Morgan? Would you talk to me please?” She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk to Ms. Parker right now either.

She rolled over on her back, only moaning once, and pulled her hand with the sleeper in it under the sheet again. “Ms. Parker, I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want them to let me go home, but, of course, they won’t. As for why I’m here, I’m not pressing charges and I refuse to talk about it.” The police had been in to see her in the emergency room. She had told them that she didn’t remember what had happened and that she was fine.

“All right, we won’t talk about who hit you. For now anyway. I want to talk to you about the baby. Is it Nicky’s?”

Morgan rolled back over to her side and pulled the sleeper to her cheek again. She didn’t understand why the silly thing gave her comfort, but she’d been using it as a way to soothe herself for so long that she didn’t try and figure it out anymore. She had just about broken herself of touching her belly about three weeks ago. But more and more, that had become harder to do too.

“It’s no one’s. I’m...it’ll go to a good family as soon as it delivers. I’m not asking anything of anyone.”

“It? You mean your child? Oh, Morgan, it’s a child, not an ‘it.’ Turn around and look at me.”

“No. I’m not becoming attached to something I can’t have. Ms. Parker, I know you mean well, but this isn’t any of your business. I did what was required of me by law. I notified all men who’d had sex with me recently and told them of my...my predicament. It in no way implied responsibility to anyone.”

“I see. And just how many other men, other than Nicky, did you need to inform? Two, ten, two dozen? How many, Morgan?” she snarled at her.

Morgan didn’t answer, but continued to stare blankly at the couch no one would use. Why should she believe her when no one else did, she wondered?

She knew that Nickolas didn’t. If he had, then she wouldn’t be having a DNA test done in an hour.

“Morgan, I’m...”

“I’m really tired, Ms. Parker. I’d like to take a nap, please. I think I’m going home tomorrow, so I’ll tell you good-bye now.” It was a long moment before she heard her moving around. When Ms. Parker touched her back briefly, she almost rolled over and asked for...she didn’t know, but something. When the door clicked shut a few seconds later, Morgan gave into the tears and sobbed as quietly as she could into her pillow.

~~~

Nick sat in the chair in Damon’s hospital office while Damon talked to someone on the phone.

Morgan was scheduled to have the test done in twenty minutes. And then they were going to perform an ultrasound. She’d never had one. Damon said that she should have had at least two by this far along in her pregnancy. He’d never heard why she hadn’t. And for that matter, he’d never found out why Damon was now her acting doctor.

“That was Devin. He’s across town, stuck in traffic. He can’t make it to the test. He doesn’t want to reschedule, so he suggested that you sit in as a witness. I don’t know what Morgan will say, if anything.”

“What’s involved?” He didn’t want to be witness to a blood bath. He hated the sight of blood, and women’s tears were worse. He was sure with Morgan it would be ten times worst. Every time she hurt, it felt like a blow to his heart, he realized.

“What we’re doing is an Amniocentesis test. I’ll use the ultrasound to guide a thin needle into her uterus and through her abdomen. The needle will draw out a small amount of her amniotic fluid, and that’s what we’ll test.”

“And the risks, what are they?” He knew from Devin that it was a pretty common thing to demand, even for married couples. People didn’t trust much anymore.

“There’s a chance that I could accidentally nick the baby. There’s also a chance of her miscarrying. Morgan could also experience some cramping and a little leaking of amniotic fluid, maybe some vaginal bleeding.”

“Miscarry? Does she know this? And she’s okay with this?” He was shocked about that.

“I asked her; she didn’t answer. But she did sign all the required paperwork when I asked her to.”

Nick figured he was the only one she wasn’t speaking to. He smiled at that.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll witness it. That’s only if she answers you to the affirmative.” Fifteen minutes later, he was standing next to her bed in a tiny room with some expensive equipment. There were two women in the room besides Morgan.

One of them was Mrs. Libby Sugar. The other was a nurse to assist Damon in the test.

Morgan wasn’t looking at anyone. She had her back to the room when he walked in and hadn’t turned around when Mrs. Sugar introduced everyone.

“Morgan, I need you to lie on your back, please, and try to lay still. I’m going to find the position of the baby then I’m...”