by Brenda Novak
Ellie couldn’t change her flight, not without significant added expense. It was cheaper to get a motel room until she could leave town, so that was what she did.
Since she was in LA, she told herself she’d do a little sightseeing on her free day. Forget Hudson; enjoy herself. But she never made it out of the room. She couldn’t stop crying. She wasn’t even sure what she was crying over. That was the weird thing. She just couldn’t shut off the waterworks, not with pregnancy hormones working against her.
Once the worst of her crying jag was over, she spoke to Amy, who was anxious to hear how her meeting with Hudson had gone.
Amy wasn’t too happy once she learned. She called him a big jerk and used several other choice words. But she ended the conversation with an optimistic “You don’t need him.”
Although Ellie agreed, she wasn’t entirely convinced she was rid of Hudson for good. That last line he’d texted her—I have rights, you know—made her uneasy, which was probably why she hadn’t mentioned that part of their exchange to Amy, hadn’t mentioned anything that had happened after he left her motel room.
Hoping he’d forget about her and the baby, that everything would be okay despite the terrible choice she’d made to alert him, Ellie decided to look forward and not back. But she was still depressed the next day, especially on the flight home, when she came down with a headache and chills. She tried to convince herself it was only morning sickness, especially when the nausea kicked in. But she hadn’t experienced much of that so far, and morning sickness was supposed to ease in the second trimester, not suddenly appear.
By the time her plane landed in Miami, she was afraid she was getting the flu.
“You can make it,” she groaned as she hurried to catch the bus that would take her to long-term parking, where she’d left her car.
“You okay, miss?”
She’d just sat down, closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the seat. She hadn’t paid the bus driver much attention when she handed him her carry-on, but judging by the concern in his voice, he’d noticed that she wasn’t looking well. She wasn’t feeling well, either.
Forcing her eyelids open, she attempted to reassure him. “I’ll be fine,” she said and slid over to make room for other passengers.
The repeated jerk of the bus as it started and stopped several times nearly caused Ellie to throw up.
Somehow, miraculously, she managed to hang on to the small dinner she’d had on her layover in Houston and considered herself lucky when she reached her car without an embarrassing incident.
After tossing her luggage in the trunk, she took off, eager for the privacy and comfort of her home. It was getting late—nearly eleven—and the flight had been long and crowded, with a child kicking the back of her seat. She couldn’t wait to fall into her own bed.
When she arrived, she left her key in the door and didn’t even bother to turn on the lights. She was in too much of a hurry to reach the bathroom. But as she dashed across the floor, she tripped over a pair of long legs that weren’t supposed to be there and hit her head on the corner of the coffee table.
“Ouch!” she cried at the blinding pain. “Don? What the hell are you doing in my house?”
A male voice responded, but it didn’t belong to her ex-fiancé. “Holy shit! Are you okay?”
Hudson. Her brain registered his identity as he jumped up and lifted her to her feet. “I’m sorry.”
While attempting to rub the pain from her temple, she encountered a wet substance that had to be blood. “What are you doing here, hiding out in the dark?” she asked as she staggered over to flip on the light.
He squinted against the sudden brightness but looked positively mortified when he saw her wound. “Yikes! Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay!” She scowled as she pressed her palm to her aching head. “What were you trying to do to me?”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything to you! I came to talk. But you weren’t here, and I fell asleep while I was waiting. I had no idea it’d grown dark or that you’d gotten home or anything else until...until you fell.”
But she’d left him in California the day before yesterday. What was he doing in Miami? “How’d you beat me across the country?”
“When I went back to the inn, and you were gone, I made arrangements to leave as soon as possible. Took the first direct flight, which left at dawn this morning.”
Her flight hadn’t left until one. And, trying to save money, she’d accepted an itinerary that included a layover. That was how he’d beaten her. But there were still a lot of other things that didn’t make sense. They hadn’t even known each other’s last name until three days ago. And here he was, sleeping in her house! “How’d you get my address?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“Hello?” she prompted.
“It’s called a reverse directory,” he muttered.
“A what?”
“On the internet.”
She was fairly sure her address wasn’t anywhere on the internet, but she didn’t argue. She’d never attempted to look it up, so she figured there could be a site out there. In this day and age, there seemed to be no privacy, so that wouldn’t be entirely surprising. “You haven’t explained how you got inside my locked house.”
“That wasn’t hard, either.”
She stared down at the blood she’d gotten on her fingers from touching the cut on her temple. “You broke in?”
“No! Of course not. That would be illegal. I used the key under the rock by the back door.” He tilted his head to catch her attention, since she was still a little dazed. “That’s not a smart place to hide a spare, by the way. Just because it’s in the back doesn’t mean no one’ll look there.”
“Obviously, if you found it,” she said. “But...you had no right to help yourself, to...to invade my personal space.”
“I had to resort to this! We need to talk, and you won’t answer when I text or call!”
“That should tell you something.” She swayed on her feet. He reached out to steady her, but she moved back and used the wall instead.
“It does tell me something—just not what I want to hear.” He grinned, turning on the old quarterback charm.
His smile was so alluring, Ellie looked away before she could be caught in its tractor beam. “Do you always get what you want?”
His grin took on a wicked slant. “Usually.”
“I can’t believe I flew clear across the country to create my own nightmare,” she complained. “That’s par for the course this year, I suppose.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said, his expression sheepish. “I’m not as bad as I seem.”
“Is there any chance you’ll forget I visited California? That I ever...said what I did?”
“No,” he replied, and now he was deadly serious.
“I was afraid of that.”
He frowned as she wiped away a fresh trickle of blood. “Come here. Let me take a look at that. I don’t think it’s too bad, but we should clean it up.”
She glared at him. “I’ll take care of it myself, thank you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel terrible.”
“Sure you do. Tell the truth, for crying out loud.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, sounding offended.
“Since when have you ever cared about anyone other than yourself?” As soon as those words came out of her mouth, she thought of the boys ranch, but refused to give him any credit for that. She was too angry.
His lips parted in surprise, but she didn’t regret what she’d said. Now that her system had gotten over the shock of her fall and that blow to the temple, the nausea she’d been experiencing when she ran in reasserted itself. “I really need you to go.”
“Can�
�t we talk first? Please?”
His stricken expression probably would’ve gotten to her, made her relent, but she was too sick. “Later.”
“Why not now?”
She rubbed her churning stomach. “Because I don’t feel well.”
“You can lie here on the couch. I’ll move out of the way.”
“Not tonight. I—” Unable to hold down the contents of her stomach any longer, she ran to the bathroom.
Once she was done vomiting, she hugged the toilet because she was too weak to get up. “I need you to go!” she gasped.
When she didn’t get a response, she tried to yell. She hated the idea of Hudson being out there, listening to her retch. Not only was her head pounding and her stomach churning, she was drenched in a cold sweat, couldn’t help shivering as she summoned the energy to yell out a second time.
She never managed what she’d planned to say. She threw up again.
When that wave was over, she rested her cheek on her arms as she tried to catch her breath. “Hello? Did you go?” Her voice was a harried whisper. “Will you go? Please?”
“I’m right here,” he said, so close that she dragged herself over to the other side of the toilet just to get away from him.
“Oh, God. Isn’t what’s happening to me bad enough? Leave me in peace. Go back to California!”
He didn’t respond, and when she lifted her heavy eyelids to see why, she found him watching her, his expression concerned.
“This isn’t because of the baby, is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been pregnant before.” Her head was aching, her heart pounding. She longed to crawl into bed.
“Here,” he said. “Let me help you.”
“Don’t,” she told him, but he ignored her feeble attempt to swat him away and helped her up so she could brush her teeth and wash her face. Then he swung her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
* * *
The third time Ellie scrambled to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Hudson went from mildly concerned to downright worried. He’d never seen anyone vomit so much. He helped clean her up and put her back to bed each time, but he assumed that what she was going through couldn’t be good for the baby, either. When he got her to drink some water, it came right back up. And she was listless and clammy, no longer had the strength to even beg him to leave. She didn’t seem happy that he was there, but she’d accepted her fate.
After two o’clock, she slept for three hours without interruption. But that was almost more worrisome for Hudson. He waited as long as he dared before going in to make sure she was breathing. “Ellie?” he said, jiggling her shoulder, because he couldn’t tell.
She didn’t open her eyes. She did, however, moan and roll away from him.
“Ellie, how are you feeling?”
“Who are you? What do you want?” she groaned.
He could tell by the sound of her voice that she was being facetious. “If you’re really that delirious, I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s the flu. I’ll be better in the morning.”
She could also be worse... “You don’t think you could have a concussion? I threw up when I had one.”
“I’m sure tripping me didn’t help, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It was an accident!”
“Fine. If you leave now, I won’t go to the media,” she said and pulled up the covers.
“Aren’t you funny” he muttered.
She didn’t comment, so he assumed she’d gone back to sleep. Would she know if she needed to be hospitalized? Could he safely believe her?
He wandered around the house a bit more, hoping she’d improve over the next few hours. Most people didn’t show up at the emergency room with the flu, but Ellie was pregnant. And this flu seemed particularly virulent. He’d rather be safe than sorry, but she was so resistant to the idea. She just wanted to be left alone to recuperate.
Once he reached the end of the hallway, he eyed the door to the room he’d peeked into earlier, when he’d first let himself inside her small, clean house. Seeing what was in there had taken him aback. He’d closed the door immediately and stayed away ever since. And yet...the memory kept beckoning him.
This time he did more than poke his head in. He walked inside, closed the door and turned on the light.
Ellie was in the process of creating a nursery. He saw a changing table along the right wall and a big box that obviously held a matching crib. Various shades of blue paint dotted the wall next to two different wallpaper samples, one with an animal theme and one with a sports theme. The wallpaper and paint—and the furniture, which was brown instead of white—made him believe she already knew the sex of their child. She hadn’t mentioned that, and the room wasn’t finished, but it sure looked like a boy’s room to him.
He sat in the gliding rocker in one corner as he studied what she’d collected so far. She had a diaper pail, a car seat, a stroller and something he’d never even seen before—a breast pump, according to the box. He picked it up to take a closer look, decided he was glad to be a man and set it back down. Was he going to have a son? If he’d been given the luxury of choosing, he would’ve asked for a daughter. He felt a sweet little girl would somehow be easier to raise and harder to mess up.
“God, I hope I’m capable of being the kind of father you need,” he whispered. He’d be working blind, in a way, because he’d never had a good example. Hopefully, he’d at least know what not to do.
A thud startled him. Ellie was up again. And she wasn’t doing better. He could hear her bump into the walls as she tried to reach the bathroom. Only this time she locked the door behind her, and when she wouldn’t open it for him, he understood that all the vomiting was now coupled with diarrhea.
He paced outside, waiting, until he heard the toilet flush several times. Then he said, “You done? You okay? Can I come in now?”
No response.
“Ellie? Will you let me know you’re okay?”
Again, no response.
“Damn it, Ellie! If you don’t say something I’m going to break down this door.”
She still didn’t speak up, but he heard movement and a soft click, signifying that she’d unlocked it.
He went in and found her lying on the floor. “That’s it.” After grabbing a blanket from her bed, he wrapped her up and carried her out to her car. It wasn’t hard to find her keys; she’d left them in the front door when she got home.
“Where are we going?” she mumbled, her head lolling as he put her in the back seat. He knew it was illegal not to fasten the seat belt, but she was too sick to sit up.
“We’re done messing around here,” he replied.
“What does that mean?”
“We’re going to the hospital.”
“Don’t! Please!” She shook her head feebly. “No abortion. I told you, I’ll take care of the baby myself. This won’t change your life at all.”
He winced at the assumption but could hardly blame her when he’d acted as though he’d drag her out of the motel to a clinic. “I’m not taking you to get an abortion. I would never do that without your permission.”
“So are you going to dump me in a ditch? Because there’s no need for that, either.” She was mumbling, so some words were easier to make out than others, but he understood the gist of what she was saying. “I won’t ever contact you. And I won’t tell anyone this is your baby. I swear it. No—no reporters. No one. I did tell a few people at my work, I admit, but...but only because they were there when...when I saw you on TV. I was shocked, you know? Stunned and...and reeling.”
“Stop it. You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m not?”
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to get you some help,” he said, but she didn’t believe him. She managed to scramble out and tried to run before he could start the car. That was when he knew she was no longer thinking straight. He had to get out, pick her up from the driveway when she tripped on the blanket and put her back in the car. This time he placed her in the passenger seat, where he could hang on to keep her from jumping out while he drove.
12
Ellie could hear voices—two of them, both female. They seemed to be buzzing around her like flies.
“Sakes alive, that man is gorgeous!”
“No kidding. I went weak in the knees when I walked in and saw him earlier.”
“You hadn’t heard he was here? The whole hospital’s been talking about him, even the patients.”
“I’d just come on, hadn’t heard anything. Then there he was, big as life. Imagine how shocked I was to walk in and see the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Devils sleeping in a chair.”
“Yeah, I would’ve gone a bit weak in the knees myself. You should’ve seen how he charmed Lois to get her to arrange this private room. I’ve never seen her be so accommodating to anyone.”
“She’s a big football fan.”
“She is?”
“You didn’t know? Talks about the Dolphins all the time.”
“To be honest, I try to avoid her if I can.”
This was said in a low voice that gave Ellie a fairly good indication of how at least one of Lois’s coworkers viewed her.
“I’m glad I was there when Hudson approached her this morning, though,” the voice went on. “I thought she’d faint when he introduced himself and gave her that smile. ‘Come on, now. You gotta have somethin’,’ he said when she tried to tell him we had no more private rooms, and that was all it took. We were busy cleaning this room in an instant.”
The women laughed and one of them lifted Ellie’s arm. The rhythmic whoosh of air sounded as a blood pressure cuff tightened around Ellie’s biceps.
