Washed Up: Bayside Heroes Read online

  WASHED UP

  BAYSIDE HEROES

  KANDI STEINER

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Want More Bayside Heroes?

  Screwed Up

  SCREWED UP

  Kandi Steiner Books

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2021 Kandi Steiner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law.

  The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Kandi Steiner

  Edited by Elaine York/Allusion Publishing (http://www.allusionpublishing.com)

  Cover Photography by Perrywinkle Photography

  Cover Design by Kandi Steiner

  Formatting by K.K. Allen

  To all the brave, kind, and caring healthcare workers who have worked tirelessly through the COVID-19 pandemic in a nightmarish situation to help others — thank you.

  PROLOGUE

  AMANDA

  “I don’t want that shit taco’s money,” I grit through my teeth, foot heavy on the gas pedal as I weave through the morning traffic on I-4.

  The chuckle from my attorney is thinly veiled through an exhausted sigh. “While I appreciate the creative insult, the fact still remains that—”

  “I don’t have a choice,” I finish for her, squinting through the windshield as I pass a minivan. It’s a foggy morning, like Tampa is trying to summon in October and spooky season in its own creative way. It certainly won’t be getting cold here any time soon, but the fog is a nice fall touch.

  “It won’t be forever,” Myra promises, her voice echoey through my phone speaker. My Toyota is older than her pre-teen, with a stereo that plays a CD with only a few songs skipping on a good day. It doesn’t even have an auxiliary cord hookup, so my phone sits perched on the console, her voice grainy as she says, “You’re in school now, and having a degree will make it much easier to find a job and support yourself.”

  “Right. In approximately four years.”

  “It will pass faster than you think,” she says. “And until then, alimony will make everything a lot easier.”

  I grumble my argument under my breath as the fog thickens. Everyone is slowing down, putting on flashers, acting like they’ve never driven in anything other than sunshine.

  I had dreams for what my life would look like at forty-seven years old. When I was younger, I imagined a doting husband and a big house with a wraparound porch. I envisioned kids and grandkids and hosting holidays and wine nights with my girlfriends after a long week at work.

  After my life took an unexpected turn at fifteen when I found out I was pregnant, I still held onto dreams, still imagined a life full of love and laughter.

  Instead, I’m on the brink of a divorce from a man who abused me for years, suffering through my sophomore year of college after not having studied a damn thing since I was eighteen, and hopelessly flailing through my first attempt at dating ever.

  God has a ripe sense of humor.

  “I don’t want to be tied to him. I don’t want him to think he still has power over me.” My throat burns with the attempt at swallowing. “I just want it to be over with,” I confess, my chest tight with the admission. “He’s been dragging this out for almost two years now.”

  “He’s trying anything he can to change your mind, trying to make it hard on you so you’ll give up.”

  I grip the wheel tighter. “I’m not giving up.”

  “I know. And I think he does, now, too. He’s told his representation that he’s ready to sign,” she reminds me. “We’re closer to a court date than it seems. If we can just wait—”

  “We’ve been waiting,” I whine. I don’t want to whine. A mature woman should not whine. But I’m so damn frustrated with the whole situation at this point that I can’t help it.

  “We’re rounding the last corner to the finish line,” she says. “Just stay focused on school and before you know it, you’ll be free.”

  Free.

  The word knocks my breath from my chest, and I blink, slowing a bit when I see brake lights through the fog ahead.

  That word has haunted me for years, the notion that I could live a life free of the pain, the guilt, the resentment seeming too good to be true.

  “Do you really think he’ll leave me alone after this?”

  I don’t realize how weak my voice is, how much it sounds like a whisper until I hear the exhale of sympathy from my attorney.

  “I do,” she says. “And if he doesn’t, we’ll file a restraining order against the shit taco.”

  I smirk at her using my nickname for my soon-to-be ex-husband, especially because I know that petite woman with the slicked-back bun and glasses has likely cursed only a total of ten times in her adult life.

  As I approach the junction where I-4 connects to 275, I’m forced to slow down, the fog thickening until I can barely see a car’s length ahead of me. One quick glance at the clock on my car’s stereo confirms I’ll likely be late for class with all this traffic.

  Great.

  “Okay. So, for now, I just need to… wait?”

  “Wait,” Myra confirms. “Focus on school and that new grandbaby of yours. And maybe on having a little fun, if you can imagine such a ludicrous idea.”

  “Funny,” I deadpan, switching lanes so I’m in the right one to head north on 275 toward the university.

  “It’ll all be over soon.”

  “And then you and I are going out for a drink.”

  “Multiple drinks,” Myra says. “Starting with a shot of tequila.”

  I smile, marveling at how an attorney I pay to spend their time on me has somehow become my closest friend. But I guess that’s what happens when you let yourself be slowly isolated from your friends and family over a few decades.

  “Thank you, Myra,” I say softly. “I don’t know—OH, SHIT!”

  The gasp that instinctively rips from me mixes with Myra’s worried what?! as I slam on my brakes, holding the wheel as steady as I can as more and more brake lights and crunched cars come into view through the fog. But it’s too late. I’m too close. There isn’t enough time to fully register what’s happening, let alone stop.

  I slam into the side of a half-turned BMW, the impact feeling like speeding over a long line of potholes. The airbag explodes, my car filling with powder and the distinct smell of hot metal as I finally come to.

  I blink, Myra’s voice screaming through the speaker now and demanding that I answer. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything really, other than confusion. I blink, head as foggy as the morning as I try to gather my bearings.

  Through Myra’s screams, I hear screeching tires and loud, thunderous thuds as more and more cars pile up.

  My heart is slow, the beat thick and heavy in my ears as my eyes flick to the rearvie
w mirror.

  Just in time to see an old F-150 come into view through the fog.

  I close my eyes and feel afraid of death for only a split second before I’m hit.

  Then, I feel nothing at all.

  GREG

  “It’s a two-very-large-cups-of-coffee kind of morning,” my associate, Dr. Stacy Banks, says as she leans a hip against the frame of my office door. “I’m going to run down before I go over my cases for the day. You want anything?”

  I smile at her from where I’m already going over my own cases, holding up my Yeti water bottle. “All good, thanks.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You don’t drink coffee,” she muses with a shake of her head. “I’m not sure how you survive this profession without it.”

  I just smile wider in lieu of answering, mostly because I’ve had the whole “Why don’t you drink coffee/alcohol/anything other than water?” conversation for far too many years to want to have it again this early in the morning.

  “He also wakes up at four in the morning, goes for a run or spends at least an hour in the gym before he shows up here, and still manages to be the first one in,” Dr. Ray McLaughlin adds with a wry smile from the hallway behind Stacy. He checks his watch. “It’s six thirty and you look like you’ve been reviewing cases for at least a half hour.”

  “Guilty,” I admit, which earns me a groan.

  We’re three of the four anesthesiologists at Bayside Regional, a level one trauma center in the heart of Tampa Bay. Of the four, I’m the youngest, and the newest addition to the staff — which means I’ve become quite used to being riffed on every morning.

  “Do you schedule in your fun, too?” Stacy teases.

  “Sure do. I’ve got an exciting documentary on the history of the justice system in America penciled in for this evening, if you’re looking for a wild time.”

  “The sad thing is that I’m a thousand percent sure you are not kidding right now,” she muses.

  Dr. Banks is a woman who commands attention in every way. If the fact that she’s just shy of six feet wasn’t enough to do it, just one look at her cat-like eyes or one conversation where she not-so-subtly puts your educational training to shame would do the trick. She earned my respect the first day I met her, and I’m not naïve enough to think I’ll ever earn hers in return — not until I’ve served much more than the two years I’ve been at Bayside, anyway.

  “Did I hear you say coffee?” Ray asks her. “Because this old man isn’t going to make it to eight A.M. without it.”

  But before Stacy can answer or they can take even one step toward the elevator, there’s an announcement on the overhead.

  “Code T, four, arrival time ten minutes.”

  Those words seem to suck the air out of the room, and the three of us are silent, exchanging glances for just microsecond before we launch into action.

  “I’ll prep OR three, four, and six for trauma,” Stacy says, and then she’s gone.

  “I’ll handle the cases. Go,” Ray tells me, and without another word being needed, he heads back to his office as I jog for the elevator and push the level 1 button that will take me to the Emergency Room.

  There was a time when my hands would shake in a moment like this, when the announcement of mass trauma coming into the hospital would have me sweating and my heart galloping like a wild horse. But through my residency in Chicago, I learned to tame those nerves, to work through breathing exercises on the elevator ride down to the Emergency Department.

  In for four, hold for four, out for eight.

  In for four, hold for four, out for eight.

  I get in four rounds before the elevator drops me and the handful of other doctors who jumped on at other floors into the Emergency Department hallway.

  We’re immediately met with what a normal person would see as chaos, but what feels like just another day to most of us.

  Doctors in green, nurses in blue and pink, all of them running around and hollering out orders to one another. Rooms are being prepped, every doctor and nurse available is flooding the first floor, and when the first EMS team shows up with a bloody patient writhing on their gurney, I take one last long inhale before I lock into trauma mode.

  It’s a blur of flashing emergency lights and trauma calls and blood and groans and intake nurses frantically trying to get patient information. As I fly around checking each new one who comes in, deciding in rapid speed whether my services are needed or not, I catch little glimpses of what’s going on.

  Pile up on I-4 where it meets 275.

  Dense fog.

  Dozens of cars.

  No firm number of how many yet.

  I latch onto what details I need and let go of the rest, focusing on assessing each new patient who flies through those double doors. I work through my training like it’s second nature now, checking airways and sending those with critical injuries up to the OR with a quick page to Dr. Banks to let her know they’re en route.

  Through the chaos, I catch a quick glimpse of Dr. Munroe — better known to me as Beck. An internist with a love for scotch, Beck was one of the first to befriend me when I was hired at Bayside Regional. Right now, he’s watching our other good friend and EMT, Asher Moore, push through the chaos with a bloody patient on a gurney.

  “Open fracture, left lower leg, good pulses,” Asher says. “I’ve administered two milligrams of Dilaudid.”

  Dr. Mains quickly steps in, taking over driving the bed. “I’ve got him. Take him to trauma room two.”

  Beck and I exchange one quick glance before his name is called by Tessa, the head nurse.

  “Beck, we have a seventy-five-year-old male here.”

  Without hesitation, he hops to pace beside her. “Trauma room five is open.”

  “Dr. Weston, over here!”

  My head snaps in the direction of my name being called, and another bloody gurney rushes toward me.

  “She’s communicating pain in the upper left quadrant,” one of the resident nurses tells me. He’s new, young, and his eyes are wide as saucers as his voice shakes through the patient details. “There’s bruising. Accelerated heart rate. Dr. Simmons is calling an exploratory laparotomy after performing ultrasound and CT.”

  I nod, reaching for my Vocera. “Exploratory Laparotomy, possible internal bleeding.”

  There’s barely a pause before Dr. Banks voices back. “OR six.”

  The young nurse looks at me, waiting for me to tell him if he should take the patient or if I will, but I’m shocked silent at the realization of who it is on the gurney.

  Amanda Parks.

  A flash of a night long ago hits me like a hammer to the head, and I see those honey eyes rimmed in black, tears staining her cheeks, bruises covering her arms. I feel her soft hair cascading over my shoulder as she leans into me, feel my heart hammering out of my chest as dangerous thoughts war in my head.

  Kiss her. Comfort her. Take away her pain.

  Stay still. Don’t move. She’s your best friend’s mom.

  “Doctor?”

  The nurse’s voice snaps me back, and I suck in a breath at the sight of Amanda’s bloody hair matted to her head, at the sound of her pained groans. Her hands twist in the gurney sheet over her stomach, and she curls in on herself.

  “I’ve got her,” I tell the nurse, and then I’m off, wheeling the bed toward the elevator. “Tell Dr. Simmons it’s OR six.”

  He nods and jets off in the other direction.

  “Mrs. Parks, can you hear me?”

  Amanda groans, nodding subtly, and my heart catches in my throat. She’s bruised, bloody, and weakening by the minute.

  And it’s not the first time I’ve seen her this way.

  “My name is Dr. Weston.”

  “Weston…” she groans, her brows pinching together, but she doesn’t say anything more.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “The hospital,” she murmurs as we wheel into the elevator. I punch the number for the seventh floor.

 
“Do you know why you’re here?”

  She attempts a swallow. “Car accident.”

  “Yes. You’re okay, Mrs. Parks. I’m taking you to the operating room. We’re going to look into that pain you’re feeling, okay?”

  She nods, sweat beading on her forehead as another wave of pain takes her under. She groans, curling in on herself.

  “I’m going to administer general anesthesia for this procedure. Do you understand?”

  A weak nod.

  “It’ll put you right to sleep and you won’t feel a thing,” I tell her when we hit the operating floor. I’m met by another team of nurses who take over the bed, and I rush alongside them still talking to Amanda. “Dr. Simmons will take care of you. You’re in good hands.”

  Amanda’s eyes creak open when we fly into operating room six, and the team gets to work prepping her for the laparotomy. Through the chaos, her golden eyes lock on mine.

  And then, she bolts upright. “Greg?!”

  The nurses immediately help her lie back down as she covers what I can only imagine is a pretty nasty headache with her hand.

  Her left hand.

  Her left hand that’s missing a small gold band it used to wear.

  She grimaces as they help her down, and once she’s recovered, her eyes open into mere slits.

  “Hi, Mrs. Parks,” I say with a smile, trying not to overanalyze that missing ring. Maybe it’s getting cleaned. Maybe that piece of shit husband of hers is finally upgrading her after all these years.

  “What are you doing he—oohhh!”