Closing Costs: Stewart Realty, Book Three Page 5

  He sat down and tried to pull her into his lap. As he watched in helpless horror, her eyes rolled back, and her body stiffened in a terrifying seizure. “Stay with me, Sara. I mean it.” He glanced up. Pam and Chris stood looking on in shock, phones in hand. “Somebody call a fucking ambulance!”

  As Sara’s body calmed, he brushed her hair back, no longer caring he sat in a pool of her blood. His ears roared but he kept his voice soft. She opened her eyes.

  “Jack?”

  He smiled, kissed her nose, the cloying odor of blood and fear clogging his brain. “No honey. It’s Craig. Try to relax. We’ve called an ambulance. Everything will be all right.”

  The next minutes passed like hours. Sara faded in and out of consciousness and the ogling crowd grew larger.

  “Oh God, it hurts….” Her loud moan ripped through his gut. When a hand touched his shoulder he jerked away trying to focus on her.

  “Sir, please, let us handle this.”

  He let the paramedic pull Sara off his lap. “Are you hurt?” The woman’s eyes traveled up and down him as her partner laid Sara back and started taking her vital signs. He looked down at the apparent carnage reflected on his clothes. Her blood. So much of it. He swallowed hard.

  “No, no, it’s not me. I found her here like this, sat down and….” His brain focused. “Take her to U of M. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Okay dad, calm down. We need to get her stabilized first.” The woman patted his arm. By now the entire office had collected in the hallway, staring at the bloody scene. Craig struggled to comprehend what she’d said to him.

  “I’m not…” He looked up as Jack Gordon came barreling through the door separating the public from the private part of their sales office. “I mean, is she okay? She seized on me for about fifteen seconds.”

  “Let’s get her out of here.” The medics bustled around without answering him. “Excuse me sir, you need to move aside.”

  Jack stood, staring at the room, mouth agape, eyes wild. Craig took in what the man saw—the floor darkened with Sara’s blood while her back arched and feet heels against the carpet when another seizure gripped her.

  Jack’s face went utterly white. “Sir!” The medic shoved Jack out of the way and rolled the gurney in. Once she stilled, the EMTs lifted her up and hustled her out into the waiting ambulance.

  “You okay?” Craig narrowed his eyes at Jack.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Jack turned, pushed his way through the gathered crowd and ran outside, demanding to be let into the ambulance with her. Craig grabbed his helmet and rushed out behind Jack. Following the ambulance through midday streets, taking deep breaths to calm his heart, he forced himself to focus on the traffic while long forgotten prayers raced through his brain.

  Jack watched from a safe distance as the emergency room staff hooked Sara up to machines and tubes, talking quickly and quietly while getting her stabilized. His brain refused to fully comprehend the scene. The sight of her body, swollen and continuing to stiffen with seizures, made him want to punch a hole in the wall. He closed his eyes, hoping to erase some of the trauma from his reality.

  Why the fuck would she not listen to doctors? Her own father, for Christ’s sake.

  When he made the extreme mistake of opening them, a drip of bright red blood splashed to the floor beneath the bed where she was lying, which made his stomach do flips. He groaned and focused on not passing out.

  A hand dropped onto his shoulder. Craig’s dark eyes met his. The man’s pants and half his shirt had stiffened, dark with her blood. “We need you.”

  Jack frowned at him. “I don’t do blood.” But he got to his feet. Sara needed him.

  “She’s come to but she’s crying and won’t relax. They can’t get the needle in her spine.”

  Jack held up a hand and attempted to keep the room from spinning. “Please, I don’t need to know any details.” They both looked up at the sound of Dr. Matt Thornton’s roar of outrage as he stomped into the curtained area.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Get her upstairs. You will not operate on my daughter in this filthy ED.”

  The commotion he caused made Jack’s hackles rise. He followed Craig across the room, listening to the man berate and brow beat every doctor and nurse in a five-mile radius. Jack settled himself at Sara’s head, focusing on her eyes, brushing away the tears that streamed down her chalk-white face. One of the guys moving around between her raised legs seemed to be charge. He pointed at Jack, then at Craig and Matt.

  “Who are all of you people? Can I get this space cleared out please? I have to perform an emergency C-section, right now.”

  “The hell you will. I’m her father, former head of obstetrics at this hospital, and I want her upstairs in a sterile room,” Dr. Thornton bellowed.

  Jack looked at Sara and kept smoothing her hair back. She locked in on him. “Listen to me, Sara.” He kept his voice low, adopting low, neutral tone. “You have to relax. Roll up on your side. These guys are trying to help you.” She groaned and closed her eyes.

  “I can’t. Make it stop, Jack. Please…oh God…” Her body tensed and she grabbed his arm.

  “Sara, I mean it. Open your eyes and look at me.” She did, and the pain he saw in them made his teeth ache. “Take a breath, keep your eyes on mine, and roll towards me. I won’t let go of you, I promise.”

  As her father and the emergency doctor argued about seizure meds and placentas, Jack forced himself to stay calm, keep his eyes still and fixed on hers. She winced, then rolled. He put a hand on her belly.

  “That’s it, baby. Relax. Let them do what they need to do.” He frowned when she flinched and cried out but kept up his stream of soothing noises. Craig nodded at him, indicating whatever needed doing had been done. She stuck out a shaking hand, touched his face. He saw her fingers come away wet.

  “All right, the lot of you, out of here, now. This is my patient, and there are too many people in my way.” Jack swallowed hard, kissed her dry lips and stood.

  “No,” she whispered reaching out her arm. “Stay. Please.”

  “Sara.” Her father’s firm voice broke the moment. “Lie back. Let them get your baby out. He’s not doing well. Do you understand, sweetheart? We have about three minutes to get him out or…”

  Jack turned to the tall, imposing man who, he knew, would just as soon stab him through the heart with a rusty fork as acknowledge he might the father of his grandchild. “I’m staying.”

  He surprised himself with that. He didn’t do blood, or even emergencies that required medical professionals if he could avoid them. But he squared his shoulders and glared at Sara’s father. Her loud groan made them both look down at her. Craig crouched down on her other side. She gripped his hand.

  “I’m…so tired.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Can I sleep? Please?”

  The attending doc nodded to a nurse who pushed Craig aside. “No, Sara. You have to stay awake,” the woman said as they draped the lower half of her body with blue paper. Jack held one hand and Craig the other. Within what felt like seconds of them talking to her, keeping her conscious, there was as high, thin wail. Jack’s scalp tingled as he looked up to see a small, somewhat slimy-looking, pink body pulled from the tented area around her stomach. At that split second, he almost forgot his lifelong phobia about hospitals.

  “Sara?” The edge in Craig’s voice startled him. He looked down in time to see her eyes close before the monitors in the room sent up a cacophony of noise. A team of scrub-suited people rushed in shoving all of them aside. Sara’s father started to talk but Jack pulled him out the way. The three of them stood, silently watching the doctors revive her.

  He leaned against the wall and slid to the floor just as Sara’s mom came rushing down the hall. Finally, the beeping noises leveled off and the team backed away. Her father rushed back toward the bed, but Jack stayed frozen, his gaze fixed on Sara’s face as her eyes flickered open.

  Craig stood by the table where a
nurse fussed around with the baby. He watched as the man lifted a tiny, blanket wrapped bundle into his arms.

  “It’s a girl.” Sara’s mother knelt down and pressed her lips to Jack’s cheek before he put his head on his hands and let tears slip down to the floor. “Both are fine, but Sara has to stay in the ICU until they get her stabilized. Go on, Jack. Get some air or some coffee or something.” She pulled him up at the same moment Blake and Rob came rushing around the corner.

  Jack went straight to the bed, beating her brother by a couple of steps. Sara’s eyes were barely focusing, but he touched her face and she blinked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Such drama.”

  “That’s you, babe. Always have to be the center of attention. Now get some rest. I’ll be here.”

  Chapter Seven

  Craig’s arms shook but when the baby opened her eyes and stared at him, he had never felt stronger in his life. She yawned, and her tiny features wrinkled as she let out a small cry.

  Jack stayed parked by Sara’s head, murmuring to her, brushing tears from her face. If Craig were a betting man he’d lay even odds on the fact that Mr. Gordon had shed tears in the past few minutes. His whole body tensed when an alarm sounded near Sara’s bed. A nurse rushed in, flipped a switch and stuck something in her IV.

  Another nurse tapped him on shoulder then took the baby from him.

  “I feel like I’ve been beaten with a Buick.” Sara’s voice sounded scary weak.

  Blake and Rob stood in the doorway. Blake had a hand clenched around Rob’s arm but as soon as Sara saw him, she burst into tears, making alarms sound and a flurry of medical types rush in.

  “All right, seriously you guys, let’s give her some space, shall we?” A nurse eyeballed the collection of people in the room. “We’re getting ready to move her up to ICU for observation. Only Dad stays with her, got it?” The woman seemed confused when Jack stood up.

  “Ah, I’ll stay,” Blake declared. “These guys probably need a break.” He pointed at Craig. “You need a shower and a change of clothes.”

  “And a drink,” he said, noting the shaking in his hands. The whole scene had been wild, intense, and amazing. It had set his nerve endings ringing, but he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay, watch, and listen to the doctors and nurses as they went about their daily business of saving lives.

  When he looked up and saw Suzanne walking down the corridor, relief shot threw him like an ice-cold splash of water. But the adrenaline rush whooshed out with it, leaving him dizzy.

  “Better sit down before you fall down.” She took his hand and drew him out to a chair in the hall. He caught a look between Blake and Rob at the sight of her but was too exhausted to deal with it. He let her tug him down into a seat. “I hear you were quite the hero.” Craig put his head in his hands, trying to quell the nausea that rose at the memory of Sara, lying in all that blood. “C’mon, let me run you home.”

  He looked up at her, surprised, but not at all unhappy with the suggestion. For six weeks he’d avoided her, embarrassed at how quickly he’d left her behind in favor of Sara’s latest medical crisis. But the sight of her now nearly made him weep with relief.

  They both stood when an orderly rolled Sara’s bed out, still attached to a bunch of monitors and IV lines. Blake walked alongside her, his hand clutched in hers. Jack slumped against the wall next to Craig, Suzanne and Rob. Sara’s parents followed behind her, Matt shooting eyeball daggers at Jack. Craig flinched when Suzanne put a hand on his leg.

  “Let’s go.”

  His chest tightened at the sight of the small clear plastic bassinette now rolling past them. He stood, put a hand on it to stop the nurse. “Wait. I…” He looked down at the now sleeping infant. “She’s okay, right?” The nurse glanced at him, then at Jack, obviously wondering if she was authorized to say anything to anyone not “dad,” but not quite sure which man that would be. The doctor who’d delivered the baby appeared around the corner and put a hand on Craig’s shoulder.

  “Yes, she is.”

  Jack shook the man’s hand. “Thank you.”

  The doctor looked around at the men and shrugged. “It’s my job. Now you should all get some rest. The fun, with regard to baby, has just begun. Trust me. I have twins at home myself.” He clapped Jack on the back and started running down the hall to his next crisis. Craig stared after him.

  “Does she have a name?” Suzanne asked as she stood and smiled at the group.

  “Uh, don’t know. Not yet, I don’t guess.” Craig tried not collapse from residual stress.

  “Kate,” Jack said, as he sunk into the seat Craig had vacated. “Katherine Elizabeth.” They all stared at him. “She picked it and a boy’s name last week.” Craig watched Jack’s face carefully. His heart felt frozen in ice, realizing what he had denied for the last months. “But me knowing that doesn’t change anything.” He stared straight at Craig. “So don’t worry.”

  He stood and stretched, then stuck his hand out. Craig took it, wary but too shattered to think much about the gesture. “Thank you. You saved her life, both of their lives.” He ran a hand over his face. “I’m a wreck. You handled everything well, very well.” Craig put a hand on the other man’s arm, but words that truly reflected how he felt escaped him.

  He watched as Rob put an arm around Jack’s shoulders. “This is about as fucked-up a celebration as it gets but, can I buy you a beer? Something harder?” The tall blonde man smiled at them both, let his eyes flick over the attractive redhead at his side. “Suzanne.”

  She lifted her chin. “Rob.” Without thinking about it, Craig slipped his arm around her waist in a lame attempt to defray some of the tension. She shrugged him off. “I’m okay. Let’s go.” Rob raised an eyebrow at him before he turned, forcing his wobbly legs to move forward. He felt like he could sleep for a week.

  By the time they pulled into his condo’s underground parking garage, Craig realized something about the slight redheaded woman behind the wheel – she was not only one of the most attractive women he’d ever seen, but she had an aura of calm about her that took the tension right out of him.

  “Coming up?” he asked, one hand on the door, not sure if he wanted it or not. His feelings for Sara and the baby he’d watched taken from her body represented the most complicated set of emotions he’d ever experienced. The past year had been a whirl of together, apart, together and finally apart – and then, the big news.

  Suzanne smiled and it lifted his heart, forcing words from his lips.

  “I would really like for you to, you know, come upstairs with me.”

  “All right.” She followed him to the lift.

  He slid his key card into the elevator’s locking mechanism and punched his floor number. Once they entered his space, she wandered into the kitchen, leaving him to ponder the weird turn of events of the previous twelve hours.

  He could be a father, then again, he might not be. He did love Sara in a sort of low-grade way. So much his head still pounded at the memory of her body seizing and the sounds of the beeping alarms around her. Then again, he felt himself falling into something much more than mere infatuation with the woman currently rummaging around in his refrigerator.

  Feeling like a side story in a daytime drama, he staggered into the bathroom. After shucking his shirt and pants and throwing them straight into the garbage, he turned the shower on full-blast hot. Letting steam spill into the room he flopped down on his bed and tried to still his whirling emotions.

  He launched himself off the bed when a hand landed on his bare chest. “What the…” His heart pounded in his ears. Suzanne stood, cup of coffee in hand, concern in her gaze. “Shit. How long did I sleep?” He reddened, and tugged the duvet over his nakedness.

  “Over an hour. I came in to check on you and turned off your shower before you drained the building of hot water.” He groaned and flopped back onto the pillow. “I’m gonna go. You rest.”

  “No, no, wait. I’m usually not such a shitty host.”
Keeping the bed cover more or less wrapped around his waist, he side stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. “I’ll make us something to eat. Give me a minute.” He shuddered when the water hit his skin.

  An hour later, stomachs full from omelets and strong coffee, they sat together on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, in companionable silence. After filling her in on his story, the dead father, abandoned college degree, he stopped and looked up at the ceiling for a minute. “You know, I think I want to go to medical school. I almost have my bachelor’s in chemistry anyway. Why not?”

  She stared at him. “Okay.”

  “I know, kind of a shock, but today was such a buzz…” To his surprise, she laid her head on his shoulder. After a minute, he put his arm around her.

  “My late husband was a doctor.”

  “Oh. Small world. I mean, you know…”

  “I know. Full of surprises. That’s me.” Craig sighed when she snuggled in closer. “I don’t have a pretty story, Craig. I’ll warn you now.”

  “Who does?”

  She laughed, and when she lifted her face to his, kissing her seemed like the most perfect thing to do, ever.

  Chapter Eight

  Sara slapped at the alarm clock, but it wouldn’t stop blaring. She sat, and gasped at the pain that assaulted her every nerve ending.

  Holy shit, even my hair hurts.

  She looked up at the ceiling and tried to get her bearings. The sound kept going and, in some sick perversion of Pavlov’s principle, her breasts tingled and started to leak. She groaned and rolled onto her stomach remembering that her mom had left the day before after six long weeks of hovering. Damn if she wouldn’t give anything for the woman to be back. If only to go pick the baby up now and placate her a while so Sara could sleep a few more minutes.

  The mewling progressed to crying. The pillow Sara pulled over her own head didn’t shut it out. When the sound grew predictably to a full-throated screech, Sara heaved herself out of bed and stumbled across the hall, nearly tripping over the boxes still sitting half opened and ignored, figuring she’d pretty much stumbled into the eighth circle of hell.