Page 39 of Silver Sanctuary
“I can’t.” She sighed. “Embrie?—”
“I’m going to get Embrie up and to school. And I’m going to see if one of the girls can’t come over and be here with you while I do that, okay?”
“I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”
“Stop. You’re not. You’ve only been asleep for a few hours and you need to heal from what happened. Family steps up like that for each other.”
“I’m not family…”
“Yes. You are.” He saw the question, clear as day on her face, but there was time to make his plans perfectly clear to her after she’d been able to rest more. And, he was hoping, spending the day recovering might make her more agreeable to what he was going to set into motion. “Close your eyes. I’m going to get your meds and a snack.”
“Yes, sir.”Oh, fuck.Lacy would never know how much that response, and the way her lips tipped up in the corners, affected him.
He set off to the kitchen, writing texts to Lily and Mae. He wanted their help getting the things Lacy and Embrie would need to feel comfortable staying with him, and all the things they’d need to have replaced after the fire. But most importantly, he hoped they'd be willing to watch over Lacy while he took care of some business. Starting with Jake and what the fuck actually happened at the clinic.
Twelve
Lacy’s car was still in the fucking parking lot of the clinic when Nash pulled in after dropping Embrie off at school. She had handled everything like an absolute champ, only looking slightly worried when Lacy had given her a hug while still in bed, wincing at the contact.
He parked next to the vehicle, seeing clear as day why Lacy hadn’t driven home. Her two back tires were shredded. Nash reined in his anger, already thinking about trading his truck in for something more family-oriented—maybe an SUV where Lacy could fit lots of arrangements in the back for her delivery schedule. Something that would hold Embrie’s soccer gear, and his coaching stuff on the weekends.
That little, happy thought carried him through the moment. Until he made his way into the clinic.
“Hello, sir. If you’d just sign in here, please, we’ll be with you as soon as we can.” A woman in scrubs said from behind the reception desk.
“I don’t have an appointment.”
“That’s okay, we accept walk-ins.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. I need to speak withDr. Rahni, and it needs to happen right now. It’s urgent,” Nash growled.
That finally seemed to get the woman’s attention. “Sir, you’re going to have to wait, just like everyone else. Please take a seat.”
Nash’s hand slammed down on the counter. “I know Jake is here today and I want to speak to him. Right now. I don’t give a flyingfuckthat this waiting room has two people in it. In fact, maybe they should hear what happened yesterday.” He raised his voice. “How you left a woman, who was badly beaten, in a fucking supply closet for hours yesterday. How you didn’t check on her before you turned off the lights and went home. How she had to basically crawl out of here when she regained consciousness and realized no one was going to help her. Don’t you think they should know that’s the kind of service they can expect to get when they come here? To be treated like trash instead of humans in need of help?” Nash’s vision dimmed at the corners, his heart beating painfully in his chest as he thought about everything Lacy went through the day before.
“Nash?” Jake came around the corner and stood behind the receptionist’s desk. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? Fuck you.” Apparently he wasn’t going to approach this calmly after all. “You left Lacy sitting in pain yesterday for hours after someone beat the shit out of her! She could have had internal bleeding, a collapsed lung. Not to mention the excruciating pain she was in. I had to take her to the hospital last night after I found her trying to walk home in the dark!”
Jake’s face went slack. “I’m going to ask you to come back to my office and tell me what you’re talking about. I wasn’t here yesterday, it was just my Physician’s Assistant and a few nurses staffing the clinic. I promise I had no idea anypatient was here in such a severe condition yesterday, and I swear to you, I want to get to the bottom of things.”
Nash nodded, not quite ready to breathe a sigh of relief that his friend hadn’t purposefully let the woman he loved suffer.
Whoa.
Sure, Lacy was the woman he cared about. The woman he wanted to provide for, and look after, and had already made plans to spend the rest of his life with—to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her or Embrie. He loved them both so much.
Yep. He finally let his mind admit what his heart had known for a long time. Lacy was the woman he loved.
Nash walked into the office after Jake, standing behind the chair as Jake sat behind his desk.
“Please, Nash, take a seat.” Jake sighed. “What happened yesterday?”
“Two guys got the drop on Lacy when she was putting orders in her car…” His voice hitched as he lowered himself into the chair.
“How bad did they hurt her?”
“She mentioned they kicked her in her sides, stomped on her stomach. The pain was so severe she blacked out before driving herself over here. One of the nurses made her sit in the waiting room for over an hour when there was only one other patient waiting to be seen. And when she was finally called back, they put her in your overflow room with a bunch of unopened inventory boxes and the lights turned off. She was in there for hours, Jake. She says she fell asleep, but I don’t know that it wasn’t her body shutting down on her. When she woke up no one was here. It was dark, and everyone had just left her sitting in there! Your staff could have cost her her life. Embrie could have lost her mother. And while she was sitting here, in pain, someone was in your parking lot, slashing hertires, so she couldn’t even drive herself home at the end of everything.”
