Ruby

Ruby

Rare Gems Series Book
5

By

Kathi S. Barton

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as
real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations,
or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WCP

World Castle Publishing,
LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © Kathi S. Barton
2015

Smashwords Edition

Print ISBN: 9781629892177

eBook ISBN: 9781629892184

First Edition World Castle Publishing,
LLC, February 20, 2015

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Smashwords Licensing
Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Editor: Eric Johnston

Editor: Maxine Bringenberg

Chapter 1

Ruby wasn’t going to let this man die,
no matter what. She didn’t care what Cochran, her boss, had said to
them all that morning. If they were brought to this hospital, they
would get the best care that she could give them.

Her nurse, Jenna Chapman, handed her
the scalpel just before she asked for it. Ruby looked her in the
eye when her nurse and friend looked up at her.

“
He’ll be dead if we
transfer him. I know that there is this new policy. If you want to
go, now is the time.” Jenna, her surgical nurse since she’d started
working at the hospital, nodded and didn’t move. “I’ll tell Cochran
that I made you help me.”

Jenna snorted under her mask. “Like
he’d believe that. You go on and do your thing. Once he’s out of
here, we’ll worry about what Cochran’s going to say to us. He don’t
scare me none. I’ve got teenagers. Men like him don’t even
compare.”

Ronny Cochran didn’t scare Ruby
either, but she loved her job. Diamond had told her that the
hospital was cracking down on welfare cases, going as far as to
transfer them out when they could. No one cared for the new policy,
and several doctors had been suspended for admitting a patient with
no insurance and no means of paying the bills. Ruby didn’t think it
was legal, but no one so far had challenged them.

The surgery went well. The man had
been found stabbed nearly to death near his box. The 911 call had
resulted in him being brought to the closest hospital, which just
happened to be this one. Lucky for the man, it was after five and
all the office people were gone for the day; otherwise he’d have
never made it to her.

Ruby was just coming out of the
operating room when Cochran came toward her, and he was spitting
mad.

“
What did I just tell you?
What did I tell you about operating on the homeless people? Just
this morning as a matter of fact. Are you that dense that you’ve no
idea to listen when you’re given a direct order?” He crossed his
arms over his chest and actually tapped his foot. She only grinned
at him.

“
You said that there was
going to be a required meeting on the tenth. That there was a
shortage of nurses in the emergency room. I’m still trying to
figure out how that is our fault. Perhaps you should ask them. And
you mentioned something about insurance. Are we up for that again?”
Ruby grinned bigger. “I would have thought we just signed up for
insurance, but I could be—”

“
I told you not to operate
on people who have no insurance. I made it perfectly clear that we
are to transfer them out of here before they got past the emergency
room. That’s what County is for. They get more money than we do and
they are better equipped to handle that sort of people.” He
blustered again. “I will suspend you this time, Erickson. See if I
don’t.”

“
Okay.” He nearly said
something more but she cut him off. “But as you’ve already
suspended five of my colleagues this week, you are going to have no
one to work the OR. Unless
you’re
planning to work it. Do you have a medical
degree? Not that I care, but I’m betting that there might be a few
people who will care if you try. Also, if you suspend me again, I
might not come back this time. It will be hard to take care of the
patients you will accept without us here to care for them. The
nurses can only do so much, as you learned the last
time.”

Ruby had been suspended
for a month. She couldn’t even remember what it had been for
now…something minor, like not hanging her towel on the correct rack
or some shit. But she had only been out three days when he’d called
her—no,
begged
her—to come back in and help out. It seemed that she was the
only one that would answer the phone. Ruby had waited an extra
three days before she gave him an answer. It had been hell on her,
but she’d managed to make some point to him.

“
You’re suspended. See? I
can do whatever I want.”

The man coming down the hall shouting
at Cochran looked like he’d just run a marathon, and he was in no
shape to do the running, and certainly not the racing. As he came
to a stop in front of her and Cochran, he was wiping his
brow.

“
You can’t suspend her
until someone comes back. Good heavens, she is all we have for now.
I don’t know why you’d allow all these people to leave at a time
like this, but we’re short staffed.” Cochran looked like he was
going to argue, but Mark Harlan raised his beefy hand. “You can put
her on probation until someone comes back from vacation. That’s all
we can do for now. As it is, it’s going to be difficult to replace
the two that left this week. You must get them to listen rather
than letting them go when they find better jobs. Perhaps we could
offer them more money? What are we going to do if they all decide
to leave us? We’ll be in trouble for sure.”

“
And I’m standing right
here.” Neither man looked at her as they argued. Ruby, exhausted,
left them to whatever they decided and went to take a shower. She
was going home. There had been two stabbings that day, and a
shooting that morning, almost as if someone was trying to rid the
city of their homeless. At least the man in recovery was going to
make it another day. And maybe she would as well.

Going by the nurse’s station just
before heading out, she looked over the man’s chart. Ruby made it a
policy never to look at the names of the people she helped. It was
simply too hard to not want to look into their lives to see what
family they had. In the two years she’d been a surgeon she’d seen
many walk away, but she had lost a few. The nurses at the desk knew
what to do for her. The name was always covered with a sticky
note.

“
He’s resting well,
Doctor.” She nodded and handed the nurse the chart. “I will call
you if anything changes, and if dickface comes in here, I’ll take
care of him too. Do you really think he’ll suspend you?”

“
More than likely.” Ruby
nodded. “Carla, do you know if Diamond is still around? I wanted to
see if she’d give me a ride home.”

“
No, she left over five
hours ago. I believe it was about the time your shift ended too.
But she did leave you this.” A small envelope was passed to her. In
it were keys. “She said that her car is parked on the street for
you. And if you bring it home with fast food bags in it, she’s
going to be pissed again.”

The nurse handed her a large bag, and
Ruby knew it was just what her sister had told her not to put in
the car. It was a joke. When she borrowed Diamond’s car, the nurses
would go out of their way to have fast food brought in just so Ruby
could trash her car. They all loved her sister, but pulling her
chain was just too much fun.

Ruby headed out the door munching on
french fries. There were four orders in the bag, as well as three
triple burgers with cheese, and she took the milk shake,
strawberry, as she left. Damn, she was starved.

The drive home was made with her
eating and slopping as much of the lettuce on the seats as she
could. She even managed to get a few of the fries between the
seats. There wasn’t enough shake left to drip, but she did manage
to get sesame seeds everywhere too. Ruby was wadding up the last of
the wrappers when she pulled into the driveway.

Their home was huge. It had so many
bedrooms in the place that sometimes she wondered why they didn’t
open a hotel. But since Sapphire had married Blair, things around
the house had improved to make it better, such as the new roof over
her room.

Things had taken a nice turn
everywhere in their lives. She had four new brothers, the men who
had married her sisters. In addition, she’d gotten to know a great
man in Allen, Blair’s father, who she thought of as a dad. Her
grandmother was doing really well with her gardens and having a new
great grandbaby to play with. And soon, with Opal expecting, there
would be another. Ruby loved her family, even as irritating as they
were.

Ruby left the bags in the car and made
her way to the door. Her grandmother was there waiting for her, and
when Ruby smiled at her, she tisked. She loved the old bat very
much, but she did worry too much.

“
That man called here
again. Cochran. He said for you to call him as soon as you got in.”
Ruby nodded and sat down, exhaustion making her slightly ill now
that she was full. “You should just open a practice on your own and
tell him to leave you alone. And that man has a potty mouth. I’d
hang up on him if you didn’t need this job so much.”

“
Do it, right now. I don’t
care what he does to me. He wants to suspend me again.” Ruby yawned
and smiled. “I hope he does. I have three offers from some
hospitals out West and two in the North. It’d be nice to be treated
like a real person.”

“
You’re not leaving.” Ruby
looked at her sister, Sapphire, when she spoke. As she handed her
the baby, Ruby kissed his soft cheeks and held him to her. “I mean
it. No one is leaving here and that’s final. You need another job,
then that’s fine, but I want you close. I hate it that all of us
don’t live under the same roof anymore. But at least they’re close.
Please don’t leave me. I need you.”

“
Yes, Mother.” Sapphire
sat down and looked at her as Ruby continued. “I have to do
something. I don’t want to get fired. And if he suspends me again,
I’m screwed. I need to work. I thought you knew that from before.
My bills are horrendous and they aren’t going to get paid if I’m
unemployed. As much as I love this job, I love not being in debt
more.”

“
You do not do idle well.
And I told you that we’d pay off your loans if you’d let us. We’re
both doing very well in our businesses and can afford it.” Her
grandmother put a slice of apple pie and a fork in front of Ruby as
she sat down.

Sapphire seemed to be waiting for an
answer. Ruby ignored the money issue. She was not going to be in
debt to her family.

“
And you’re too skinny.
What are you eating? Nothing but hospital food?” Ruby looked up at
her grandmother and smiled at her wink. “You need to let me make
you a lunch to take with you. You can’t live on that
food.”