Chapter 14
Blocking him isn’t enough. I need to talk to his mom to explain, in detail, what he did.
— read text between Athena and Maven
AUDEN
Quaid’s words stayed with me throughout the entire shift. In fact, the longer the shift went on, the more I started feeling the same way.
At first, it was just a little niggling sensation in the back of my brain. That little inkling went from a faraway thought to a full on, in your face, imminent possibility.
Like the calm before a Texas storm, I waited with tingling nerves for the inevitable to happen.
Like Quaid suggested, I stayed close to my cruiser, too.
When a call came in for a medical emergency at a residence downtown, I reluctantly took the mic and responded I was en route.
Only , before I could get there, the road was obstructed by two white SUVs that had managed a head-on collision where not just one, but both ran the red light.
Cursing my luck, I radioed in about the accident and got out to check the occupants of both vehicles.
The one in the newer of the two SUVs with the functioning airbags was fine, albeit a bit shocked from the air bag deploying in her face.
After leaving her, I moved to the 80s model Suburban with worry filling my veins the closer I got. It took me all of two seconds to note that the driver was dead seeing as she was halfway through the windshield.
The passenger, however, wasn’t dead.
She was alive and moving, and it took me no time at all to recognize her.
Even with blood running down her face, and a nasty cut over her forehead, I’d know that beautiful face anywhere.
Stomach bottoming out, I hightailed it around the SUV’s bashed front end to move to her, using the mic on my shoulder to call in several busses.
Luckily , the window was down, allowing me to cup Maven’s face in my hands and provide C Spine support until help was here.
“ Maven ,” I whispered, devastated.
“ My stepmother,” she whispered. “ She’s dead.”
I swallowed hard before saying, “ She’s gone.” The small whimper that left her had my heart seizing in my chest. “ The last thing I told her was I wanted nothing to do with her.”
My belly clenched.
“ She showed up at my house and asked me to come talk to her. I came outside because I didn’t want her in my place and it started raining, so we got into her car. As soon as my butt was in her seat, she confronted me about how I was treating my dad and my brother.” Her lip quivered. “ And I told her I hated both of them. I told her I was moving out of Dallas so my dad couldn’t pull any more tricks with the health department. I then told her I was going to go to the media about how Dad was targeting me. I told her I would make sure my face was on every TV outlet in the city. And she got mad. Like irate in a flash. She told me she should’ve never agreed to marry my father, and that I was more trouble than I was worth. She got mad at me because I wasn’t being a good daughter and sped away before I could get out of her car. I was telling her she was fucking nuts, and just managed to get my seatbelt on when she ran that red light.” Her breath quivered. “ Auden , I think she tried to kill me.”
My stomach sank at her words. “ Baby …”
“ I don’t even know why she was there. She never comes to see me. She’s made it obvious as hell that she only saw me as a necessary evil ever since I moved out.” Her breath hitched. “ My dad is going to fucking flip.”
He was.
If the woman was the chief’s wife… Shit .
Ambulance sirens sounded in the distance, and I looked up in time to see the bus round the corner of the intersection and head our way. At the same instant a couple of units came in from another direction.
One of those units was the K -9 unit that Garrett was using.
He got out, his eyes taking everything in, including me holding C Spine on Maven .
The ambulance rolled up next, two medics bolting from the vehicle.
One came to my side and the other went to Maven’s dead stepmother.
“ Deceased ,” I said when he looked at me.
He nodded but checked her pulse anyway.
The paramedic on my side came to me and immediately started asking questions.
Firefighters were next to arrive, and within ten minutes everyone was on the way to the hospital. Including me.
“ Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “ Please . He’ll be so mad, and I don’t want to be by myself when he comes.”
The way she was so desperately holding onto my hand was enough for me to acquiesce despite knowing the chief was going to lose his shit on me. That , and the fear I could see in her eyes.
Good thing I’d already interviewed with Sunnyvale . I had a feeling I was about to need that new job sooner rather than later.
The medic pushed me into a seat in the corner, and I was forced to let go of Maven’s hand or risk strangling her with our connection.
Which she most certainly didn’t like and allowed everyone to know about.
“ Baby , hush,” I said as I leaned over and whispered into her ear. “ Let him work and answer his questions.”
She calmed when she felt my hand in her hair and my breath against her face.
“ Do you remember hitting your head?” The medic repeated his earlier question.
She sniffled, and the tears that were trailing from the corners of her eyes into her ears were killing me one drop at a time.
The feeling in the pit of my stomach wasn’t one I’d ever experienced before.
“ Not on the dashboard. On my own hand. I lifted it right before we hit and my ring caught my forehead,” she answered, lifting her ringed finger and pantomiming what had happened. “ I had my seatbelt on, thank God .”
Sure enough, when I looked down, the ring she was wearing was one I’d had in my truck. A plastic thing that I’d gotten for Dalia on a whim. The last time I’d seen it it’d still been in the plastic container that I’d gotten out of the claw machine at the Mexican restaurant last week.
My lips tipped up at the corner at the knowledge of Maven wearing—and stealing—something I’d had a hand in getting.
“ Nice ring,” I teased. “ Or it was… You broke it on your face, though.”
Really broke it. As in, all the little tines that held the fake diamond in place were crushed, and the plastic bead was nowhere to be seen.
She snorted. “ I would’ve given it back. I don’t even know why I took it. But then you blew me off and I forgot all about it. I actually kicked it across the room before going out to talk to my stepmom and I was admiring it on my finger when Vickie let me know that she was there to talk.
I absently started to braid her hair, my disgust with myself at leaving her alone all week because of my own problems—and I suppose hers—making itself known.
“ I’m sorry, I …” I trailed off, not wanting to worry her with even more after all she’d just gone through.
“ I know about what my father did,” she explained. “ The ultimatum.”
I froze. “ You do?”
“ Yeah ,” she said. “ Your mom came by the bakery. Said you were dealing with my father’s shit. And also told me to give you some time to sort things out.”
Unreal . Could my mom not stay out of everyone’s lives for even a second?
I would’ve laughed at the situation had it been one you laughed at during the retelling.
I closed my eyes. “ My mama has a big mouth.”
“ Your mother wants what’s best for you.” She paused. “ My mother was actively trying to keep us apart. I told her about you, and she said maybe there was a reason that Dad didn’t want us together. And that he always knows best.”
“ I don’t know whether to strangle my mom or thank her—though my dad might have a few thoughts on the strangling part,” I admitted.
We slowed and then stopped in what I assumed was the ambulance bay at Memorial .
The moment the back doors opened, and we were exiting the back of the bus, she held out her hand, which I caught again.
I was unsurprised to find Quaid there, arms crossed across his chest, waiting for me.
Nor was I surprised to find that Ellodie was also there, even though she no longer worked in the ER .
Ellodie and Quaid hung back as the two of us were wheeled into a room not far from the entrance to the ambulance bay.
“… MVA , possible concussion, laceration on face. No signs of broken bones but…” the paramedic started.
I lost the last bit of what he said when I was pushed to the side and forcibly made to let go of Maven’s hand to make room for the doctor and nurses.
“ No , no, no!” Maven cried, twisting and turning so that she could get back to me.
I moved back toward her, only on the side that didn’t have the laceration and was more against the wall.
“ Sir …”
“ Let him stay,” Ellodie suggested, coming into the room. “ She’s much calmer with him here.”
One of the doctors nodded at Ellodie and said, “ Wow , VIP in the room.”
Ellodie snorted and rolled her eyes. “ Ugh .”
“ Pupils are equal and reactive,” doctor number two said.
So , the next twenty minutes went by quickly as tests were run and people were in and out of the room at a rapid pace.
Quaid and Ellodie didn’t leave the room, either, giving us space but also there in case they were needed.
“ Is there a chance you could be pregnant?” a nurse asked right before the X -ray tech was set to X -ray her face.
“ No …”
“ Yes !” Sheldon sped into the room, looking frantic. “ Baby , are you okay?”
“ Get out of my room!” Maven screeched. “ We haven’t been together in months and months! I’ve had seven periods since you left, you fucking moron! And the one and only time we did it, we used a condom, I was on birth control, and you didn’t even come!”
I blinked.
I also fucking hated the way my chest felt so tight at the knowledge that she’d slept with Sheldon , no matter how far in the past it was.
“ Baby ,” Sheldon pleaded, looking lost.
“ Please , please, get him out of here.” Maven closed her eyes as the tears once again started up. “ There is no chance in hell that I’m pregnant, and just sayin’, but I can’t freakin’ stand you. Always kissing my brother’s ass.”
The revulsion in those words had me smiling despite the awkward situation.
“ And how did you even know that I was hurt, anyway?” Maven suddenly asked.
That was a great question, because no one had asked Maven who to call, and since I was here…
Sheldon started backing out of the room.
I made eye contact with Quaid , letting him know without words to find out what Sheldon knew, and went back to listening to Maven’s words.
“…not pregnant. I have the heaviest periods in existence, that last for freakin’ ever, and debilitate me. So I think I would know if I was pregnant,” Maven was telling the X -ray technician. “ I have PCOS among other things. Naturally , my periods come like clockwork. Mother Nature just wants to make sure I can experience that fresh hell as much as I can.”
That was news to me.
I hated that she experienced pain of any kind, nature intended or not.
She squeezed my hand, causing me to look at her face.
Her eyes were already directed on me when she said, “ I don’t like, nor have I ever really liked, him. It was one time, and I was really, really drunk. And it was the worst mistake of my life. A mistake I don’t even remember making, to be quite honest. I broke up with him the next day. I won’t go into any more details because the corner of your eye is starting to twitch with my words, but I haven’t felt anything for Sheldon since he wouldn’t stand up to my father.”
I squeezed her hand.
“ Sir , we’ll have to ask you to step out of…” the technician broke into our discussion. “ It’ll be really quick.”
The end part of the explanation was when Maven started to freak out again.
“ You could get him the apron,” Ellodie said from her perch right inside the room. “ Let him wear that. He can stay.”
The woman looked at Ellodie and sneered.
I wondered if this was her ex-boss who had lost her management position when Ellodie had replaced her.
“ Company policy…”
“ States that a patient can have an attendant in the room if necessary,” Ellodie interrupted her.
The woman narrowed her eyes, but then acquiesced before walking out of the room.
“ My former boss,” Ellodie confirmed my suspicions. “ She sort of hates me. I’m sorry, Maven .”
Maven waved her off with her free hand.
A commotion sounded in the hallway, and I had a feeling that the chief had just arrived.
But before he could get inside, the technician came back inside with a lead apron and handed it to me.
I threw it on, then reluctantly let go of her hand and stepped back.
Maven dropped her hand and sighed. “ I don’t think anything is broken.”
The technician didn’t say anything as she set up the portable X -ray and did her thing.
When she was done, she left with nary a word, leaving a nurse who was cleaning up the cut on her forehead.
“ What happened?” Ellodie came into the room more fully.
I quickly explained everything that had happened, starting with the way Maven’s stepmother ran the red light, and ending with everything else.
“ You left your cruiser there?” Ellodie giggled.
“ Well , no,” I said. “ I left it with Garrett .”
“ And Garrett got it to the station with the help of a friend,” Garrett said from the entrance. “ How’s she doing?”
The doctor came in on the tail end of his question.
“ She’s good,” the doctor said as he stalked to the head of her bed with an iPad in his hand. “ Laceration is just bluster. No head issues. Neck looks great.”
“ Does the lac need stiches?” I asked.
“ No ,” he said. “ Just a little bit of glue. She can be released once we get that taken care of.”
More commotion from the hall had us all turning, and then there was yelling.
“ Shit ,” Maven said, holding out her hand. “ Can you take this off?”
The doctor helped her out of the neck brace and helped her sit up by raising the head of the bed. Then he pulled the curtain closed and said, “ I don’t have to give him any information.”
“ I don’t want him to know I’m here.” Maven’s lip trembled. “ I don’t want him anywhere near me.”
I moved in close.
“ You don’t authorize any of your information to be shared?” the doctor asked.
I shook my head and said, “ No .”
“ No ,” Maven agreed. “ Nothing with anyone but a Carter .”
My heart skipped a beat.
“ Where’s my wife?” I heard the chief bellow.
Maven shrank into herself.
“ I’ll go deal with that then,” the doctor said. “ I’ll have a nurse come in here soon and get your head fixed up.”
Then he was gone.
I heard more commotion, and Garrett , Ellodie , and I were ping-ponging our gazes between each other when Maven whispered, “ I want to get out of here.”
I squeezed her hand. “ Let’s get that cut taken care of then we can head out.”
“ Where ?” she whispered. “ I can’t go home.”
I looked at her for a few long moments, about to tell her my place, when Garrett said, “ If he doesn’t take you home, darlin’, I’ll take you to mine.”
I shot my brother a disgusted look. “ Absolutely not.”