The Angel of Death (The Soul Summoner Book 3) (2 page)

“I also have a panic disorder, and I take Xanax.”

She grimaced. “You should avoid taking it, unless it’s absolutely essential, especially for the first twelve weeks or so. It does carry a risk for your baby.”

I cringed. “I’ve taken it a few times recently. Since my mom died, I’ve had nightmares that sometimes trigger panic attacks in the middle of the night.”

She made some notes. “Pregnancy will probably increase your dreams.”

I groaned. “That’s just great.” I thought for a second. “Also, I won’t be able to do parts of my job without it.”

She pulled her head back in surprise. “Your job induces anxiety? Aren’t you the publicist for the county?”

“I am,” I said. “I have to work at the sheriff’s office some, and it’s inside the jail. I always have attacks there.”

“Fear of enclosed spaces?” she asked.

I laughed. “Sure. That’s it.” It wasn’t, but it was a better reason than the truth.

“Maybe you should think about seeing a psychiatrist.”

I laughed again but didn’t comment. Any truthful explanation would only validate her suggestion. “What do I need to do as far as being pregnant? I’m a first-timer.”

She scribbled something on a pad of paper. “Here is a prescription for generic prenatal vitamins, and I want to see you again in a month.”

I nodded. “I’ll make the appointment before I leave.”

“Do you smoke?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Do you drink alcohol?”

“All the time.”

She looked up with alarm. “How much do you drink?”

“I usually have a few beers a week,” I said.

She tapped her pen on my chart. “Like, more than four in one sitting?”

“Never. I’d pass out around four.”

She pointed the pen at me. “No alcohol.”

“I figured.”

“What about other meds?” she asked.

I shook my head. I had a prescription for migraines, but I wouldn’t need it.
 

She looked over her notes. “So, no Xanax, and don’t take any over the counter pain meds except Tylenol and only if it’s absolutely necessary. Go easy on caffeine and stay away from raw and undercooked meat and seafood. Other than that, drink plenty of water and no heavy lifting. Have you had a flu shot this year?”

I shook my head.
 

“Get a flu shot,” she said.
 

“OK.”

She stood and pulled open the cabinet over the sink. She retrieved a thick paperback and handed it to me. “This book answers most questions I’m regularly asked, so I bought them for my patients. If you can’t find an answer in there, call me.”

I gripped the book,
What to Expect When You’re Expecting,
with both hands. A lumpy looking woman with a suburban haircut, 1980’s red trousers, and an orange smock was seated in a rocking chair on the cover. My face soured. “Do I have to dress this way?”

She laughed and patted my shoulder. “We’re all done here. You can get dressed.” She walked across the room but paused before she reached the door. “Sloan, please tell someone you trust that you’re pregnant. You’ll need support through this.”

I took a deep breath. “I will.”
 

“Oh, and happy Thanksgiving,” she said.

A wave of nausea hit my stomach. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Before I left her office, I made an appointment for the next month. On my way outside, I shoved the baby book in my purse and checked the screen of my brand new cell phone. It had been on silent since the nurse took me back to see the doctor. There were two missed calls and a text message from Warren.

Call me ASAP. Getting ready to board the C-130 and have to turn off my phone.

I hit the call button, and he picked up on the first ring. “Thank God, I was afraid you wouldn’t call me back in time.” He was out of breath. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for about thirty minutes.”
 

“I was in with my doctor,” I told him as I sank back against the wall. A lump rose in my throat.
 

“The doctor? Is everything all right?” he asked.
 

“Yeah, everything is fine. I had a checkup.” At least it wasn’t a complete lie. “So, this is it?”

“This is it,” he said. “We are flying out today. I may not be able to have contact for a while after this. I had to hear your voice one more time.”

“Still no idea when you will be back?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. “Although, I think it will be shorter than we expected. Maybe three to six months.”

I picked at my cuticle. “And you still can’t tell me where you’re going or what you’re doing?”

“You know I can’t, babe.” There was a loud rumble in the background. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,” he said over the commotion.
 

God, I wanted to tell him about the baby. “Warren!”

“Yeah?”

I bit my lower lip and hesitated. “Uh…”
Say it.
“Be careful.”

“I will if you will,” he said, laughing. “I love you, Sloan.”

“I love you too.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.” He disconnected the call without saying goodbye.
 

My back was glued to the wall in the hallway. I couldn’t move. I just stood and stared at the phone in my hand, thinking about what Dr. Watts had said before I left.
Tell someone you trust.
I stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button for floor three. If I trusted anyone in the world the most, it would be my dad.
 

Dad’s office was almost empty when I opened the door to the waiting room. There was only one elderly patient waiting to see him. Thankfully, Dad had been keeping his workload light since Mom wasn’t there to help him. She had been his primary nurse since he opened the practice. When Mom was alive, I rarely visited during work hours, but since her funeral, I made it a point to drop in a few times a week to check on him.

The receptionist greeted me, far too bubbly before lunch. “Hey there, Sloan.”

“Hey, Patty,” I said. “Is my dad busy?”

She looked down at a piece of paper on her desk. “He’s in an exam room with a patient, but you can wait in his office if you’d like.”

I glanced around the small lobby. “I’ll wait out here. Can you let him know?”

She stood from her desk. “Of course.”

I took a seat next to an old man with sporadic white hairs encircling his mostly bald head. His skin sagged around his dark eyes and his jaw line. He turned a wide, toothy grin toward me. “Hello, Sloan,” he said, his voice deep and raspy.

My eyes widened with surprise. “Hello.”

He nodded. “You don’t know me, but I’ve seen your picture on the desk in your dad’s office. He’s awful proud of you.”

I felt my face flush. “Yeah, he is.”

He offered me his hand. “My name’s Otis Cash.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Cash.” Something about the old man caught my attention. I had gotten the same feeling from my mother before she died. Mr. Cash had cancer. “Do you come see my dad often?”

His head bobbed up and down. “Ever since they found the tumor in my lungs a couple of months ago,” he said. “Your dad’s been checking up on me every few weeks since I refused to see that cancer doctor they wanted me to go to.” He laughed, wheezing heavily. “I told ‘em, I don’t need a cancer doctor. I’m eighty-nine years old. I’ve lived through World War II and Vietnam. My wife’s been gone for twenty years, and my youngest granddaughter just had her first baby last year. I’ve lived too good of a life to go out sick with chemotherapy.”

His chuckling turned into a fit of coughing. Sympathetically, I put my hand on his back. “Sounds like you’ve lived a pretty full life.” I closed my eyes and focused on Mr. Cash’s cancer.

“I have,” he said. “It’d be swell to see it through Christmas one last time with my kids, but I’m ready to go on home when the good Lord wants me.”

With my other hand, I patted his arm. “World War II and Vietnam, huh? That’s pretty impressive.”

“Yep.” He paused to cough and catch his breath. “I was in one of the first groups that arrived at Hiroshima after they dropped the bomb on ‘em. There was nothin’. I mean, no people, no military, no stray dogs even. It was all ash and black.” He shook his head as my hand warmed on his back. “Then I was in Saigon for a year during Vietnam.”

“That’s incredible, Mr. Cash,” I said.

He took a deep and easy breath and looked over at me. “You feelin’ all right, young lady? You seem awfully warm to me.”

I leaned into him. “I’m fine. Want to hear a secret?”

“Sure.”

I lowered my voice and looked carefully around the room. “I’m pregnant.”

He laughed. “No kidding? I’ll bet your daddy’s a happy man.”

“He doesn’t know yet,” I said. “I think I might tell him today.”

He pulled back and eyed me curiously. “I didn’t know you were married.”

I shook my head. “Oh, I’m not. So you’d better say a prayer for me before I go back there and break the news.”

He pointed down at the carpet. “You’re going to tell him right now?”

I sighed. “That’s the plan.”

He chuckled. “Well, that man is over the moon about you. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Where’s the baby’s father?”

My hand cooled as the last ounces of my power left my fingers. I slowly removed it so Mr. Cash wouldn’t notice.
 

I shrugged my shoulders. “He’s a military man too. He’s deployed right now.”

“Really?” he asked. “What branch?”

“The Marines.”

He laughed, this time with no rasp in his voice at all. “I was an Army man myself,” he said. “But I won’t hold it against ‘ya that your man is a
jarhead
.”

I clasped my hands together over my knee. “I try not to hold it against him myself.”

The door into the waiting room swung open, and my dad stepped out with an elderly woman clutching his arm. “Now, don’t you forget,” she was saying, “to bake the casserole at 350 degrees for an hour.”

“I won’t forget,” he replied.

Dad turned, his face brightening when he saw me. He looked down at the old woman. “Mrs. Hannigan, you be safe on your drive home now.”

She patted his hand. “I will, Robert. I will.”

The woman left the office, and Dad walked over to me and Mr. Cash. “Otis, I hope my daughter isn’t causing you too much trouble out here,” he said, reaching out to shake his hand.

I rolled my eyes.

Mr. Cash smiled. “She’s just as wonderful as you say she is.”

Blushing, I nudged him with my elbow. “You old charmer.”

He laughed.

We both stood. Dad looked at me. “Mr. Cash is my last appointment before lunch. Do you have time to wait?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Mr. Cash cut me off. “You know, Dr. Jordan, I’m havin’ a pretty good day today. I think I’ll reschedule my appointment and let you chat with this lovely girl.” The old man winked at me.

Dad’s mouth fell open a little. “Are you sure, Otis?”

“Yeah, I don’t mind waiting,” I told him.

Otis shook his head. “I’m sure. Maybe I’ll go see my own daughter.”

I smiled as he turned to leave. “Mr. Cash?”

He looked at me in question.

I hugged him. “Happy Thanksgiving, and if I don’t bump into you again beforehand, have a Merry Christmas too. I hope you enjoy it with your family.”

He cocked his chin to the side and beamed at me. “The good Lord willin’.” Without another word, he turned and left the room.

Dad looked down at me and raised an eyebrow. “You healed him, didn’t you?”

I pressed my lips together. “Maybe.”

He sighed and shook his head. “People will start thinking I’m a miracle worker if all my patients keep ending up suddenly cured around here.” He put his arm around my shoulders and steered me through the door toward his office.
 

“Is that such a bad thing?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Well, no, but it will raise questions. Mr. Otis has stage four terminal cancer,” he said.

I grinned. “Not anymore.”

He rifled through some files on his desk while I sat in the leather wingback chairs meant for patients and pharmaceutical reps. “How come you’re not at work today?” he asked. “Are you already off for the holiday?”

I crossed my legs. “I had an appointment with Dr. Watt’s downstairs.”

He carried a folder to the filing cabinet in the corner. “A checkup?”

I scrunched up my nose. “Sort of. Dad, you need to sit down.”

He turned and looked at me. “Is everything OK, sweetheart?”
 

A deep breath puffed out my cheeks. I slowly expelled it. “Well…”

His eyes widened, and he moved over in front of me, sitting down carefully on the edge of his desk. “What is it?”

“Warren just called,” I said. “He left the States.”

Relief washed over Dad’s face, like he was sure I was about to tell him I was dying. “I hate that. He still doesn’t know when he will be back?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Well, that’s not exactly a surprise—”

I cut him off. “There’s more, Dad.”

His face fell again. “Oh no. I hate it when you say that.”

I rubbed my fingers against my eyes. “Do you promise you won’t freak out?”

He laughed. “Sloan, last month you told me your migraines were supernatural. Then you told me you were half-angel. After that, you informed me your birth mother was a demon, and she tried to kill you. Do you really think you could say anything to me at this point that would shock me?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Dad slipped off the corner of his desk. He caught himself before hitting the floor. His mouth was gaping as he straightened. “What?”

I pulled the ultrasound picture from my purse and handed it to him. “I’m due July 11th.”

His mouth was still hanging open as he looked at it.

“Dad?”

He glanced up. “Can I assume Warren is the father?”

I folded my arms across my chest and scowled. “Seriously?”

He held up his hands in defense. “It’s a legitimate question that I’m sure Warren will probably ask as well.”

This time,
my
mouth fell open. “He’d better not!”

“He’s aware things aren’t strictly business with you and Detective McNamara.”

“That may be true, but Warren knows I’m not sleeping with Nathan. I’m surprised, and pretty disappointed, it even crossed your mind.”