Branded as Trouble. Delores Fossen

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      Only to see Tate barfing into a bedpan.

      His son was alive, conscious and sitting up. Roman wasn’t sure how many prayers of thanks he said in those next few seconds, but he had to have set a world record.

      Tate wasn’t alone. In addition to the doctor, a nurse was there. Wanda Kay Busby, and she immediately smiled and winked at him. Roman hoped she had something in her eye to make her do that, because the last thing he wanted right now was a flirting nurse.

      Or a cop.

      There was one of those, too. His brother-in-law, Chief Clay McKinnon, was in the corner of the room, his back against the wall. Maybe Clay was there as family, but it was also possible he’d been called in because this was a suicide attempt.

      Roman went to Tate and put his arms around him. He couldn’t tell if Tate was glad to see him because he was still heaving.

      “Does your son have any known allergies?” the doctor asked. His name was Alan Sanchez, and Roman had known him most of his life. In fact, Dr. Sanchez had stitched him up a few times.

      Roman shook his head and tried to think. “Sometimes dairy upsets his stomach.” Which probably wasn’t relevant here, but Roman’s thoughts were all over the place. He sorted through the tornado in his head and came up with some questions for Tate.

      “Are you okay? What did you take? And why the heck did you do this?”

      Tate couldn’t answer because he was still barfing.

      Dr. Sanchez pulled a medicine bottle from his pocket and showed it to Roman. Not prescription stuff, but rather over-the-counter meds. Cramp Relief Nighttime, Roman read from the label. Beneath it was something that got Roman’s attention: “Nighttime relief of menstrual discomfort, PMS, bloating and headaches.”

      “Tate took period medicine?” Roman asked, certain that he’d missed something.

      “Well, it’s also a general painkiller,” the doctor explained, “and it has a sleep aid in it. A medicine similar to Benadryl. That’s why Mila wasn’t able to wake him when she found him in her house.”

      “Period medicine?” Roman repeated. That told him just how bad off Tate was for him to down something like that. “Why did you do this?” he said to Tate.

      Tate lifted his shoulder, which wasn’t an answer. At least not the answer Roman wanted to hear.

      “He’ll be drowsy for a while,” the doctor went on. “We pumped his stomach, but that was just a precaution. We think he only took three. While that exceeds the recommended dosage, it’s not enough to be life threatening.”

      All right. That was an answer Roman wanted to hear. Tate was going to be okay. The relief flooded through him, but it was quickly followed by another emotion.

      Anger.

      This was intentional. If he’d simply had a headache, he could have almost certainly found something else to take care of it, and he wouldn’t have needed three pills.

      “Any idea how Tate got that cut on his mouth?” Dr. Sanchez asked.

      That didn’t help with the anger that was quickly eating up the relief. “School fight.” Roman wouldn’t mention the other stuff about Tate being expelled and running away. No, that was something he would discuss with his son as soon as he quit puking.

      “Why don’t we step outside and go over some paperwork?” the doctor added. “It’s going to be a while before Tate feels like talking.”

      Yeah, and he might never feel like talking to his father. Well, that was about to change, because Roman was tired of sweeping all that teenage angst under the rug. It had brought them here, to this, and it was going to end.

      Clay stayed put with Tate and the nurse, and Roman let the doctor take him by the arm and lead him into the hall. The moment the door opened, Mila was right there. No Sophie, though.

      “How is he?” Mila immediately asked. “God, Roman, I’m so sorry. I swear, I didn’t know he would do anything like this or I wouldn’t have left that spare key in the verbena.”

      Roman waved off her apology. “Thanks for finding him and getting him here. Where’s Sophie?”

      Mila tipped her head to the other end of the hall. “Cafeteria. She’s getting a snack. But she’ll be back in a few minutes.”

      Good. Then he’d make her sit. Maybe even talk her into going home with her husband. That would clear out the cop along with getting Sophie into a more comfortable place where she could get some rest.

      Roman turned to the doctor. “Did those pills damage Tate in any way?”

      “Probably not. At most he’ll have an upset stomach and be sleepy.” He looked down at a tablet where it appeared he’d made some notes on a medical form. “But I do need to keep him at least overnight. Tate will also need a psychiatric evaluation.”

      Those two words felt like a punch to the gut. Obviously, the doctor thought this was more than teenager angst to request something like that.

      “You’ll want to give Tate some time, too,” the doctor went on. “He seemed scared of what your reaction would be. Terrified, actually. When he first woke up, he asked me not to tell you. In fact, he said he didn’t want to see you.”

      Roman felt Mila’s hand on his arm, probably because he was breathing like an asthmatic. His son was terrified of him. Great. Something else to add to his résumé of shitty screw-ups. He’d been right to worry about that when Valerie had told him she was pregnant.

      “He’s a teenager,” Mila whispered to him. That was likely meant to comfort him and explain all of this away, but nothing could do that right now.

      The doctor wisely gave him a moment by looking over his notes again. “It’ll take me a while to set up the psychiatric eval. A while to get him into a room, too. In the meantime, if you want to check on your mom, the nurse will stay here with Tate.”

      Because Mila still had her hand on his arm, Roman felt her fingers tense. “I didn’t tell him,” Mila jumped to say. “I thought he already had enough on his mind for the drive here.”

      Roman huffed. She was right, he had had enough on his mind, but he wasn’t someone who needed sheltering. “What’s wrong with my mother?”

      Even now, just saying the word mother caused him to have a bad reaction. That’s because there’d been bad blood between them for so long that Roman’s go-to expression upon hearing her name was to scowl.

      “Sophie brought her in a little while ago,” the doctor explained. “Belle was having chest pains, shortness of breath—”

      “A heart attack?” Roman interrupted.

      The doctor shook his head. “It’s called stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome.”

      Roman just stared at him, wondering if this was some kind of sick joke. Apparently not. On the day his son had swallowed PMS meds, his sixty-year-old mom had had a broken heart reaction.

      “It СКАЧАТЬ