6

CPOV

To say I was nervous about starting my new job at Phil Dwyer's medical co-op was a bit of an understatement. I'd worked in the emergency room for years, thrived by the fast-pace and thrill that it entailed, but working as a family doctor, being home by six was something I was looking forward to. Especially now that I had Isabella in my bed every night.

God, I loved her. She made everything in my life easier. I understood why people looked at us and thought I was nothing but a perv. I was old man compared to her. Twenty-eight, with two little boys, I shouldn't have been looking at her the way I was, but she had me captivated from the moment I laid eyes on her. She was made for me, to be my lover, and I wasn't going to let her go for anything.

Parking out front, I took a deep breath before I climbed out and headed into the building. Unlike the last time I'd been there, Charlotte wasn't sitting behind the receptionist desk. Instead, a short woman with extremely curly, brown hair and brown eyes was perched up behind the computer with a pair of black, thick-framed glasses perched on the tip of her nose and a blue-tooth phone device hooked over her left ear. She paused in her typing and looked up at me, a slow smile spreading across her lips.

"You must be Dr. Cullen," she said with a laugh before standing up and offering me her hand. "Jessica Stanley, office manager extraordinaire."

"It's nice to meet you," I murmured, shaking her hand.

"Since it's your first day, I've tried to keep your schedule kind of light," she explained, lifting a stack of no less than a dozen files onto the counter in front of me.

"This is light?" I asked.

Her smiled widened. "Afraid so. I've already handled more than two dozen calls this morning, and we're not technically even open. You'll be fine. If Dad says you're good for the co-op, then you must be."

"Dad?" I asked.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot that you don't know. Phil is my father. Step-father actually. Well, he was. It's a bit of a long story. Anyway, when I graduated with a degree in business, he brought me in to run the office," she explained.

"I see," I said, reaching out and grabbing the files. "Can you direct me to my office?"

"Of course." But before she could as much as take a step, the front doors opened again and we looked over, finding Edward shuffling inside.

He looked from Jessica to me, and smiled. "Hey, Carlisle."

"Edward," I replied, shifting the stack of files on my arms so that I could shake his hand, something he thought was funny.

"You must be Dr. Masen." Jessica thrust her hand at him. "Jessica Stanley, office manager extraordinaire."

"Nice to meet you. Please, call me Edward."

"Will do, Edward," she chirped as she picked up an equally large stack of patient files. "As I already explained to Dr. Cullen, I've kept your schedule a bit light today. Don't want to overwhelm you."

"This is light?" Edward asked, echoing the same sentiments that I had just a few minutes' earlier.

Jessica threw her head back and laughed. "Yes, yes, I know. This is different and new. You'll get the hand of it soon enough. Now, I was just about to show Dr. Cullen to his office. If you're ready, I can show you to yours, as well."

"Yeah, sure, okay," Edward mumbled.

Jessica took her glasses off and placed them on her desk before walking around the three-sided cubicle and gesturing for us to follow her. Edward and I shared a look before doing so, and I knew he was wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into by agreeing to work here. Perhaps, it would have been better to find work at one of the local hospitals.

Jessica led us down the long corridor toward Phil's office, stopping in front of two open offices about three doors down from Phil's. "Dr. Cullen, your office is the first one; Dr. Masen, the second. There is a joined bathroom between the two, and once you've settled in, we can have a designer come in and give it a more personal touch."

"Oh, thanks, I guess," I said, stepping past her and into the office, which was quite large. There was an oak desk facing the doorway, with a black, leather sofa along the far wall, and two chairs arranged on the far side of the desk. "Please, call me Carlisle."

"Okay, but not in front of patients. While we're fairly relaxed around here, we do try to keep things professional." Jessica smiled and she looked down the hallway. "Good morning, Dr. Sinclair."

"Hello, Jessica," Charlotte said, stopping in the doorway of my office. She smiled and looked from Jessica to Edward and over to me. "Well, looks like you're both getting settled in nicely. Can't tell you how happy we all are that you're both here. We've been swamped lately. The extra hands are greatly appreciated."

Suddenly, Jessica startled and brought her hand up to her ear. "Guess it's back to work for me." And as she walked away, I heard her say, "Thank you for calling . . ."

"Jessica's a life saver around here," Charlotte said, drawing my attention back her. "I'm sure Jessica's left you a note in that stack of patient charts, but in case you miss it, Phil likes to have a meeting at the start of each week. Since you two are new, I'm sure he wants you to meet the other partners. Seven forty-five in the conference room, which is down the hall, first left, room on the right. You can't miss it." And with that, Charlotte pushed off the doorframe and walked away, leaving me and Edward just standing there.

"Wow," he murmured.

"Tell me about it," I scoffed, dropping the stack of files in my arms on top of my new desks. "We made the right decision, didn't we?"

"I fucking hope so," Edward muttered before turning and walking down to his office.

So did I.

Half an hour later, I pushed away from my desk and walked down to the conference room, finding Edward, Charlotte, and Jessica sitting with Phil and two other men. The first of the two was rustic-skinned, reminding me a little too much of Jake and Sam, which pissed me off. Next to him was a red-headed man who looked to be around the same age as my father. They paused in mid-conversation and turned their attention to me.

"Carlisle!" Phil greeted me as he pushed away from the table and stood up. "Come in, come in. I was afraid you'd gotten lost."

"No, just trying to adjust to this place," I told him, feeling sheepish for being the last to show up.

"Yeah, I felt the same when I first came on board," the red-headed said, tilting his head back toward me. His accent was thick and deep. "I'm Liam O'Conner, psychiatric."

"Carlisle," I murmured. "Family Medicine."

"Nice to meet you," he said, smiling wider.

"I'm Embry Call, pediatric care. I've worked with you father a few times. Brilliant man," the other fellow said.

I nodded. "He is."

"Oh, well, now that we're all here," Phil said, drawing the attention away from me and onto himself, which I was grateful about. Hadn't even been here an hour and already my father had been mentioned. "We have a busy day ahead of us, lots of patients to see already." He turned to Jessica. "You have everything ready?"

"Don't I always." Smiling, she stood up and turned her attention to the people sitting at the table. "Mercy Press has referred us a half dozen children, who were brought into their overnight clinic with strep. Doctors said they were covered in bruises, but he couldn't stall the parents long enough to get CPS in to talk to them. He referred them here, and I have a call into a social worker, who can be here in five minutes if they show up. Also," Jessica paused and picked up a file, sliding it across the table to Charlotte. "Mrs. Murphy will be here in ten. Said she's been having contractions for a few hours. Fifteen minutes apart."

"Got it." Charlotte grabbed the file and stood up. She pointed to Embry. "I'll need you."

"No prob," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Before anyone could more or say anything, the sound of my cell ringing echoed through the room, causing everyone to look at me. I muttered a quick, "Sorry," as I dug it out of my pocket. My heart sank when I saw Isabella's name on the screen, knowing she wouldn't be calling if there wasn't something wrong, especially on my first day.

"Sorry, I need to . . ." I trailed off as I stepped out into the hallway and slide my finger across the green talk arrow and brought the phone up to my ear. "Isabella."

"Carlisle," she cried.

"Isabella, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Ty . . . We can't find him," she wept.

"WHAT?" I yelled into the phone, causing everyone to rush out of the conference room and out into the hallway. However, I ignored all of them as I looked over at Edward. "Isabella can't find Tyler."

"Where are they?" he asked, immediately pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Isabella must have heard him because she said, "The registration office, southeast side of campus. We have campus security helping us find him." She paused. "Carlisle."

"I'll be right there," I murmured before I hung up. Taking a deep breath, I looked at Phil. "Tyler's my son. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. Let us know any news. We can close up and come help, if you need."

"No," I said, pushing past them. "I just have to go."

Twenty minutes later, thanks to heavy, early morning traffic, I pulled up into the parking lot just outside of the registration building, where two patrol cars were parked, and a large crowd had formed outside of the building. When I pushed my way through, I found Isabella holding Tyler as tight as she could while talking to a couple of the cops. Alice was standing a few feet away with Michael and two more police officers.

"Daddy!" Tyler exclaimed, causing everyone to look over at me. He scrambled out of Isabella's arms, though she tried to hold on to him, and rushed over to me, leaping in my arms. "I'm in trouble."

"You are?" I asked, causing him nod as I walked over and joined Isabella, who turned and wrapped herself around us. "What's going on?"

"We got a call that your son was missing, but by the time we got here, your wife had found him. It appears that he was hiding inside a maintenance building over there." The officer who had been speaking pointed to a series of concrete buildings almost one hundred yards away. "Apparently the door had been left ajar, and the boy thought it would be a good place to hide."

"No," Tyler said, shaking his head. "I got scared when I saw the man, Daddy. I was hiding from him."

"What man?" Isabella asked, tilting her head back so she was looking at both of us.

"The bad man you told me and Michael about," Tyler said. "The one from the store."

Isabella gasped as she turned and began to look around at everyone standing around us, gawking at us with judgment on their faces. "You saw him, Ty? Are you sure?" she cried.

"Yep. He was hiding behind a tree, and when he saw me, he waved. I remembered what you told me, Momma, so I hid. I'm sorry I scared you, but I didn't want the bad man to get me."

"Who is the bad man?" one of the officers asked, drawing our attention to him.

Isabella spoke before I could say anything, "Officer McCoy and Hitchens can fill you in."

With that said, Isabella turned and pushed through the crowd and back into the building.

"Sir," the officer said, and I looked back at him. "Who is the man?"

"His name is Gabriel Varner," I told him, pulling my wallet out and digging Officer McCoy's card out. I held it out to the officer. "He and his partner are fully aware of just how dangerous this man is to my family. Please, call them down here."

The officer nodded, and though I could tell he wasn't convinced the call was warranted, he dug his phone from his pocket and placed the call. I left the boys with Alice, who gave me a small smile before leading them over to a stone bench and sitting down with them. When I entered the building, I found Isabella with a tall, russet-skinned boy who couldn't have been much older than Isabella. I cleared my throat, causing them to look up at me.

"Hey," Isabella murmured.

"Hey," I said, sitting next to her.

The boy on the other side of her stretched his hand out to me. "You must be her husband. I'm Seth."

"Carlisle," I told him, shaking his hand. "Don't take this as me being an asshole, but can I have a few minutes alone with my wife?"

"Oh, yeah, of course," he muttered before scrambling to his feet. "I guess I'll see you around sometime."

Isabella nodded, but didn't say anything as he turned and walked out of the building. It was only after the door shut that she took a ragged breath. "I'm so sorry, Carlisle. The line was moving so slow, and they were getting restless, starting to fight, so Alice took them outside. She thought . . . We thought they just needed to run around for a bit. I don't even know how long they were outside before she came rushing inside saying she couldn't find him. And I knew. I mean, I knew somehow, he was involved. We called campus security and began to look. When I found him inside that building, I wanted to scream at him for scaring me," she cried, shifting her eyes over to me. "If something had happened to him, if he'd . . ."

"It's hard being a parent, isn't it?" I slipped my arm around her waist, nestling her against me. "There's a lot of bad that could have happened, honey, but they didn't. He's okay. He knew what to do if there was a bad guy, and for that we should be proud."

"He's never going to stop. Gabriel Varner, I mean. He's going to keep coming after me, wearing me down, until I'm at my most vulnerable. You know that, don't you?"

"I know he's going to try. I wish I could promise that he won't get you, but I can't. I've read too many newspapers articles about men like that and the women they hurt. But I can promise that I will do everything I can to keep him away."

Isabella shifted her eyes up to mine, but before she could speak, the doors to the building opened and Officers McCoy and Hitchens shuffled inside. Isabella scrambled to her feet. "Is this enough to get a restraining order? Or will he actually have to harm my children first?"

"We're searching through campus security tapes to find any evidence that he was here. If we can capture him on tape, I believe it will be enough to convince the judge to issue the order," Hitchens' explained. "We've taken over the case here, and will talk to as many people as we can to see if anyone can identify Gabriel Varner. Take the boys home, try to relax."

"Relax?" Isabella scoffed. "I won't be able to relax until that man is behind bars, where he should already be. What kind of justice system do we have when a man can physically assault me, attempt to sexually assault me, yet I'm the one who has to prove myself?"

"I don't know," McCoy said. "But we're fighting for you, Bella. Don't give up on us yet."

"Kind of hard not to when every time I turn around, he's here," she murmured, sliding her hand into mine.

"We know," McCoy replied, but he didn't know. Not really.

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