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It was a seven-hour flight into Dulles and an interminable drive through the traffic of D.C. and Baltimore to get to Hopkins. By the time everything had elapsed, it was close to midnight in local time, I’d been awake over thirty hours, and my head was pounding. I didn’t have a prayer of sleeping on my jet. Every time I closed my eyes at all, I was haunted by images of my Iris screaming in pain or dying in child birth. I saw myself at a graveyard with two fresh stones laid next to Priscilla’s. Once, the image had been of a tiny baby coffin. They shouldn’t be allowed to make them that small.
There should be no need for it.
When I half-stumbled, half-ran through the acute care ward of the hospital, I was pretty fucking out of it. I didn’t know my arse from a hole in the ground, and my head was spinning. Seth had left me a few texts. All indicated so far that she was still stable, and each wanted to know if I had any information on her health from what I’d seen back in Ireland. The worst had been turning my phone back on after the flight. My imagination had been running wild the entire way from Dublin, and I half expected an out of his bloody mind phone message where Seth explained that Iris had bled out and died.
Thank God and Mother Mary that never happened.
I wouldn’t have survived if it had.
I got to the nurses’ station and glared at them. “I need to see Iris Kilshimer.”
“And you are?” a nurse who looked about a hundred asked me in a droning, no-nonsense voice.
“I’m Callum O’Brien.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “I’m guessing by that deep Irish accent of yours that you’re not family.”
“I’m a friend of the family.”
“Sorry, but in America we have a lot of privacy laws for patients. I can’t even confirm for sure that Iris is here. It’s all about safety protocol and HIPAA.”
I shook my head and leaned closer to her. “I don’t give a toss about your rules and laws. The woman I love is in this hospital, and my child might be dying right along with her, and I need to know how she is.”
I blinked. That hadn’t been the plan. I was supposed to be here as the concerned friend for Seth and Rachel’s sakes. They’d been there for me with Priscilla. Rachel had spent three weeks in Ireland taking care of Symone when I’d been too upset to leave the bed. To get through all this illness, I’d hoped to at least keep a lid on things until Iris was on bed rest and safe at her home. But it had come tumbling out.
And it felt damn good to say it.
To own it.
The nurse stood, her entire demeanor changing. “You only had to say so, sir.”
“It’s complicated,” I said, running a hand through my disheveled hair and trying to look like the domineering CEO I was and not the panicked father I was becoming. I usually got a better response when I was cold and calculated. “But I’m the father, and I want to make sure Iris and our baby are doing okay.”
The nurse didn’t have time to respond. It was only the way that her eyes grew wide that I knew something was up. I ducked to my right just in time to miss the fist clocked for me. I spun around and held up my hands, palms up and flat, to indicate I was surrendering. Seth was standing before me, looking like a damn bull about to charge forward and kick my sorry arse. Any other time, I might have been tempted to let him. I’d been mentally doing it since I’d gotten in my limo, but a fight in the hospital wouldn’t help either of us.
He’d gone punchier than I had and softer. His grey hair and jowls indicated a man who didn’t keep in shape now into his early fifties, but he had a fire in his eyes, and I didn’t want us both to be kicked out of the hospital over some dumbass pissing match.
Both Iris and the baby deserved better.
“You did what?” Seth roared.
He took an uppercut swing at me, and I caught his arm. He wheezed in my grip, but I held his arm firmly.
“We shouldn’t fight. That’s the last thing your daughter or your grandchild need.”
“The last thing they needed was for you to come along.”
Seth tried to yank his arm from me and succeeded in landing a sharp blow to my chin. I cursed but held him firm. A few guards were rushing toward us. Normally, I’d have him on his back in a minute, but I didn’t want to hurt my friend. I just wanted to contain him and make sure he didn’t hurt himself. That was a far trickier proposition.
Rachel strode faster through the gathering crowd and held up her hands. She eyed the hospital guards and shook her head. “Officers, this is my husband and our oldest friend.”
Some idiot somewhere made a snide comment, and Seth struggled again. I had to work hard to make sure I didn’t snap his wrist.
“Stop,” Rachel said, her voice firm and like ice. She put her hand on Seth’s cheek. “Don’t.”
“You’re okay with this?”
“No, but our daughter is sick, and she needs all the support she can get. I can’t pretend to understand what she’s been thinking or what she’s been doing all this time.”
