I wouldn’t allow that.
“Did they tell you why the changes?” I inquired.
She looked away.
“Hannah?”
She shrugged.
“Hannah,” I snapped. “What is it?”
Hannah opened her mouth to say something, but then a patient pushed through the door.
Hannah waved me off and went to the man who was clearly struggling to breathe, and I was left with TJ in my arms, wondering what in the hell had happened.
It didn’t take me long.
As soon as Hannah left, the receptionist, Daneen, sidled up.
She was a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair, a quick smile, and a love for Hannah that made me happy that she had someone in her corner like that.
But with that came the fierce protectiveness.
“It was the woman with the black dress.”
My brows went up.
“What woman?”
Daneen looked at where Hannah had disappeared, and then back to me.
“A woman came in two days ago. She expressed her willingness to donate to the clinic. I only heard a little bit before the doctor disappeared with her into his office, but it was enough for me to hear that ‘some changes would have to be made’ before she invested.”
Chapter 6
Napping together is my kind of date.
-Hannah’s secret thoughts
Hannah
Present day
The turning point in mine and Travis’ relationship was the day that his sister was in the accident that killed her brother’s wife and children.
It was hard to believe that it’d already been a year.
In all honesty, I was glad that it passed as fast as it did.
They say that time healed all wounds. And my hope that was one day, time would heal Dante’s wounds.
Seeing him that day, so broken and so obviously hurting, had been something that made me realize two things.
One, that life was not guaranteed. Two, that I needed to get my head out of my ass when it came to Travis. If I wanted him, I needed to do something about it. I needed to cross that line I’d drawn in the sand.
The one that he’d been toeing since the moment I put it there.
What had started the beginning of the end for us was me hearing about the tragedy.
***
366 days ago
“Did you see that the firefighters blocked off the entrance to the street?”
I nodded. “Yeah, what happened?”
Wednesday looked like she was going to be sick.
“There was a wreck. A woman was in an accident. She ended up killing every single person in the car but herself.”
My belly tightened. “Oh, no. What happened?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, to be honest. What I was able to find out came from Gallagher. He was behind the woman before she wrecked. Since he was so close to work, they let him through instead of holding him at the scene since they blocked off two blocks. They think the woman was under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. She was life-flighted out of here.”
“How many people were in the car?”
While we spoke, I pulled the med cart over and started to count the pills, double-checking that number with the number we had in the system.
The system that Hostel’s small clinic had was outdated at best and desperately needed to be updated. However, with little to no funds, it was very hard to accomplish much of anything. We were lucky that the government paid us what they did at this point.
I’d never set out to come to a place like this. I loved my job at the hospital in Kilgore. What I didn’t like, however, was being so near to my ex—which prompted the move in the first place.
“Two kids, two adults,” Wednesday answered. “The kids and the mother died. The driver is fine.”
A sense of foreboding went through me.
All accidents, small and big, were terrible. Losing anyone in an accident sucked. What was worse, though, than losing a life? Losing a child whose life had barely started.
Hell, it could’ve had a mass casualty, and as long as the people’s lives that were lost weren’t children, it would be okay. Not right off the bat, but it would be okay.
Losing a child, though? The memories of those deaths had a way of staying with you for a long time, lingering, waiting to pounce when you least expected them to.
“Did they release the names?”
Wednesday shook her head. “There was no reason to. Everyone knew who it was. The father lost it in the middle of the freakin’ road earlier. Took three of his brothers to hold him back from going to help.”
I closed my eyes and looked down at my feet.
I knew who it was.
There was only one family in the entire town that everyone knew…that everyone would talk about.
“It’s the Hails?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I heard that they’re having to put Dante in a cell at the police station to keep him under control.”
I wouldn’t doubt it.
I’d have lost it too had my children been killed…by my own sister at that.
“I gotta go.” I looked around. “I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t know what I was going to do, but something told me that I needed to find Travis and make sure that he was okay.
Leaving the clinic with only one thing on my mind, I forwent getting into my truck, and instead decided to hurry down the sidewalk to Hail Auto Recovery—which was about two blocks away.
Since our town was set up for downtown traffic, I had no problem getting there, even though I hadn’t been there before.
Since I’d met Travis, I’d asked around about him.
I’d found out that the towing company was directly next to the club that I’d met him in—which Travis and his brother also owned—though he’d never said.
Sure enough, two blocks later, I was in front of the towing company.
There were trucks parked every which way all over the huge parking lot. Men were standing around, talking in close-knit circles.
There were a few women as well, but I bypassed them all in search of someone I knew.
I didn’t know what I was doing, but something inside my heart was telling me that I needed to be here.
That I needed to offer Travis the chance to talk if he needed it.
So, I did.
I walked straight through all the trucks and milling people, cut straight into what looked like an office, and immediately came to a stop.
The minute I was inside, I could hear the yelling.
“Let me out of here!”
My eyes widened.
“I’m not letting you out.”
That was Travis. His voice was calm, but he looked anything but calm.
He had his head pressed against a clearly broken wooden door, his hand splayed on the cool wood like he was offering the man behind it support through sheer force of will.
He was in coveralls that were tied around the waist, and the knees had stains that looked suspiciously like something brown and gooey.
“Let me out.”
Those three words, coming from a clearly broken adult man, were enough to send heartache through me. It was like someone had coated those words with steel, and shoved them straight through my heart.
I could literally feel my heart breaking for the poor man.
“Trav.”
The first tear left my eye.
“Please, Trav. I need to see them.”
“I don’t have that authority,” Travis choked. “If I did, I would let you out of there right now. I’d take you to the hospital, and I’d give you that, but I don’t have the authority. They already told me on the phone that they wouldn’t let you back.”
“I do.”
Travis’ face turned from the door toward me.
“Please, Trav.”
The man’s deva
stated voice continued, unable to hear my words.
Travis, though…well, he heard. He was looking at me with such an intense light that I nearly took a step back.
“You do?”
I nodded, then paused. “They’re at the morgue?”
Travis’ eyes were so intense that I had to take a deep breath.
He nodded.
“I have access to it. Let me make a few calls.”
And that was how, twenty minutes later, I led two very distraught men into the morgue.
“Don’t touch anything, y’all,” I whispered to the two men.
Dead eyes locked on mine.
He didn’t have to tell me what he thought of my words. I could read every single emotion that was filing through his brain.
Rage. Devastation. Anger. Hurt.
He was literally broken and looked nothing like the man I’d heard about from the townspeople.
We walked into the morgue, and I gave Dave, the night security officer that I’d helped at the clinic with a very personal problem a few weeks ago, a nod. He waved me through, and I stopped just inside the door.
“They’re in lockers four, five, and six,” I told them. “Remember, don’t touch.”
Travis walked forward, stopped in front of locker six, and pulled it open.
The sound that left his throat at seeing the tiny child, blue and so still, was a sound that would forever stay with me as long as I lived.
But the sound from the man who was frozen at my side?
I didn’t breathe for an entire minute.
And I only took a breath when the sound quit, and Dante fell to his knees.
Chapter 7
Am I the only one running out of people I like?
-Coffee Cup
Travis
349 days ago
I walked up to the convenience store, my goal being a Gatorade and a bag of pork wheels, and almost missed the woman that was headed in at an angle right along with me.
She had her face steady on her phone, so I noticed her before she noticed me.
Grinning, I opened the door and held it open, all the while she kept her eyes downcast on her phone.
“Thank you,” she muttered distractedly.
“You’re welcome.”
At the sound of my voice, her head snapped up so fast that she started to bobble her phone.
I caught it before it could hit the ground, and instead of handing it to her, slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans.
“T-thank you,” she murmured. “How are you?”
Her voice was low, intimate.
“I’m getting there, honey,” I told her, thankful that she asked. “Where ya headed?”
She smiled weakly.
“I’m in desperate need of a Butterfinger.”
I grinned at the thought of her being in desperate need of a candy bar. “Pork wheels and a Gatorade for me.”
She giggled. “What a balanced lunch we’re having.”
Wasn’t that right?
Hostel didn’t have much in the way of restaurants. One awesome burger place that I’d never have time to get to with the hour that I had left of my lunch break. A small taco stand that was always busy—lunch or not. And then the gas station.
I chose the gas station, but instead of getting my taquitos—fried corn tortillas filled with cheesy goodness—I decided that I was going with something different. And less heartburn-inducing.
“Yeah, a balanced lunch.” I chuckled. “That’s exactly what it is.”
She laughed all the way to the candy aisle.
I bypassed that aisle for the drink aisle and then grabbed the pork wheels on the way to the checker who was standing there looking bored.
“That all?” he asked me.
I pointed to the Butterfinger in Hannah’s hands. “That too.”
“You don’t…”
I looked at her over my shoulder. “You don’t pay when I’m around, sweet cheeks.”
She blinked. “You did not just call me sweet cheeks.”
I shrugged. “Would you rather honey bun?”
She huffed out a breath of air. “I’d rather my name.”
I winked at her and offered the man a twenty, then collected my change before holding the door for Hannah to walk out in front of me.
She did, and I got to admire her fine ass in her jeans.
She surprised me when she turned around, though.
“You want to grab something to eat later?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she beat me to it.
“I’ll be at the burger joint in town. They’re having a PTA meeting there, and I don’t want to be alone.”
I snorted. “What makes you think I want to go to a PTA meeting?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. We can act like we’re there to be there, but really just ignore them and do our own thing.”
I thought about it for all of two seconds.
I really liked this one, and she was nice to my smart-mouthed daughter even when she didn’t deserve it.
“I think that sounds like a fuckin’ plan.”
Before I could say anything more, I got a text message.
“Shit, hold on,” I said when I saw Hannah about to reply.
I pulled out my phone and glanced at the screen, my brows furrowing.
“Sorry, it’s my daughter’s teacher asking for me to come up there.” I dropped the phone back into my pocket. “I’ll be there.”
Her smile was brilliant.
“I’ll be waiting…with bells on.”
The smile that lit my face at that, and all the way to the school, would’ve thrown red flags among not just one, but all of my brothers.
That smile died the minute I got into the school and heard what Alex’s teacher had to say.
I stared at my daughter’s teacher with dawning horror.
“She what?”
“She has lice.”
My mouth dropped open.
“She washes herself relentlessly!” I groaned.
My kid hated dirt. And when I say hate, I meant hate. She despised it. Loathed it. Anything that came as possibly ‘dirty’ to her, she wouldn’t go near it.
The teacher, Ms. Captain, smiled sadly.
“That’s sometimes the contributing factor in lice cases, Mr. Hail,” she apologized. “Lice likes clean homes, and little kids that have clean hair offer the most hospitable environment.”
I nodded in stunned horror.
Oh, God. Lice?
What the fuck did I do with that?
“I’ll take her home to her mother…”
The teacher was already shaking her head. “I’ve told Ms. Hail. She refused to come get her. I know that technically we can’t send her home due to discrimination laws, but she’s miserable. She’s itching, and it’s disrupting her schoolwork. I didn’t know what else to do.”
I nodded.
Why didn’t it surprise me that Allegra refused to help her own daughter?
“Okay.” I looked at my watch. I wouldn’t be making my date with Hannah. “I’ll take her home now. Thank you for calling me. I don’t want her miserable.”
She smiled sadly at me.
“She can return to school tomorrow…”
I held up my hand. “I’ll keep her home for the rest of the week.”
She looked relieved.
“Thank you.”
It was said so quietly that I had to strain to hear it.
My daughter and I walked out of the school minutes later, and I felt like my skin was crawling.
My first step the moment I got into the truck was to Google ‘head lice,’ and what I found literally made my breath catch.
Goddammit, lice were creepy.
Now my head itched.
But instead of freaking way the fuck out, I drove to the pharmacy, bought every box of Rid they had, and drove home.
The next step wa
s to quarantine her to the kitchen. All of my furniture was cloth, and what I read in the articles said that you should clean everything cloth.
Since my daughter hadn’t been here in two weeks, I felt it was safe enough to say that I didn’t have an infestation in my house.
Her head, after closer examination, did.
I wanted to vomit.
I was a man. I could deal with a good deal of shit.
Hell, I was a Marine for twelve years. I’d seen blood, death, gore. You name it, I saw it.
I could deal with roaches and all kinds of gross shit—you see a lot when you’re repossessing cars—and not miss a wink of sleep.
But bugs crawling in my daughter’s hair? Apparently, that was the icky point.
My phone pinged as I saturated my daughter’s head with the first bottle of shampoo.
I ignored it, soaking my daughter’s beautiful hair in it until every inch of it wasn’t shining with the oily goo. Then I washed my hands and said, “Now don’t move for another ten minutes, okay?”
My daughter sneered at me.
What she didn’t do was move.
Whatever.
After making sure my hands were clean of the oily mess, I picked up my phone and read the first text message.
Unknown (12:33 pm.): Don’t forget to bring your cash. They’re selling booster tickets.
I smiled for the first time since I left her.
Travis (12:43 pm): Change of plans. My daughter has head lice. Everything itches (on me, not on her.)
I programmed her phone number into my phone and glanced up at my daughter.
“You okay?”
“Wonderful,” she shot back.
Great!
Not.
“You want some chocolate milk?” I asked her, starting to head to the cabinet to get her a cup.
“No thanks,” she said, stunning me with her answer. “It’s fattening.”
My mouth dropped open.
“Who told you that?”
“Mom.”
Fucking Allegra.
My phone pinged, so I shut the cabinet door and went for it.
Hannah (12:45 pm): Oh, no! Do you need any help?
I grunted, liking that she was willing to help.
What I didn’t want was for her to have the chance of getting it, so I said no.
An hour later, I was still trying to pick the little bitches out of her hair, and I knew that this wasn’t going to be done on my own. So I bit the bullet and sent the text that I didn’t want to send.
Go to Hail (The Hail Raisers Book 2) Page 5
