Chapter 5
HUNTER
A rock is lodged in my stomach. If Jamison didn’t make it through his surgery, there’s no saying how Dorothy will be.
What is this tragedy going to do to us?
It’s a selfish thought, but I can’t help letting my mind go there. My driver pulls into the hospital drop-off lane and I jump out before he stops.
I run to the operating floor first. No one is in the waiting room, so I ask the nurse where Jamison is. She directs me to the ICU floor and relief floods my veins. He’s alive. I can breathe a little more.
A few minutes pass and I’m stepping off the elevator onto the ICU level. Closed double doors to the unit are before me. There’s a waiting room at the end of the hall. I start in that direction, but the doors to the ICU open.
A male nurse comes out, and Dorothy’s cries pull me in. I slip inside before the doors close and follow her sobs.
I come to the first room. Windows fill the top part of the wall, but the curtains are drawn, so I can’t see in. I peek around the entrance and find Dorothy bent over Jamison.
She moves his hair to the side as she caresses his face. I pull back and lean against the wall, staring at the ceiling as she speaks to him.
“Jamison Stone, you have to fight. Do you understand me?” She sniffles. “The doctor said you might be able to hear me, so let this sink in.
“You told me at the sushi restaurant you would fight for me. You promised me not even a month ago that you would. Don’t think this is any way to get out of it because it won’t release your promise.”
My chest caves in and I almost lose my breath. I close my eyes as one of my worst fears comes alive.
A cry slips through her words. “You told me at my apartment you wished you had made love to me in the cabin. You said if you had, our souls would’ve become one. We didn’t need that night to make that true. It’s always been true.”
I press my palms against the wall to hold myself up. My heart tumbles as her gentle words continue to spill from her lips.
“Since you kissed me when I was ten, our souls have been connected. We talked about it on our drive up to Mount Sopris. You admitted we were magnetically attached. Making love doesn’t solidify it when it’s always been there between us.”
There’s a pause and my blood thrums through my veins. The agony in her voice haunts me. It’s not what she’s saying. It’s how she’s saying it that guts me to my core. This is her truth.
She weeps for a second. “You don’t think we made love that night, but we did. We made a baby to prove it. I might have ruined that for you, but we shared something pure and beautiful for a moment in time.
“Jami, I love you, and I’m so sorry I lost our baby. You deserved to have one more than anyone I know. You wanted our baby from the second you suspected I was pregnant. But my body won’t give that to anyone. I’m sorry, Jami. I wanted our baby just as much as you did.”
She cries louder and longer. My heart breaks, but not for the reasons I think it would. It breaks for her.
She’s not over that loss. Not in the least bit. And here I am with a woman I can’t stand carrying a child she’s claiming is mine, all while Dorothy is trying to stand by my side.
Nausea grips me. I kick off the wall and leave before anyone notices me. I’m shaken, but I try to pull myself together. I have to believe our love is strong enough to get through this. With everything in me, I pray it is.
No matter what, she needs me even if she leaves me down the road. She needs me to lean on.
As soon as I get beyond the double doors, I lean over and rest my hands on my knees, trying to center myself. I can’t believe what I’ve overheard.
She loves him with such an unbearable intensity that the pain of facing that reality is almost too much to bear. The sheer magnitude of it all is overwhelming to the point where it feels like too much to process.
“Hunter? Are you alright?” Jonah’s voice causes me to raise my head.
I stand, nearly unable to feel my legs. “The day caught up to me. I need a second before I see her.”
He walks toward me with concern dripping off him. “She’s not in the waiting room, so you can go in there to catch your breath.”
I nod, but don’t say a word. I can’t tell Jonah what I heard. It makes it too real, and I can’t handle that right now.
He digs into his pocket and hands me a new phone. “It should be good to go. The IT department set it up. I didn’t check it out, but I trust them.”
He leads me down the hall in silence. I stop before the room’s entrance, knowing a group of people are waiting to hear about Jamison .
“Thanks for your help in getting me a new phone. Now, catch me up to speed.”
“Jamison’s in critical condition. The bullet barely missed his lung, but it was a clean exit, so they didn’t need to remove it. They repaired what they could and stopped the bleeding, but they’re saying it’s a miracle he’s alive.”
“Is he out of the woods?”
Jonah pats my shoulder. “Not yet. They say they’ll know more as the days go on.”
“Any word on who’s responsible?” I catch his fleeting gaze.
“Not that I know of, but I have a guess.”
“Yeah. So do I. But why?”
He leads us away from the waiting room. “If it’s our mother, do you think the bullets were meant for Dori?”
My neck tightens. “Possibly, but why would our mother go after her?”
“Maybe you pissed her off.”
“I know I did that. But why come for Dorothy when it’s me who she’s upset with?”
“Because Dori’s your Achilles’ heel. If she hurts Dori, you’ll cave to her requests.”
Jonah’s right. Mommy Dearest has me at her mercy. All that I can do is wait and see what she’s going to require of me in order to keep Dorothy safe.
I can only hope it’s something I’m capable of doing, but I have a sick feeling my mother’s demand will be something I’ll have a terrible time fulfilling.
Convincing Dorothy to leave the hospital is brutal. It takes three hours. And in the end, she only leaves with me because Melanie tells her she’s starting to smell like rotten blood .
Dorothy’s still gripping Jamison’s belongings in her arms like they’re a precious child as we step outside the hospital doors.
I guide her out to my car. “Come on, beauty. Let’s get you home, and I’ll run you a hot bath.”
She glances over her shoulder and hesitates. “Maybe I should stay. I’m sure they’d let me shower here somewhere.”
“Remember what Melanie said. The nurses will contact you if there’s any change in Jamison’s condition.” I nudge Dorothy along. “Let me help and take care of you until they call.”
She peers up at me and reluctantly allows me to lead her into the car. We head for home, but she won’t speak and continually looks out the back window toward the hospital for the entire trip.
I’ve never seen anyone in her state before. It’s clear she’s in shock from the traumatic event she witnessed. That, and she’s worried sick about Jamison. I can’t say that I blame her.
We get back to my place, and I offer to run her a bath, but she opts for a shower. She’s been in there for twenty minutes, hiding her cries under the showerhead.
My nerves are standing at attention. I keep waiting for her to tell me she can’t stay here, but she hasn’t. Not yet, anyway. The hole in my heart tells me it’s bound to happen, so I know I’m on borrowed time.
Before getting in to bathe, she asked me how I was holding up regarding Isabella. When I told her I didn’t want to focus on that, she looked at me like a lost child.
In every situation I’m dealing with, I feel out of control and helpless. It’s uncharted territory, and I’m not sure how to handle it.
I pull on some sweatpants and toss my dirty clothes in the laundry room. I close the door and glance up. She peeks her head around the bathroom wall and finds me in the hallway.
I show her a warm smile. “How was your shower? ”
“Fine. Melanie was right. I smelled awful.” She towel dries her hair.
“Well, in that case, let’s get you to bed. You could use the sleep.” I meet her at her side and kiss her cheek.
She ambles to the bed and sits. “I don’t think I’ll be able to.”
I take her in with a careful eye. This is when I think she’s going to tell me she made a mistake and she can’t be with me after all, but she remains silent, staring off at nothing.
“Beauty, is there anything I can do to help?”
Her empty gaze connects with my apprehensive one. “Just talk to me for a little while. I have all these thoughts in my head. If I could clear them out and make sense of them, maybe…”
“Let me dry your hair first. Then we can cuddle up, and you can share anything that’s on your mind.”
She disappears from the room to get her hairdryer, and when she comes back, I proceed to take care of her. It’s these little moments that mean the world to me—mundane tasks that I used to take for granted.
It’s well past one in the morning. I’m exhausted from a week away, but I’ll stay up as long as she needs me.
I turn off the hairdryer. “That should do it. Why don’t you get in bed while I put this away and shut down the place?”
“Okay.” She doesn’t move. Her troubled gaze stays on the floor.
I want to ask her how I can help, but I decide to leave and give her some space while I get ready for bed. When I come back, she’s leaning against the headboard.
My heart warms at the sight. “I was hoping I would find you asleep.”
“No. I’m too confused. I can’t get anything to make sense.”
As I get into bed, I gently arrange her between my legs so she can lay her head on my chest while I prop myself up against the headboard.
“Lean on me, and let’s talk through what’s confusing you.” I move her hair over her shoulder and kiss her temple.
She tenses in my arms. “Why would anyone want to shoot Jami?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if the bullets weren’t meant for him? The laser was pointed at me. He only got hit because he moved in front of me.”
My throat constricts. “What are you talking about?”
She twists out of my arms and hooks her red-rimmed eyes to mine. “We were talking. He moved, and a red light flashed across his jaw. I asked him what it was.