“Halfway down,” she said, swallowing around the dryness in her throat to answer me. “She was waiting for me.”
“She who?” I asked as the ambulance pulled to the curb, and the flashing lights lit up the scene better.
“Darla,” she croaked. “Weapon.”
The EMTs ran up to us and dropped their bags. “Thank God, she’s awake,” the woman said as she knelt next to Haylee. “It’s me, Haylee,” she said, sliding a neck brace around her neck so I could stand back.
“Kanee?” Haylee asked as the other EMT readied an I.V.
“Yup, and I’m with that loser that you know as Liam.”
Haylee chuckled but then grimaced as I knelt by her forehead, stroking her long hair back out of her face. “Do you know them?”
“Went to school with them,” she croaked. “Kanee loves black forest, and Liam is a straight-up vanilla kind of guy.”
“Hey,” he said, chuckling as he checked her for injuries. “I’m not that vanilla. I’ll h—” He stopped short and glanced up at Kanee. “We need to move her. Now.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked, glancing between them.
“Knife wound,” he said, pointing at the spot near her shoulder that had now bled through her white chef coat, turning it a crimson red. I hadn’t seen it until the ambulance lights illuminated her better.
“Does anything else hurt, Haylee?” Kanee asked, grabbing the backboard from Liam.
“My arm,” she said right away, “and my head. My head feels like it’s stuffed with gauze.”
“We need to get you to the hospital, okay? Liam is going to roll you forward, and I’m going to get the board under you. Don’t try to help. Let us do the work.” Kanee looked up at me. “Hold her head, so it rolls with us. Can you do that?”
I nodded and helped them roll her, her moan loud as another car pulled up on the scene. I was worried it was Amber, so I was relieved when Officer Stevens jogged over. “Haylee!” he exclaimed as they carried her to the rig and got her situated on the stretcher. “I heard it on the scanner and had to check it out. What the hell happened?”
I held up my finger to him and stood next to the stretcher. “I’m going to talk to Officer Stevens, and then I’ll be right behind you. You do what the EMTs tell you, okay? I love you.”
Her eyes were already closed, and I don’t know if she heard me since they’d already given her something through her I.V., but I had to hope she had. Kanee pushed her into the rig and stuck her head out the door.
“We’ll see you at Mauston Memorial?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Give me five minutes with Stevens, and I’ll be there.”
She shut the door, and the rig pulled away, the lights and sirens blaring.
“I’ll give you a ride over,” he shouted, pointing at his car.
I buckled in and leaned my head back on the seat, my hands shaking and covered in her blood. “She was going to work,” I said as he pulled away from the curb, his lights going, but sirens quiet. “I decided I’d see if she needed any help after the long weekend and found her there. Thank God I decided not to wait until three a.m.”
He grasped my shoulder and squeezed. “Take a deep breath, Brady. Did she say what happened?”
I sucked in air and held it, letting it out before I spoke. “She said Darla pushed her down the stairs.”
“Darla McFinkle?”
I nodded. “Haylee was stabbed, Jack. She didn’t just fall down the stairs. Someone tried to kill the woman I love.”
“Do you think Haylee was just out of it from hitting her head?”
“She sounded certain. She said Darla and then the word weapon. That was all she said.”
Jack shook his head as we neared the hospital. “There was an incident at the parade today.”
“What kind of incident? I know for a fact that Haylee was sleeping during the parade.”
“An incident with Darla. They stripped her of her crown right before she was due to ride on the float as Strawberry Fest Princess. Rumor has it that Haylee gave the committee some damning piece of evidence to have her ousted.”
My head shook instantly. “Haylee wouldn’t do that. She doesn’t start problems with that woman. She knows better.”
“I’m going to hang around at the hospital and see if I can talk to Haylee myself. If I have to wait while they stabilize her, I’ll have to call a committee member and ask them what happened today. If Darla did do this, and after what happened a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t doubt she’s capable of it, I’ll have to pick her up and bring her in.”
“Haylee has to be okay,” I murmured, tuning out everything but how far away I was from the woman I loved. “She has to be okay. I just asked her to be my girlfriend, did you know that?” I asked him, my mind going a thousand miles a minute. “She’s so beautiful and talented. I can’t lose her now. I can’t.”
He pulled the car into the roundabout at the hospital ER and grasped my shoulder. “You’re not going to lose her. She’s going to come out of this and keep loving you for a million more cupcakes. Take a deep breath and square yourself before you go in there. She’s going to need you to be calm and steady for her right now.”
“Calm, right.” I stared at my hands, red with her blood. “I need to wash my hands.”
He climbed out of the car and opened my door, waiting for me to get out before we hit the doors of the ER running. “I’ll find out where she is while you wash up in there,” he said, pointing to the public restroom by the entrance. Meet me at the desk.”
I did what he ordered, and while I scrubbed my hands, I forced my mind to stop thinking that if Darla did do this, I would kill her myself. I would have to let the law deal with her because no one was going to drag me away from the bed of the woman I love, now or ever again.
Twenty-Four
Good God, everything hurts. I tried to straighten myself in the bed, but it brought on a wave of pain and nausea that I wasn’t expecting. A cold cloth was on my head, and a warm hand was on my arm, the two sensations warring with my muddled brain.
“You’re okay, baby,” Brady whispered, his other hand coming down on the wet cloth on my head. “Just take it slow and don’t try to move too quickly.”
“What happened?” I muttered with a mouth full of cotton.
“You don’t remember?” he asked, his voice nonjudgmental and comforting.
I rocked my head on the pillow a couple of times and sorted through the gauzy haze in my brain, pushing aside the headache to sort through the last few hours of my life. My breath hitched, and I moaned. “Oh, God, it was Darla.”
My eyes came open and stared directly into Brady’s ice blue ones. Those eyes told me he was scared, and I instantly felt terrible for making him feel that way. My hand came up to cup his cheek, his beard prickly against my palm. “I’m sorry,” I said, emotion clogging my throat. “I’m sorry. I should have been smarter.”
He tenderly grasped my hand against his face. “Shh, it’s over now. I’m going to take care of you. This wasn’t your fault, cupcake. Let me call Officer Stevens in before you tell me what happened. He’s been waiting for you to wake up so he could talk to you.”
“I need a drink.” My mouth was so dry and sticky that I was afraid I’d never swallow again.
He held the cup and straw for me while I drank thirstily, finally pulling it back from my lips. “Not too much at a time, or you’ll get sick,” he said with a smile. “Let me get Officer Stevens.”
He jogged out of the room, and I tried to sort out what happened to make sure I told him everything in the right order. It wasn’t going to be easy when my mind was so scattered, and my body hurt so badly. My shoulder was on fire, and my neck felt like someone hit it with a baseball bat. Add to that the pain in my heart when faced with Brady, knowing he was going to leave me sooner rather than later, and a tear ran down my face before I could stop it.
He returned at that moment, and his frantic gaze landed on mine, zeroing in on the tears immedi
ately. “Hey, it’s okay,” he promised, wiping the tear with the cloth from my forehead. “God, I love you so much, cupcake. My heart has been on pause in my chest for the last three hours since I found you.” His hand was in his hair, and I swallowed down the sob bubbling up in my throat.
More tears fell, and I wasn’t able to say what I wanted to say, so I just bit my lip to keep it from trembling while he wiped the tears.
“Officer Stevens will be right in. Take a few deep breaths, sweetheart. I know you’re out of sorts.”
“Why does my shoulder feel like it’s on fire?” I asked, trying to look at it, but my head hurt, and I got dizzy if I moved my eyes that way.
“You had a wound there that the doctors had to close in surgery. The doctor said it was to the fascia and tissue, but no other damage. He was able to close it up on the inside and then close the incision on the outside. He said you’d have a small scar, but he did the best he could to make it less noticeable.”
“Surgery?” I asked, confused. “How did I end up with a wound on my shoulder?”
“The doctors said it was a stab wound,” he said, his lips in a thin line.
“Haylee, man, it’s good to see you awake,” Jack said from the doorway as he walked into the room.
I waved and smiled the best I could. “Hi,” I said weakly. “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”
“It’s no problem, Haylee. I wanted to touch base with you because some of the things you told Brady before they brought you in were concerning.”
I nodded, which I instantly regretted. My brain bounced around inside my skull, and I put my hand to my head to make it stop. “It was Darla,” I managed to say. “She was waiting for me.”
Brady had his hand on my hip, holding it tenderly to remind me he was there. I don’t know why it mattered to me so much since I knew he was leaving, but it did. It mattered that he cared enough to keep soothing me when I struggled to make sense of this attack. I held onto that warm spot on my hip for all it was worth. “When you left the apartment?”
“Yes,” I agreed, remembering not to nod. “I decided to start baking early, and it was just after midnight.” I gasped and grabbed for Brady. My coordination was absent, and I missed his shirt by a mile. “The baking! There are so many special orders!”
“Shh,” he said calmly. “Everything is taken care of at the bakery. I’ll explain after you tell Jack what happened.”
My heart was pounding out of my chest, and the monitors showed it, a warning beep filling the room until Brady started breathing with me to slow my heart rate again.
“Slow your breathing down, or they’ll kick us out,” he warned, watching the monitor until my heart rate went back to normal. “Good,” he said, smiling encouragingly, “you’ve got this.”
“You were going down to the bakery to start work,” Jack said, and I nodded, scooting up higher in the bed, grateful when it didn’t send shooting pain through me. “I was halfway down the steps when Darla stepped away from the building. She was slurring her words, and I immediately smelled the alcohol on her breath. She walked up the stairs and trapped me in, so I couldn’t go up or down.”
“And you fought?”
My head started to shake until I remembered not to do that. “No, she was angry that they took her crown away from her before she got on the float for the parade. Said she was tired of me playing the victim, and she was angry that I recorded her without her permission.”
“When you recorded the incident at the cupcake bake-off?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. I explained that I didn’t know the phone was still recording, but since it caught the exchange, I wanted the committee to know the kind of person they had representing the community. I stood up for myself for once against the woman and look at what happened.”
Brady’s hand came up to smooth the hair back off my forehead, his smile soft and loving. “I’m proud of you for having the courage to take that to the committee. You did the right thing, and you didn’t deserve this.”
Jack agreed with Brady. “He’s right. You’ve put up with enough from her over the years, and you’ve always been gracious about it. The fact is, you could have done more with that footage than spoken privately to the committee about it. They could have done more than speak to her privately. They could have told everyone the truth instead of saying Darla decided she didn’t have time to perform the duties of the crown and gave it to the runner-up.”
My brow went down in concentration. “Is that what happened?”
“According to Mrs. Mulberry, when I spoke to her earlier, yes. It was done quietly, in private, and without public knowledge of the reasons why.”
“Well, you know Darla. Once she feels slighted, it’s all over.”
“It’s going to be all over,” he agreed, pointing at my shoulder. “What happened after Darla spouted off?”
“I remember telling her not to step foot on my property again, and she got mad that I was always rubbing in how successful I was. Then she said she could make me unsuccessful. Next thing I know, I’m staring up at the stars from the bottom of the steps, and she’s spitting on me.”
“Spitting on you? Good God,” Brady said, his face filled with fury. “You better find her first, Stevens.”
“Don’t threaten someone in front of a cop, Brady,” I scolded.
Jack pointed at me. “What she said, but trust me, I will find her. What happened after you were pushed?”
I rubbed my forehead with frustration. “I don’t remember. I think I passed out. She was reaching for something, and I remember thinking it was probably a gun, and I was going to die there. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open or even move to get away from her.”
I was shaking, and Brady was holding both of my hips now, trying to calm me. “It’s okay. You’re here, and you’re safe. They’re going to find her, and she will be held accountable for this.”
Jack put his notebook away and nodded, a grim look on his face. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to arrest Darla, but I am. You didn’t stab yourself. I will let you know when we have her. There are officers searching the area around the bakery for the knife right now. I have another one sitting on her house. If she’s home, they will take her into custody, and we’ll book her.”
I moaned and rocked my head back and forth. “No, please don’t,” I begged. “That will just cause more problems with her. I don’t want that. I can’t deal with it anymore. I’m too tired.”
Brady had me in his arms now, as awkward as it was, and he tried to calm me with his lips to my temple. “Cupcake, they’re going to charge her with a crime. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
“What?” I asked, wanting to sit up, but he held me down, refusing to let me go. “You can’t do that. She didn’t mean to hurt me. She was drunk!”
Jack shook his head. “I’m afraid the fact that she stabbed you says otherwise. I suspect the only reason you aren’t dead is that Brady pulled up and spooked her. If he hadn’t come in early tonight, this could have turned out a whole lot differently. The first thing that has to happen when you are up on your feet again is better lighting around the bakery. Motion sensor lights would have scared her away and given her no chance to take you by surprise. Do you understand me?”
I nodded mutely, refusing to look at Brady because he’d been telling me that for years.
“Good. I’ll let you rest. Brady will be kept abreast of the situation with Darla, but we will need you to give a recorded statement at the station once you’re able. In the meantime, rest up. The town needs their cupcakes.”
I chuckled and nodded, tears in my eyes at his kindness. “Thank you, Jack. I appreciate your dedication here tonight.”
“It’s what we do. Just take care of yourself and leave the rest to us.”
He waved as he walked out, and I let my head drop back to the pillow, tears on my face as I thought about the implications of what my life had become. “Trials, and cameras, and statements, and court,” I moaned.
“What?” Brady asked, resting me back on the pillow and sitting by my side in the chair by the bed.
“That’s what I’ll have to face once they arrest her. Amber!” I exclaimed, frantic again at the thought of my best friend at the bakery alone. “Someone has to protect Amber!”
His hand grasped my chin to hold me in place. “Amber is fine, honey. She’s at the bakery helping the officers. I’ve been keeping her updated about your condition, and she will be here as soon as she can.”
“But the bakery,” I said, another tear falling. I swiped it away angrily. “Why am I crying all the time?” I asked, frustrated.
“When you have a head injury, it is difficult to control your emotions. The doctors said it would improve over the next few days.”
“That makes sense.” I propped my hand on my forehead. “I have to get out of here. I have special orders to bake and a bakery to run. I can’t let Darla ruin my business, especially now that you won’t be working there anymore.”
His gasp and the stricken look on his face wasn’t what I was expecting. Before I could say anything more, a nurse strode into the room to take my vital signs. He stood and left my room, and likely, my life.
I HAD MY HAND BURIED in my hair and my heart in my throat. What did Haylee mean I wasn’t going to be working there anymore? I grabbed my phone and punched in a number, waiting anxiously while it rang in my ear.
“Is she okay, Brady?” Amber asked without greeting me.
“Yeah, she’s okay,” I said without hesitation. “She’s awake and talking. Sore, but she’s going to be fine. She’s asking about you, and I promised her you’d be over once you were done at the bakery.”
“But she wants out of there so she can get the bakery open, right?” she asked on a chuckle.
“Exactly,” I said slowly, and she noticed.
“What’s wrong, Brady?”
I cleared my throat and leaned against the wall, willing my exhausted mind not to mess with my emotions any more tonight. “Haylee just said that she couldn’t let Darla ruin her business now that I won’t be working there anymore. Is she firing me, Amber? Just be honest with me, please,” I begged. I didn’t even care how lame or emasculated I sounded. I had to know what I did so I could fix it.
Cupcake (The Fluffy Cupcake Book 1) Page 18
