Jericho (A Redemption Novel) (8 page)

Christian had wondered when this moment would come. The general had not been subtle when dropping hints about life after the military. He knew what was coming and he was prepared for the blow, but it didn’t stop his heart from racing in his chest. “Are you telling me that I’m not going to be allowed to go back to active duty?”

“I’m not telling you anything. I’m retired.”

CHAPTER 7

“N
urse Williams.” Georgia heard her name called as she left the locker room and headed for the nurses’ station. She froze, knowing the sound of that voice all too well.

“Yes, ma’am?” She turned around to face her supervisor and she almost regretted her decision. She had that expression again. The I’m-going-to-rip-out-your-soul-and-eat-it-for-breakfast expression that every nurse feared.

Her boss never wanted to speak to her when she did a good job, only when she did something wrong. And Georgia knew she had done something wrong.

Christian.

Somehow, without her meaning to, their relationship had traveled past that of nurse and patient. She had come to the realization that she felt things for him. Things she shouldn’t. She could still feel the way his tortured skin felt beneath her lips, and while she’d been off for the past three days, she found herself pressing her fingers to her lips as if she was trying to recreate the memory, wondering what it would be like if she had been brave enough to press her lips to his.

She shouldn’t have gotten so close to him, but there was no turning back now. She couldn’t pretend he was just another patient. They were friends in an odd sort of way. And that odd friendship could put her job in jeopardy.

“You were late again today.” The woman tapped on her clipboard. “We have talked about this. I’m writing you up.”

Late? It took a moment for her brain to process this. This wasn’t about Christian. She let out a hysterical bubble of laughter, relived that her secret was still safe.

“Is something funny?” The woman’s stern expression turned into a frown.

“No, ma’am, it’s just that I wasn’t late today.”

“Are you telling me that I’m mistaken? I saw you walk into the locker room at 7:06 p.m. You are supposed to begin your shift exactly at seven. Seven-oh-six is very late in my book.”

The woman watched everybody like a hawk. Georgia was genuinely surprised that Nurse Chestnut had not noticed when she came in.

“I’ve been here since six. Nurse Cheng had to leave early because her son is sick. She asked me to cover for her.”

“I can vouch for her,” Dr. Allen said from behind her. “She walked in the door at 5:58, to be exact. You should be thanking her for covering part of another person’s shift instead of taking glee in writing her up. Georgia’s a good nurse. She works hard. The patients love her, and instead of telling her how good she is, you harp on little insignificant things like a few minutes here and there.”

“Dr. Allen—” she narrowed her eyes on him “—I know Nurse Williams is very popular here with the male patients, but I wasn’t aware you were so invested in her welfare. If you are engaging in an outside physical relationship, I need to know about it. I frown on my nurses engaging in workplace relationships, but there is nothing in the bylaws that says it is forbidden as long as Human Resources knows about it and you both do not let it interfere with your work.”

“We are not sleeping together, ma’am,” Georgia said in nearly a whisper. Her father had taught her never to raise her voice, but she wanted to scream at the woman. To rage, to slap the self-righteous look off her face. Her insinuation felt like a punch to the stomach. She almost felt as though she was standing in front of her father again, explaining in vain that she was not what he thought she was. “Just because somebody thinks I do my job well doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with them.”

“I think I might have to report
you
to Human Resources,” Dr. Allen said. “You have just insulted us both. We are not sleeping together. And you aren’t the only one who knows the bylaws here. Maybe Human Resources has to know, but you do not, and you are way out of line for trying to use your power to intimidate your subordinate.”

“I wasn’t...” Her face flushed red and she closed her mouth as she tried to compose herself. Georgia watched in awe. It was the first time she had ever seen her boss flustered. “Maybe this is something we need to discuss in private, Dr. Allen. Georgia needs to get back to work.”

“So do I. I have no need to discuss anything further with you. Remember, Nurse Chestnut. You may be her supervisor, but I am an attending doctor here, and you certainly don’t tell me what to do or how to behave. Got it?”

“Yes, Dr. Allen,” she said stiffly. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to be going now.”

Georgia was torn between wanting to hug Greg Allen or slap him. “It’s a little bit wrong of you to wave your doctor status in Nurse Chestnut’s face. You doctors think you know so much, but we nurses run the hospital.”

“I know it,” he said, grinning. “But that woman has an enormous stick up her ass, and I think somebody should knock her down a few pegs as often as possible.”

“Well, thank you for coming to my rescue, but I have a feeling that you made things a lot worse for me. She’s going to be on my case now more than ever.”

“There are two ways to prevent that, Georgia.”

“How?”

“One—you could ask to be transferred to another unit. Two—you could marry me and never have to work another day in your life. We’ve just had our first full conversation in nine months. I think our future looks promising.”

Georgia blushed furiously. He was right. She was always so busy being uncomfortable around him that she never said more than two words to him.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Georgia. I wouldn’t mind having to go to Human Resources for you.”

He walked away after that comment, leaving Georgia a little stunned.

He’s just being sweet,
she told herself.
He’s just a flirt. Don’t read anything into it.

But if he wasn’t just being sweet... She shook her head and went to back to work.

* * *

Christian had known the moment Georgia walked into the hospital that evening. He wanted to say that the air felt different, that he felt her presence in his blood, but he couldn’t. The thing that gave away her arrival was the other soldiers shouting out greetings as soon as they saw her.

She was early that day, adding an extra hour to her long shift. He sometimes wondered how she did it. As a marine he knew what hard work was like. He knew the pain of waking up impossibly early to get a job done. But Georgia somehow seemed superhuman.

The general’s words stuck in his mind.

Think about what you want in a wife.

The idea sounded absurd to him at first. And he knew that after he got out of the hospital and returned to his normal life, marriage would be the last thing on his mind. But since he had so much time on his hands he had a hard time not thinking about it.

What would he want in a wife?

He gave it some thought, right up until the moment Georgia walked into his room. Then all other thoughts ceased.

“Hello, Georgia.”

She gave him a ghost of a smile as she approached him, and he had a feeling that something might be off in her world.

“How are you, Christian? You look better and better every time I see you.”

She briefly touched her hand to the burned side of face. The skin felt tight but it didn’t hurt much anymore. He spent a lot of time studying his face now that he had a mirror. He understood why some people had a hard time looking at him. One side was the same as it had been, but the other side... It resembled melted plastic, no longer smooth or just white, but raised with thick bands of pink and brown that used to resemble flesh. His eye was slightly distorted. The corner of his mouth was pulled down. It looked like a makeup job from a bad horror movie, but it wasn’t. It was what he had to live with for the rest of his life.

“I bet you say that to all your patients.”

“I don’t.” She froze and locked eyes with him. “Do you think I’m a flirt?”

For a moment he thought she was teasing, but when her face fell he knew she wasn’t. “No.” She was the type of woman who could drive any man insane with lust just by looking at him. But she wasn’t a tease. She was sweet. There was something subtle about her that wrapped around a man and made him want to get closer, but he would never describe her as a flirt. If she was, he wouldn’t be so attracted to her. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” She broke eye contact with him and went about doing her routine examination.

“You’re a bad liar.” He grasped her hand, forcing her to stop and look at him. “Tell me what happened.”

“My boss wanted to know if I was sleeping with Dr. Allen,” she said in an explosion of words. “All he did was vouch that I got here on time, but the first thing she wanted to know was if we were sleeping together. She said she knew I was popular with the male patients, but I don’t do anything but try to be kind. I’m not sleeping with anybody. Why would she think that about me? Is there something I’m doing wrong?”

The conversation he’d had with Tobias came rushing back to him. He’d said Nurse Chestnut didn’t like Georgia because everybody else liked her. Christian knew the woman was probably just jealous.

He set his other hand over hers and ran his fingers across her smooth knuckles. “I don’t know why she thinks that about you. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she stared up at the ceiling, trying to blink them back. “I’ve been trying not to let it bother me but—but it does. It brought me back to the last time I spoke to my father. He thinks the same thing of me. He said that I lead men into temptation. He blames me for what happened.”

Suddenly Christian felt sick to his stomach and his grip on Georgia’s hand tightened. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry. It’s nothing.” She pulled her hand from his and swiped at her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He sat up and grasped her hips. But unlike the last time he grabbed her she didn’t ask him to let her go. “What happened?”

She looked at him for a long time, saying nothing. Her face was full of misery, and for as long as he lived he would never forget how she looked tonight.

“I—I was raped. By my older brother’s best friend, and nobody believed me.”

“Georgia, no.” There were a few times in his life that he almost felt his heart stop, and this was one of them. Her admission took his breath away. He wanted to tell her to stop talking, to take it back, but there was no going back after a revelation like that. Someone had hurt this beautiful, sweet girl. Someone had hurt Georgia.

“My father said that I was a liar. That I’d whored my body to a man. That I was just blaming it on Robert because he was a good boy and that I was doing this to get back at him.” It was as if a dam had burst, each detail worse than the last. It was as though she couldn’t stop her outpouring of words. “Robert told my father that I—I tried to seduce him. He stood in my living room and told my whole family that I had tried to tempt him into sinning. That I was trying to use him to cover up my mistake with another man. I watched my family turn on me. Nobody would look me in the eye. Nobody would believe me. I didn’t tempt him. I didn’t lie. Abby looks just like him. My baby is proof of that. But they’ll never get to see her, because after they kicked me out, I’ll never step foot in their house again.”

The tears streamed down her face. He lifted his fingers to catch them, to wipe them away. Seeing her cry was physically painful for him. Knowing there was nothing he could do to fix it was worse than being hit with a bomb. “Why wouldn’t they believe you?”

“My family is very religious. My father is a minister who believes that unmarried women shouldn’t be around men. He had my sister and I homeschooled. We weren’t allowed to wear pants or listen to the radio. He thought the outside world was full of sin and corruption for young women. Eve tempted Adam with an apple. He thought all women were the same way. Only on earth to tempt men to sin. Unless they were trained not to.”

“Your father sounds like an asshole.” He was. How could he not protect his daughter?

She let out a watery laugh. “Say that again.”

“A big asshole. A huge one. The king of them.”

“I used to think he was right. I let Robert kiss me. I was twenty-one years old and had never been kissed before. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but at first it was nice. But then it wasn’t and he wouldn’t stop.” She shook her head, as if trying to shake the bad memory out of her mind. “It took me nearly a year with a counselor at a women’s center for me to believe that it wasn’t my fault.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“My family wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t think the police would, either.” She ran her fingers through his hair, studying him for a moment. “You look scary right now. Relax, honey.”

She was petting him again. Giving him comfort when she was the one in need of it.

“I could kill him for you. Tell me where to find him and I’ll do it for you.”

“He’s not worth it.”

“What about your father, then? I almost think what he did was worse. He’s not a man in my book.”

“Christian...” She rested her forehead against his. “Nobody has ever offered to commit first-degree murder for me. I’m flattered.”

“I’m not joking. He deserves to be punished. What about child support? The court can prove paternity and make him pay. At least that way you’ll be vindicated. The world will know he’s a liar.”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “I don’t want anything from him. I don’t ever want to see him again. He’s not her father. I’d rather struggle to pay off her medical bills for the rest of my life and survive on peanut butter and jelly than take anything from him.”

“Medical bills?”

“Abby came early. There were complications. She’s fine now, but I’m hopelessly in debt.”

“How old are you, Georgia?”

“I’ll be twenty-four in a month.”

She was a baby. He stroked his thumbs across her cheeks. “You’re tougher than half the marines I know.”

“We women are a tough bunch. You think getting blown up is bad, you should try childbirth.”

“I’ll pass.”

He pulled her a little closer so that he could reach her neck. The cords were tight when he touched them. He massaged them, watching as her eyes drifted shut and her mouth open slightly in pleasure.

Protect her.
The strength of that thought scared him. She was doing fine by herself, but who was there to take care of her?