Rebekah: Seven Sisters, #4

By Amelia C. Adams

Rebekah McClain has always been a good nurse, but when a mysterious power surge wakes up a latent gift, she gains the ability to diagnose her patients with a single touch. This makes her job infinitely easier, but she has to be careful - if anyone finds out about her power, she could lose her job.

Jeremy Burton has been a paramedic for a couple of years, but he's never seen a nurse with such unerring instincts. He's drawn to Rebekah McClain because of her medical skills, but he quickly realizes that there's so much more to this woman than meets the eye.

Jeremy wants to know everything about Rebekah, including the secrets she's hiding. Will opening up to him mean the end of her entire career?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amelia C. Adams
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201622190

Book preview

Rebekah

The Seven Sisters Series Book Four

by Amelia C. Adams

With thanks to my beta readers—Amy, Cheryl, Dorothy, George, Joseph, Laurie, Mary, Meisje, and Shelby.  

Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill

Table of Contents:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Chapter One

Bagley, Texas

May 1985

We have a fourteen-year-old girl complaining of severe abdominal pain, fever, and vomiting, the paramedic called out as a gurney was pushed through the emergency room doors.

Rebekah McClain tossed the patient file she was looking at onto the counter at the nurses’ station and ran to join the team guiding the stretcher into one of the bays in the emergency room. They lifted the girl off the stretcher and onto the bed. Her name?

Amber, the paramedic replied.

Amber, my name is Rebekah, and I’m a nurse. Is it all right if I examine you?

The girl nodded. Tears rolled down her cheeks, whether from pain or fear, Rebekah wasn’t sure. Where are her parents?

They followed us in their car.

Rebekah placed her hands on the girl’s abdomen. All the symptoms seemed to indicate the appendix, but she didn’t sense anything there. Odd. She moved her hands to the side, and there—so much heat rising from that area, and a slight vibration. She closed her eyes and focused, opening them again when she heard Dr. Hunsaker’s voice.

What do we have here?

This is Amber. Fourteen years old, presenting with symptoms of an ovarian cyst, Rebekah replied.

Ovarian cyst? That’s not typical for such a young woman. Dr. Hunsaker frowned. Just what are the symptoms?

Severe abdominal pain, fever, and vomiting, Rebekah replied. She glanced over at the paramedic. They usually left after delivering their patients, but he was hovering around for some reason, and she’d have to ask him why later.

That sounds like the appendix to me, Dr. Hunsaker said. We need to get her into the OR now.

Yes, we do, but please, Dr. Hunsaker, do an ultrasound first, Rebekah said. If this is a cyst and she’s been opened up for an appendectomy—

Dr. Hunsaker exhaled. "Are we going to have another one of those conversations again?"

It had been over a year since the weird event when the seven McClain sisters had all been zapped by a power outage at their parents’ house. Since that time, they’d each manifested different strange powers, and Rebekah’s was the ability to diagnose. As a nurse, she’d had the ability to use her gift over and over again, but when her opinion contradicted the decisions of the doctors she worked with, things got more than a little awkward.

Sir, please just take a few minutes to do an ultrasound. I won’t say another word, I promise.

Dr. Hunsaker scowled. You? Not say another word? I’ll believe that when I see it. Ultrasound!

A tech wheeled the machine over, and within moments, Dr. Hunsaker was scowling. There’s nothing wrong with her appendix. Fine—let’s look at the ovaries.

The screen revealed some definite abnormalities on the right ovary. Get her up to the OR, Dr. Hunsaker called out. He turned to Rebekah. My office after the procedure.

Yes, sir.

A man and a woman rushed into the ER, looking around frantically until they spotted Amber. Is she all right? the woman asked.

We would have been here sooner, but traffic was horrible, the man added.

Your daughter is suffering a ruptured ovarian cyst, Dr. Hunsaker explained. In most cases, these resolve themselves, but I don’t feel confident that this one will. We’ll take her into surgery and see what’s going on in there, all right?

Yes, please. Do whatever you need to do, the man said, and the woman nodded.

As Amber was being wheeled away, Rebekah said to the parents, You can go with her up to the doors of the operating room. They’ll show you where to wait.

Thank you, the woman said, and they followed behind their daughter.

Rebekah sucked in a deep breath. They’d be able to manage the situation once they were in the OR, but if they’d waited, things would have become much worse. The time wasted in looking in the wrong place, not to mention having to change surgery sites . . .

I’d take your lunch break now, if I were you, Harriet, the charge nurse, said as she walked up to Rebekah. You know Dr. Hunsaker’s going to rake you up one side and down the other—you’ll need your strength for that.

Rebekah chuckled and shook her head. I definitely know it. Thanks—I’ll just be in the cafeteria.

As she walked down the hall, she saw the paramedic still standing there, and she motioned at him with her head. Come on.

He looked confused for a moment, but then fell into step beside her. She didn’t slow down to wait for him—she had half an hour, and she didn’t intend to waste any of it.

So, what’s your story? she asked him.

My story?

Yeah. Why are you still here? I thought you were supposed to dump and run.

We usually do, but it’s the end of my shift, and I wanted to see how this one turned out. He paused. Actually, that’s not true.

She turned to look at him. We’ve only just met, and you’re already lying to me? You don’t mess around, do you?

I . . .

Never mind. You can explain while I eat.

She moved through the cafeteria line quickly, grabbing some pre-made items rather than waiting to be served. Then she sat down and arranged her sandwich, chips, and fruit in front of her. You didn’t want anything? she asked.

He shook his head. Dinner at my parents’ house tonight. My mother would kill me if she knew I ate anything first.

Rebekah unwrapped her sandwich. You talk while I eat. Not trying to be rude—I’m just in a hurry.

Right. Sorry. Um, okay, I stuck around because I wanted to see how the case turned out—at least, to start. But then I overheard your diagnosis. How did you do that?

How did I do what? She didn’t meet his gaze as she opened her chips.

How did you know it wasn’t her appendix? I’ve brought in dozens of ruptures—I could have sworn that’s what it was.

Rebekah chewed on a chip while she thought up a reply. She hated lying—she hated it so much. My sister had a ruptured cyst last year, and they thought it was her appendix, she said at last, cringing a little bit. So that was the first thing I thought of. It was more of an educated guess than anything.

That was more than a guess.

Well, I did say it was educated. She flashed him a grin, hoping that some humor would lighten the tension. She wasn’t about to tell this total stranger how she’d managed to diagnose Amber’s cyst. It was none of his business, anyway. I’m Rebekah McClain.

I’m Jeremy Burton. It’s nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too. You’re new—I know all the emergency personnel in this town, and I haven’t seen you before.

Just moved here last week. I used to live in San Antonio, but I was ready for something quieter.

Well, Bagley is definitely quieter. Are your parents in San Antonio?

"Yeah. I’d actually better