Page 104 of Power Play

At that Tess wailed louder and Liam nodded. “I’ll get the keys.”

There was a clinic in town that opened at six am and we were able to walk right in. At the sight of Tess, the nurse jumped up from behind the desk to examine her.

“Okay,” she said, giving Tess a big smile. “You are so lucky, you know why?”

“No,” she said, all damp and miserable. Her pajamas covered in blood like she’d been in a crime scene.

“One,” the nurse, a beautiful red head with bright green eyes and an accent that sounded like Scotland, reached into the pockets of her scrubs and pulled out a sucker. “I’ve restocked my lolly supply. Do you like…” she looked at the wrapper. “Grape?”

Tess nodded and the nurse unwrapped it and gave it to her.

“Two, Doctor Dana is here and she has the prettiest stitches I’ve ever seen. Better than my Gran. She’ll stitch you up right as rain.” Tess gave her a wobbly nod and the nurse turned to look at us.

“Okay, Mom and Dad-”

“He’s the dad,” I said, because I knew that unless one of us was the parent, poor Tess was going to have to go back there alone.

He turned on me, eyebrows furrowed. But he knew better than to object.

“Go ahead,” I told him. “I’ll call Janice and fill out whatever paperwork needs to be filled out.”

“Okay,” he said with a firm nod. “I’ll forward you Janice’s number.”

I smiled at him, my body still shaking with adrenaline. “Go,” I whispered. “She’s probably scared.”

Liam took off down the hallway, looking into doorways until he found Tess. He pulled out his phone and joked about taking a picture of her for her mom.

A second later he’d texted me Janice’s contact.

I texted Janice to let her know I was calling so she would pick up. Which she did on the second ring.

“Hello?” she asked. “Kit?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, everything is fine and Tess is okay.”

“That doesn’t sound good. What happened?”

I explained the top bunk and Janice sighed.

“Of course, she decides to embrace her wild side while I’m on the other side of the country,” she said with a laugh. “How bad is the bleeding?”

“Unfortunately, pretty bad. She’s going to need stitches.” I turned away from the front desk and any listening nurses and said, “We just them told Liam was her dad.”

“You did what?!”

I was startled by the sudden fear in her voice. The strange venom.

“I wasn’t sure if they would let him back there with her if we just said we were babysitting.”

“Of course they would have. She’s a five-year-old at an urgent care.”

Immediately, I felt both contrite and guilty. Which I didn’t think was right, but that’s how Janice made me feel.

“We weren’t thinking. We just…reacted.”

“I should have known this would happen.”

Liam

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