“Fine. Not a second more than forty-eight hours. I have to get healed. I have a wedding in just over two months to attend.”
“Honey, you’ll take a while to heal. We can postpone the wedding until you’re back one hundred percent.”
“Fuck that! We’re getting married on August thirty-first and not a day later. I want you as my wife. We have our life to get on with. A family to start. I’m not getting any younger, Zara.”
I ran my hand down his chest. “Okay, tiger, settle down. We won’t postpone the wedding, but you have to do what I tell you. No getting out of here and trying to do too much too soon. If you do, I’ll sick Bull and the guys on you,” I threatened him. He laid his head back and grinned as he winked at me. I shook my head. The man would be the death of me. The next few months were going to be a crazy handful.
As the afternoon wore on, his brothers came in to see him, along with the wives. They didn’t stay long, but you could see all of their relief that he was going to make it. It was during one of those times, I stepped outside in the hall. I saw the head of my department, Dr. Knowles. He saw me and came over to me.
“Hello, Dr. Newton. I heard I could find you up here. Sorry to hear about your fiancé. Did they find out who shot him?”
The club had come up with a cover story that someone had broken into my house and during the scuffle, Demon had been shot. Chief Scarelli knew it was a lie, but he and my uncle had covered up the truth. Having an uncle with connections in the government had come in handy. He’d been able to get the bodies removed from the compound and taken Lord knew where. The next day, a brand-new concrete-reinforced gate had been installed to replace the one that had been blown to hell and back.
“No, they haven’t. But he did wake up today, so that’s good news.”
“Wonderful. I know it’s kind of a busy time for you, but I wanted to see if you had any idea when you’d be coming back to work? I hate to ask, but we need to plan. If you need to take a longer leave, we can discuss that, but I need to get more help in the ER soon.” I could read between the lines. He was trying to warn me to get back to work or be fired. I thought about Demon. Could I leave him at home and return to work, working way over forty hours a week, never being able to plan anything with him? The answer was no. I couldn’t.
“Dr. Knowles, I understand your needs and I can tell you my plans. I won’t be needing to extend my leave.” He perked up and smiled. “I’ll be tendering my resignation. Seeing as I’m not working at the moment, I can make it effective immediately, so you can get to work on interviewing people. I heard you were already doing that.” I told him the last so he’d know I knew he had been trying to push me out or force me back. He looked at me in shock.
Payne walked up and put his arm around my shoulders. He looked down at Dr. Knowles.
“Is there a problem here, sweetheart? You know, my brother, Demon, won’t like it if someone is giving his woman grief,” he stated coldly.
I patted him on his rock-hard stomach. Jeez, did these men even know what body fat was? I hated every one of them. “Everything is fine, Payne. This is my boss, Dr. Knowles. He was just checking in to see when I might be able to come back to work.”
“Work? Your man was just shot! Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice was grim.
“No, no she doesn’t have to come back until she’s ready,” Dr. Knowles hurried to tell him.
“Actually, I told him I wasn’t coming back. I’m going to be giving my resignation. I need to be able to take care of Demon.”
“Good. You know, Doc, when you’re ready, we’ll be helping you to open that clinic you wanted. We already found a great spot for it. Give the people around here an option other than to come to the hospital,” he said with a gleam in his eye. He knew Dr. Knowles would go running to the hospital board. I didn’t intend to treat people who needed a hospital, but by offering them choices it would cut into the hospital’s bottom line. Something they would care about. I fought not to laugh at the look of horror on my boss’s face.
“W-well, I’ll talk to you later, Dr. Newton,” he stammered and hurried down the hall to the elevators. I heard Payne chuckle. I smacked him in the stomach.
“Stop it. You did that on purpose. He’s running to the administrator as we speak.”
“That’s what I wanted. They need to know they’re not the only game in town.”
“And what will they think when that clinic doesn’t open?”
“Oh, it will. You’re not getting out of it, Doc. We know a good business, and this is a good one. If we don’t help finance it, Demon said he would on his own. I don’t see that happening. Now, let’s go tell your old man the good news.” I shook my head as I let him lead me back to Demon’s room. These men were incorrigible.