Prima Donna (22 page)

“You’re what?” Regan gaped. “You’re not leaving town, are you?”

“No, nothing like that. The house we’re in is the one Nick and his late wife planned out together, and even though she died before he finished building it…” Her cheeks flushed, she looked down and shrugged. “Nick doesn’t want me living in Abby’s house. I told him it doesn’t matter to me—and it seriously doesn’t—but he wants us to have a house that’s ours.”

“That Nick is good people,” Maya said, raising her glass.

“And no offense, Jayne,” Ellie snorted. “But I can’t believe Abby hasn’t haunted your ass out of there already.”

Jayne laughed lightly. “I know. I keep waiting for the roof to cave in on me or something.”

“So where are you going to build?”

“We bought the lot down at the very end of Fable Way.”

“The one that backs on to the golf course?”

“Yeah.” Jayne’s face flushed over her grin. “The lot’s a little bigger, but Nick says we’re going to need the room once we start having kids.”

“Good grief,” Regan chuckled. “How many kids are you planning on having?”

“Depends on who you ask.” Jayne’s eye roll made them all laugh. “Nick thinks we’re going to field our own football team, but I told him it would be more like the forward line of a hockey team.”

When the rest of them frowned back at her, Jayne’s eyes rolled even higher. “Three.”

“Nice,” Ellie said, clearly impressed. “When will you start building?”

“The permits came through last week, so Nick’s already started clearing the lot.”

They toasted Jayne first and then Maya when she announced her court date had been set.

“Two weeks from today, I’ll be done with him forever. May the dickhead and his whore rot in hell together.”

“Amen!”

Regan sipped her beer slowly as a realization settled over her.

The four of them hadn’t done anything different than what they did every week; gather around the table at Chalker’s and talk, but it felt different now. These three women weren’t just her friends, they were her sisters. It was in the unwavering way they looked at her, and in the way they said what needed to be said and then moved on as if there was no need to question it.

What surprised her most was realizing it was the exact same way they’d always looked at her, and the exact same way they’d always talked to her, but it wasn’t until right then, right there, that Regan got it. That she accepted it. Nothing had changed; they were the same four people they’d always been. They knew everything and they accepted it without question or hesitation.

How cool was that?

Since finding Regan in his jersey, something changed, and Carter’d be lying if he said it didn’t scare the crap out of him. He’d sat through the game with Jules and Rossick, had even made a good show of pretending to pay attention and cheer with everyone else, but he’d left the jersey in his car and just shrugged it off when Rossick asked him about it.

It was just a stupid-ass jersey, so why couldn’t Carter shake the feeling that it was more than that now? That it meant something? But what? Hell if he knew.

The card and rose he’d sent her on Valentine’s Day was something he’d done more for himself, to release a little of the pent-up need he had to tell her how much he still wanted her. But then he’d gone and turned the card into a joke so she wouldn’t know he was serious.

God, he was screwed up.

And no matter how hard he tried for the next week or so, he couldn’t find anything about her that didn’t do something for him.

Sure, she got on his case about his charts not being up to date, but without the charts, she couldn’t do the billing, which meant he wouldn’t get paid.

Sure, she seemed to have some sort of anal compulsion about straightening up the waiting room every ten minutes, and gave him and Rossick shit when they didn’t put the game controllers away, but the patients all commented on how warm and comfortable she made it and how much they appreciated up-to-date magazines.

And sure, she wasn’t one to ooze sympathy for anyone, but she was the first to offer an ear if someone needed to talk, an arm if they needed to find their balance, or a bucket if she thought they weren’t going to make it to the bathroom (something that happened more often than most people realized).

It hadn’t taken her any time at all to figure out the billing system, more often than not she spent her lunch hours studying the medical terminology book Jayne found for her, and despite Tracy’s ongoing attempts, Regan refused to be cowed by her.

She had a job to do and there wasn’t anything or anyone she was going to let get in her way.

You’d never know it by the way she worked, and she sure as hell hadn’t said it out loud, but Carter knew the job was hard on her. Not everyone left happy, and that’s what she liked; that’s what she wanted. She wanted people to walk away from her feeling better about themselves and everyone else around them, but in this line of work, that wasn’t always possible.

Carter tossed his pen on top of his last chart of the day and leaned his head back in his chair, but before he could even inhale, a high-pitched wail from the waiting room brought him straight to his feet.

By the time he made it to out into the hall, Regan was coming toward him, T. J. Corrigan in her arms, and a wailing Amber chasing behind. Blood covered the boy’s forehead, his eye, and most of Regan’s shirt.

Carter turned straight into his exam room where Tracy yanked the paper roll down the table and moved out of the way so Regan could lay T.J. down, but when she tried to get out of the way, the kid almost fell off the table trying to pull her back.

“I’ll be back in ten seconds, I promise.” She took Amber, who was still screaming, by the elbow and headed for the door. “Start counting, T.J. One Mississippi, two…”

“Hey, buddy.” Carter smiled down at the little guy, who cried so hard he could hardly get out his next Mississippi. “She’s coming right back.”

He couldn’t hear what Regan was saying to Amber, but whatever it was, she was saying it fast. Shuffling footsteps sounded out in the hall and a heartbeat later, Regan was back beside T.J., her hands wrapped tight around his while Tracy and Carter began cleaning the wound.

“T.J.,” she cooed. “Look at me. Good. Dr. Scott and Nurse Tracy are going to fix you up, okay? But you have to be brave, can you do that?”

“Nooo,” he wailed, wincing when Tracy wiped some of the blood away. “I can’t!”

“Look at me. Look.”

It wasn’t until Tracy nudged Carter that he realized Regan had been talking to T.J. again, not him.

“Good,” she went on, her voice smooth, calm. “How old are you now? Six?”

“F-f-f-five.”

“Five? Wow, you’re getting big. Now listen, I know you’re scared, and that’s okay, I’d be scared too. But when you scream like that, you scare your mom, and it makes her think you’re hurt worse than you really are.”

T.J.’s bottom lip trembled hard, and huge tears continued to stream out of his eyes, but he finally managed to speak again. “B-but I got all the blood.”

“I know, sweetie, but it’s just blood, and you’ve got
lots
of it inside, right, Dr. Scott?”

Carter smiled, partly to help calm T.J., and partly because Regan didn’t even look up at him, she just knew he’d agree. “Lots.”

“And in a couple minutes,” she went on, “Dr. Scott’s going to have you all stitched up and you won’t see the blood anymore, but we need you to hold still. Can you do that for me?”

“Will…will it hurt?” he sniffed, glancing nervously from Regan to Carter.

“A little bit.” Carter and Regan both answered at the same time, but the kid focused right on Regan, whose face smoothed into a soft smile.

“It won’t hurt any more than this.” She pinched his arm, but his flinch was probably more from surprise than pain. “See, that hurt, but it wasn’t so bad, was it? And I’ll tell you what—I’m going to sit right here and you can pinch me as hard you want while Dr. Scott fixes you up, okay?”

“O-okay.”

“What happened?” Carter moved around to the head of the bed so T.J. wouldn’t see him coming with the needle. He hated this part, but with Regan whispering in T.J.’s ear, and her arm being pinched red, it was over fairly quickly, and then they just had to wait for the freezing to set. “Did you fall off your bike or something?”

“N-n-no. M-Marcus and me was seein’ how far we could jump off’a swings.”

Tracy scraped some wet gauze over T.J.’s cheek, wiping away some more of the blood, but without even looking up, Regan tugged the gauze from her hand and did it herself, gently, slowly.

“Yeah?” Carter asked, lightly pushing on the skin around the wound. Kid didn’t flinch. “How far did you make it?”

T.J. sniffed but there was a tiny hint of a smile. “Farrer’n him. He landed in the sand, but I got all’a way to the wood.”

“Is that what you hit your head on?”

“Uh-huh.”

With Regan doing most of her job, Tracy checked her watch and cleared her throat. “Do you need me for anything else?”

“Uh, no,” Carter said, glancing up from his suture kit. “I guess I can finish up.”

“Okay, good, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Regan didn’t have to say a word for Carter to know what she was thinking; it was written all over her face, and he couldn’t agree more. As good a nurse as Tracy was, she wasn’t built for pediatrics; she hadn’t uttered a word to the kid the whole time, hadn’t tried to comfort him or his mother, and the closest she’d come to touching T.J. was when she swabbed him with the gauze.

But she did a hell of a good job with Jules’s and Rossick’s patients.

“You’re being very brave,” Regan murmured, smiling down at their much calmer patient. “How are you feeling?”

“O-okay.” The kid sniffled as his watery eyes grew wide. “Am I gonna have a scar?”

“Nah,” Carter said, never taking his eyes off the jagged wound. “It’ll heal up fine and you’ll be good as new before you know it.”

For some reason, that made T.J. frown.

“What’s the matter?” Carter asked. “You don’t want it to heal up?”

“Marcus says chicks dig scars.”

Carter laughed so hard he had to step back for fear he’d stab T.J. with the needle, and when he looked over at Regan, she was shaking her head and laughing, too.

“God help us,” she groaned. “He’s your mini-me.”

Six stitches and a big Mike Wazowski bandage later, Regan led him out of the room while Carter went over wound care with a much calmer Amber. When they were finished, he walked her out to the waiting room where T.J. was sitting on Regan’s lap, running a blue Matchbox car up and down her arm.

“Try not to let him run around too much tonight,” Carter said. “He’ll be fine.”

“Amber,” Regan said quietly. “Are you okay to drive or would you like me to call you a cab?”

“I’m okay, thanks.” Amber’s cheeks pinked with embarrassment. “Troy’s coming to—”

The door flew open and a young guy with streaked blond hair came charging in and headed straight for T.J.

“Dad!” T.J. cried. “Doc Scott gave me some scars!”

When Amber and Troy both turned to Carter, he tipped his head toward the boy’s hand, now opened flat so they could all see the temporary tattoos he held. The little guy tucked one deep in his pocket, then nodded solemnly.

“Gonna give that one to Marcus. Girls at Gym’bree don’t like him much; maybe this’ll help.”

“Good idea,” Carter laughed. “Anything to help out another dude, right?”

“Right!”

Carter repeated the care instructions to Troy, then walked them to the door, shrugging away their thanks. When he turned around, Regan was grinning at him from her chair behind the desk.

“Did you know Troy hit on Jayne last summer?”

“
That
guy? But what about—?”

“He and Amber are on and off all the time.” Regan rolled her eyes and chuckled. “And while he had his sights on Jayne, I think Amber was hoping to get a shot at Nick.”

“Wasn’t she his housekeeper?”

“Mm-hmm, until Jayne moved in.” With a soft snort, Regan rolled her eyes and started tapping away on her computer. “But good ol’ Amber didn’t lose much sleep over that, did she? Not with another rich, good-looking Scott in town, especially one who’s good with kids.”

Carter couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that, and the sudden quiet in the office seemed to thicken, engulfing them in its power.

“Thanks for your help in there,” Carter said. “Poor kid was freaked out.”

“So was I!” Regan barked out a harsh laugh, making Carter grin. “Scared the crap out of me when they came running in here, blood everywhere, screaming their heads off, and then she just shoved him into my arms like I was supposed to know what to do with him.”

“You were great.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, especially with her screaming like…
oh my God
…what time is it?”

“Just after six. Why?”

“I’m late; Mrs. G’s waiting—I gotta go!”

She was halfway to the door when she stopped and looked down at her blouse, now caked in T.J.’s blood.

“I’m on it.” Carter hustled down to his office, pulled a T-shirt out of his bottom drawer, and tossed it to her. “Once you’ve been barfed and bled on as many times as I have, you’ll start keeping changes of clothes everywhere, too.”

“But—”

“You can’t go see an old lady when you’re covered in blood.”

She glanced down at her blouse again, then at the T-shirt balled in her fist. “Right. Thanks. I’ll get it back to you.”

Regan was long gone before he could tell her to just keep it.

“She did good in there.” Rossick’s languid voice startled Carter. “I poked my head in to see if you needed help after Tracy left, but it looked like the two of you had it under control.”

“Yeah, it was fine. Tough kid.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Is Jules still here?”

“Nah, she’s up doing a delivery.” Rossick shuffled his feet a little, stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. “You wanna grab something to eat?”

“Sure. Give me a couple minutes—”

The phone cut him off in mid-sentence, but it wasn’t the normal ring. It wasn’t even the office phone, it was Regan’s cell tucked in behind her coffee mug. Carter picked it up as the last ring faded and the name Hillcrest faded from the screen.