The Nurse's Newborn Gift. Wendy S. Marcus

       PROLOGUE

      KRISSY PENIGLATT REMEMBERED the middle-of-the-night telephone conversation like it’d taken place yesterday as opposed to two years ago. Her best friend in the whole world, Jarrod, had called two days before he was scheduled to deploy for his first tour of duty overseas in the Middle East. A courageous U.S. Army soldier, prepared to give his life for his country, his nineteen-year-old self struggling a bit with the finality of the deed should he be unlucky enough to perish in battle.

      “Promise me, if I manage to get myself killed, you’ll do it.”

      He’d been there for her after her father had left when she was ten years old and after her mother’s attack and subsequent severe traumatic brain injury shortly after she’d turned fourteen. He’d comforted her and consoled her and cheered her up time and time again, year after year, asking for and expecting nothing in return.

      Of course, Krissy would do anything he asked of her, anything to put his mind at ease, to keep him focused on staying alive rather than what would happen if he...didn’t. But, “You’re not going to get yourself killed,” she’d told him. The response had been automatic. She’d refused to even consider the possibility of a life without Jarrod in it. They’d been inseparable for over a decade. Sure, her leaving for college and him enlisting in the army right out of high school would change things between them. To be expected. But it was only supposed to be temporary. A few years apart, then they’d be ready to start their adult lives, together.

      Well, not together, together, but inseparable once again, maybe living in the same apartment building, or in the same town at the very least.

      “My mom can’t stop crying,” Jarrod had said. “My dad can barely look at me without tearing up.”

      They were such a kind and caring couple. An only child, Jarrod’s parents’ lives revolved around him. No parents loved their son more than Jarrod’s parents loved him. Lucky for Krissy that love had extended to Jarrod’s best friends as well. On some level, she’d actually felt closer to his parents than to her own. She owed them so much.

      “I need to know,” he’d said, uncharacteristically emotional, “if my life is cut short, that some part of me lives on, that my parents have a grandchild to love and spoil. Because losing me...”

      He didn’t need to finish. Losing him would be devastating, to his parents and to her.

      The anguish in his voice had made her willing to say anything, to do anything to make it go away, to bring back the kind, happy, always joking boy she’d loved like a brother. So even though she’d never expected to ever have to follow through, she’d agreed.

      “Okay. I’ll do it, but only if you manage to get yourself killed, which you aren’t going to do, so this conversation is a total waste of time.”

      * * *

      A short two years later, twenty-one-year-old Krissy stood all alone, her body feeling weighted down by hundred pound blocks of ice, the chill in her bones in direct contrast to the beautiful, bright sunshiny spring day, as she stared at the casket that held the remains of her best friend in the whole world. The service long