He wipes his mouth. “Yeah, good.” He looks away. “Everyone’s good.”
Oh, jeez... he’s a terrible liar. When I dare take a peek, my brother gives him a funny look. I’ve been able to fake a smile my whole life, pretending everything’s always good, but Twitch can’t lie to save his life.
I yawn. “I’m off to bed. Those spa treatments have made me so sleepy.” I stand.
“Are you working tomorrow?” Ava asks.
“Yes, I am. Have a good night, everyone.” And with a round of byes I take my plate and put it in the dishwasher and go upstairs to bed, where mixed emotions about how I feel about Twitch and what we’re going to do wreak havoc on my psyche.
NINE
GUILTY CONFESSIONS
Milly
I wake up,get changed, and go downstairs, where the smell of toasted bread greets me. Demon is watching cartoons with Sammy and is braiding her hair. I let out a long, dreamy sigh, drawing Demon’s attention to me. I walk toward them. “You guys are up early.”
“Sammy couldn’t sleep, so we came down here to watch some TV so we don’t wake Ivy.”
Aww, my heart. He’s this big teddy bear when it comes to Sammy and Ivy, and it’s the sweetest thing to see a violent, protective man find love and treat a woman like a queen. A tinge of jealousy hits me. I wish I had that.
“Well, have a good day, you two.”
“Bye, Milly,” Sammy says with a smile. She looks exactly like her mother, but with freckles.
At work, I put my things away and then go to the ER. Edward is with a patient. The nurse who’s with him stares at him with a dreamy expression. The patient does too. She’s around his age. She puts her hand on his arm and flutters her eyelashes at him. He’sverypopular around here.
The nurse running the ER announces, “There’s a trauma case coming in with a gunshot wound to the chest. ETA five minutes.”
“I’ve got it,” I reply, dashing outside toward the ambulance bay while putting on my gloves. Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I wait.
Edward meets me outside. “I thought you might need a hand.”
“You looked like you were needed inside,” I say with a cheeky smirk.
He huffs. “She thought she was having a heart attack. I did a physical and a scan. It all looks fine. I’m waiting for the blood tests. By the sounds of it, I think she had a lot of caffeine this morning and she panicked.”
“I bet she was over the moon getting you as her doctor,” I joke.
He shakes his head with a grin. His eyes crinkle at the corners.
The sirens get louder until the ambulance comes into view. Once it reverses, the back doors open and a paramedic pulls the victim out. “Dorothy Anders, seventy-five years of age, one gunshot wound to the chest. She was in her home when a stray bullet hit her. There’s no exit wound.”
Dorothy keeps opening and closing her eyes, looking disoriented. Her distraught husband, pale and shaky, is by her side.
“She’s incoherent, has a rapid heart rate, low blood pressure, shortness of breath, and swelling at the site,” the paramedic adds.
The gunshot wound could have pierced her heart. We wheel her inside on a stretcher while Edward keeps pressure on the wound.
“Bay 2,” the head nurse calls out, so we take her there.
Two nurses have the room set up, and we all move the patient to the bed so the paramedic can take the stretcher away
“Oh, Dorothy,” the husband cries. “You have to save her,” he pleads, looking at me. He grabs her hand. “She’s all I’ve got. You have to save her!”
“We will do our best, Mr. Anders,” I assure him, then look at the nurse. “Can you get him out of here?”
She nods and tries to pull him along, but he won’t budge. “Come on, we have to let the doctors work on her.”
