Humbug's Holiday Homecoming by J.A. Armstrong

Author:J.A. Armstrong [Armstrong, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: series, Romance, Medical
Publisher: Bumbling Bard Creations
Published: 2019-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Mick was used to endless shifts. Typically, they didn’t feel endless. Today was different. She’d been in the operating room twice. It offered a few hours of distraction. As soon as a moment of quiet time descended, her thoughts ran rampant—what were Ruby and Logan doing? She looked up at the clock in the doctor’s lounge. It reminded her of the old clocks in school. That made her think about Logan. She retrieved the phone from her pocket and gave into temptation.

***

“Well, Merry Christmas,” Leona answered her daughter’s call.

“Hi, Mom.”

“You sound tired.”

“I am—a little. Are you still home?”

Leona forced herself not to laugh. Was she still home? It was six in the morning. Of course, she was still home. “Yes, I’m still home. Why are you calling me?”

“Why wouldn’t I call you? It is Christmas morning.”

Leona gave in and laughed. “Call Ruby, Mick.”

“It’s still early.”

Leona laughed harder.

“What’s so funny?”

“You,” Leona said. “You’re cooked. Call your girlfriend. That’s who you want to talk to.”

“She’s not my—”

“Maybe you should rectify that,” Leona said.

Mick groaned. “It’s still early.”

“Something tells me she’ll take your call. I’m sure Logan will be up soon. She said she’d call when he woke up.”

“I should let her sleep.”

Leona kept laughing. “Goodbye, Mick. Tell Ruby I will see her shortly.”

Before Mick could respond, Leona had disconnected the call. Mick looked at the phone in her hand. “She hung up on me.”

“Who hung up on you?” a voice inquired.

“My mother,” Mick told her friend, Dr. Dave Johnson.

“Woke her up?” he guessed.

“My mother? No way. She’s always up before the sun.” She twirled her phone in her hand.

“Working Christmas sucks,” Dave commented.

“I like to work Christmas.”

“Seriously?”

I used to like it. “Usually,” Mick said.

“But not this year?”

Mick looked at her friend and shrugged. “Not really.”

“That wouldn’t have anything to do with Ruby, would it?”

Mick smiled.

“That’s what I thought.”

“You’ve known her a long time—Ruby, I mean,” Mick said.

“Seven years.”

Dave Johnson was a nephrologist who’d worked at the hospital for over fifteen years. Ruby worked in one of two medical ICU units. They worked together regularly. Mick had noted a comradery between the pair. “So, you knew her before—”

“Before she had Logan,” Dave said. “Ask me what you want to ask me.”

“You knew—”

“I knew Kate—yes. She was an APRN on the cardiac floor.”

“What was she like?”

“Kate?”

Mick nodded.

“Smart,” Dave replied. “Would’ve made an excellent doctor.”

Mick listened with interest.

“She was terrific,” he continued. “As both a nurse and a person. Everyone liked Kate.”

Mick felt slightly nauseous. Her friend’s recollections didn’t surprise her. Ruby was an amazing woman. It would take someone extraordinary to capture her heart.

Dave noted the color as it drained from Mick's face. He chuckled. “They were quite the pair,” he said. “Ruby kept Kate grounded, I think. No one could believe it when Kate got sick.”

“I can’t imagine what Ruby went through.”

“It was a painful time. I think Logan helped, though,” he offered. “Ruby took a month off to be with Kate at the end. She was back at work two weeks after Kate died.

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