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CHAPTER 1

Ten p.m. on a Sunday night, the doors to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit zipped open. Nurse Annie Billodeaux accepted another fragile soul into her care with gentle hands. She weighed in the tiny, bald baby boy delivered by C-section from his mother's womb at twenty-eight weeks of gestation at two pounds, three ounces. Working with the neonatologist, she went about her duties swiftly but carefully: inserting a catheter, hooking up an oxygen feed to the little nose, attaching sensors to the feeble chest, and starting an intravenous line to feed an infant too young to suckle. He'd stay in the warm cocoon of his incubator until large enough to enter a wider world.

She'd done this procedure many times and remembered each child she'd nurtured before turning it over to the parents to take home. Always, Annie called the patient by its name — in this case Daniel Ames Keaton. "There you go, Danny, all safe and sound. Your parents will want to see you soon and make sure you are in good hands. You are."

Now that she had a moment to think instead of simply reacting as trained to the emergency, Annie realized she knew this baby and his parents. Not two weeks ago in early May, she'd had dinner with her mom and dad and other siblings residing in New Orleans before starting her shift. As usual, Joe and Nell Billodeaux had taken a young couple under their mighty wings, in this case the Sinners football team's new running back, Matthew Keaton and his pregnant wife, Melinda. Her oldest brother, Dean, the quarterback, and his wife had been delegated to help the Keatons find housing in the Crescent City.

Over a shared appetizer of Oysters Rockefeller, or Huitres en coquille a la Rockefeller according to the menu at venerable Antoine's, and rejected by Mrs. Keaton who feared contamination even though the oysters were baked, they discussed what features the newcomers wanted in a home: city, suburbs, lakeside, north shore, number of bedrooms, etc. One thing Annie, seated across the table from Melinda, felt certain of — the wife wasn't at all at ease in the Big Easy. She fretted over the traffic and crime, the unhealthy climate, and the quality of the schools she wouldn't need for years.

Hidden by the table, the woman's belly swelled as she neared the seventh month of a pregnancy, though the tall, slim, blue-eyed and beautiful blonde, the type most football players seemed to prefer as wives, carried a rather small bump. Annie knew that meant nothing in the long run. Tall women didn't show as much. If she were lucky enough to become pregnant, with her small stature she'd resemble a pumpkin exactly as her petite mother had. She knew one man who'd gone for short and brunette, her dad. So, maybe someday ...

Melinda announced she'd be a stay-at-home mom, subtly dissing Dean's wife, Stacy, who had a part-time nanny that allowed her to continue her interpreting and translating business as well as participate in cultural events. She gave her time to help football players' wives get settled too. As Annie knew well, Stacy, every bit as tall and blonde and better built, seldom backed down. "Good for you. I'd go nuts if I didn't get out of the house for some intellectual stimulation."

Melinda's husband, snatched from Indianapolis as soon as he became a free agent for a forty-million-dollar contract, exuded the confidence of a man who'd made a great move for his career. Matt entirely missed or ignored the byplay in favor of being deep into sports conversation with the Hall-of-Famer quarterback, Joe Billodeaux. Annie couldn't read auras like one of her sisters, but a career in nursing had increased her empathy. Possibly, she could help the situation.

She offered Melinda a confident smile, the one she always wore in the NICU. "Who is your obstetrician? Oh, Dr. Cooper is excellent. Both my sister and I work for Ochsner. It's a great hospital with top notch care. I'd suggest for now you might want to rent a place in the Garden District to be closer to medical care. It's a quiet area with good security." In other words, the realm of the rich.

"So Stacy says since she lives there. Excuse me, I need the ladies' room — again."

"A hazard of your condition," Annie said pleasantly, but none of the Billodeaux women offered to go with her.

Annie's twin, Jude, sitting beside her radiated hostility toward the woman. She whispered to her sister, "Latched onto a husband in college and probably never worked a day in her life." All the Billodeaux girls were expected to live purposeful lives and be able to earn their own way.

"It must be hard on her, coming here pregnant, losing her support system back home, especially her mother who lived nearby."

"As she mentioned several times already. You know I can't stand nervous Nellies." Jude took no crap from patients or doctors. Suited for the NICU, nope. She'd gone into surgical nursing.

"Yes, if it were one of us in this situation we'd simply squat down and deliver that baby ourselves, wrap it in a blanket, and get back to work."

"Damn right, Sis."

Across the table, their mom gave them the hairy eyeball for whispering at dinner. They stopped. Tiny Nell Billodeaux also took no crap from her grown children. The rules they'd been brought up to obey still held sway. All twelve of them had turned out well so far. Okay, there was Mack, but the family hoped he'd grow out of his antics.

In looks, the twins greatly resembled Nell with her big, brown doe eyes and dark hair, despite having been conceived from eggs donated by her sister. They often regretted having inherited their father's curls and not his impressive stature. But, what could you do about that?

Melinda returned from the restroom just as the impeccable waiters served the entrees. Jude speared the last oyster, the one meant for the squeamish eater, before they took away the tray. "These used to be made with snails, but oysters are easier to get in New Orleans," she said to the expectant mother — and got another glare from her mom.

Nell redirected the conversation. "A pity you don't like seafood, Melinda. It's so very good here."

"The doctor says I'm a little anemic and should eat more red meat while I'm pregnant. Being from the Midwest, I prefer it to fish, so it all works out," Melinda answered as she accepted her prime tenderloin.

Now, standing by the incubator that held Melinda and Matt's very premature son, Annie wondered what had gone wrong. The mother seemed fine two weeks ago at dinner, but you never knew what might occur in a pregnancy. She asked the neonatal pediatrician also staying near to answer questions, "What happened? Preeclampsia or just one of those things?"

"Accident. The couple strayed into the wrong area of town and drove through a gang shootout. Collateral damage. The mother is still on life support, but she's brain dead. The father is waiting for her family to arrive before pulling the plug."

"Dear God," Annie murmured as Matthew Keaton entered the room, filled it really with his size, his brawn. A powerful six-five, two-hundred-thirty pounds, Annie knew his stats as she did most of the Sinners players. Those substantial shoulders delivered a vicious block and absorbed the same. His long legs ate up the yardage to the goalpost, and just try to knock a ball out of those muscular arms. He'd cultivated a mean, dark-eyed stare for his publicity photos, enhanced by the total lack of a smile in his large, granite jaw.

Someone had garbed him in a blue disposable gown that barely fit, helped him scrub as the sleeves beneath it were rolled up, and tagged him with the ID that paired him with tiny Daniel. Annie wondered if the clothes were blood-spattered. Matt offered no smile now as he stared at his son splayed out like a human sacrifice stuck full of tubes and needles, but the eyes, his eyes, appeared lost and bewildered beneath thick black hair thoroughly raked by frantic fingers.

"Will he live?"

"His chances are excellent. We will nurture his development every step of the way until he is ready to come home," the pediatrician answered. "This is our night nurse practitioner in the NICU, Annie Billodeaux, one of the angels who will be watching over Daniel. She's the best, the heart of the department."

Dear Dr. Brown, always generous with his compliments. All the nurses loved him and dreaded his approaching retirement. Annie produced a gentle smile, but Matthew Keaton didn't seem to notice. "Will he be blind or impaired in some way if he survives?"

She took his question. "Blindness is very rare these days, and he has every chance of being a normal child. Daniel will continue growing right here until he is big enough to go home with you. He might even play football someday. My brothers, Dean and Mack Billodeaux were both preemies. So were Jude and me. Dad delivered us a little early in the back of a wrecked motorhome. All of us grew up just fine."

Her name finally registered on his shell-shocked face. "You're Joe's daughter."

"Yes, we met at dinner a few weeks ago. I am so sorry to hear about Melinda. She very much wanted this child."

"I think so." Matt seemed uncertain. "I hope I did the right thing, letting him be born and not sending him with her."

"You certainly did. You will always have part of Melinda in your life."

"One other item," Dr. Brown said. "We have detected a PDA in your son. That means a duct in his heart is open between the chambers. At this stage of development, it's common and might heal itself as the baby grows. If not, we will reevaluate the situation, consider surgery if necessary. Don't worry for now. If you have any questions, ask me or Annie."

"Thank you, doctor. I must get back to my wife. Her parents are coming in on a redeye flight from Indianapolis. I have to leave to pick them up soon."

Annie intervened. "No, you don't. I'll call Dean. He'll meet them and bring them here if you give me their flight number and time." No sense in having a man in his mental condition cause another accident.

"I'd appreciate that." Matt Keaton dug in his pocket. She took the note jotted on a slip torn from a prescription pad from his outstretched hand. She noticed he took another look at the frail little form in the incubator as if doubting all he'd been told.

"You can watch the baby from Melinda's room on a special monitor. My parents donated enough of them for every NICU unit. The next few days will be hard for you, but please visit your son often. He can hear you and get to know your voice, eventually your touch and scent. It's important for his development."

Half turned away, Keaton simply nodded at her comment and kept walking toward the exit. "Tough one," Dr. Brown remarked. "Maybe the grandparents or a sister will step up to help."

"If not, I'll call in the team wives. And I'll be here for Daniel, too."

Annie finished her twelve-hour shift, tired but content as usual. After the Keaton baby, none of their tiny charges had coded or experienced other difficulties, a pretty quiet night. She preferred the NICU in the evening when the anxious visiting mothers had gone home, the doctors completed their daily rounds, and the ladies who volunteered to rock the infants left. If she didn't have to rush from one crisis to another, sometimes she rocked the infants herself while offering a small nighttime bottle of breast milk. She didn't mind changing a diaper either. Poop meant progress in their patients' internal growth and dampness functioning kidneys.

For now, she only wanted breakfast in the hospital cafeteria, which had better food than most gave it credit for, before heading home to her apartment over the electronics store on the edge of the French Quarter. No coffee for her, but fresh fruit, a cheese and veggie omelet made on the grill, and a splurge on a large, fluffy biscuit. As she waited on the omelet and ate a few strawberries in the fruit cup, she spied her sister checking out with a large coffee in hand. Too tired for another lecture about her weekend and night hours destroying her social life, Annie ducked her head, but Jude with a twin's sixth sense noticed her and came over to her table.

"Rough night, huh?"

"Not too bad after the C-section baby got settled."

"Matt Keaton's child, it was all over the news last night and this morning. I didn't care for his wife but wouldn't wish that on anyone. Did you know he drove through that hail of bullets and took her straight to the hospital when he saw her slumped in her seat. He had no idea how seriously she'd been hurt and got her into emergency just in time to get her on life support to save the baby."

"He seems like a man of action, wouldn't have made it in pro football if he weren't." Annie accepted her omelet and slathered the healthy spread the hospital provided in lieu of butter on her warm biscuit. "I phoned Dean to pick up her parents at the airport. At least, I could lift a little of his burden. I'm certain he'll blame himself for bringing his wife to New Orleans."

"Yeah, probably. When are you going to ask for a day shift? You missed trying a great new Thai restaurant this weekend, and then, we went over to Mariah's Place and danced with the tourists until all hours since the Sinners they were looking for weren't to be found in the off-season."

Fortunately, Annie did not have to answer her question again, so stale it should be growing mold by now. Jude checked her watch. "I have a surgery at nine. Got to go — but really, we are like those proverbial ships that pass in the night. Get some rest."

"I will."

Annie settled into enjoying her solitary meal as she watched her sister move on.

She'd always let Jude lead the way from adolescent rebellion once they left the rules of the Billodeaux ranch behind to some really poor college choices early on until they settled into nurses' training at LSU. After gaining experience, Jude pushed them on to pursuing rigorous nurse practitioner degrees. There, they'd split with Jude going into the surgical field which offered better hours and lots of adrenaline, and Annie pursuing the treatment of neonates requiring twenty-four-hour care.

When a wonderful job offer came through from Ochsner at the same time Xochi, her aura-seeing sister, decided to give up the apartment in New Orleans in favor of learning to be a traiteur, a traditional Cajun healer, Annie seized the chance to live her own life free of her sister's influence. That lasted as long as it took for Jude to find a position at the same hospital and move into the second bedroom.

"Can't survive without my wing woman," her sister claimed. Annie had been that, suffering through many a double date while Jude pursued a guy she wanted, but soon lost interest in having. Men always seemed fascinated by dating twins, building fantasies in their minds and being severely disappointed by the Billodeaux girls.

Working nights gave her some separation and a few hours to herself to find her own way. They still had days off together to shop or go to lunch or return to the luxury of their parents' ranch with its horses for riding and a pool for sunbathing and other spa-like amenities.

She ate the last crumb of her biscuit and scooped a final red grape from the bottom of the fruit cup. Time to go home and sleep away the day in the bedroom secluded from busy Canal Street with its clanging street cars, constant stream of traffic complete with blaring horns, and crowds of boisterous tourists. She happily let Jude have the bigger room with the windows overlooking the hubbub. It suited her sister's personality perfectly.

As she emptied her tray, Dean and Matt entered the cafeteria. They would have stood out even if not handsome and moving with the coordinated grace of athletes. The eyes of every woman in the place from the chunky black lady at checkout to a female doctor in her lab coat tracked them. Dean guided Matt by the elbow as if the man had gone blind. He placed him at a table. "Sit here while I get you something to eat, then you are going home with me." Keaton did not respond. He stared into the shiny metal surface of a napkin holder as if trying to see the future.

Dean veered from the path to the breakfast buffet to head off his sister. "Annie, would you sit with Matt for a few minutes? I know you're exhausted, but you always think of something comforting to say."

Her eldest brother looked fairly tired around the eyes as well. "I can spare the time. Did you stay all night after picking up Melinda's parents?"

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Excerpted from "The Heart of a Sinner"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Carla S. Hostetter.
Excerpted by permission of The Wild Rose Press, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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