Cullen
“Evening, Mr. Hunt.”
Leading Sky past the double doors of Denton Valley Memorial’s ER, Cullen nodded a return greeting to the security guard and then to a pair of orthopedic surgeons crossing the lobby, coffees in their hands. The key was to walk with purpose and as quickly as Sky’s trembling body would allow, lest someone pull him into an administrative conversation Cullen had no appetite for just now.
Skylar had scared him. That moment when he saw her on the ground, her small body quivering, something inside Cullen had gone very, very still. Eli must have caught on, because he’d offered to drive them to the ER himself so Cullen could ride in the back with Sky.
Setting course for the treatment area, Cullen bothered with no more than a cursory nod to the check-in desk, his key card opening the sliding doors with a whispered swoosh. As they crossed the shiny linoleum floor, the familiar smell of medical-grade disinfectant masked Sky’s floral fragrance, the bright overhead lights making her pallor more pronounced.
The place was busy, a typical Saturday night. A young nurse’s aide blushed the color of her pink scrubs as she glanced at Cullen before returning to labeling blood samples. Behind the large square center of operations in the middle of the room, one of the docs on duty in his blue scrubs raised his hand in welcome before returning to reviewing a chart with a pair of young residents.
“Cullen,” a woman called out from her station behind a computer screen. As he looked over, Michelle Mounce, the head RN who presided over the night shift, laboriously brought herself to her feet. Michelle was one of the many hospital personnel he’d worked closely with after returning from overseas. She stayed competent, cool, and more levelheaded in a crisis than most marines. She maintained an unfazed aura about her now too, soothing a hand over her hugely pregnant belly.
“Michelle. I’ve a trauma for you. Sky here had some help running into a wall. Possible concussion, left shoulder dislocation reduced at scene, multiple lacerations.” He reached out for the individual patient clipboards and a pen. “Notes coming.”
“Nice to know she’s already been in your extremely capable hands,” Michelle told him before addressing Sky. “Hi, sweetie. Let’s get you looked at.”
The nurse’s warm and caring personality was the polar opposite of Cullen’s, and he could see Sky’s tenseness lower by a noticeable fraction. In other words, Michelle had done in one moment what he had failed at for two hours straight.
“When’s your baby due?” Sky asked her, and the nurse pushed her coppery-red braid behind her shoulder.
Michelle snorted. “Monday.”
Cullen paused, his pen stilling on the clipboard. “Monday is two days from now, Michelle.”
“Oh, I meant last Monday.”
“Christ,” Cullen muttered under his breath.
“No kidding.” Michelle smirked at him.
“What the hell are you doing here, then?” Cullen barked, regretting it a moment later when Sky flinched.
Michelle, unfazed, looked right back at him. “This is my third child, and I know what to expect. Besides, if I do go into labor, I’m already here, aren’t I?” She cocked a brow. “Stop looking at me like that, Cullen. You’re perfectly safe standing next to me—pregnancy isn’t contagious.”
As they’d been speaking, Michelle shuffled toward one of the curtained-off treatment alcoves lining the perimeter of the ER and took a hospital gown from the shelf.
“Is your baby a boy or a girl?” Sky asked.
Michelle patted the exam table, and Sky shifted onto it, wincing with the motion.
Cullen stepped up behind the raised bed at once, stopping within arm’s reach. Michelle glanced at him briefly before returning her attention to Sky.
“Boy. Our first two were girls, so this should be fun. We’re naming him Henry after my husband’s father.”
Every molecule in Cullen’s body froze like ice. Henry had been his father’s name too, and that man, along with his mother, had thrown Cullen into military school just to get rid of an embarrassment. His father had died still thinking of Cullen as a grenade with the pin half pulled.
Not that it mattered. None of that mattered. It was all ancient history.
Shaking off the thoughts, Cullen forced himself to back up a step while Michelle helped Sky into a gown, took her vitals, and yielded the spot to the doc, Ricky Yarborough.
“No allergies, no medications, no preexisting conditions?” Dr. Yarborough asked, holding out his hand for the medical file in Cullen’s hands. Yarborough—who had patched up Cullen more than once—was not usually in the ER, and Cullen would bet his bank account that Michelle had given him a ring. “Loss of consciousness?”
“Unknown,” said Cullen.
“No,” said Sky.
“Unknown,” said Cullen, his tone hardening.
“I was there.” Sky whipped her head around, only to groan when this jostled her injured shoulder. “And why do you have my medical file, Cullen? Isn’t it confidential?”
“Not to the man who owns this hospital,” Cullen shot back. If Sky thought she was going to downplay what happened, she had another damn think coming. “Listen, Ricky—”
Yarborough held up his palm. “What Cullen is trying to say, Ms. Reynolds, is that you’re unlikely to know whether or not you lost consciousness. And given your other injuries, it suggests the mechanism of injury was forceful enough that we can’t rule out a head injury.”
“Very well.” Sky nodded at the doc, then shot Cullen a narrow-eyed look, which told him their other discussion was far from over.
Cullen crossed his arms, not budging one step while Yarborough finished his exam, ordered a CT scan for Sky’s head, and X-rays to check the reduction, and promised that if the imaging came back clean, she could go home with some stitches and ibuprofen.
“Cullen, a word?” Yarborough said, holding the curtain to the exam room open for Cullen to precede him into the hallway. There was something about the doc’s tone that made Cullen’s chest tight around his ribs.
“What’s wrong with Reynolds?” Cullen asked, stepping in front of Yarborough the moment the pair of them entered one of the empty enclosed treatment rooms. “Is she—”
“Why the hell are you reducing a dislocation in the field when you’re thirty minutes away from an ER?” Yarborough demanded. “This is Denton Valley, Colorado, Cullen. Not Afghanistan. It isn’t even a back country where you’ll be hiking a patient out.”
Cullen’s jaw tightened. “She was in pain when she didn’t need to be. Is there a problem with the shoulder?”
“I don’t think so, but even I won’t know until I see an X-ray. And I’m saying that after a full exam in a treatment room, not a field assessment in the dark with her fully clothed.” Yarborough put his hands on his hips and leveled him with a hard gaze. “There’s a reason we don’t treat people we care about, Cullen. Because sometimes letting a patient be in pain is the right call.”
“I—” He rubbed his face, swallowing the lie from the tip of his tongue. “Fine. Message received and understood.” He sighed, glancing at the door.