A Full House. Nadia Nichols

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      “It’ll get her out of the city and away from those friends of hers that you don’t like. The fresh mountain air and sunshine would do her a world of good.”

      Annie’s beeper chirped and she reached automatically to silence it, checking the extension. ER. She groaned wearily. “Let me guess. Knife wound to the abdomen inflicted by a drug dealer upon a possessive pimp who tried to talk down the price of a gram of crack for one of his girls.” Annie pushed to her feet and eased a cramp in the small of her back. She smiled down at Matt. “Be seeing you around, pal, and thanks for the coffee.”

      “Ask Sally,” Matt pleaded as she swiftly departed. “I betcha she’d love to go on a camping trip.” She waved a hand at his words as she pushed through the cafeteria doors but didn’t look back.

      THE SIGHT OF BLOOD didn’t bother her and never had, but Annie sometimes felt as though she should be wearing a full biologic suit when she dealt with some of the shady members of the knife-and-gun club that routinely passed through the ER on a Saturday night. The man she now confronted was being restrained by two uniformed policemen. Male, mid-twenties, black eyes burning with fear and hatred. Blood spurted from his upper thigh while two gloved medics tried vainly to staunch the flow. “We can’t get him to hold still,” one of them tersely stated the obvious, his face beaded with sweat and dark with frustration. Blood was everywhere. “Gunshot wound. Looks like it’s nicked the femoral.”

      Annie pulled on gloves and protective glasses and leaned into the youth’s face. She spoke three terse sentences in fluent Spanish, and the struggling instantly ceased. The cops looked at her in amazement as the medics quickly secured the pressure bandage. “What did you say to him?” one of them asked.

      Annie smiled grimly. “I told him that if he didn’t hold still I might accidentally cut off his cojones because I was extremely inexperienced and the bullet hole was in a very ticklish spot.” She waved her hand. “Let’s get him down to Number Two operating room. They’re still fixing the overheads in One.”

      The bullet wound was just the first in a string of injuries typical on a Saturday night. Somewhere between declaring the victim of a single car accident dead on arrival and monitoring the condition of an infant admitted with severe flu symptoms, Annie fielded a call from her ex-husband. “Hello, Annie,” Dr. Ryan Crawford said from some five hundred miles north in Bangor, Maine. “Sorry to bother you at work but I haven’t had much luck reaching you at home, either, thanks to your hostile housekeeper. You busy?”

      “It’s pretty quiet now but that won’t last for long, so hurry up and state your case.”

      “Still the same old Annie,” Ryan said dryly. “It’s about our daughter. I’d like her to spend the summer here, or at least part of it. Did she tell you?”

      “She mentioned it,” Annie said stiffly, turning her back on the nurse’s station. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. She’s going through a very difficult time…”

      “I know. Adolescence. Been there.”

      “Not as a young girl you haven’t.”

      “Annie, why do you feel so threatened by my wanting to have Sally visit? Trudy and I would love to have her, and she told me she wants to come.”

      Trudy. Annie’s grip tightened on the receiver. Three months after their divorce was finalized, Ryan had tied the knot with Trudy, a medical transcriptionist from his office. It was Annie who had asked for the divorce, citing irreconcilable differences that had nothing at all to do with another woman, or so she thought. Ryan’s obvious involvement with Trudy had surprised the hell out of her.

      “Hasn’t Trudy got enough to think about with the baby? It’s due pretty soon, isn’t it?”

      “Seven more weeks. And in case you’re interested, it’s a boy. Trudy wanted to know ahead of time so we could get the nursery ready. If Sally came up she’d be here for the birth. She’d get to meet her brother on day one. She’d be a part of it all, and Adam would be a part of her life.”

      “Adam?”

      “Trudy named him. Adam Beckwith Crawford.”

      “Beautiful.”

      “Oh, come off it, Annie, don’t be so bitter. Let Sally come. It’ll be good for her. She’ll love our place. It’s on the outskirts of the city, big yard with trees, big garden, an easy drive to the ocean. It’ll be a good break from New York. All kids need fresh air and sunshine, even if some doctors don’t. And face it, Annie. You’re so busy you’re hardly ever around for her.”

      Annie’s beeper chirped again. She checked the extension as she silenced it. ER again. “Gotta go.” She hung up the phone abruptly and hurried down the corridor. He had a hell of a nerve saying something like that to her. Even if some doctors don’t.

      “Don’t what?” one of the ER nurses asked as she burst through the doors. Annie felt the blood rush into her face. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud. She dove into her next case with grim determination. Baby girl. Four months old. Severely dehydrated from a combination of vomiting and diarrhea. Damn the man. Even if some doctors don’t…never around for Sally… What did he know about being a parent, the two-timing bastard? He’d done precious little parenting with his first child.

      She read the thermometer with a fierce scowl and shook her head. Well, he was about to get a second chance at fatherhood. She hoped A.B.C. was a colicky baby and that Trudy made Ryan get out of bed at least half of the time to take care of him. And that Adam Beckwith Crawford gave his parents a tough time with adolescence. Been there. Honestly, the nerve of the man.

      She admitted the baby for overnight observation, and while she wrote up the orders for fluid and electrolyte therapy, she reflected on her daughter. Not a bad kid. Mouthy at times, and increasingly distracted and pressured by a chaotic world, but in spite of what her Ryan thought, Annie considered herself a good mother. Almost every morning she and Sally had breakfast together, discussed schoolwork, current events, boys, homework and future plans and dreams. Sally could talk to her about anything, though lately the girl had been too busy hanging out with her friends to talk much at all.

      So why, Annie wondered with a strong twinge of anxiety, did Sally want to spend the summer in Maine? Did she really miss her father so much that she’d forsake the cute—Tom Somebody-or-other—boy she’d recently discovered, for the entire summer? Or was she unhappy living with her mother? And the real crux of the matter—if she went to visit her father in Bangor, and if he made life indescribably wonderful for her, would she want to come back?

      “Dr. Crawford? Phone call.” The head nurse interrupted Annie’s dark thoughts and she glanced up from the clipboard, startled. She handed the orders to the nurse with a nod of thanks and took the call at the station.

      “Crawford, here,” she said abruptly.

      “Dr. Crawford, this is Lieutenant Macpherson of the Twenty-third Precinct,” a man’s deep voice said. “We’re holding your daughter here at the station. She’s fine, but she was picked up about an hour ago with a carload of teenagers found to be in possession of about half an ounce of marijuana.”

      Annie heard the words spoken, but for a few long moments they didn’t register. “I’m sorry,” she finally managed in a haughty voice, “but you must be mistaken. My daughter’s home in bed.”

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