up for herself. Jaci didn’t let people take advantage of her. Jaci could handle anything.
Justin made the twenty minute trip to the pediatric urgent care center in less than fifteen minutes. Apparently speeding, passing on double yellow lines, and ignoring red lights were perks of the police profession. If not for the seatbelt that kept her lower body anchored on the back seat of his SUV, Jena had no doubt she would have been tossed around like a forgotten soccer ball. During the harrowing ordeal she held on to Abbie’s car seat which was strapped in beside her, her attempts to sooth her daughter and ignore Justin’s aggressiveness behind the wheel both futile.
Abbie’s unrelenting crying filled the car, echoed in her head, vibrated through her body.
Justin slowed down—thank you—and turned into the parking lot of a darkened, somewhat rundown strip mall in a not-so-nice part of town. “Why are you pulling in here?” He parked in front of the one lit storefront. The Pediatric Urgent Care Center. “It doesn’t look …” Professional. Clean. Safe.
While Jena pondered a way to nicely say, “There is no way I am taking my daughter into that dump,” Justin hopped out of the SUV, opened her door, and stuck his head inside. “Now there’s the Jena I know. Do you want to take her out of the carrier or bring in the whole thing?”
The Jena he knew? She unstrapped Abbie, removed her from the car seat and cuddled her close as she climbed out. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked. But she knew. The kids at school mistook quiet, smart and wealthy for snobby, snobby and snobby.
But this had nothing to do with being a snob and everything to do with being a concerned mother who wanted her daughter examined by a qualified practitioner in a well-equipped, high quality medical setting.
Justin set his large hand on her low back and applied a gentle pressure to get her moving toward the glass door. “You don’t know me at all,” Jena said. Not exactly his fault. No one did. Because in living life to avoid conflict and cater to the needs, wants, and expectations of others, Jena tended to smother her true personality, thoughts and desires beneath her need to keep everyone who mattered to her happy. Well, no more.
“You’re right,” Justin responded as he opened the door. “I don’t know you. But whose fault is that?”
Touché.
The inside of the facility had a much nicer, more professional feel than the outside. In fact it looked and smelled like a real hospital. Jena’s stress level eased a bit. Abbie’s screams caught everyone’s attention and the ten or so people in the waiting room to the right and the older woman at the registration desk straight ahead all stared at them.
“Hey, handsome,” the woman behind the desk said, looking past Jena to Justin with a warm smile. “What are you bringing us tonight? Out of uniform?”
“Hi, Gayle,” Justin said. “This is my …” Justin stopped. “Uh … my …”
Gayle lowered her head and peered up at him over the top rim of her eyeglasses.
Jena wanted to help him out but found herself at a loss regarding how to best describe their relationship. Was she his friend? Not really. In truth they barely knew each other. His lover? Did one drunken sexual encounter make them lovers? A woman he hardly knew who just happened to be the mother of the children he didn’t know about and doesn’t want? Bingo!
Jena decided to go with friend. “I’m a friend of Justin’s.” She reached out her hand to shake Gayle’s and sat down in the chair facing her desk. “This is my daughter, Abbie.” She removed the hat. “She’s six weeks old and has been screaming like this for going on an hour and a half. She doesn’t feel like she has a fever but her abdomen is mildly distended and firm. She’s refusing her bottle and,” she glanced up at Justin, “we felt it best she be examined by a doctor to make sure nothing serious is going on.”
Gayle typed on her computer keyboard. “Insurance card.”
“I … don’t have insurance,” Jena admitted, leaning in to whisper. “But if you’d agree to a payment plan I promise to pay off the entire bill.”
Gayle’s expression all but branded Jena a liar. Then she shifted her disapproving gaze up to Justin no longer happy to see him.
“She’s my daughter,” he said boldly. “I’ll make sure the bill is paid.”
Gayle couldn’t have looked more shocked if someone had slapped her across the face with a fish. But she regrouped and handed Jena a clipboard with papers to be filled out and a pen. If only a pitying look hadn’t accompanied them.
Jena lowered her eyes and let out a breath. Her face burned with the heat of embarrassment. She hated being in this position. “Thank you,” she said quietly. Then balancing Abbie against her chest with her left hand, she completed the necessary paperwork with her right.
After reviewing the forms Gayle studied Jena’s face. “You’re one of the Piermont twins?” she asked, with reverse snobbery.
Why, because Jena hadn’t had time to put herself together for public viewing? Because a Piermont shouldn’t need a payment plan? Because she didn’t belong in their little urgent care center? Or with Justin?
“Not a word,” Justin cautioned Gayle.
Like a man who didn’t want people knowing he was in any way associated with her. Or that he’d fathered a baby. Two babies. Well, who needed him? “You found me out,” Jena said with a forced laugh. She sat up a bit straighter and lifted her chin. She could do regal better than just about anyone when she needed to. “See. No worries you won’t get paid. I’m a millionairess.” With no currently available millions.
“Shshsh,” she whispered to Abbie, hugging her close. “You’re going to be fine.” She and her sister and their mother would all be fine. After Abbie stopped crying, after Jena’s surgery and after she found a way to meet the terms of her trust fund.
A payment plan. Justin followed Jena down the long hallway to one of the exam rooms reserved specifically for infants. It absolutely defied logic that Jena Piermont, whose family made The Forbes 400, a listing of the richest people in America, year after year, requested a payment plan for a bill that, at the most, might reach two hundred dollars. And she had no insurance? Doctor and hospital bills for her treatment during pregnancy and the delivery of two babies must have been considerable. But enough to drain her multi-million-dollar bank account?
No. More likely she’d squandered it on fancy clothes, fancy food, and a fancy lifestyle she obviously couldn’t afford.
“Thanks, Mary,” he said to the nurse manager who’d walked them to the room.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” she whispered as he walked past her through the doorway.
“Tell Gayle not to expect any more specialty coffee deliveries while I’m out on patrol.”
Mary smiled.
“If you wanted to keep Abbie and me your dirty little secret,” Jena snapped, “why did you bring us someplace where you obviously know people?” She laid Abbie down on the paper-lined exam table and began to undress her.
Because he’d been thinking of his daughter, of getting her the best and quickest medical care available. Since he visited the urgent care center regularly
