Charming Hannah (Big Sky 1)

I nod and hold Hannah against my chest, letting her cry it out.

The door closes, and she says, “I’m dying.”

I frown and pull her away from me so I can look into her blue eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Heart attack,” she says, and my world falls away.

“You’re having a damn heart attack?” I press the call button for the nurse and stare blindly at the monitors. “Drake said you’re okay.”

A woman bustles into the room. “How can we help?”

“If she’s having a heart attack, shouldn’t someone be in here?”

“We don’t think that’s what’s happening,” she says with a smile. “We have labs drawn, heart monitor going, and she’s about to get a chest x-ray. Right now, in fact.”

A young man comes in and ushers me off the bed so he can wheel her out to a nearby lab. He doesn’t ask her to get up, but instead does all of the work with her lying on the bed. After the x-ray is taken, he asks if we’d like to see the images.

“Yes,” Hannah says immediately and stands so she can see his monitor.

“This looks pretty standard, although I’m no radiologist.”

“No, look.” She points at a spot where her lungs are. “This is a tumor.”

“I think those are blood vessels,” the tech says. “I’ve done hundreds of these, and those are blood vessels.”

Hannah just shakes her head and gets back on the bed, looking defeated. “Please take me back to my room.”

She’s wheeled back, and hooked back up to her monitors. After a few moments, the doctor comes in and sits at Hannah’s bedside.

“I have good news, Dr. Malone. Your labs have all come back normal so far. I’m waiting on one more enzyme lab, but I expect that to be normal as well. Your EKG and chest x-ray are both in normal limits.”

“I don’t know how that can be,” Hannah says with true confusion on her face. “I saw the tumor on the x-ray. Didn’t you see it?”

The doctor frowns and opens her laptop, bringing up the x-ray in question and turns the computer so Hannah can see it. “Where?”

“Here.” She points to the cluster in the center of her lung.

“Those are blood vessels.”

“Bullshit,” Hannah mutters and shakes her head. “It’s cancer. I’m having a goddamn heart attack and I have cancer and you’re doing nothing. I want a second opinion.”

“Hannah, I promise you, you’re not dying.”

Tears are streaming down her sweet face, and it makes me ache. She’s devastated. She’s convinced.

And it doesn’t matter that she’s a doctor. All of her training and common sense are gone, replaced by the reactions of a scared woman.

I don’t know what to do for her, but I know I’m not going anywhere.

Not now, not ever.

She looks up at me with tears rolling out of her blue eyes and says, “I don’t know what to do. What do I do?”

Chapter Nineteen

~Hannah~

“HANNAH, LISTEN TO ME,” Dr. Linderman says, catching my attention. “This is not a tumor. And I’m watching the monitor right now. Your heart is steady and just fine. I’m not lying to you.”

“It’s fluttering right now,” I reply, so fucking frustrated that no one believes me. And even more frustrated that I can’t stop the nonsense running through my head.

I can’t remember any of my medical training. None of it.

“Flutters happen with anxiety,” she replies, and I just stare at her in horror. I’ve spent the past two hours here for nothing. All because of this stupid anxiety.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. She pats my hand and smiles kindly.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“My left hand feels weird.”

“You’re tense. I’m quite sure the nerves to your arm are being pinched, and that’s causing the discomfort.”

“So, I’m not having a heart attack.”

“No. You’re not. I’m going to wait for that last lab, and then you’re free to go.”

She smiles and leaves the room, and I can’t look Brad in the face.

I’m humiliated.

“Baby,” he says. “Look at me.”

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“You don’t need to be.” He sits on the bed with me again and pulls me into his arms, which makes me feel better. “It sounds like all of the symptoms felt like a heart attack. I would have been scared myself.”

I nod, but then take a deep breath and swallow hard.

“Here’s the thing, Brad. I can’t turn this off. I can’t make it stop. I’m a trained professional, but when this starts, all of my training goes out the window and rational thought goes with it. I’m sure that something is wrong. Everyone thinks it’s funny. Or cute.”

I wipe a tear off my cheek.

“Drake will make a joke, or brush it off, and I’ll play along. But it’s not funny.” I lift my eyes to his now and have to bite my lip so I can pull myself together, even a little bit. “It’s not funny. It’s scary. I will go a long time without anything like this happening, but it’s always, always in the back of my mind that something is wrong. Headache? I must have a brain tumor. Lower abdominal pain? Ovarian cancer. I’m a hot mess, Brad, and I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you bailed now. I would.”