whimpering. The knot in her chest squeezed against her heart as she braced herself and walked in.
“Hey kiddo. You have a boo-boo?”
The little girl was sitting on a chair, her right hand wrapped in a towel. There was blood on her pink sweater, jeans and white sneakers. It was more shocking because, for some stupid reason, she hadn’t expected to see blood.
She looked at Sophia Green, the Nooks and Nannies director, who was sitting beside Morgan, an arm around her shoulders.
“What happened?” Libby asked.
Sophia’s gray eyes were serious as she tucked a strand of reddish-brown hair behind her ear. “She cut her hand.”
“How?” Libby knew that question bordered on dense because it didn’t matter. But in that heart-stopping moment, it was all she could think to say.
“The kids were at outside playtime. Morgan was by herself near the perimeter fence. She reached through and picked up a piece of glass.”
Libby dropped to her knees beside the little girl. “Oh, baby—”
“I didn’t know it was sharp, Aunt Libby.” Tears welled in her brown eyes.
Words of censure fueled by her own fear were on the tip of her tongue, but somehow Libby held back. This wasn’t the time for a safety lesson.
“Okay, sweetie. We’ll put a Band-Aid on it and fix you right up.”
“About that, Libby—”
If she’d been thinking more clearly, she’d have realized there would already be a bandage on the boo-boo and Morgan would be showing it off. Because that wasn’t the case she knew it was more serious.
“What?” she asked Sophia.
“It’s a little deep,” the other woman said gently. “I think she needs stitches.”
“Okay.”
Libby was doing her best imitation of calm even though her hand shook as she brushed the hair off Morgan’s forehead. “I’ll call the pediatrician.”
“Lib, it will probably be faster to take her to Mercy Medical Center. The emergency room has a pediatric trauma specialist available twenty-four hours a day.”
Libby glanced up at the little girl’s pale face and frightened eyes. “You don’t think that would be scarier?”
Sophia shook her head. “They’re specially trained for things like this. Not that I think it’s that serious, but the staff knows how to put their littlest patients at ease in these circumstances.”
She trusted implicitly her friend’s judgment. Sophia had been with the Clark County department of family services before job burnout sent her to Nooks and Nannies. The woman had seen trauma. If anyone knew how to deal with it, Sophia did.
“Okay. We’ll go to Mercy Medical Center.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“Thanks.”
That way she could call Jess to meet them there, then she could concentrate on keeping Morgan calm.
A couple of hours later Libby was sitting alone with Morgan in one of the emergency room’s trauma bays. When they’d been called back she’d insisted Sophia didn’t have to stay. That was before she’d known how long they’d be waiting. She still hadn’t spoken to Jess. His cell phone went straight to voice mail, which was now full due to all the messages she’d left. Unable to reach him directly, she’d tried his secretary, who’d informed her he was in a meeting and had left strict orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed. The problem was that Morgan couldn’t be treated until he authorized it.
That wasn’t the only problem, just the most pressing. Somewhere deep down inside, Libby knew she wanted him there for herself. She was scared, too, and could really use his support, a strong shoulder to lean on, someone to talk to. Not just anyone. Him.
At that moment the privacy curtain moved and she expected to see the nurse who had been checking in on them whenever possible for the last couple of hours. Instead, Jess stood there. She hated how glad she was to see him, how badly she wanted to throw herself in his arms and have him hold her.
“I got here as soon as I could,” he said, stopping on the other side of the bed.
Right. Not soon enough, she thought.
Her resentment and anger were out of proportion to the situation and she wasn’t sure why. But this wasn’t the time to call him on it any more than scolding Morgan after the fact would have been.
“How is she?”
Why do you care? she wanted to ask. But part of her knew that was just taking all her fear and frustration out on him.
She blew out a long breath. “Worn out. We’ve been here a long time. You got my messages?”
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Yeah. I need to give permission for treatment.”
She nodded. “You could have done it over the phone.”
“I’ve never handled something like this. It seemed better to show up.”
“The pediatric trauma specialist—Dr. Tenney—looked at her hand and said no nerves or tendons or anything that would permanently affect her fine motor coordination were compromised.”
“That’s good,” he said.
“It is, but she needs stitches, because of where she cut herself. Movement in her palm will make healing take a lot longer unless he closes the cut.”
His mouth thinned to a grim line. “Something like this never crossed my mind. How did you handle stuff while she was with you, after Charity and Ben left?”
Libby met his troubled gaze. “I had power of attorney. I was authorized to approve routine check-ups, visits to the doctor’s office and whatever came up. When they died everything changed. You’re her legal guardian and I couldn’t sign any of the forms. So we’ve been waiting—”
Her voice cracked and the weakness shamed her, making her more self-conscious.
“Libby, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“Your secretary said her orders were that you not be disturbed. She’s very good at her job.”
“Still—” He ran his fingers through his hair. “This should have been an exception.”
He looked sincere, she thought. And in all fairness this was a situation she hadn’t foreseen. The fact that she’d had a lot on her mind, including him, was no justification for her not to consider what would happen in a medical emergency. But it also made a certain amount of sense that his employees who worked so closely with him knew him better than anyone. Knew his priorities. If a child who needed medical treatment was an exception-worthy event, the woman would have put Libby through to him. She hadn’t. And that didn’t speak highly of his attitudes toward parenting.
Morgan
