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“If I had listened—”
“Nope. We are not doing that right now.” Luke’s stern tone silenced my rant, even though he had no idea what I’d done. “Let us help you. Everything is under control.” He walked me inside to the den and sat me on the couch. “Kendall? Can you please check Tiana? She passed out.”
“Sure.” Kendall jumped into nurse-mode as soon as my butt hit the cushions. She usually had her medical kit on her, like most of the health professionals in our group, since most places were far from the hospital or other facility. They had to use their expertise more than once under various circumstances.
A needle pricked my forearm. “Ouch!”
“Usually, we tell the patient when we’re going to do something painful.” Marissa patted my shoulder, and I saw Emma on the other side of her. “If your blood sugar is low, I’ll get you something to eat.”
“Guess as a surgical nurse you’re used to dealing with conscious patients, huh?” Kendall retorted.
“I still have compassion even when my patients are unconscious,” Marissa snapped back. “I don’t know what bug crawled up your ass, but someone should shake it loose.”
“Excuse me, Ms. I work at a fancy-shmancy hospital that’s better than yours,” Kendall sneered. “Little Ms. I have two boyfriends.”
It was so unlike her that both Marissa and I stared at her, our jaws open in shock.
“Keep your opinions to yourself!” Emma, surprisingly, jumped up to defend Marissa. She was typically the quietest one of the bunch, but her eyes flashed with anger. “You’re just jealous that you can’t land one boyfriend, let alone two!”
“You take that back!” Kendall yelled in Emma’s direction. “You’ve been here in our town like five minutes. You don’t get an opinion on the matter.”
Emma glanced at me, but didn’t say anything else. Her lack of a reply sparked Marissa to snap at Kendall.
“Hey! You are supposed to be helping Tiana, not getting her more upset.” Marissa ripped the bandage out of Kendall’s hand and affixed it to the wound. She stalked to the mudroom and returned with her own duffle bag, pulling out a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. “I’ll do it myself.”
“No, Luke asked me to.” Kendall aggressively affixed her cuff around my upper arm. “You haven’t done much to help today.” She pumped up the bulb, and motioned for everyone to be quiet as she listened. “Your blood pressure is fine.” She removed it as roughly as she had placed it.
“I’m not supposed to be doing much of anything right now,” Marissa confirmed. “I’m still on leave.”
“Is that why you aren’t eating? Or is your lack of food because your boyfriends don’t like your body?”
“It’s called morning sickness, but it’s been lasting all day,” Marissa snapped. “Seriously, who peed in your cheerios this morning?”
“Don’t insinuate shit about Tater and Jesse!” I yelled at the same time.
“Did you just say you were pregnant?” Kendall blinked several times.
“Pause,” Luke growled from across the room, clearly hearing enough of the bickering. His first move was to cross to the couch and immediately diffuse the situation.
We all looked at him, not speaking. “I understand everyone is on edge right now, but it is not the time to be fighting.” He tugged Emma to sit at the far end. “Just because you’re upset doesn’t mean you should be rude, babygirl.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Emma crossed her arms. “It’s not open season to hurl insults at each other.” She pouted. “Kendall was wrong, but I didn’t help.”
“Thank you.” He gently coaxed Marissa to sit by Emma before turning his attention to Kendall. “Either take care of Tiana like you were asked to do or go home.”
Kendall flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, her eyes blazing with heat. “Tanner is fighting for his life, but we’re all supposed to pretend like Tiana has given a shit about any of us for the past decade and just cater to her needs?”
“Kendall...” Luke started, but I interrupted him.
“No, she’s right,” I said sadly. Rissa squeezed my hand, but my heart felt like it shattered into a million pieces. There was no excuse for my behavior. “I informed Jesse of the problem and he told me to do something. Instead of listening I decided to go off with my own plan. But you didn’t know that, Kendall. So, what is the real problem?”
“I don’t know.” Kendall’s brows knitted together as she stared at me. We were always so close and she was one of the few people I stayed in contact with. Her atrocious behavior and zero consideration for my well-being amid the most stressful situation of my life was awful. There was a bigger story there, but we had more important things to worry about.
“Go sit down, Kendall.” Luke jerked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing toward a small loveseat. “Today is not the day.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Luke. This isn’tyourhouse.”
Watching Kendall size-up Luke brought another thought to my head. She fought Gage tooth and nail, but they were siblings. I couldn’t recall her going toe to toe with anyone else. Maybe the recent loss of her father had been bothering her more than she let on? I made a mental note to spend more time with her once everything was settled.
