Their Forever Family: Her Family for Keeps / A Father for Poppy / His Little Christmas Miracle. Abigail Gordon

a second. She was so different from women he’d known. That little alarm inside him started to go off, reminding him again that she could leave him at any moment and he’d best not set himself up for getting hurt again. Then he shook it off, reminding himself there was work to do now.

      “Uh, no. No, I’m not.” She straightened her shoulders, ready for whatever would come up. She was an experienced ER nurse. She could handle whatever they had. Except…“I don’t speak Spanish. What do you want me to do?”

      “The boys will help with translation for you. You can start with vital signs and triage, get a little info, then send them over to me. You’re over there.” He pointed to a long table where hand sanitizer, index cards for writing down information, and a blood-pressure cuff lay.

      Duncan’s area even had a screen so people would have some semblance of privacy.

      Jake and Judd stood by, ready to help with translation. With a last look at Duncan as he walked away, she put on her best nurse smile and accepted the first patient into her triage station.

      They spent about four hours on mundane issues before a patient of concern surfaced. As Duncan had foretold, the majority of the issues were farm related or other minor complaints. Then a boy with a serious face was plunked down into the chair by his father.

      “Hi, there.” Her welcoming smile faded. Usually she liked working with pediatric patients because they always had some interesting take on their situation or made up a grand and glorious tale about their injuries.

      But not this.

      Something was seriously wrong about his situation. She didn’t know what, but, watching the boy interact with his father, she knew something was off.

      This little boy of about six years old was too thin for his age and bone structure. His hair had been cropped very short, as was the custom, but she could see scratch marks on his scalp, and a little bald spot where the hair was worn away. The child didn’t look at her but kept his eyes downcast, a sure sign of insecurity. He was not as frisky as the other children. Then the boy looked up at her and his eyes widened, fixating on her red hair that the wind had begun to tease from its clip.

      “What’s the problem?” she asked his father, who had distant black eyes. He made eye contact but dropped his gaze quickly.

      “He…no…” Frustrated with his attempt at English, he launched into a monologue in Spanish about the boy’s problems, pointed to the bald spot on his head and then at the boy’s back.

      “His father says that he’s always hurting himself, falling down or tripping, and then the spot on his head, he keeps rubbing it, and if he doesn’t stop is going to be bald before he’s seven years old.”

      A smile curved up her lips at that last statement. “It’s okay. He won’t be bald, but we do have to figure out the reason he’s rubbing the spot.” She held out a piece of candy to him. First his gaze flashed to his father, then he accepted it and focused on unwrapping the little sweet. “Kids his age, especially boys, are accident prone. They run full blast and don’t see the hazards, so he’ll stop falling if he stops running so fast.” She waited while Judd interpreted that part.

      “What’s your name?”

      “Alejandro.” He bobbed his head politely.

      “Is his mother here? I could talk to her about some things she can do to help keep him calm, from a woman’s perspective.” She’d had lots of training in pediatrics, and now seemed a good time to share some of it.

      Judd hunkered over and whispered to her. “Mother’s not in the picture. Died last year. He’s raising the boy alone.”

      A sick feeling turned in Rebel’s gut. No child should have to suffer the loss of a parent at that age. She knew exactly what it was like. An ache formed inside her, and she just wanted to reach out, gather the little boy against her and never let go of him. He was an innocent victim and his injuries may have been an attempt to gain his father’s attention.

      “Let me check him and listen to his lungs, look at his injuries and then we’ll have the doctor look at him, too.” She set about her tasks, but when she placed the stethoscope on his back he winced and cried out.

      Rebel pulled up his shirt to look at his back. “Oh!” She nearly cried out in pain for the boy. “What happened?” She shot a questioning look at the father. “This time.”

      “He fell from the high loft in the hay barn,” Judd translated. “He and the other kids were playing a game, and he lost his grip on the rope and fell.”

      “You’re kidding, right?” She reached for the boy’s hands. Healing rope burns gave evidence to Pedro’s explanation. With a shake of her head, she took Alejandro’s chin in her hand and gently tilted his face up until he looked at her. He blinked, as if coming back to himself, and rolled the candy around in his mouth until he’d tucked it into one cheek. “You have to be more careful, little man. You hurt yourself too much.”

      After Judd had interpreted for the boy, he shrugged. “I…okay,” he said, demonstrating some understanding of English.

      “You can hurt yourself doing things like that.”

      He only grinned and resumed playing with the candy in his mouth.

      “If his mother is…gone, then what does he do during the day? Who takes care of him?”

      The father offered an explanation, which was then translated. “He goes to school during the day, then comes home and one of the neighbor kids looks out for him while Pedro is still working. He won’t stay in the daycare.”

      Rebel couldn’t help but imagine what she would do if she were closer at hand. Children were at risk for injuries and death if left unsupervised as they didn’t have the capacity to determine risk compared to what the perceived fun would be. She pressed her lips together and tried to resist the primal mothering urge that had begun to surface. If only…

      “Pedro says he doesn’t know what to do with him. The boy won’t stay in the house after school, just runs and runs and runs as soon as he’s off the bus. That’s why he’s so skinny.” Judd listened again to Pedro. “He wants to know if there is a medicine or something Duncan can give him to make him behave better.”

      “I’m sorry, Pedro. This isn’t a matter of medication, but may be the only way for him to express his grief at the loss of his mother.” Pedro nodded, opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, then pressed his lips firmly together and turned away. Rebel could see the frustration and anger in him. “Children often need to cry in order to get those feelings they don’t understand out of them.”

      Pedro pointed at his son, anger blazing in his eyes. “No cry. He no cry.” He launched into another explanation to Judd.

      “When Pedro’s wife died, it was because she was an alcoholic. He doesn’t want Alejandro to cry for a woman who chose the bottle over them.”

      So misunderstood. Grief had grabbed this family by the throat and hadn’t let go. They needed to be in counseling, but how to suggest it to a man still entrenched in the angry phase of grief was beyond her comprehension.

      “Duncan, I need your help.” Though she spoke to him, she busied herself with taking Alejandro’s blood pressure.

      “What’s up?” Duncan stepped closer and nodded to Pedro, spoke a few words of greeting.

      “Kid’s got a case of Superman syndrome.”

      “A what?”

      “Superman. Thinks he’s invincible, and is into serious risk taking.”

      “What is he, six?” Duncan glanced at the kid and frowned.

      “Still thinks he’s Superman. Just needs a cape.” After relaying the list of injuries his father had reported and the escalation of them, she turned his hands over to show the rope burns to Duncan.

      “So