“Please,” I grind out to the receptionist on the front desk.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t give out information to just anybody. Fam—”
“Family members only, I get it, but she’s my girlfriend for Christ’s sake!”
Her eyes widen at my raised voice and a hand lands on my shoulder, trying to calm me down. “Nate, I think you need to come and sit down.”
I turn angrily toward Tris. “And I think you need to stop trying to father me. All I want is to know if my girlfriend is still alive.” His eyes flash at the word girlfriend but his face softens as mine crumples. “I just watched her fall from a three-story-high railing. I deserve to know if she’s still breathing.”
A sob escapes me and my gaze falls on the receptionist who has a stoic expression on her face. “I really am sorry, but it’s policy.”
I turn away and let Tris steer me back to the seating area where Harm gives me a sad smile before standing up. “Let me see what I can do.”
She places her hand on my shoulder and gives it a small squeeze before kissing Tris and telling him she’ll be back soon.
Tris leans forward with his elbows on his knees, his stance matching mine. “How long have you been together?”
I scoff. “I don’t even know if that’s what you’d call it. The first few weeks were incredible, I realized she’d been in front of me this entire time and I’d not even noticed.” A sad smile graces my lips. “Sure we’d flirted countless times, but never anything serious. I guess until we’d crossed that barrier I hadn’t realized how much she lights up my life.”
“All of our lives,” he says quietly before adding, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sighing, I say, “She was worried we’d upset you.”
“Always thinking about everyone else but herself,” he comments, and I realize he’s right.
“That’s why she moved out.” I stand and pace in front of him. “The packages, this woman turning up; they can’t be a coincidence. I think she was putting us at arm’s length because she didn’t want to get us involved.”
“That would make sense.” He growls in frustration. “But it was a stupid idea.”
I nod my agreement. “If she’d have told us, we could’ve helped and this would’ve been over a long time ago.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “She wouldn’t be in surgery fighting for her life right now.” I slump down into a seat. “Remember a couple weeks back when I told you I couldn’t imagine what you went through at the hospital?” He nods, closing his eyes briefly. “I won’t say I know what and how you felt, but now I can’t only imagine, I’m experiencing my own brand of personal hell and pain.”
His muscles visibly vibrate as he clenches his hands and walks over to the front desk. “My friend needs some information on his girlfriend. Please, just give me a nod if she’s stable.”
I watch the commanding Tris come into play and she sighs. “Sir, I can’t do that.”
My vision turns hazy as tears stream down my cheeks, a raised gruff voice in the background paired with a familiar voice breaks through all the white noise, but I can’t seem to muster the strength to lift my head.
“Nathan, I presume?”
The tense tone of the voice has me raising my head slightly, seeing an older man with salt-and-pepper hair standing in front of me. He looks tired and angry, but I don’t concentrate on that, his strangely familiar eyes grabbing all of my attention.
I nod subtly and he stands up straighter. “I’ve been asked to tell you how my daughter is doing, but I don’t see why the hell I should when I have bigger things to think about.” A muscle ticks in his jaw.
It takes me a minute to process what he’s said before I’m standing up, wiping my cheeks and ridding them of the tears that have settled there. “You’re Amelia’s dad?”
“Beth,” he grinds out. “Her name is Beth.”
My gaze flicks over to Tris before settling back on the man in front of me. “Not to us she’s not. She’s our Amelia.”
He scoffs, his eyes flashing with a warning. “She’s not your anything.”
I let his words settle between us before I sigh. “I’m not doing this right now, all I want to know is if she’s okay and I’ll stay out of your way.”
“Damn straight you will,” he growls. “She’s in surgery for internal bleeding.” His nostrils flare and my stomach roils at his words. “What the hell happened!” He turns his head slightly, and when I look at who he’s staring at, I see his gaze zeroing in on Tris. “I sent her to you because I thought she’d be safe, then I get the call that she’s in critical condition.” He turns back toward me, his chocolate eyes swirling with so many emotions I don’t think even he knows which one to settle on. “I should’ve kept her well away from all of you, I never should’ve let her come back on her own.”
“Now hold on a minute,” I start to say, but Tris interrupts me.
“Sir, you have to understand that we’d just been told she was lying to us. That presented with articles about her killing a baby—”
“They weren’t real,” I grind out to which Tris nods.
“Yeah, I know that now, but they looked real and in that moment all I was thinking about were my kids. I’d let a stranger live in my house and look after my kids for six years. I needed time to think.”
“The fact that you’ve known her for six years should’ve meant something,” her dad growls, pointing to his chest, his voice getting louder. “Did you tell her to leave?” He raises a brow in question but doesn't let Tris answer as he grinds out, “You believed a mentally unstable woman over the person you’ve known and trusted for six years!”
A hurt expression crosses Tris’s features. “I’m sorry this has happened to your daughter, we all love her, too, but don’t try and pass the blame onto me. Yes, I told her to leave, but I didn’t know any of this was going to happen. If I did...” He shakes his head as his chest rises and falls on deep breaths before he glances at me. “I’ll go and find Harm.”
He gets up and storms past us, Amelia’s dad following him with his gaze.
“No one had any idea how serious this all was, she never said anything and when I asked, she pushed me away. We all tried to help, obviously not hard enough which guts me, but we did try.”
“Let me ask you something.” He widens his stance. “Do you love my daughter?”
I scan his face to see if he’s being serious. “What sort of question is that? Of course I love her.”
“Then you should’ve tried harder; you never give up on the people who mean the most to you,” he says, his unforgiving gaze meeting mine.
“I didn’t give up on her! I tried to get her to tell us what was going on. I went around to her place countless times, but there’s only so much you can do. She moved out and wasn’t going to tell me she was doing so for Christ’s sake. She said she’d call me but she never did. She never answered my messages or picked up her phone when I called.” I step closer to him. “I did not give up on her, she gave up on us! Yet here I am worried sick, not being able to find out anything about the woman I love.”
He watches me for several beats, something passing over his eyes before he runs his hands through his hair and over his face. “Welcome to the world of the Waters women.” A faint smile passes over his face before his lips form a straight line and he hooks his thumbs in his belt. “She was stable the last time I heard anything, but it’s a waiting game.” I shut my eyes for a second and take a deep breath at his words before opening them as he says, “I need to know what happened.” His tone is all business now. “Every single detail, no matter how small.”
I recount everything from when Phoebe turned up at Tris’s to the second we arrived at the hospital, finishing with tears in my eyes, fueled by anger. “They need to find that woman, she needs locking away for what she did! What are they doing to find her?”
“I don’t know yet, the detectives who I’m friends with are coming to meet me here.” A muscle in his jaw ticks. “But I’ll do everything in my power to find her, I’ve already put feelers out back home and called Ryan.”
“Ryan?” Jealousy I didn’t even know I had rises in me over the mention of another man.
“Phoebe’s ex-husband,” he explains
I grind my jaw. “Who are these people?”
“They’re—”
“Waters?”
Both of our heads snap toward a man in scrubs. I can’t tell his full expression as he’s still wearing a surgical mask, but I see his brow is furrowed.
“Take off the mask, just take off the mask or say something,” I chant to myself.
“Carl Waters,” Amelia’s dad says, shaking the surgeon's hand before the surgeon turns his head toward me. Carl sighs and waves him off as if it’s okay to talk in front of me.
He finally takes off his surgical mask and it’s like a weight lifts from my shoulders at the small smile on his face. “I’m Doctor Bale, I’m the lead surgeon for your daughter. We managed to stop the bleeding and we’ve plastered her leg up. It was broken in two places as well as extensive bruising to the back of her body, specifically around the rib cage area. She has three broken ribs but I was surprised she had no head injuries.”
I run a hand through my hair, remembering the position she fell in, Phoebe’s arm was lodged behind Amelia’s head until she rolled off her. Thank God for little miracles. “The woman who pushed her also fell and her arm was lying under her head.”
He looks at me and nods. “That explains it then. Now, Dad, you can go and visit with her if you’d like? She’s being placed in the ICU as we speak.”
I clear my throat. “I’ll see her after.”
The surgeon exchanges looks with Carl before turning toward me. “I’m sorry, but if you’re not a family member then I’m afraid you can’t go in there. It’s hospital policy.”
“I am so sick and tired of those words. I have just as much of a right to see her,” I fume.
Carl pinches the bridge of his nose. “Is there no way he can visit, even for a few minutes?”
The doctor is shaking his head before Carl’s finished his sentence. “I’m afraid not. As the patient is in an unconscious state and can’t give her consent, only family is allowed right now.”
Carl runs his hand through his hair before he turns toward me with an apologetic look on his face. “I’ll keep you updated.”
I want to argue and say that this is bullshit, but I don’t have the energy right now, and what good will it do? I’ll find a way to get into that room whether it’s “hospital policy” or not, but for now I nod while grinding my teeth together as I watch them walk back the way Doctor Bale came from.
It’s been two hours since Carl disappeared to go and see Amelia, and I’ve not heard a word about her since. I’m losing my patience, pacing up and down the waiting room until someone I can speak to walks past.
“Nate, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor. Come and sit down,” Harm says delicately.
I turn and face her. “If this was Tris, you’d be the same.” She winces and I immediately regret it, sitting down in a seat. “Sorry, Harm.”
My cell rings for the umpteenth time and I growl, pulling it out of my pocket. “What!” I snap.
“Nate? Are you okay?”
Shit, Maya! “Maya, I’m so sorry, I should’ve called. I’m at the hospital with Amelia and I—”
“Hospital? Is she okay?”
I scrub a hand down my face, trying not to get choked up. “I… I think so.”
“What can I do?”
My mind goes blank because the only thing anyone can do for me right now is get me in that room to see her. “I need you to call one of your friends and ask them if you can stay over for a few days. Maybe the Vaughns because I know them.”
“Is it serious?”
Her question is innocent, but it’s like a knife digging farther into my heart. “I don’t know. I just need you to do this for me, okay? Have her dad call me, he’s got my number.”
Jonathan Vaughn is an old client of my dad’s and I know they’ll take care of Maya in a heartbeat. It helps that she’s friends with their fifteen-year-old, too.
“Do I need to call Mom and Dad?”
“No,” I say immediately. “They’d worry and get the next flight home. They’re back in a few days’ time so there’s no point in spoiling their vacation, as long as you’re okay.”
“I’m okay, but I’m worried about you.”
There’s a long pause before I see Amelia’s dad pacing past the waiting room, speaking into his cell. I stand up to follow him. “Call the Vaughns and have them call me, I have to go.”
I hang up and Tris puts a hand on my shoulder to halt me in my tracks. “I know you want information, but the man’s daughter is in the hospital and he’s clearly busy.” I stare him down and he sighs. “Give him a minute to breathe.”
I shrug his hand off my shoulder, staring at the front doors until Harm clears her throat after typing away on her cell. She stands up and walks toward a woman in nurse’s scrubs and talks with her in rushed, whispered words.
Narrowing my eyes. I try to make out what’s being said, but when I can’t figure it out, I look over at Tris who has a look of awe on his face.
“Harm?” I ask, not willing to be kept in the dark anymore.
She shoos me with her hand as the nurse looks behind her and sighs, smiling over at me. “I can let you into the ward and get you past the nurses’ station, but it wasn’t me, okay?”
I want to lift her up and spin her around in the air, but I don’t. I place a quick kiss to Harm’s cheek and mutter a quick “thank you” before following the nurse.
“I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but why are you doing this?”
She types a code into a keypad as we reach the end of the hallway we were walking down. “Harmony has become a dear friend of mine over the last few months. She’d do anything for anyone and when she explained your situation to me, I couldn’t help but follow suit.”
“But you could get fired for this,” I stupidly say. Why am I questioning her?
She sighs and looks me in the eyes. “I used to love someone so much that I’d do anything for them, and I can see just by looking at you that you feel that kind of love for this girl. We’ll be careful, we won’t get caught as long as you don’t stay long.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“You have five minutes and that’s it. I’m doing you a favor, but like you said: I’m also putting my job on the line.”
I nod my understanding and she opens the door. “She’s in room seven, it’s the farthest room on the right. I’ll distract the nurses and you get your ass down there without raising suspicion. I was never here, okay?”
And with that, she’s gone and I’m left in the doorway wondering if she meant to go now or not.
I risk it and step forward, the nurses’ station looming to the left of me, but the nurse that let me in laughs loudly and gains all the nurses’ attentions as I skirt past them all, thankful for the cover of the hallway as I take a brisk walk down to room seven.
I open the door seeing Amelia looking weak and helpless, hooked up to beeping machines. Shutting the door behind me and walking over to her, I perch on the seat beside the bed and gingerly lift her hand.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I whisper while kissing her knuckles, choked with tears at the vacant look in her sleeping face. “You should’ve let me protect you." I lay my forehead against her hand in frustration. "I’m supposed to protect you."
"She loves you, she didn't tell you because of that,” a voice says from behind me and I jolt out of the seat, seeing Carl standing in the doorway.
“Are you going to tell them I’m in here?” He stares at me for a second before shaking his head tiredly and shutting the door behind him. He sits in a chair at the other side of her and takes her hand before I sit back down and do the same. “I tried to get her to let me in, to help her, but she’s so incredibly stubborn and strong willed.”
“Just like her mother,” he comments, a small chuckle escaping before he looks at her willfully.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop this from happening,” I add quietly, but to whom I don’t know. My brow furrows as I stare down at her hand, brushing my thumb over the top in a soothing motion. “If I had just pushed a little more then—”
“She wouldn’t have let you. There's nothing you could've done to change her mind about that,” he interrupts. “She was trying to protect you.” I lift my head up, staring into the same eyes as Amelia’s. “You’re her second family. She told us about you all when she came home: how much you all mean to her.”
“I’m going to sound like an arrogant asshole here, but I don’t need protecting. We would’ve worked something out and helped her because like you said, we’re family.”
The whole notion of being a family has my belly flipping and I squeeze her hand, making her a silent promise that when this is all over, there’s going to be no more secrets and doing things alone.
His lip quirks up. “I have no doubt about that, but when Bet—Amelia gets an idea, there’s no swaying her.” His eyes glaze over, seeming to go inside his own head before he shakes his thoughts away, his mouth turning into a grim line. “I tried to protect her, I should’ve made her wait to come back with me.” His head bows as he whispers, “I can’t believe this has happened to my baby girl.”
I’d like to reassure him that she’s going to be okay, but the harrowing fact is she might not be. And that thought guts me. “I—”
“I’m going to leave you alone for five minutes, I have to call my wife. She’s going out of her mind.”
“Thank you,” I say sincerely before turning back to Amelia. I hear the door click shut and I kiss her knuckles again before saying, “When you’re awake and recovering, you and I are going to have a—”
Her hand twitches and my gaze flicks from her hand to her face. Her eyelids slowly opening is like torture to me and my heart beats out of my chest as I wait for her to wake up in her own time.