LITMIR.BIZ

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shook his head and picked up the phone to check on Mrs. Flaherty, who, at his request and upon agreement by the attending physician, had been placed on telemetry on the floor. He knew it wasn’t his responsibility, but he wanted to know how she was doing and if she’d had another episode of syncope—unconsciousness.

      Finally a harried, breathless female voice answered. “What is it?”

      “Uh, yes, hello, this is Dr. Bower checking on our telemetry patient, Mrs. Flaherty. Is everything okay there?”

      There was a short silence, then a sigh. “Sorry, Dr. Bower, we didn’t have a unit available. Dr. Cain downgraded the admission for us so we could keep her here.”

      Lukas let that sink in for a moment. “Mrs. Flaherty isn’t on telemetry?” Nobody was watching her? His request had been ignored? “Dr. Cain specifically agreed with me that—”

      “Look, we’re operating on a skeleton crew, Dr. Bower. The patient looked fine to us, and she’s just a couple of doors down. We check on her when we can. Mr. Amos wouldn’t allow us to transfer her.”

      Lukas clamped his teeth down on his tongue for a moment. Since when did the administrator for this hospital have a license to practice medicine? There had been a few guarded remarks about the fact that the man was paranoid about spending money, but when did money become more precious than human lives?

      “How many nurses are on the floor tonight?” Lukas finally asked.

      There was a pause. “One RN and one LPN.”

      “That’s it? What’s the census?”

      “We have nineteen patients on the floor.”

      “And you’re the only RN in the whole hospital?”

      “That’s about the size of it, Dr. Bower,” she said, sounding suddenly weary. “And you’d better not let Mr. Amos hear you complaining, or we’ll have one less doctor.” She hung up.

      Lukas groaned. What else was new?

       Chapter Five

       T he loud, piercing cry of a hungry newborn baby streaked through the darkness of nineteen-year-old Marla Moore’s dreams, echoing through the small room like a ricocheting bullet. It was her baby. Her little Jerod. And only she could stop the crying.

      Even as she opened her eyes to the dim room illumined by the night-light, her hands automatically pushed back the blankets and pillows. With stiff limbs and swollen feet, she climbed from bed as if Jerod were pressing a remote control programmed for Mommy.

      She stepped once more onto the cold painted concrete floor, but before she reached the used crib that she’d bought at a yard sale, she tripped over the house shoes she’d pulled off when she got into bed. She stumbled backward against the bedside stand. The corner of the stand dug hard into the inside of her right calf, and she cried out. She grabbed the side of the crib for support.

      Jerod’s cries grew louder and more insistent.

      “Stop it!” she snapped. “Just stop it!” She bent over and rubbed her calf, then reached down and picked the newborn up into her arms. Feed him. Then she could get back to sleep for another couple of hours before she had to repeat the routine all over again.

      She sat with him on the side of the bed and fumbled with her dirty pajama top. Everything was dirty. She barely had enough diapers for tomorrow, and she hadn’t done laundry in three weeks. How could she? Before she had Jerod, the doctor had told her to stay in bed so she wouldn’t go into premature labor. Now there was nobody to help her. Marla would have called a church for help, but every time she thought about calling someone, shame kept her from following through.

      This little town had turned out to be a setting for a nightmare, and she was living it. She couldn’t help feeling she deserved some kind of punishment, but why did this little baby have to suffer for her sins?

      Maybe he didn’t. There was an adoption agency in Jefferson City that her doctor had told her about. She had the card somewhere in her purse, and she could call them anytime, day or night. But she hadn’t even been able to think about asking for help without feeling horrible guilt.

      Jerod’s cries stopped as soon as he started his early-morning snack, and gradually the pain in her leg began to let up. She’d have a monster of a bruise. She remembered those tight stockings they’d made her wear at the hospital. She was supposed to use them after she got home, too, and she’d done so the first day. But they were hard to put on, and she was so tired she just gave up. If there’d been anyone here to help her…

      Against her will, Marla thought again about Dustin. She could close her eyes and see his long, lean face. Now that Jerod was quiet she could concentrate—again—on that last argument before she left Bolivar. She remembered Dustin’s voice when he told her to get an abortion.

      Now he didn’t want anything to do with her. As far as Dustin was concerned, Jerod didn’t even exist. Neither did Marla. With Dad gone, there wasn’t anybody else to care.

      She sniffed and her face puckered as her body ached all the way from her legs to the middle of her back. “Jesus, what am I going to do? Where are You? Do You hate me now?” They were questions she’d asked into the silence of this room many times these past months. Marla Moore had been a born-again Christian since she was eleven. She’d been raised right.

      On the night she conceived, she’d been a virgin, and after that night she’d felt so guilty and so scared that she’d refused to give in again. And when her worst fears came true and the test read positive, she’d told Dustin. He’d dumped her, just that fast. Of course, when she thought about it honestly, their relationship had been going downhill for a long time. Had they ever even had a real relationship? What about the rumors about his other girls?

      She looked down at the rounded top of Jerod’s head, the sparse dark hair shadowed in the night-light. For the past nine months she hadn’t planned past this time in her life. She thought about the name of that adoption agency in Jefferson City. It was called Alternative, and these people specialized in helping unwed mothers. The nurse at the clinic had encouraged Marla to give the place a call for help, even if she planned to keep Jerod.

      As soon as she could get to a phone, she would make the call. But she couldn’t give Jerod to someone else to raise…could she? She loved him so much, even if he was driving her crazy right now.

      She shivered. The room was cold. She tried to keep the heat turned off as much as possible so the bill wouldn’t be so high next month. Her telephone had already been cut off. Her landlord had come by twice looking for rent money that she didn’t have, even though the place was cheap, renting out weekly to whoever came along…right now her neighbors looked and sounded and partied like a biker gang.

      When Jerod finished his meal she didn’t take him back to his crib. Instead, still shivering, she climbed back beneath the blankets and drew him in beside her. How much was she willing to sacrifice to make sure Jerod was warm, had clean diapers and had a home to live where the landlord wouldn’t threaten to kick him and his mother into the street?

      Monday she would find a pay phone and call that place, Alternative. But she wouldn’t give Jerod to someone else. Who could love him as much as she did?

      Clarence sat with his overlapping fat pressed against the handle of the pickup truck door, feeling it dig into his side and hoping the lock was a tough one. Too bad Buck didn’t have a king cab. That would have made this ride a lot more comfortable, and Kendra wouldn’t be squeezed between them like a baby sandwiched between two sumo wrestlers. Okay, maybe a sumo wrestler and Arnold Schwartz-his-name. Still a pretty tight fit. Clarence felt like he was being used as a giant plastic lid stuck over the end of a jar to keep the contents from pouring out. Kendra was pretty special contents.

      Why hadn’t he at least thought to bring his sugar-free breath mints? He always carried them because they were the only thing Ivy let him eat. And why hadn’t he taken a shower tonight?

      And

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