Page 16 of Trial By Fire
EIGHTEEN
Jackson walked into the restaurant holding Trish’s hands. When Cooper, Lola, and Bradley started whistling and cheering as they walked, Jackson couldn’t help but flip them off as he chuckled. He knew Bradley was happy he and Trish had gotten back together.
Once he helped Trish take her seat, after she greeted everyone at the table and hugged Lola and Bradley, Jackson took his own seat. After some idle chitchat amongst the guys, Cooper caught Jackson’s attention and nodded.
“Tiffany, these guys will tell you I’m not the type of guy to beat around the bush. I’m not going to do that with you either. Did you give Valarie my address? Did she threaten you if you wouldn’t give it to her?”
“Um, uh…”
Jackson stared Tiffany down, refusing to back down from his line of questioning. He allowed her to give Cooper a terrified look as she fiddled with her hands, not sure how to respond.
“Tiff, you need to tell these guys how she bullies you. You’re a good person and a good nurse. You’re not part of her posseof problem nurses,” Lola softly told Tiffany, making Cooper, Bradley, and Jackson all share looks with each other.
“She threatened to have me fired and tell the head doctor on staff that I was the nurse stealing some of the narcotics they were taking. She said if I didn’t tell her when you guys got deployed or when you returned, she would have someone deal with me the next time Cooper went out…” Tiffany admitted, tears streaming down her face.
“That cunt!” Lola seethed as she listened to Tiffany. “I’ve always hated that bitch. She thinks because she’s fucking the head of pediatrics, she can do anything she wants.”
“She’s banging the head of pediatrics?” Trish asked, shuddering at the thought.
“Yeah, has been for a while. Old fucker is married but still fucks around on the wife. Valarie is all about moving up in the food chain, so to speak. She’ll fuck anything she thinks that will give her power over someone. Please tell me when you fucked her, you didn’t tell her you were spec ops?” Lola pleaded with him.
“She didn’t have to ask. She knows Cooper is in the Special Forces because of a conversation she overheard with me and my sister, who asked about Cooper and the deployment he was on. She basically put two and two together. So, she started stalking me to find out where we were. She was mad that the doctor wouldn’t leave his wife and marry her, so she wanted to step out on him. The night she showed up at the bar and had sex with Jackson, she was determined to use him to get back at the doctor.”
“Yeah, he fucked her, Tiff. Sorry, Trish. But Tiff, he did it in the alley behind the bar. He didn’t even remember her after he was done. He was drunk. He hasn’t touched her since then. She cornered Trish in the bathroom claiming she was knocked up byJackson which was a bald face lie,” Lola advised Tiffany, leaning forward onto the table.
“Wait, she told you she was pregnant?” Tiffany asked in shock towards Trish.
“Yes.”
When Tiffany burst into laughter, everyone else looked at each other in shock. When Tiffany stopped laughing and wiped her eyes, Jackson waited a beat before asking the woman what was so funny about that accusation.
“The woman can’t get pregnant. She was in a car accident when she was in college. She had purposely gotten pregnant by some rich guy back then, trying to force him to marry her. When she was T-boned by a truck becausesheran a red light, she miscarried and had started hemorrhaging and they had to do an emergency hysterectomy.”
“Wait, how do you know this?” Lola asked, shocked at the bomb that Tiffany just dropped on the table.
“She bragged about how she purposely got pregnant to make the guy marry her to give her a title or something. From what I understand, when she got into the accident, the rich kid’s parents paid her a huge lump of money to make her go away. She was bragging to one of her skank friends about how she can pretend she’s pregnant without truly being pregnant and pay a surrogate to have the brat for her. Her words, by the way, not mine.”
“That’s good information to have. Isn’t she in the pediatric ward?” Trish asked, looking between Lola and Tiffany.
“No, she floats between ICU and pediatrics. They tend to keep her more in ICU and away from the kids,” Lola confirmed, Tiffany nodding her confirmation.
“I’m really sorry, Trish. You’re a nice person. Not mean like Valarie. She threatened Cooper’s career with the Army, and I was scared that if she did what she’d threatened to do, it wouldruin him. Me, I can deal with that. But Cooper, this team is everything to him.”
“Wait, she threatened me?” Cooper asked, surprised by the statement.
“Y-yes. She said she knew someone in the military high up and all she would have to do is log a complaint against you with the military and it would ground you and put a mark on your file. If she made it bad enough, then they could give you a dishonorable discharge. I couldn’t let her do that to you,” Tiffany cried, her face going into her hands.
“Oh, baby! She couldn’t have done that. They would have asked her questions. Specific dates and times. What she doesn’t realize is that even when we are home, our movements are watched by Uncle Sam. There’s nothing she could have said against us without an investigation.”
“Tiffany, Uncle Sam doesn’t like false allegations against their soldiers. Once they realized she was lying and why, they would have gone after her with everything they could in the world and locked her up. She can’t hurt Cooper, Bradley, or Jackson with her false allegations. Not without concrete evidence.” Trish leaned forward, her hand going towards Tiffany.
“Thank you, Tiffany, for coming clean with everything. I’m not mad at you. If she tries anything else in the future, please let Cooper or one of us know. Even if you have to find Lola in the hospital and get word to her, please do so.”
“You’re not mad at me?” Tiffany asked in surprise, looking around the table at everyone.
“No,” was the unified answer from everyone.
“Let’s eat. I’m starving!” Jackson clapped his hands earning a laugh from the others around the table.
