Chapter Three: Invasion of the Martins
“We want to see him,” Dylan protested when Nikki announced it was time to leave the hospital.
“Yeah! Me, too!” Kimmy added.
“He said ‘hey’.”
“Mom…” Dylan began.
Why would JC mention the kids if he hadn’t been interested in them? Single men usually ran for the nearest exit at the mention of children. Passing the hospital gift shop, Nikki seized on an idea. It was silly to think he wanted the Martins to descend upon him while he recovered from a nasty knock on the head…Okay, so maybe she was a little crazy. His eyes had felt good when he looked at her. It had been a long time since a man had made her feel that way.
“Where are you going, Mom?” Dylan demanded as she turned into the gift shop.
“If we’re gonna visit someone in the hospital, you can’t go empty handed,” she insisted.
“All riiiight!” Dylan cried in approval.
Nikki poked her head into JC’s hospital room. A hulking black man was at his side.
“Nikki!” JC cheered when he saw her.
“Feel like a couple of illegal visitors?” Nikki asked in a conspirital mock whisper.
Lonnie frowned.
“Dude, it’s the kids,” JC told his bodyguard/friend, then looked to Nikki. “It’s the kids, right?”
“Yep.”
“Bring ‘em in!”
Once the door opened wider, Dylan and Kimmy came rushing in and raced to JC’s bedside. Nikki followed at a slower pace with a balloon bouquet wishing him well.
JC smiled at her. “Thank you, but I am only here until they decide my brain’s not scrambled.”
“That long?” she teased.
Lonnie ineffectively hid a chuckle.
Nikki shrugged. “I know the balloons are sorta lame…” Just as her excuse for returning to his room. Because her children insisted? No one knowing Nikki would buy it. “I guess we need to make formal introductions.” She rumpled Dylan’s hair. “This handsome man is my son Dylan. And this lovely young lady is my daughter Kimberly, better known as—“
“Kimmy!” the child declared in a rush.
JC chuckled. “Pleased to make your acquaintance Dylan and…Kimmy!” he said it as she had, gaining a giggle from the blonde imp. “I’m JC and this is my friend Lonnie.”
Kimmy walked over and stood directly in front of Lonnie. She titled her head all the way back until she could see his face. “You’re real tall. Are you a giant?”
“Not quite,” Lonnie responded with a grin.
Dylan clambered up next to JC and placed a comic book in his lap. “I got you this. It’s my favorite.”
“Thanks, little dude.” JC flipped through the pages. “I don’t have this one yet.”
Dylan gave him a big smile. “Cool!”
With Lonnie’s assistance, Kimmy climbed up to sit on JC’s other side. She presented him with a bag of M&M’s. “I didn’t think you’d want a doll,” she said seriously.
“I’m sure that would have been great, but I prefer M&M’s,” he told her.
Kimmy tenderly touched the purplish bump on his forehead. “Hurt?”
“Not too bad.” He had a throbbing headache that had a pulse beat all its own. He wasn’t about to confess to such a thing. Nikki would insist on leaving if he did – and the Martins were a welcome distraction from his day. He looked up at Nikki. “Any word about the old man?”
“None. He seems to have vanished,” she told him.
“Silly.” Kimmy nudged JC. “It was Santa Claus.”
“What?” JC was unsuccessful at covering his laugh of disbelief.
“It was! Wasn’t it, Dylan?” Kimmy enlisted her brother’s help.
“Yeah…he winked at us before he left,” Dylan relayed.
This was news to Nikki. “You saw him leave?”
“He just got up. Winked at us. Put a finger against his nose and poof! He was gone.”
“I ran down Santa Claus,” JC lamented. “Man, my stocking is gonna have nothing but twigs and a lump of coal. Christmas is gonna so suck.”
“We’ll get you something, JC,” Dylan promised. After all, this had been Santa’s plan, hadn’t it? JC was their Christmas present. Grown-ups just didn’t understand.
JC ran a hand over the boy’s silky hair, touched by the offer. “Thanks, little dude. You keep your money.”
“You can come see us and see out tree and eat cookies…” Kimmy added to Dylan’s generosity.
“I’d like that.” JC looked to Nikki to see how he had reacted to her daughter’s invitation. “Nikki?”
“Sure. That’d be nice. The tree isn’t up yet…”
At that a nurse came in, surprised to see the Marin children flanking the popstar. Her eyes swung to Nikki.
“They saw the accident,” Nikki explained. “They wanted to make sure he was okay.”
“And I wanted to see them,” JC added.
The nurse said nothing to that. “The doctor will be in shortly, Mr. Chasez. I am certain he wants to speak to you – alone.”
JC frowned as was about to say something when Nikki broke in. “We have to be going anyway. We have ornaments to buy.”
“Awww…Mom…” Kimmy whined.
“If you’re sure…” JC still looked unconvinced.
“Can’t put up a tree without ornaments, right?” Nikki asked with false levity.
Dylan hugged JC’s neck. “Bye. Come see us.”
“I will, little dude.” JC patted the boy’s small back lightly.
Kimmy got on her knees and gently pressed her lips to the limp on JC’s head. “To make it better.”
The gesture made JC’s eyes sting with tears; she was so young and so sweet…
Once the children had cleared the bed, JC reached for Nikki’s hand. “I promise I’ll see you soon,” he said as he wrapped his fingers around hers. “Thanks for coming back.”
“Hey, any lunatic who likes my kids is okay in my book.” She brushed a kiss on his cheek. “You take care – and don’t go running over any more Santas.”
Lonnie watched the Martin’s depart. “Dawg, you ran over Santa Claus?”
Before his release, JC had gleaned more knowledge of the young Widow Martin. It seems her fellow nurses were more than willing to regale him with her tales of woe and sing her praises.
Nikki had married right out of high school; her husband Chad, her childhood sweetheart, was in his second year of college at the time. She took her nurse’s training between the birth of Dylan and Kimmy while Chad, a computer wizard of sorts, supported the family. She had only worked part-time until her husband’s death two and a half years earlier. He had been the victim of a drunk driver. He had provided well for his family after his death, but things got tight from time to time. Such a burden for one so young. Now, Nikki didn’t date, but then, not many men asked her out either.
JC also learned Nikki was a caring and compassionate person, always concerned about the welfare of others, be it patient or co-worker. He already knew that first hand. She always went that extra mile to help. One nurse told him about Mrs. Harris and how everyone suspected Nikki to be the tipster who brought the woman’s plight to public attention. She was an angel, JC decided, an earth angel very much a part of the realm of the living. Still he saw the promise of a different kind of heaven in her eyes. A heaven of love, family and belonging, giving his personal life meaning.
Was this what his mother had meant?