The hulk of Delia’s boyfriend flexed his giant arms and cricked his neck. Hudson laughed out loud, marvelling at his own audacity. He was channelling Robin’s moxie and it felt good. He wondered if a new black eye was on his horizon.
“Maybe Hulk here can help you move your things, as long as you tell him where to put his feet,” he said.
Delia opened her mouth, her green eyes flashing.
“Hudson!” Neil yelled. “Izzy!”
Everything moved in slow motion. Hudson saw Delia’s eyes fly open as he moved toward the sound of Neil’s voice. He lurched forward even as his mind registered the tipping shelving toppling toward him. He shoved a woman out of the way with his elbow and hurled himself toward the falling wall of shelves.
The only thing he could see was Izzy clinging to the cabinet, half-way up the wall, her mouth wide and pink as she screamed.
Chapter 32
“What a simply lovely afternoon.” Auntie trotted to keep up with Robin as they made their way through the crowd. “Imagine my surprise seeing Mel at his little booth, and such tasty ale. I had no idea. I mean, one must be temperate at all times, but I was simply thrilled when he offered me tea. Such a gentleman.”
Robin had her hand firmly grasping Auntie’s sleeve as they forged their way toward the exit. She knew Izzy would be cranky and in need of a nap, and she really wanted to reassure Hudson that she wasn’t upset with him. She sometimes appeared fiercer than she intended, and Hudson only meant well in setting up Auntie and his father. She smiled at the epic failure of their match-making efforts. Especially when it seemed that their elders had their own romantic plans unfolding without intervention.
What would it be like to have Mel as a great uncle?
“Did you know that Mel was in the Navy when he was young? Yes. He was. And he was telling me—” Rosalee’s words staggered to a stop as they heard the sound of sirens coming from the open doors of the exit. The crowd shifted slightly, making room for the paramedics who rushed through the open doors, pushing a stretcher and making their way to the aisle across from where Robin and Rosalee stood. Robin pulled Auntie toward her, to make way as people murmured and muttered around them.
“How terrible,” Rosalee whispered. “I do hope no one is hurt.”
A chill of worry trembled through her stomach. Where was Izzy? She should be at the car by now, safe with Hudson and Neil. Her gaze followed the rapidly moving paramedics and she took several steps forward, her guts turning to water as she glimpsed Neil holding back the crowd to her left. She called his name, but it came out as a silent gasp on her lips.
She dragged Auntie behind her, pushing people out of the way as she raced toward Neil. His face was white and grim as he focussed his gaze beyond her line of sight. Frantic, she yanked a man out of her way, letting go of Auntie and screaming Neil’s name.
He looked wildly around until his eyes met hers as she shoved the remaining people aside, finally reaching him and grabbing his arm.
“Where’s Izzy? Neil, where is she?”
“Robin, I’m so sorry,” he began, tears streaming down his face.
She shook him, her voice a barely contained shriek. “Where is my baby, Neil?”
He looked over her shoulder and she turned, every heartbeat echoed like thunder in her ears.
Paramedics lifted Izzy onto a gurney. Her face was slack and white, her golden curls drifting across her pale face. Her hand hung limply at her side as they strapped her to the stretcher.
Robin screamed, racing to the side of the stretcher just as a paramedic grabbed her arms to restrain her.
“That’s my daughter, that’s my baby!” she screamed, sobbing. “Please, please! That’s my baby!”
HE LEANED ON THE WALL outside the hospital room and cursed himself for the umpteenth time. If only he’d been paying attention. If only he’d listened to Izzy when she had tugged on his hand. If only he could go back in time and be responsible, then maybe Robin wouldn’t be folded over Izzy’s hospital bed after a sleepless night of worry and concern.
Izzy would be fine. He had gotten that much out of the night nurse as he paced awkwardly in the waiting room all night, refusing treatment for his leg until he knew what was happening with that little girl. A sprained wrist, five stitches on her forehead and a mother who he was certain wanted to strangle him. They had kept Izzy overnight to observe her since she’d taken quite a thump to the head when she fell off the shelving unit, but the night nurse assured him it was just for observation and that she would be discharged the next day.
Morning was just leaking through the blinds as he cautiously pushed open the door and shuffled in. Robin sat beside the bed with her head resting on the mattress beside Izzy. They were both breathing deeply in sleep. Hudson was relieved to see the pink back in Izzy’s cheeks as she slept peacefully. He sighed. Exhaustion seeped into his bones as the throb of his leg moved up his thigh and into his hip.
He shifted his weight, turning to sneak back out when Robin sniffled and lifted her head. Her eyes were bleared with sleep and it took her a moment to focus and recognize him as he stood waiting in the dim light of the hospital monitors.
She stared at him for a moment, a chaos of emotions flooding across her face as she turned to look at Izzy. She stood up and pulled the covers up to Izzy’s chin, stroking a wayward curl off her forehead before moving quietly around the bed, gesturing for Hudson to follow her into the hall.
He limped after her, apologies on the tip of his tongue that he knew would never atone for his negligence.
“Robin, I am so sorry,” he began, desperate to convey the depth of his guilt. If only, he thought. If only was never enough.
“I left her with you for five minutes.” Robin’s voice was rough with exhaustion and pent up emotion. “She could have been killed, Hudson. The paramedics said that shelf could have crushed her.”
Her voice caught on a sob, but she pushed his hand away roughly as he reached for her. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and the tremble in her chin drove nails into his heart. Once again he was struck by her strength, her determination.
“I only looked away for a minute.” He was desperate to reach beyond the hardness in her eyes. “Delia showed up and I was—”
“Delia? Your horrible ex-fiancée was more important than the safety of my daughter?” Her words were clipped and cold, as if she were adding up the final calculations and finding that the numbers were all wrong. There was a finality to the set of her jaw that froze the words in his throat. “Go home, Hudson.”
“Robin—”
“I expect you to be gone by the time I get Izzy home.” She opened the door without looking at him. “She needs her own bed back, and you need to sort out your silly little life.”
The door swung shut behind her, leaving him standing cold and alone in the hospital corridor. He wanted to throw open the door and charge in, demanding forgiveness, insisting that she was wrong about him, that he loved that little girl and would never see her harmed.
But she was harmed.
And he was to blame.
Chapter 33
“It was just as much my fault as Hudson’s,” Neil said, dark circles under his eyes betrayed a sleepless night. They’d all had a sleepless night, thanks to Hudson.
She heard Neil’s words, but they didn’t register. Her bubbling rage was focussed on Hudson. On his happy-go-lucky approach to life, on his devil-may-care attitude, on his blithe assumption that everything works out and everyone is happy and tip-toe through the tulips. There was a tiny voice in the back of her mind telling her to listen to Neil, that she could just have easily lost control of Izzy, as she often did, but she stomped down that little voice in favor of anger.
It was easier to be angry than it was to be afraid.
And Izzy’s tumble had frightened her very badly indeed.
“He should have known better,” she said. “He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off her.”
“You’re right,” Neil said. “He’s b
een around the child for all of four weeks now, so he should have parenting sewn up. What an asshole.”
She frowned at her friend, knowing he was right, but not ready to bend just yet.
Neil had picked them up at the hospital, and she carried Izzy up the stairs to the apartment as Neil unlocked the door. She had convinced Auntie to stay home, and by some miracle she had agreed. Robin didn’t think she had the strength to deal with Auntie this morning.
They entered the apartment, silent and obviously empty. She wasn’t sure if the disappointment she felt was because she was hoping to yell at Hudson some more, or because she wanted him to be there. Larger than life, smiling, making it better.
“He has no idea how hard life is.” She spoke quietly over Izzy’s head, snuggled on her shoulder. “He doesn’t understand how hard you have to work just to stay above water. Or how hard you have to work to keep the people you love safe.”
She wiped a tear off her cheek angrily. If life had taught her anything it was that tears fixed nothing. They walked through the hallway and into the kitchen.
She froze, blinking away the sudden onslaught of more useless waterworks.
There were flowers on the kitchen counter, the coffee table, the island. Balloons drifted against the ceiling and were tied in bunches to the lamps. A giant stuffed bunny leaned on the sofa, a huge envelope in its big paws with Izzy’s name in big letters. She looked around, shifting so Izzy could turn her head to see the transformation of their tiny apartment.
“Balloon!” Izzy whispered in awe. “It smells like Neil.”
The apartment did indeed smell like a flower shop.
Robin turned to stare at Neil who raised his hands in surrender.
“He called me at six this morning, insisting I open the shop so he could do this,” Neil said. Neil’s eyes fill with tears as well and she had to turn away before they both collapsed in emotion. “What an asshole, eh?”
“Ass hole,” Izzy said, wiggling to get down from her mother’s arms.
“Sorry,” Neil said, shrugging.
Izzy moved through the living room, tugging on balloon strings so they bounced down from the ceiling all around her. She giggled and crawled up onto the lap of the giant bunny. The envelope fell to the floor, and Robin picked it up.
The card was pink and sparkly, written inside in neat penmanship, as she would expect from the son of Bernard Proxly.
“Get better Izzy Iguana!” She read. “Love, Hudson.”
She looked at Neil and shrugged. “Big deal.” She cleared her throat. “He threw some money around and now I have to deal with a dozen helium balloons and a giant bunny. More clutter, more work, more thoughtless impulsive gestures that don’t fix anything.”
She yanked a balloon out of the way as she reached for the kettle.
“Robin.” Neil put his hand on her arm to stop her from smashing coffee mugs onto the counter. “It isn’t Hudson’s fault you’re lonely. And it isn’t Hudson’s fault you’re worried about being a good parent.”
She turned to protest. A hot flare of anger rose up her spine, making her scalp tingle, the sharp words forming on her tongue like flames. They died away when she looked at Neil’s kind face and gentle eyes.
“It also isn’t his fault you care for him so much.”
There it was. A smouldering ember she needed to extinguish.
“Yeah, well,” she muttered. “He’s gone, so whatever. He doesn’t fit in our lives. He doesn’t get it, and I was stupid to fall so far into—”
“Fall into what, Robin?” Neil asked. “A relationship? Happiness? A little fun in your life?”
“Look where it got me,” she snapped, gesturing at Izzy who was happily reading a book to the giant bunny.
“Yeah, wow.” Neil nodded. “Your life really sucks.”
“She could have died, Neil,” she whispered, tears coursing down her cheeks. “Or been really seriously hurt. What would I do? What would I do if something happened to her? She’s my whole world.”
“But she’s fine.” Neil took the mugs from Robin’s tight grip and made the coffee. “And whether you want to admit it or not, she probably would have climbed that shelf even if you were the one standing beside her.”
He nodded toward Izzy who was now perched on the back of the sofa on her tiptoes, stretching to reach a balloon string dangling just above her head. Robin gasped as she tumbled, giggling, onto the sofa, the balloon bobbing around her like joy itself.
The coffee perked and Neil sat with Izzy on the sofa while Robin had a shower and got dressed. Finally, under the hot water of the shower, she came undone. She turned her face up to the shower head and for the first time in a very long time she simply cried. Her tears mingled with the hot water and she felt the stress of the last twenty-four hours melting away.
Izzy was fine. Her world was still holding together by the threads she held so tightly in both hands. She had Neil, and she had Auntie. She sighed.
“You’ve got to see this,” Neil said as she came back into the living room. He patted the sofa beside him and she dropped down, realizing suddenly how tired she was. Izzy curled up against her, her thumb in her mouth. Neil passed her his cell phone. “It’s gone viral. You can’t see who the child is, so you don’t need to freak out about that, but Hudson might have to fight off some YouTube fans until someone else selflessly saves a child.”
Robin frowned at him and he pushed the phone into her hands.
It was a shaky cell phone video someone had posted on Instagram. She immediately recognized the booth from the expo, with the crowd milling about. Whoever was filming was trying to capture a friend hamming it up at the booth. On the very edge of the screen she could see the back of Izzy’s head as she began to climb the shelf. The camera obviously wasn’t focussed on the little girl, and the edge of the screen kept shifting away from her, only to pan back to show her another step further up the unit.
Robin’s breath caught in her throat.
No one noticed the tiny child scaling the shelves, and there was at least a dozen people in the area.
She gasped as the shelf wobbled and began to topple. The camera focus slewed wildly for a second, then came back to a man shoving someone out of the way and throwing himself under the shelf as it came smashing down. Whoever had posted the video had edited it and added a slow-motion replay on the end. She watched in horror, one hand to her mouth, as Hudson leapt through the crowd, ducking under the shelf with no regard for his own safety. The shelf smashed onto him, and she could clearly see in slow motion how his leg crumbled under the impact, but he still managed to get his hands on Izzy and pull her to him, shielding her body with his as the shelf threatened to crush them both to the ground. The video ended with a flurry of motion as people moved to pull the shelf off the arch of Hudson’s body, Izzy’s little feet visible on the floor where he shielded her.
She lowered the phone and took a trembling breath.
“Like I said.” Neil took the phone back out of her limp hand. “What an asshole.”
Chapter 34
Robin’s phone buzzed as she pulled into her parking space after a long day. Izzy was still at daycare, and Robin was hoping for half an hour alone to complete the paperwork that had been nagging at the back of her mind all week. She glanced at the phone, surprised to see Hudson’s name. She hadn’t heard from him for two weeks and she missed him. She needed to apologize, but Mrs. Davies was like Fort Knox when it came to telling her where he was and what he was doing.
If Robin ever needed someone to keep a secret, Mrs. Davies would be her girl.
All she knew was he hadn’t been at work. Hadn’t responded to her texts and hadn’t left her thoughts for moment.
“You’ll forgive me later.” She read the text. Oh God, what now?
She read it again, frowning.
Her fingers hovered over the keys. She wanted to tell him she forgave him now, to come over and have pizza and stay up late watching a silly movie. She wanted to tell him that Izzy
asked for him every single day, and that she missed his smile and his brightness.
With herculean willpower, she stuffed the phone in her purse and gathered her bags.
She should just leave it as it was. He was living his life, and she didn’t have time for the complication of Hudson in hers. Izzy would get over it, and Auntie would eventually stop nagging at her to call him.
It was better this way.
She paused on the landing and took out her phone.
She stared at his name on the tiny screen.
“No.” Her voice echoed the empty staircase. “Not doing it.” The phone went back into her pocket.
She walked slowly up the remaining stairs to her door, feeling more tired than she had five minutes ago.
“My life is just fine,” she said as she unlocked her door. “I don’t need a giant chucklehead complicating things every time I turn around.”
She didn’t sound convincing, especially in the silence of the empty apartment. She shivered as she put her bags on the table. Why was it so cold? She glanced at the windows, which were all shut, but she was certain she could feel a draft.
She walked into the hall and stopped in her tracks. The attic door was open.
She thought she had locked it late last night after she had spent several hours painting. She shrugged, she must have not put the latch on properly. She could smell the sharp tang of paint coming down the stairs and she wished she could just walk away from everything and spend the rest of the day painting.
She had spent several nights in the attic over the past few weeks, painting Hudson.
She blushed even thinking about it, but the painting had poured out of her without her permission, a bold bare-chested man with blonde hair and sparkling eyes, slashes and ribbons of colors bringing him to life on her canvas, if not in her life.
She sighed, moving to shut the door.
Love by Design: A Heartswell Harbour Romance Page 15