cheek, doing my best to give him my strength. “She’s going to be just fine,” I whisper against his cheek.
He turns his head, planting his lips against mine in a chaste kiss. There’s nothing sexual behind it, just pure emotions. “Thanks,” he says again, wrapping one arm around me while his other stays, holding Paisley’s hand. He hugs me as tightly as he can with one arm for a few seconds, finally letting me go so I can go update everyone from the firehouse waiting to hear how she’s doing.
14
Tucker
I sit next to my daughter's hospital bed, my head resting against the mattress while the beeping of the monitors fills the room. She’s sleeping, the pain meds doing their job of relaxing her and taking the pain away. When Dad walked into the TV room at the firehouse looking white as a ghost, he told me to get my ass to the hospital. He’d hardly gotten the words out of his mouth, and I was on my feet, along with everyone else on my truck, and out the doors. I don’t recall much of the drive over, except feeling like it was taking forever to get the few miles down the road. I know Dad followed behind us, taking care of calling Mom to fill her in on what little information he had at the time.
I don’t know what I would have done if it was our truck that had responded to the accident. I’d have probably lost my shit right there at the scene. Knowing that it was another firehouse that responded tells me that the accident happened outside of our response zone, which isn’t that big of a surprise since Lilly lives in a different district than I work. Hell, even I live in another district.
“Mr. Wild.” An older, deep voice pulls me from my racing thoughts. I look up, then stand and accept the hand that is stretched across the bed for me.
“Tucker, nice to meet you.”
“Tucker, I’m Dr. Mills from Orthopedics. I’ve had the chance to look over Paisley’s x-rays and am here to inform you that she’ll be just fine. A cast for the next six weeks, and she should be back to normal. No damage to her growth plates and no need for surgery. We’ll get the bones set properly and get her all casted up and on her way home.”
I blow out a huge breath; the weight of knowing Paisley is okay and only needs a cast and not surgery is lifted from my chest. “Thank you so much. Will that happen here, or will we need to bring her into your office for that?” I ask.
“We’ll get her casted here. I don’t want to risk any further damage to the arm. I’ll see her in my office in six weeks, sooner if her pain in the arm isn’t subsiding after the next few days.”
“We can handle that. She asked if it would be possible to have a matching cast with her mom, who’s in the next room over,” I tell him.
“I’ll see what we can do,” he muses, jotting some notes down on the tablet he carries.
“Is that your wife next door?” he asks, looking at the tablet again.
“Um, no. Just Paisley’s mom. We co-parent. I believe her husband, Mike, is in with her,” I tell him, trying hard to not feel judged by this man.
“Right, I’ll go check on her next and see what we can do about matching casts, if they both need them,” he tells me without really telling me anything. I don’t expect them to give me all of Lilly’s information. I’m fully aware of how medical privacy laws work. Being a first responder, we’re taught to give as little information to those around us as possible, as we don’t know who is privy to that or not.
“Mommy!” Paisley calls out as the door opens wider, and a wheelchair rolls in.
“Paisley.” Lilly calls out her name as tears roll down her cheeks. Lilly has a leg propped up, surrounded by pillows and a splint to keep it where they want it. “How are you?” she asks our daughter.
“I’m fine, Mommy. My arm hurts a little,” she tells her, holding up her own splinted extremity. “Do we get to have matching casts?” Paisley asks her.
“I think we do,” Lilly tells her, Mike rolling her as close to Paisley’s bed as he can. I hop up and move some things out of the way so he can get her right