The Boss and Nurse Albright (16 page)

Claire broke away. “Time’s up, Gina,” she called out. She strode toward the kitchen door, peeked outside, then sprinted down the hall.

A scream rent the air and Jason rushed to find Claire holding a limp Gina in her arms.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“I don’t know if she’s having an allergic reaction to something or choking.”

Gina’s face was blotchy and pink, her eyes dilated wide. She didn’t appear to be breathing. “Gina said they’d eaten at McDonald’s. Is she allergic to any food?”

“Nothing that I know of.”

Jason grabbed Gina from Claire as an epiphany hit him between the eyes. He couldn’t save his own daughter, but by God he wouldn’t allow this child to die!

“Call 911,” he said as he rushed her down the hall to the better lighting in the living room. Gina wasn’t breathing. He opened her mouth to try to see if there was anything blocking her windpipe. He thought he glimpsed something, but knew he could make things worse by trying to pull it out.

As Claire paced and talked on the phone, giving all the specific information, Jason turned Gina over his arm and gave her five strong strikes between her shoulders, then flipped her over to check her mouth again. He thought the object was a little more evident, but Gina still was unable to breathe. Her lips were turning blue and her little fingers had gone limp. Her eyes were fluttering open and closed. He laid her head-down on his thigh and used the cuff of his hand to push upward five times on her sternum. There was no response, so he repeated the procedure of slapping her back and pushing on her diaphragm several more times. He’d lost count, but knew he was working against the clock. Gina hadn’t gotten oxygen for at least two minutes. He worried what the consequences would be.

With the cuff of his hand pushing upward above her
stomach, he heard something pop. He looked inside the mouth of the lifeless child and found a tiny plastic figure.

“Your fingers are smaller than mine,” he said to Claire. “Can you dislodge that?”

Claire was on the job in a heartbeat and pulled out a tiny toy from her daughter’s throat. Then discovered a couple more inside her bib pocket. Had they come from the lunchbox toy?

Gina had been unconscious long enough to not automatically start breathing on her own. Jason knew choking was the number one cause of cardiac arrest in children. He felt for a brachial pulse, and thankfully found one, then he gave two quick puffs of air into her mouth.

Gina coughed and spluttered, and soon the sweetest sound emitted from her lungs—she cried. Loudly. Music to his ears.

He glanced at Claire, holding Gina as the firemen and emergency techs stormed the house. Claire explained everything that had happened, all the way back to where Gina had had lunch.

“That’s exactly why the packages say ages three and up,” one of the firemen said.

“He saved her life.” She pointed at Jason and smiled with tears shimmering in her eyes. He saw love and admiration there. When he glanced at Gina, as the emergency personnel worked on her, he took a deep breath and suddenly knew everything would be all right.

In the height of the emergency one clear thought had come to him—he loved Gina just as much as he loved Claire. He loved them both. They were the most important people in his life. And life could be taken away in
an instant. If he waited for the assurance that he’d never lose a loved one again, he’d die a lonely man.

If it came down to protecting himself and being alone, or letting his heart continue to come alive, even if it meant feeling the dagger of loss, he was finally willing to take the risk.

He rushed to Claire and took her into his arms as they rolled Gina out the door.

“The mother can come along,” one of the men said.

Claire grabbed her purse and ran alongside the gurney.

“I’ll meet you there,” Jason called out.

“I’m counting on it,” she said with a wave just before climbing into the back of the ambulance.

He’d finally let himself be counted on again, and that sealed the last gap in his heart.

T
HREE
hours later, Gina had been admitted to the hospital for overnight observation. The ordeal had worn her out. She napped peacefully in the crib-sized bed in the Peds unit, and Claire couldn’t take her eyes off her. Soft brown curls haloed her head, thick dark lashes kissed her cheeks, and her Cupid’s bow lips puckered and twitched from time to time.

Jason sat quietly across the room in one of the two chairs. He’d been by her side through every horrific moment of the choking ordeal.

“In one instant I felt the magnitude of your losses, Jason.” Claire looked at him with the recollection of every ounce of pain she had felt so heavily in her heart. “I’m amazed you were ever able to function at all.”

He laughed ruefully. “I think you figured out soon enough I wasn’t.”

Claire was torn between running to Jason and hugging him and leaving her baby’s bedside. She wasn’t ready to let go of Gina’s dimpled fingers. The child slept quietly, eyes moving behind her lids. What dreams she must be having, Claire thought. She’d been fighting
off a headache since finding Gina unconscious. The memory made her heart speed up again.

Jason appeared beside her, as if reading her body language, and put his hand on her shoulder. “It took almost losing our Gina to get me to see the light,” he said.

Our Gina
. Claire liked the sound of that phrase. She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. “And what light was that?”

“Life is too short to drag my feet. I’m not going to waste another moment of it.” He turned Claire to face him and studied her eyes. “I was lying when I said I was falling for you.”

She tensed and mini-fireworks shot off in her chest. Did he actually want to back-pedal with her at Gina’s bedside? Had she completely misread the whole weekend and their earlier conversation?

“I’d already fallen in love. I started feeling it the day I saw you dancing with that bee, and I’ve continued to feel it grow, step by step, each day you’ve graced my life.”

After her heart did a quick spin, she broke into a smile and threw her arms around his neck in relief. He caressed her, but continued talking.

“What I’m trying to say is I want the three of us to be a family. I love you, and I want to marry you. I’ve waited long enough to breathe again.”

Thoughts spun through Claire’s head. She’d been coming to a similar conclusion about Jason. Day by day he’d passed her office door and, against his will, he’d turned and wished her a good morning. He’d begrudgingly followed his innate will to live and had
gotten involved with her. And it had taken another near tragedy to bring him to his senses.

“I’ve never jumped into anything so fast in my life,” he said. “But I’ve lost a hell of a lot of time and I don’t want to waste another moment.”

He covered her mouth with warm lips and reminded her of the special chemistry they shared. How often in life did a person get such an opportunity to be with someone so perfect for them?

The strangest thing was, now that he’d laid it on the line for her, as she’d done at his house earlier that afternoon, she was the one with reservation in her heart. Could she trust him?

They kissed again.

He was the most trustworthy man she’d ever met.

His fingers splayed at the back of her head and moved her closer to deepen the bedside kiss.

Would he stick by her side when she had relapses? He’d told her as much earlier. He’d already nursed her back to health a couple of times, and who better to care for her Lupus than a man who understood the disease? He was a doctor, and he’d be entering the marriage with his eyes wide open.

His tongue traced the lining of her mouth.

She’d worried that he couldn’t accept Gina, but hadn’t he fought for her life like a true hero? The way a father would fight for his child? She’d be forever grateful to him for saving her. She didn’t need him to prove himself, but seeing him desperately working to keep her daughter alive had completed her love for him.

Claire pressed her tongue to his and gave him one last
kiss. She pulled back so she could look into his eyes. Jason was a man who had never wanted to love again, yet he was also a man who had proved himself to her in a thousand little ways over the last couple of months.

She glanced at her daughter, who still seemed to be sleeping.

If Jason could make this huge leap of faith in love, why couldn’t she?

“I see a million thoughts swimming behind those eyes, Claire. We can have as long an engagement as you want; if that will help you make up your mind.”

“Oh, Jason, this is all so sudden.”

“I just want to know one thing. Whether it’s today or next week or next year, do you love me?”

“I do, Jason. I love you with all my heart.”

“Then will you marry me?”

“Marry you? Oh, Jason, this is the craziest day of my life.”

A creaking on the crib springs drew their attention to Gina, who’d sat up.

“Thay yeth, Mommy.”

Claire and Jason laughed together when they found Gina’s precocious blue eyes wide and alert, and a smile tickled across her mouth. “Thay yeth.”

And suddenly Claire thought with all of her heart that it was a great idea.

One month later

Claire left René Munroe’s exam room a bit in a daze. She fidgeted with her engagement ring as she took the
stairs toward her office. She’d been mildly queasy over the weekend when they’d taken the sailboat out, but had blamed it on the choppy sea.

The first clue had been yesterday when, for the first time in her life, she’d become a sympathy puker. One of her patients had come in complaining of a gall bladder attack, and when the cholecystitis had caused the patient to use an emesis basin, Claire had needed one too.

This morning when she’d woken up with a familiar feeling, and opted for saltine crackers for breakfast instead of her usual oatmeal, she’d asked René to examine her.

She approached Jason’s office full of jitters.

“Hi, honey. What’s up?” he said.

She loved how his eyes always brightened when he saw her, and how, since they’d been engaged, she’d never once doubted his true feelings for her.

“You know how you left it up to me to put the time limit on our engagement?” she said.

“Yep.”

“I’m calling it in.”

He cocked his head and narrowed one eye. “Why the sudden change?”

“I’m pregnant.”

He hopped from behind his desk to hug her. “This is great news!”

She told him the due date René had just given her and, instead of being worried, she laughed. She was engaged to a wonderful guy and she wouldn’t trade one day of their romance…except maybe for that first day at MidCoast Medical clinic. Nah. Not even that!

Just that morning they’d had a minor clash over what he still referred to as her
woo woo
alternative medicine. He wasn’t sure about her suggestion of acupuncture for one of the patients who’d had little success with traditional smoking cessation techniques. But he’d come around and had agreed to give it a try.

And as Charles had seemed to fade into the background where Gina was concerned, Jason had gladly stepped forward. And Gina had rewarded him with a new name—Daddy Wah-durs.

Little did she know…

Jason kissed Claire and together they did the math right back to the first night when they’d been together. His gaze fused with hers and a tender smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “I guess some things are just meant to be.”