Chapter Thirty
MASON
“WHAT DO you mean she left? She was too beat up to walk out of here on her own.” Each second that passes as I talk to the nurse makes it harder to keep my voice calm.
The badge on the pocket of her scrubs says Audra Stubbs, RN and she is wringing her hands as she looks up at me. She can’t be more than five-two and is as big around as my leg. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harlow, I checked on her and she was fine but when I went back an hour later, she was gone.”
Another woman steps up behind her, she has two badges, one says RN, and the other says Administrator, “Mr. Harlow, I’m Nurse Corbel, I know you’re upset but we have five nurses and seventy-five patients that we are divided between on this floor.
If a patient wants to leave bad enough, they can find a way. ”
Lifting my hat by the bill, I scrub my hands over my head before setting it back down and I turn in a circle as I take a deep breath, when I’m facing her again, I ask, “Why would she want to leave? That doesn’t make sense, she has to be in pain.
What if she didn’t leave on her own, what if she were taken against her will? ”
Nurse Corbel nods her head, “Then we need to get security involved and watch the footage.” She points to a camera in the ceiling over the nurse’s station. “The only way out is past the nurse’s station.”
Turning to Jax to ask him to call Spits, I see that he is already texting him and nodding his head to let me know he’s on it.
“Do you think that she was taken against her will? Do we need to watch the footage?” Nurse Corbel asks and reaches for the phone.
Knowing I can get more info from Spits, and quicker, than waiting for security to drag their ass to the security room, I say, “No, never mind.” I look down the hall to the room Sloane was in, “Can I take a look at her room?”
The smaller nurse starts to wring her hands again, “We already cleaned the room and got it ready for another patient.”
My eyebrows climb up my forehead, “What if she had been taken against her will, shouldn’t the room be left the way it was?” The anger that I thought was satiated after I slit Miller’s throat is creeping back up my spine.
Both nurses watch me pace, but they don’t answer my question. I stop and turn to the smaller nurse who said she checked on her last, “Did she say anything that might lead you to believe that she would leave?”
Her eyes scan the floor as she thinks back and she shakes her head, “The only thing she asked was if the person who brought her to the hospital was here and she asked if the baby is okay.” Her gaze comes back to me, “When I told her that no one had been here all day, she got upset, but she was quiet about it.”
Me. She was asking if I was still here.
My chest squeezes as I realize she thinks I dumped her here and left. Her brother has done such a good job of making her feel like she is nothing that she assumed I was getting rid of her.
Fuck!
The simmering anger is starting to boil over, “Did you tell her what I told the other nurse to tell her? That I would be back?”
“I’m sorry sir, I didn’t know you said that, the message wasn’t passed to me.” The small nurse is shrinking away from me, and I know it’s because I am being an ass, but I don’t care.
“What kind of hospital is this?” I look between the two nurses in front of me, but the other nurse squares her shoulders and steps between me and the smaller nurse.
“Nurse Stubbs did everything she was supposed to do, she is not at fault because the patient’s family left and didn’t come back the entire day.”
The jab fucking stings and I lift my finger to say something, but Jax slaps my hand down.
“Okay, time to go.” Jax steps between me and the two nurses, pushing me toward the elevators.
I let him guide me because I know that arguing with the nurses isn’t going to get me anywhere, but holy fuck, where is Sloane? Did she walk out of here on her own?
How the fuck did she manage that with a fractured leg? I forgot to ask if she had been given crutches or anything like that.
Once the elevator doors are closed, I clench my fists to stop myself from hitting something.
Anything. “Why would she walk out of here, Jax? It doesn’t make sense.
She was too beat up to be on her own.” My chest is so tight that it feels like I can’t get enough oxygen, I close my eyes and lean against the wall behind me, letting my head tip back.
“We’re going to find out what’s going on, maybe she was scared because she didn’t know that no one would be coming to take her again.
But getting arrested in the hospital will only add more to our list of things to do.
” He’s leaning against the wall as well, but unlike me, his hands are loosely hanging in his pockets and his body is relaxed.
I rub my palms over my face and take a deep breath before I cup the back of my neck with one hand. My anxiety is going through the roof as I think about her out there by herself, beat up and pregnant.
“Hey.” Jax says and I look up at him, “We’re going to find her, she’s going to be okay.”
“But what if someone got to her after she walked out of here and now she’s lost to me?” I express my fears and my voice cracks.
Jax smiles and tilts his head to the side, “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that you are in love with this woman.”
My thoughts go back to sharing a bed with her every night for the past two weeks, I don’t think I could sleep without her now if I tried. Knowing she is next to me calms something in me that is usually controlled by the adrenaline from a job.
Touching her, smelling her, and just knowing she is there has kept me satisfied at home. I realize that for the first time in years, I haven’t been counting the minutes until the next job. I’ve been happy and calm because of her.
As the doors open, my thoughts of her soften the anger on my face and I look at Jax, “I do. If not wanting to spend a day without her means I love her, then yes, I love her.”
Jax’s phone buzzes and he reads the text as we walk across the huge hospital lobby, “Spits says that she waited in the shadows for a while until all the nurses were gone from the desk and went to the elevators on her own. She was using crutches.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m telling you, man, she got spooked because she doesn’t know the danger to her has been eliminated.”
“Have you heard from Callum? Have they got her brother?”
He shakes his head, “Not yet.”
We walk the rest of the way to the car in silence.
Marley, Kinley, and my father meet us in the entryway as soon as Jax and I walk through the door, they are looking around me and Jax to search for Sloane. I glance at the top of the stairs and Lainey Rai is sitting on the top step, leaning on a banister spindle.
“Where’s Sloane?” Marley asks, her eyebrows are pulled down as she looks at me.
I can’t bring myself to tell her we don’t know, so Jax says, “She walked out of the hospital before we got back to her, no one knows where she is yet.”
“You lost her?” Anger is oozing from Kinley’s shrill voice, “How could you lose her?”
My sister’s quiet accusation runs through me like an arrow to the chest, but I know she’s just as worried as everyone else, so I bite back the string of curses I want to throw at her. Marley reaches out to her and softly grips her forearm, it’s her way of telling Kinley to be quiet.
“I knew I should have gone to get her while you guys were gone. Damn it!” My father grumbles and turns to walk to his office.
“We have to go look for her.” Lainey Rai says from the stairs as she steps down a few steps. “It’s cold outside.” Tears come to her eyes, and I see Gray’s bedroom door open and then he walks down the hall to get her.
He takes her hand and pulls her back up to the landing, “Come on Pumpkin, it’s late, you need to be in bed.”
“But Sloane always makes sure my fuzzy blanket is on my bed when it’s cold outside. Who’s making sure she’s warm?”
Pain shoots through my chest. It’s below freezing outside, and they are saying it may snow tonight, does she have enough on to keep her warm? I didn’t realize until all this happened just how much a part of the household Sloane is to everyone here, she’s practically family already.
Gray picks her up and she wraps her arms around his shoulders to hide her face in his neck, he rubs her back and turns to take her back to her room, “Uncle Mason’s going to find her, they’ve already started looking.”
***
The heat from the hot coffee cup is soaking through my gloves, the temperature is definitely below freezing, and I feel like I deserve to sit on the porch in the cold. If Sloane is cold, I have no business being warm.
We drove a one-mile perimeter around the hospital for hours but didn’t see her anywhere. We even went to the area where the homeless tend to gather, but she wasn’t there. I know she wouldn’t put herself in danger by being in one of the alleys, so we didn’t drive through all of those.
A small niggle in my head is wondering if her brother picked her up, but there isn’t anyone left to take her to. Unless he knows something we don’t.
The nurse was right, even though I told my dad that I plan to make Sloane a part of this family, I was so wrapped up in revenge and keeping her safe that I forgot to make sure she knows I’m here for her. I basically left her there all day to wake up alone.
What kind of father could I possibly be?
When I do find her, and I will, I’m going to make sure she knows that she has a place here. That she has a family, and she can always count on me. Better or worse, she can always fucking count on me. I take a sip of my coffee that’s so strong it could wind up a bull.
“You should get some sleep.” Marley’s voice breaks through the silence of the cold night. I was so lost in thought that I didn’t even hear the screen door open, she’s standing on the porch bundled up with her hoodie on her head and her long blond hair hanging out each side down her chest.
“I couldn’t sleep if I tried.” Not until I find her.
Her knee-high fuzzy socks are quiet as she walks across the porch and sits in the wicker chair next to me, her elbows on her knees, “You didn’t sleep last night, either.”
Holding my hand out to her, she takes it, and I squeeze her fingers to give her some comfort, “I’ve gone longer, it’s part of my job.”
“I’m sorry you had to have that kind of life because of me.” She’s told me she’s sorry for the past ten years.
As a kid, my dream was to work the ranch with Gray, that was always the plan. Until I walked in on that guy raping my sister. I’ve never been able to remember everything, it’s a blur, but I do know that the rage that overcame me wanted to kill the guy.
I almost did.
His dad was a big shot in Tulsa and made a big stink, demanding that I go to jail. I’d never been in trouble before, and I made good grades in school, so the judge took it easy on me. He gave me the choice to go to jail or join the Army.
I sure as fuck wasn’t going to jail for protecting my sister.
Squeezing her fingers again, I smile at her and give her the same response I always do, “Don’t ever be sorry, I would do it again.”
She looks out over the yard to her stables, the floodlights around the building keep it lit up through the night, “You worked so hard in FFA and 4H all those years in school… I hated that you couldn’t be here when we had to put down General.
” She trails off and huffs out a deep breath, the cloud of warm air quickly dissipates in front of her face.
General was the horse I’d had since I was a kid, we grew up together.
He got cancer and had to be put down about six years ago, I was overseas and couldn’t be here.
My mind always goes back to the day I left for basic, I don’t know how long I stood in the stable with my forehead pressed to the white star on his forehead. The reminder makes my chest hurt.
“Hey,” I shake her hand and make her look at me, “I like my life. I’ve seen things and been to places I never dreamed I would.” I give her a big smile, “And now I’m going to be a father.” My smile fades and I look down at her hand, “When we find her.”
This time she shakes my hand to make me look into her blue eyes, “You will find her, I know it.”
***
Hard and fast shaking of my shoulder pulls me out of the light sleep I slipped into and I open my eyes to see my father standing over me. After our talk last night, Marley made me go in and I must have fallen asleep in the chair in the den.
“Wake up, Mason, we found her.” He turns from me and walks from the room.
Flinging the throw off me that Marley must have put over me in the night, I jump up and follow him, “Where, how?” My voice is raspy from sleep, and I cough into my fist.
Dad’s throwing his coat on, and he lifts mine from the hook in the entryway and throws it at me, “Opal called, she’s at the Day Center. She says Sloane’s hurting too much to get up and get breakfast.”
“Fuck me,” I growl and put my hat on my head as I pull my keys out of my pocket and run to my truck.