BACKSTORY: Former Chief Nursing Officer, Christina Hawthorne has promised her husband of a few months, Tom Wakefield, that she will break off her extramarital affair with police detective Nick Renata, and work on repairing the rift in their marriage that formed, when she was attacked in the hospital parking lot. The assault not only resulted in Christina’s losing the baby that she and Tom were expecting, but Nick’s murder of her assailant and their subsequent affair, have spiraled Christina’s world out of control.

It is now two months later and Tom can’t seem to get past Christina’s affair. And he is carrying a secret of his own. One that would destroy his already fragile marriage. That, Nick’s return into Christina’s life and a surprise reveal to her, forces Nurse Hawthorne to come to some decisions about who she wants to spend the rest of her life with...

                                                             ****

    The trouble began with the reappearance of Isabel Walsh.

    Correction, the trouble began with the reappearance of a very RICH looking, Isabel Walsh.

    Bobbie Jackson, who had taken over as Chief Nursing Officer after Christina’s attack, glanced up, then looked again as she now openly stared as Isabel, who was wearing a full length, black fur. Her make-up looked impeccable not to mention the Coach purse she was carrying had to have cost....what was going on here?

    “Isabel?” Bobbie asked carefully. “What’s going on?”

    “You mean why do I suddenly look so damned good?” she purred.

    Nurse Gail Strummer walked by, then stopped and turned around. Why did that woman Bobbie was talking to, look so familiar?

    Bobbie looked at Gail.

    “Gail, this is Isabel. You remember Isabel, don’t you?”

    Gail didn’t mince words as she looked the former street woman up and down.

    “I remember you not being able to afford all of this.” she said bluntly. Bobbie couldn’t help but agree. Luckily, Isabel was not feeling overly sensitive today.

    “It’s alright. I know you must be wondering how come I look so damned good, huh? I won the lottery!” Isabel squealed jumping up and down...then came down hard on high heels that she wasn’t used to wearing. She suddenly slipped and crumpled to the floor!

    Gail and Bobbie got her over to a chair, where Bobbie helped her take off her high heel. Her ankle seemed sprained.

    “You need to get that looked at,” Gail said in a no-nonsense tone, “so we’ll just take your coat and stuff and put it...”

    “Hell no! I’m not letting anyone touch my fur! Look, I’ll get treatment but I want to see Christina. Child services STILL won’t let me see my boy, even though I have money now to take care of him.”

    Bobbie motioned to Gail and they moved out of Isabel's hearing.

    “Was that the twenty million dollar lottery she won?”

    Gail nodded.

    “Yep! I wonder if the poor dear knows anything about taxes. Otherwise, she could be in worse trouble than when she was on the street.”

    “I’ll get Christina. You get a doctor to look at her ankle.” Bobbie said, walking off. Gail raised a brow. All Bobbie needed to do was call up to Christina’s new office--she was now the new head of James River Hospital.

                                                        ****

    Christina looked at some projections at just how much it would cost, to get new lights for the parking lot. The lights she didn’t have when she walked out to her car, one fateful night and got the shit beat out of her by an attacker.

    Christina set down the papers and leaned back in her chair. She couldn’t think about anything but Tom and how bad things were between them. Why had she told him anything about Nick? If she had just not said anything then maybe...

    Christina stood up and walked over to a window. Who was she kidding? She had no choice but to tell Tom about her one time encounter with Nick. There was no way their marriage could survive with a secret like that between them. Besides, telling Tom, in a way, forced her to end things with Nick, who had kept his distance.

    And yet, she missed Nick. How had her life become so complicated? One minute she was getting married to Tom Wakefield, a man who had helped her find love again after the death of her husband from cancer. Her only daughter, Camille, loved Tom. And they had been expecting a baby. A girl.

    Then in a savage moment, all of that was snatched away.

    She rubbed the back of her neck, just as Bobbie walked in, after having knocked.

    “I knocked, but I guess you didn’t hear me,” Bobbie said, “Isabel is here.”

    Christina folded her arms. Isabel Walsh. Isabel was the reason she met Detective Nick Renata, after Isabel kidnapped her son from his foster parents--one of them being Nick’s sister.

    “Is she in the ER?” Christina asked tiredly.

    Bobbie closed the office door and walked up to her.

    “Yes. And she is also a lottery winner wearing a fur coat and carrying a Coach handbag. She is wearing heels she can’t walk in and managed to injure her ankle. I guess she wants to thank you personally for her reversal of fortune.” Bobbie told her.

    Christina blinked.

    “ISABEL won that twenty million dollar jackpot?”

    “Yep!”

    “Oh, this I have to see!” Christina said, happy for the distraction. But Bobbie touched her arm.

    “There’s more.”

    “There always is. Let’s have it.”

    “Isabel wants her son back and can’t understand why Child Protective Services, won’t give him back, now that she has money.” Bobbie explained. Christina raised a brow.  This is just what she needed today.

    But the day was about to get much worse.

                                                             ****

    Camille handed Gail a chart and then looked over in the direction of a woman, who was staring at her intently. She was wearing a black fur that probably should’ve been taken off, since the doctor seemed to be having trouble examining her ankle with it on.

    “Who is that woman over there? Wearing the fur?”

    Gail snorted!

    “Isabel Walsh. Your mother and her go way back. Anyway, she just recently won the lottery.”

    “That twenty million one? Oh wow!” Camille breathed, staring at the woman again.  The woman kept staring back so intently that Camille wondered if her mother had ever introduced them or something? Maybe she knew her and didn’t remember meeting her or something?

    Meanwhile, Christina was about to round a corner, when she ran smack into Tom! He reached out to steady her.

    “Hey!”

    “Hey!” Tom answered, but not with as much enthusiasm. “How goes your first day as head of James River?”

    “Slowly,” Christina admitted, “so, I was thinking maybe we could have lunch together?”

    “I can’t. I have an appendectomy.”

    “Well we can make it a late lunch.” Christina suggested.

    “I can’t. Not today.” Tom said and moved to walk around her. Christina grabbed his arm and pulled him into an empty exam room. She closed the door.

    “Tom, let’s go to marriage counseling. Let’s do something...I just can’t help but feel that we’re not going to make it, hoping things work out on their own.”

    Tom folded his arms.

    “Christina, I need time. That’s all.”

    Christina bit her lip and looked down.

    “I know.” she finally said.

    “Do you?”

    Christina looked back up.

    “Yes, I do!”

    “Because, I thought I just needed to give you time to come back to  me. Instead you betrayed our marriage vows with a killer!”

    Christina’s mouth dropped open, then closed, then opened again.

    “Nick is not a killer.”

    “Is that what it was? Your attraction to him? He killed the man that killed our baby...something I should have done!  And you’re ready to sleep with him on a moment’s notice?”

    “You know what? I actually do have business down here. So I’ll be going. I’ll see you tonight.” Christina said coolly, leaving the exam room.  It would be moments later that Camille would enter.

    “Are you alright?” she asked softly. Tom took a deep breath and nodded. Camille approached him and began rubbing his back.

    “Let’s go somewhere tonight? Mom thinks that Miles is still here in town. I’ll tell her I’m with him and we can just...”

    Tom closed his eyes. His head told him to say no to his step-daughter. Christina’s only daughter. The young woman that he had turned to recently after finding out about Christina and Nick Renata.  The young woman he had turned to emotionally, and sexually.

    Tom slowly turned around and cupped her face within his hands.

    “I can’t. And this has to end.  If your mother found out, it would end both of our relationships with her.” he said, slowly removing his hands from her face and walking out of the room. Camille closed her eyes. Tom was right. She knew he was and still...

    She couldn’t get past how he made her feel. He had been heartbroken over her mother’s betrayal. She had been hurt when Miles went back to his wife. And on the night that her mother was breaking it off with Nick Renata, Camille Hawthorne made love with Tom Wakefield, her mother’s husband.

    Her step-father.

    Her lover.

    It had happened twice. Not to mention that they had taken going to the movies for alone time. It was wrong. She knew it was wrong. And yet when she looked at Tom, she didn’t see him as her mother’s husband or even as a father figure.

    He was the man she had been waiting for all of her life. He was the man that made her wonder what she ever saw in Miles?

    And Camille did not know if she could let Tom go, as easily as he could her.

                                                            ****

    “Isabel, you clean up nicely.” Christina smiled, glancing at the doctor that had just left them alone.  “So, where did you buy your winning ticket?”

    Isabel did not answer. Instead, she was looking past her out in the hallway. The only people there were Tom and some orderlies. Christina looked at her.

    “That’s my new husband. Tom. Let me call him over and you can meet him.”

    “Uh, yeah, I thought I had seen him before.”

    Christina tilted her head.

    “Excuse me?”

    “Christine,” Isabel began, “I didn’t come here for the reasons that you think.”

    “I was told you wanted your son back.”

    “I can’t get him back until I prove I’m fit. And having some money isn’t going to change that,” Isabel said sadly, “but I had to come here and warn you. After all you’ve done for me.”

    Christina took her hand.

    “Warn me about what?”

    At that moment, gunshots rang out in the hallway! People began screaming, running and ducking for cover and soon, the shooter made his presence known.

    It was Teddy Jones, the father of Isabel’s baby. Christina and Nick had had a run in with him last year...

    Teddy pointed the gun at both of them.

    “Bitch, that was MY lottery ticket! I want my share and don’t think of giving it to this scrawny bitch!” Teddy huffed.

    Meanwhile, Gail called the police. Detective Nick Renata, along with back up, were on their way.