Thank You For Loving Me (Canyon Creek, Co. Book 3)

by Lori Ryan

  “What time is the next one?” Ben asked.

  “There’s one at 10:45pm and then one at 11:20pm.”

  “God, I’m such an idiot.” Max shook his head.

  “I’m going to kill her soon,” Maggie growled from the front seat. “She hasn’t answered any of my phone calls or texts.”

  “Mine either,” Max said. “I thought it was just me she was ignoring.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ben said. “What if she’s already bought a ticket. We can’t get through security to the gate.”

  “I’ll buy a ticket,” Max said. He rubbed his hands over his face. “I’ll fix this.”

  “You’re damned right you will,” Maggie agreed.

  “Maggie,” his brother tried to cut in, but Maggie wasn’t hearing it.

  “What?” She glared at his brother. “He accused her of lying, of getting pregnant on purpose for money, and asked if the baby was his.” Maggie glanced over her shoulder at him. “Does that cover it all?”

  Max closed his eyes. “Yeah. I think so.”

  Maggie turned back around to Ben. “See. He fucked it up.”

  Ben glanced at Max in the back seat. “Yeah, you kind of did, bro.”

  “All right,” Max stormed, “we all agree that I fucked up. Can we please move on? How the hell are we going to find Devlin before she leaves?”

  “We may not be able to,” Maggie said. “She’s pretty stubborn.”

  “Ya think.” Max stared out at the dark night sky.

  Ben snorted.

  “What?” Maggie asked.

  “Um, pot, it’s the kettle.”

  “Are you calling me stubborn, Ben Sumner?” Maggie cocked a brow.

  “Yes I am, Maggie Sumner.”

  Maggie’s defenses fell and she broke into a huge smile, sliding her hands around Ben’s arm. “Say it again.” She looked up at Ben like she was a love-sick puppy.

  “Maggie Sumner,” Ben repeated.

  “That’s sounds so sexy.”

  Max rolled his eyes. “Really? Now?”

  Maggie cut her eyes toward Max. “This is your fault. I should be in the honeymoon suite at the lodge.”

  “We don’t have a honeymoon suite,” Ben said.

  Maggie turned and looked at his brother, waggling her brows. “We do now.”

  “What do you mean?” Max asked.

  “I converted one of the suites, made a few minor adjustments.”

  “Such as?” Max asked.

  “Did you put more condoms in the bedroom drawer?” Ben laughed.

  “Married people don’t need condoms, silly.” Maggie glanced over her shoulder. “Which, by the way,” Maggie waggled her finger, “you should have used so we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  Max gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to explain to Maggie that they’d used two types of birth control and both had failed. How does that happen? He was sure someone could give him the statistical probabilities on it, but it wouldn’t change the facts.

  Max wished he had headphones so he could drown out the noise of his sappy, in-heat newlywed brother and sister-in-law. He turned and looked out of the window. “It’s too dark for her to be out on the road. What was she thinking?”

  “She wasn’t thinking,” Maggie said. “She was reacting. She really should have been a redhead.”

  Max had no comment so he said nothing.

  “So what do you want, Max?”

  Max turned his head and saw Maggie staring intently at him, her gaze genuine.

  “I want this, Maggie,” he said pointing to the two of them in the front seat. He wanted what his brother had found.

  She smiled and nodded.

  “What the hell?” Ben asked as the car slammed to a stop.

  Max leaned forward as he looked through the windshield at all the flashing lights ahead.

  “It looks like an accident,” Maggie said. “A bad one.”

  “This is a really sketchy road at night,” Ben said. “It’s probably a tourist going too fast.”

  Max’s heart tripped and stomach plummeted. Devlin was driving on this road. “How long ago do you think she left?” he squeaked out.

  Maggie turned. “It’s not her, Max. She’s okay. It is going to delay us, though.”

  “Maggie,” Ben said, a somber tone to his voice.

  Something in the pit of Max’s stomach burned.

  “What is it?” Maggie leaned forward. “Oh my God,” she whispered, her hand covering her mouth.

  “What?” Max lurched forward. “What is it?”

  Ben glanced over his shoulder, his eyes wide with fear, his face ashen. “It’s Maggie’s car.” There was a beat of silence that deafened him. “It’s Devlin.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Devlin’s body screamed with pain. She felt like she’d been tossed around in a hurricane. Her head throbbed, her ribs burned and her ankle pounded in agony, and she wasn’t even moving it.

  It sounded like someone was calling her name, but she couldn’t make out who. The voice was muffled, like they were in a well. Or maybe she was. She had no idea, her brain was so fuzzy. The only thing she knew for sure was she hurt like hell. Everywhere.

  Suddenly her eyelid was pulled open and a piercing light blinded her. She jumped and groaned from the movement. She swatted at the source of the light but her hand hit something hard. She forced the other eye open, blinking several times to focus.

  “Well, hello.” A deep, male voice she didn’t recognize said from her side.

  She grabbed her head, hoping to dull the ache, but felt material wrapped around her skull.

  “Where am I?” she asked, surprised by the gravely tone of her voice. She coughed and winced in pain, clutching her ribs. No, she was wrong. It wasn’t just her ribs that hurt. It was her whole torso. Her whole body.

  “You’re at Hope Hospital,” the deep voice said.

  Devlin narrowed her eyes. Finally, the light seemed to even out and she was able to see the man beside her. A white coat covered blue scrubs and a stethoscope hung around his neck. Her gaze traveled up to find he was smiling at her, two deep dimples gracing each cheek. His blue eyes crinkled at the sides.

  “Hospital?” Her eyes moved from the man beside her down to the bedrails.

  “Apparently you and an elk played a game of chicken. He lost.” The doctor said dryly.

  Images flashed through her mind. The last thing she remembered was driving on the highway, talking to her mother on the phone. “Are you saying I hit an elk?”

  “Yep,” he said. “You’re lucky. Most of the impact happened on the passenger’s side. Your car’s destroyed though. Sorry about that, Margaret.”

  “Margaret? I’m not Margaret.” Devlin said.

  “That’s who the car was registered to.” The doctor glanced through his folder. “A Margaret Anne Lawrence from Canyon Creek, Colorado.”

  “That’s my best friend. I was driving her car.”

  “Oh.” The doctor said, as if he’d never heard of someone borrowing a car.

  “Did I pass out? I don’t remember much.”

  “The paramedics said you were in and out of consciousness during the ride.”

  “The ride?” she said.

  “The ambulance ride that brought you to the hospital.”

  Devlin shook her head and the pain intensified. “Ouch.”

  “You’re lucky,” the doctor said. “A lot of people are killed every year on the roadways because of wildlife crossing. Were you distracted?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Radio? Phone? Eating?”

  Devlin remained quiet. All three.

  The doctor nodded once and didn’t ask more. “Well, you’ve got a pretty bad cut on your forehead.”

  That would explain the headache.

  “Your airbag deployed so we’re pretty sure you didn’t hit the steering wheel. It was probably an unrestrained object in the car. A phone, soda can, suitcase. We’ve seen just about everything in the ER. If it�
�s not buckled in it can become a projectile during a crash.”

  “It was probably the cell phone,” she said quietly.

  “It happens.”

  “My ribs and ankle are killing me. What else is wrong?”

  “I think you’ve broken a few ribs and your left ankle. Nothing life threatening. You had us worried going in and out of consciousness. It was most likely due to the level of pain you were in, and the shock. We’re about to send you off to X-ray. I’m glad you regained consciousness, so we could get a medical history from you first.”

  Medical history? Devlin could barely remember her own name.

  No, that wasn’t right. She remembered one crucial thing right now. She was pregnant. Devlin’s chest filled with dread as she realized her baby might not have survived the accident.

  “The baby,” she whispered.

  A nurse entered the room and went straight to the monitor by her side. “Ah, sleeping beauty awakes.” She smiled down at Devlin, her straight white teeth gleaming against the dark skin of her face. Her black hair was twisted up in a bun.

  “Jo, I want you to get her history and get her right down to x-ray. I don’t want to wait any longer than we already have to get a film of that ankle.”

  “No,” Devlin said, clutching the bedrail in pain. Even talking hurt.

  The doctor looked down at her, his brows furrowed as he studied her. “I need to make sure your ankle isn’t broken. If it is, we might have to do surgery, depending on the severity of the break and its location.”

  “We can’t,” Devlin squeaked out. “I can’t have an X-ray “.

  “Oh, it’s not an MRI, sweetie,” Jo said, scrolling through the laptop screen. “You don’t have to go in that awful tube.”

  A large man wearing brown scrubs matching Jo’s slid open the glass door of Devlin’s tiny room. “Someone call for a camera crew?” He laughed.

  “Always the jokester, huh, Xavier?” The doctor shook his head but smiled.

  The nurse began asking Devlin questions. Her head spun and she thought she might vomit.

  “Date of birth, sweetie?” she asked as the man unlocked her bed and she began to move.

  She had to stop them. Through her muddled brain, something finally clicked into place.

  “I’m pregnant,” she shouted, wincing in pain.

  “What?” the nurse stopped and glanced down at her.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said through clenched teeth as she breathed through the pain. Tears burned her eyes at the thought that maybe she wasn’t any more. Maybe the accident…She wouldn’t go there.

  “Doctor Pennington,” Jo yelled to the doctor who’d already started out of the room. “We have a problem.”

  Devlin wanted to grab the woman and shake her. This was more than a problem. She needed to know if her baby was okay, and she needed to know now.

  “What’s going on?” Dr. Pennington came back in, a slight look of impatience on his face.

  “She thinks she might be pregnant.”

  “I am, pregnant,” Devlin cut in. “Four tests.”

  She hadn’t been to the doctor yet, but four tests had to be right, didn’t they?

  The doctor gave only a short nod. “All right. Let’s get a urine sample to be sure. You can still have x-rays. We just double up on the lead aprons over your abdomen. It’s perfectly safe.”

  Devlin stared at him in disbelief. “I can’t walk to the bathroom.”

  “We can insert a catheter—”

  “Oh, hell no,” Devlin shouted. She could remember vividly, sitting outside her grandmother’s hospital room as a teenager, listening to her Nana cuss and scream as nurses tried to insert a catheter when they thought she had pneumonia.

  Jo cocked a brow.

  “No. I can make it.” Devlin moved to swing her legs to the side to sit up but gasped in pain.

  “Let me get the railings down, sweetie,” Jo said, “then I’ll help you.”

  No, this wasn’t embarrassing at all.

  “Are you sure you’re pregnant?” Jo asked.

  “Four tests,” Devlin repeated as Jo helped slide her legs to the side. They had her ankle stabilized with a brace, but the swelling was bad and it hurt like hell.

  Jo smiled. Something in her warm expression made Devlin feel more relaxed, despite the excruciating pain she was in.

  The orderly who had brought the rolling bed in returned, this time with a wheelchair that he rolled to the side of Devlin’s bed.

  Jo stood in front of Devlin and put her hands under Devlin’s arms. “Okay, on the count of three, push up on your good leg, but keep your weight on me. We’re going to transfer you to the chair then roll you to the bathroom.”

  “Hunt me down as soon as you have the results, Jo.” The doctor smiled and left the room, Xavier the orderly behind him.

  Jo fanned her face dramatically, “Too bad he’s engaged, right? I mean, he could have starred alongside Clooney in that show.”

  Devlin let Jo wheel her into the bathroom as she realized she hadn’t spared a thought to the doctor’s good looks. But Jo was right. He was good looking.

  Max Sumner had truly ruined her for all other men.

  She realized then that she wanted Max there with her. More than anything, she wanted his strong arms there to carry her instead of this wheelchair. She wanted to lean on him and have him with her as she found out if their baby was safe, despite how awful he’d been to her.

  Before Devlin could respond, Jo lifted up her gown. “Can you pull down your undies or do you need help?”

  “God, this is so embarrassing,” Devlin moaned.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Having a baby will take all your humility away. Over the next nine months, you’re going to let your doc or a nurse peak at your hoo-hah every other month. In the final weeks, it might be every week or two. And on the day of? Well, by then, you’d better be well past any concerns of privacy.”

  Devlin reached under her hospital gown and pulled down her underwear.

  “There you go,” Jo said, helping her sit. “Let me just grab a container.”

  “A container?”

  “For the urine test. I need to collect a sample to confirm the pregnancy.”

  Devlin hung her head and that’s when she noticed it.

  Blood. On her underwear. Everywhere.

  “Jo!” she screamed, ignoring the pain in her body, consumed with only the despair in her heart. “Jo!”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Max shoved open the door and ran past the trail of cars stopped on the highway. He froze when he saw the car. If it was possible for both fire and ice to run through his body at the same time, he’d say that’s what happened. He was cold with dread and fear, hot with rage at himself for doing this. He’d basically sent her away with his harsh words. He’d upset her to the point she ran.

  Maggie’s car was demolished, destroyed. There was no way Devlin wouldn’t be severely injured…or worse.

  He bent at the knees, throwing up the remnants of the wedding meal.

  “Oh, my God,” Maggie whispered, coming up beside him.

  “Shit,” Ben said.

  Max stood and wiped at his mouth. Devlin couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.

  “What happened?” Max heard Ben ask someone.

  Max turned and saw a uniformed officer directing a tow truck. He made it to him in two strides. “What happened to the woman in the car? Is she okay? Where did you take her?”

  The officer looked at them. “Are you family?”

  “I’m her fiancé,” Max said soundly.

  The patrolman narrowed his eyes, obviously not believing him, before turning his attention to Maggie. “Is that a wedding dress, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, smoothing down her dress. “We were at my wedding to him,” she said with a nod to Ben. “That’s my car.”

  “Seriously?” The officer’
s eyes darted between the car and Maggie.

  Maggie stood ramrod straight, her eyes filled with worry, but glittering with the kind of hardheaded determination that had won his brother’s heart. “Where is she?”

  “They took her to Hope Hospital.”

  “What’s her condition?” Ben asked.

  Max realized he was shaking, partly because of the urge to strangle the officer in front of him if the man didn’t start talking, and partly because he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t about to lose the woman he was pretty sure he loved.

  He was so thankful for his brother and Maggie. He was in shock, tongue-tied, unable to process the scene before him.

  Several patrol cars surrounded Maggie’s car, lights flashing but sirens off. The silence was what got to him. It was almost like the cars were taunting him, letting him know there was no longer any reason to hurry. No longer a reason to hope for life.

  Firemen littered the area, sweeping up debris as the tow truck driver secured his winch under Maggie’s car. Max stared at the roof, caved in on one side, windshield shattered, the front end pushed up to the front tires.

  “Don’t.”

  Max turned.

  Ben stood beside him, rubbing his shoulder. “The officer said he’ll take us to the hospital.”

  “What did he say was wrong?” he asked.

  “They said she was unconscious when they loaded her. She had some injuries but they got to her right away. Let’s just get to the hospital and see how she’s doing, okay?”

  Max grabbed Ben’s shoulders and squeezed. “What are you not telling me?” His voice broke with emotion. “Is she alive? Is she going to be okay?”

  “Her head was bleeding. He didn’t know how bad the head wound was.”

  “Fuck!” Max ran a hand through his hair, grabbing it by the roots. “Why did I have to open my big, fat, fucking mouth? I chased her out of there.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Ben tried to calm him.

  “The hell it isn’t. I’m the reason she was running away.”

  “Look, let’s just get to the hospital and we’ll find out more.”

  Max’s eyes went wide. “The baby, oh God, the baby.”

  “Max.”

  Max barely registered Maggie’s voice as she stood next to him, squeezing his arm.