Page 189 of Finding Hope

“Help!” Laine cries into the phone crushed between her shoulder and ear. “We need help!”

42

JACK

WAITING GAME

“Sir.” Standing over me with a shrewd expression, in blue scrubs and a sissy little hat, the doctor’s salt and pepper sprinkled hair peeks out from beneath the thin material. “Weneedto take you in for surgery.”

Heneedsto get the fuck out of my space before I slam his face against the dirty tile floor.

Hecan go to surgery as much ashewants, butI’mnot going with him.

“Not yet.”

He watches me with disappointment. Every few seconds, his eyes drop to my limp arm. “Mr. Reilly. I have a duty of care–”

“And I have a duty of care to my girlfriend!” I point toward the hall. “Until I see her and know for a damn fact she’s okay, I’m not going with you. You’re fuckin’ insane if you think I’m letting you knock me unconscious just to fix my damn arm.”

“But–”

“I’ve seen this show before, motherfucker. I won’t be going to sleep while assholes in white coats lay a sheet over my girlfriend’s face. If you want me to come with you, take your stupid ass into whatever the fuck room they’ve got her, and find out what’s going on. Now!”

“Sir.” The nurse steps between me and the squirrelly doctor. Her balls are bigger than his, that’s for sure. “You need to calm down. This is a waiting room, where sick people and their families sit.”

“So go and find my girlfriend,” I grind out between clenched teeth, “and make sure she’s okay!”

“The chief is with her!” she snaps. “You’re not family, so we can’t give you updates, anyway. It’s really best if you go with Dr. Steinb–”

“I’m not going!”

“Sir!” Glancing toward a terrified Evie and Bean, she flicks the mom eyes back to me – that look that says she’s a mom, and she knows how to get an insubordinate asshole to conform.

With puffy faces, red eyes, and trembling hands, they hold each other in a bear hug and watch me throw a tantrum in the hospital emergency waiting room.

The two girls who are so often at each other’s throats, now console each other because I’m too fucking distracted to help them. Short of tossing them in my car and driving them here while we followed the police escorted ambulance, I’ve done nothing to make sure they’re okay.

Uncle and boyfriend; I suck at both jobs.

“Shit.” Scrubbing my good hand over my face, I count down from five in my head in an attempt to cool my anger.

It doesn’t work.

“Shit!” Turning toward them, I sit down in the crappy hospital chairs and pull them into my lap. They aren’t babies anymore, and yet, they curl against my chest the way they used to. “It’s okay.” I press a kiss to Bean’s forehead. “I’ve got you guys. I’ll protect you, I promise.”

Evie hiccups against my chest. “Is Miss T gonna be okay?”

Fuck.

My throat closes up with terror. Images of a broken Britt join those of a broken Steph, a broken Kit.

All the women in my life get hurt.

“Yeah, Bug, she’ll be okay.”

“I called her a bitch,” she sobs. “I called her a mean, mean name, but she still protected me.”

“She’ll be okay, Smalls.”She has to be okay.

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