Page 18 of Dr. Scandal Claus

Besides, I had never had any genetic issues, least of all a heart condition. My ticker was as healthy as a horse, and the likelihood that I carried this gene mutation without knowing it was crazy. My grandfather had some heart conditions, but he was an old man, not a boy.

My hands scrubbed down over my face, and I let my head fall back onto the chair's headrest. My mind was sick of thinking about this. If I just had the answers, I 'd be better able to treat him. This taking a stab in the dark stuff was horrible for him and the condition. His mental health was now suffering, and the risk of complications was greater by the day. We'd spent the past four weeks trying to convince the insurance company he had to be tested, and they were still dragging their feet.

"Sir?" I heard, following a beep on my phone. It was the secretary and I felt jarred from my thoughts.

"Yeah, Heather …"

"Sir, there's a Marjorie Whitman on line one. She says she wants to have a chat with you now that you're back to practicing…" The crisp tension on the line sparked lightning in my chest. The very woman who helped bury my career was nowpoking around again. She probably got bored of her state senator story and wanted to hunt up old ghosts or raise the dead.

"Tell her there is a restraining order against her for a reason. I'm not interested in speaking with her." I pushed the button to end the intercom transmission and felt the snake of anger coil around my heart. I left that garbage in the past for a reason and I had moved on.

Now, since I finally started feeling good about myself, it made sense that the universe would send me a wolf in sheep's clothing again. It was what always happened. I hated ever trusting that I could be happy, because it always got soiled by life.

I decided I didn't want to be here at all anymore so I shut my laptop, grabbed my coat and headed out. I had Scarlett to look forward to, and that was the only thing that kept my frustration and temper in check. Marjorie Whitman was a plague on society, but Scarlett was my cure.

A much-needed respite from the bitter winter my soul had been living in.

13

SCARLETT

Ethan strained with all his might to roll the large snowball closer to where I stood. With the heavens dumping a good foot of snow over all of Dakota County, schools and businesses had been shut down. We knew around midnight there would be no school thanks to our One Call Now system, and I'd sent Nellie a message saying I wouldn't be in. Tina from upstairs was away on a trip for her band to someplace tropical so I had no one to watch Ethan.

"It's too hard," Ethan whined, stopping to take a breather. The new medication Nick had put him on last month seemed to be working so far, though my fears and worries still lingered. Ethan dug at his chest through his coat and the multiple layers of clothing he wore. "And this is itchy. I hate it."

"Come on, buddy. Push it here and I'll lift it up." Our decrepit snowman would only have sticks for arms and rocks as eyes and a smile, but I was determined to make memories with him. I loved snow days when I was a child. Dad would get some of his old clothing—a pair of boots, some jeans, and a button-up flannel—and we'd fill them up to the brim and make an upside-down snowman.

Though, I'd never been sick like Ethan, and the Holter monitor he was now wearing for a second time was annoying him in a way I'd never had to live through. The first round of testing didn't show anything. He hadn't had any episodes, and while that was a good thing, it didn't show Nick or his colleagues any helpful information. And with insurance refusing to cover his genetic testing—and it being too expensive for me to pay for on my own—the only thing we could do was attempt different treatments.

"I'm too tired," he whined, and he turned his back and slumped to the ground, leaning backward against the snowball.

I chuckled at his dramatic flair and joined him, but we quickly found ourselves lying on top of the snowpack making snow angels, which brought his smile back. He giggled and I rolled over and tickled him a little, which only made him roll with laughter.

I was pushing him, and I felt like a bad parent for doing so. But his medical bills were mounting now and we needed this round of monitoring to produce a result. Nick suggested that getting Ethan a little more active might induce some of his symptoms, which if nothing else would help them pinpoint more directly what was actually going wrong. If we couldn't get the DNA testing done, this was a good option.

But when Ethan started wheezing a little and pressing his hand to his chest, I couldn't do it anymore. Guilt pounded away at my conscience, and I had to back off and help him calm down.

"You okay, bud?" I pulled on his hand and forced him into a sitting position and he shrugged his shoulders.

"It hurts right here a little…" He frowned and tore his hat off his head, which was soaked in sweat. "Is this why I have to wear all these wires?"

My heart went out to him. No little boy his age should have to miss opportunities or skip out on events just because their bodywasn't normal. I wanted my son to be healthy and playful like any other kid his age. It physically hurt my heart to watch him suffer.

"Alright, well we should go home." I sighed. "I'm sorry you don't like the monitor, Ethan. It's going to help Dr. Edwards treat you so you can feel better." I pulled him onto my lap and he rested his head on my shoulder.

"I don't want to wear the wires anymore. I just want to do wrestling, basketball, and baseball…They have sign-ups for baseball at school. I want to do it." My heart squeezed as he said that and I almost started crying. This wasn't fair—life wasn't fair.

"I know, bud. We'll work with Dr. Edwards and hopefully he can get you to a point where you can do baseball. But I'm not making any promises." I stood and set him down on the snow. Then I took his hand and we started walking toward the car, leaving our sad, half-constructed snowman to be destroyed by other kids at the park.

"You can just call him Nick, you know." Ethan's head hung and I sensed a tinge of sadness in his tone.

"You don't like calling him Dr. Edwards?" I wanted to know how he really felt. My primary duty was to raise Ethan. If he didn't like Nick around, I had a horrible choice to make. It also didn't bode well for the future when the truth actually came out, intentionally as I planned, or inadvertently by gossip. Ethan would learn Nick was his father and what would he think then?

"No, I just mean. You're kissing him and stuff…so you can just say Nick."

I snickered and blushed at his comment.

"Alright…when did you see us kissing?"