by Laura Iding
“Did you hear me?” Hailey said impatiently, in an attempt to break through the other woman’s iron mask of indifference. “Simon is all yours! Take him with my blessing.”
Another long pause. “We had a baby together. Did you know that? Did Simon tell you about our son?”
A son? Hailey couldn’t prevent her jaw from dropping in shock. A baby? Simon hadn’t said a word about a baby. “No, I’m afraid he didn’t.”
Erica reached into her scrub pocket, pulling out a small photograph. She smoothed the crumpled edges with her fingertips in a slow, overly deliberate way that suggested she performed the task often. “I have a picture. Do you want to see him?”
Hailey almost started to shake her head as she was still struggling with the idea of Simon and this woman having a baby together, but she sensed that making Erica more upset wasn’t going to help. She’d already pretended she didn’t care one bit about Simon. Maybe she needed to play along with this, too.
The sooner this poor woman got everything out of her system, the sooner they’d get out of the claustrophobic locker room. “Sure.”
Erica held up the photograph. It was a grainy picture of a sonogram with the barest outline of a fetus. “See? Isn’t he beautiful?”
“Ah, yes. He is. Beautiful,” Hailey murmured, glancing briefly down at Erica’s non-pregnant stomach. Was it remotely possible Erica was pregnant now? No, more likely she’d been pregnant in the past while she’d gone out with Simon.
Nothing in the world would make her believe Simon had been with Erica three months ago.
“His name is Joshua, just like Simon’s father.” Erica turned the photograph around and stared at it again for several long minutes. “Joshua Simon Carter,” she murmured.
The way Erica was talking about the fetus, as if it were still alive, gave her the creeps. “That’s a wonderful name. I’m sure Simon was very proud.”
“Yes.” She carefully tucked the photo in the pocket of her scrubs.
“Does Simon know you’re here?” Hailey asked cautiously. “Have you spoken to him?”
“Not yet.” A scowl crossed her features but then disappeared so quickly Hailey wondered if she’d imagined it. “He didn’t recognize me because I’ve changed my hair color, eye color and padded my underwear. But I know he’ll be glad to see me once he realizes it’s me.”
Hailey wasn’t sure what to say about that. Her only option at this point was to agree with Erica, no matter how much she wanted to stake a claim in Simon for herself. “I’m sure he will.”
“I’m glad you understand. Because Simon and I are going to have another baby together. To make up for the son we lost.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Erica.” Hailey couldn’t imagine how awful it must have been for Erica to lose the baby she’d obviously wanted very much. No wonder the woman had gone a little crazy. Could she really blame her?
“Oh, yes.” Surprisingly, Erica nodded, and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear substance topped with a needle. “I do believe you will be sorry, Hailey. Very sorry that you had the audacity to come between me and Simon.”
Simon spent a good two hours trying to find out if Erica was working as a nurse somewhere close to Cedar Bluff. But he soon gave up in frustration.
Because the more he spoke to the various human resources departments of the medical facilities he’d pinpointed as possibilities within a thirty-mile radius, the more he believed he was searching in vain.
What if Erica wasn’t working as a nurse, especially since she’d need to go through the hassle of obtaining a Wisconsin nursing license? Erica could just as easily be working in some other capacity.
Hell, she could be a waitress or bartender for all he knew.
He glanced at his phone, wishing the detective would call with some news. And when he found himself glancing at the clock for the tenth time in half as many minutes, he gave up any pretense of working. He headed out to his car, determined to go to Cedar Bluff hospital to find Hailey.
He really needed to tell her the entire story about Erica. Something he should have done a long time ago.
When he arrived at the hospital, he strode quickly through the arena, searching for Hailey amidst the chaos. His office door was closed, and he grimaced as he realized he hadn’t given Hailey his key.
He caught sight of Theresa and hurried over. “Where’s Hailey?”
“I don’t know, Simon. She was here a couple of hours ago. It seems our new unit clerk disappeared too, so if you find Hailey, see if she’s willing to sit and answer phones for a while.”
“Where was she working?” he asked, glancing around again, not seeing her at any of the workstations in the arena.
“Honestly, I have no clue.” Theresa flashed him a harried smile before crossing over to answer a ringing phone. “Emergency Department, may I help you?”
He couldn’t believe he’d missed Hailey. By his estimation, she should have at least another hour and a half of work yet to complete her allotted four hours. Perplexed, he crossed over to the locker room, thinking she was taking a break. When he tried the handle, he discovered the door was locked. “Hailey? Are you in there?”
“Simon?” He thought he heard Hailey cry out his name, but then there was the sound of a scuffle followed by a loud thud.
“Hailey!” Extremely worried now, he pounded on the door and tried the door handle again. “Open up!”
“I’m sorry, Simon.” A sing-song voice that definitely wasn’t Hailey. “I’m afraid Hailey is indisposed at the moment. You’ll have to settle for me.”
In that second he remembered what Theresa had said about the unit clerk disappearing. The new one? What was her name? Mary? With the bleached blonde short spiky hair? And the colored contact lenses?
No, not Mary. Erica. Dammit, he should have figured it out, despite the drastic differences. He’d never looked twice at the unit clerk, honestly hadn’t paid the woman the least bit of attention.
He never should have assumed, even for a moment, that Erica would take a job somewhere else rather than here at the hospital.
He pulled out his cell phone and called Detective Arnold. Thankfully, the detective answered on the first ring. “Erica’s here at Cedar Bluff hospital and she has Hailey locked in the woman’s locker room.”
“I’ll send a team right away.”
Simon snapped his phone shut and tried to think of what to do next. He wasn’t going to attempt to reason with Erica, since that had never worked in the past. Better to find Theresa and someone from Security.
He had to get a key for the locker room.
“Simon? Are you still out there?” Erica called.
He’d managed to flag down Theresa, without going too far away. “Get Security up here with a master key, stat,” he whispered urgently. In a louder voice he responded to Erica. “Yes, Erica, I’m here. Why don’t you open the door so we can talk?”
“I told Hailey all about our son, Simon. She understands why you can’t stay with her now.”
This was nothing he hadn’t heard before, but somehow knowing Hailey was locked inside made the entire situation much worse. Erica’s miscarriage had been awful. He’d mourned the loss of their baby, too. He never should have left the birth-control responsibility to Erica alone. And then the miscarriage had sent Erica over the edge.
In the past, whenever Erica had talked crazily like this, he’d gently tried to ground her in reality.
But right now it seemed better to play along. No matter how much it pained him. “I broke up with Hailey,” he told Erica. “I’m ready to get back together with you. Open the door, Erica. Please?”
“You are?” The cautious hopefulness in Erica’s tone made him feel lower than sludge for raising her hopes, even for a moment. “Really?”
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the cold wooden door. “Yes. Open up, Erica. You don’t need Hailey. Let’s go away and talk, just the two of us. Alone.”
Erica didn’t respond right awa
y, and he was getting more and more worried, especially when he couldn’t hear Hailey. What had happened in there? Where in the hell was Security with that master key?
The seconds ticked by with excruciating slowness until finally a tall, dark-haired security officer came up behind him, waving a key.
Simon put a finger up to his lips, indicating the security guard should remain silent. The guy nodded to indicate he understood. Slowly, he slid the key into the lock.
The guard met his gaze questioningly, and Simon nodded. “Go!”
The guard twisted the key and threw his weight into the act of opening the door in case Erica had blocked it with something heavy on the other side. The door opened surprisingly easily, but when he came in behind the security guard, he saw Hailey crumpled on the floor, her casted leg stuck out at an awkward angle.
“Simon!” Erica cried as she rushed toward him.
Thankfully the security guard caught her before she reached Simon and quickly grabbed hold of her wrists. “Ma’am, you need to come with me.”
“No!” Erica screamed, struggling against the security guard. “Simon!”
He flicked her a brief glance, feeling nothing but pity for her, before he knelt beside Hailey. “Hailey? Wake up, honey. Are you all right?”
At the sound of his voice, her eyelids fluttered open. She tried to say something, but he couldn’t make it out. Her eyelids drifted back down.
Had she hit her head? He was about to lift her head to examine it for wounds when he spied the needle and syringe on the floor.
Dear God. Erica had drugged Hailey!
Simon sat beside Hailey’s bedside, his head bowed over their clasped hands, listening to the reassuring sounds of the dialysis machine and the heart monitor beeping over her head. Jadon had told him she’d be fine, but he wouldn’t believe it until she woke up.
Detective Arnold had arrived and arrested Erica. Simon knew he should have gotten the police involved much earlier.
Like two years ago, when she’d vandalised his car.
And had started following him everywhere, calling him day and night. Begging to have another baby with him.
His stupid pride had nearly cost Hailey her life. Erica had given her enough of the drug to stop her breathing. Luckily, they’d caught her before her respiratory rate had fallen too low.
He never should have left her last night. Hailey hadn’t done anything wrong. She didn’t deserve this.
When Hailey stirred, tugging at his hand, his head shot up, his gaze searching her face. “Hailey? Are you all right?”
“Simon?” she frowned and glanced around the room in confusion. “Where am I?”
One side effect of Versed, the drug Erica had used, was an amnesic affect. “You’re in the hospital, getting dialysis. Do you remember being locked in with Erica?”
Instantly her confusion cleared. “Yes.” With her free hand she reached for a cup of water, taking a long sip before resting back against the pillow with a sigh. “She told me about the baby.”
Cautiously, he nodded. “I didn’t know she was pregnant when I broke off our relationship, Hailey. She was so clingy, so needy, constantly going wherever I was, calling me non-stop. But I swear to you I didn’t know she was pregnant. And when she told me she was expecting our child, I agreed to support her and the baby financially. I wanted to be a part of my child’s life. But she would settle for nothing less than marriage.”
He paused as memories of the past clouded his mind. Especially the deep fear that Erica would take off with his child and disappear. “When I told her I wasn’t going to marry her, she went a little crazy. She took a steel-pronged rake to my car, gouging the hell out of it. I should have called the police then, but she was pregnant with my child. I couldn’t do that to her. Not when her pregnancy was as much my responsibility as hers. So instead I kept trying to reason with her, even though she kept insisting that we had to be a family.” He scrubbed a hand over his face in a weak attempt to erase the past.
“What happened then?” Hailey asked.
“I was working when she called me, completely hysterical, crying because she was bleeding.” For several seconds he stared at their clasped hands, before dragging his resigned gaze up to hers. “She lost the baby. I couldn’t believe how much that loss hurt. Yet as bad as I felt about losing the baby, I can’t deny I was also a little bit relieved. For her sake, more than anything. I figured losing the baby was somehow meant to be. I thought she’d be able to move on with her life. Make a fresh start. But unfortunately losing the baby only pushed her further over the edge of sanity.”
“So she started stalking you.”
Even now, after all this time, he shied away from the ugly term. But he couldn’t deny the truth. Lying to himself about the seriousness of Erica’s obsession was how Hailey had ended up on the wrong side of a hospital bed.
“Yeah. She began stalking me. Kept showing up at my house, at work, at the gym, begging me to take her back, to make another baby.” He sighed. “It was awful. After the big scene in the middle of the emergency department, when she literally attacked me physically, I took the easy way out. I packed my gear, quit my job and moved out of Chicago.” At the time he’d thought he was doing the right thing. “But what I should have done was reported her to the police. I’m sorry, Hailey. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend it.” She gave a wry smile and shifted restlessly on the bed. “But you know—I don’t hate Erica. I actually felt sorry for her, Simon.”
He couldn’t hide his surprise. “Even after she locked you up and drugged you?”
Hailey grimaced. “Well, not that part so much. But I’m sure losing the baby was hard on her. And I think, in her own way, she really did love you.”
Simon slowly shook his head. “No, you’re wrong about that, Hailey. She was only in love with some fabricated image of what she wanted me to be. That’s one of the things I regret the most. I knew, almost from the beginning, that things weren’t going to work out between us, but I allowed our relationship to get intimate. That was one of my biggest mistakes.”
“Don’t torture yourself, Simon,” Hailey murmured, turning his own words to her during their dinner at Stephen’s against him. “You can’t play the what-if game, remember?”
He refused to be sidetracked. “I’m surprised you don’t resent Erica for what she’s done. You’re an amazing woman, Hailey.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, Simon,” she said, flashing a sleepy smile, her eyelids sliding closed.
He loosened his grip on her hand, intending to leave her to recover in peace, but her eyes flew open the moment he let go. “Where are you going?”
“I thought maybe you’d rather be alone.” He wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to see him, a constant reminder of the horror she’d gone through.
She clung to his hand, her glassy gaze focused on his. “Were you serious last night, when you said our relationship was over?”
His heart swelled with hope at the uncertainty in her gaze. “No, Hailey. That was just a misguided attempt to spare you from all this…” He waved a hand in disgust. He tried to read her facial expression. “Are you telling me that after everything that’s happened, you’re still willing to give me a second chance?”
“Do you want a second chance?” she asked, instead of answering his question.
“Yes, Hailey. God yes.” He pulled her hand up and pressed a kiss in the center of her palm. “When I saw you lying on the floor, I was afraid I hadn’t arrived in time.” He took a deep breath and decided to bare his soul. “I love you, Hailey. More than you can possibly know.”
Her eyes widened at his declaration. “You do?”
“Yes. I do.” Just saying the words gave him a sense of freedom. For too long he’d refused to let anyone get close. Had been afraid of commitment. And the possibility of a family.
Now, Hailey could never be close enough. “I think I knew, right from the start, that we w
ere meant to be together. But I understand if you need time to get used to the idea,” he added when she didn’t say anything more. “Take as much time as you need. But know this, Hailey. I’ll be ready and waiting for you, no matter how long it takes. I’m in this for the long haul. There’s no rush. We have plenty of time.”
Hell, was he babbling?
He seriously needed to get a grip.
“That’s very sweet, Simon, but I don’t need any time. I already know how I feel.” Her mouth curved into a sweet smile and yet he found himself holding his breath, almost afraid to hope. “I love you, too.”
“Oh, Hailey.” He bent over the bed and gathered her as close as the dialysis machine would allow. He buried his face in her hair, knowing he was the luckiest man alive. “You’ve forgiven me way too easily.”
She let out a muffled laugh. “Oh, yeah? Are you complaining?”
“Never,” he vowed. “I swear I’ll make it up to you.”
“Ah, Simon.” She lifted her face and gently kissed him. “Don’t you know? You already have.”
EPILOGUE
HAILEY rejoiced with a little skip as she started up the steps to her apartment on the second floor, her first time since getting the bulky cast off her leg.
Freedom! Who would have thought that walking up stairs could be so fabulous?
Her cell phone rang and she knew the caller was Simon before she glanced at the screen. He’d already surprised her with a brand-new bicycle, to replace the one he’d crunched under his bumper. She’d taken her first ride on it today, while he was finishing up his day shift.
“Hi, Simon.”
“Hailey, we’re celebrating tonight, so put on your dancing shoes and be ready by six.”
Even though he couldn’t see her, she raised her hand in a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
He chuckled. “Okay, sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound like an order.”
“I know.” She giggled as she put the key in her lock and opened her apartment door. “Don’t worry. I’ll be ready by six. Where are you taking me?”