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A wary, cautious look passed through her eyes. “That was very kind of you, but why are you still here?”
He shrugged casually, even though he was feeling anything but nonchalant around Helena. “Because Elle needs someone she can depend on to take care of her.” It was a small dig, and enough to let this woman know that he was now a part of Elle’s life—even if Elle wasn’t ready to accept that fact just yet. But she would, eventually.
“If it’s the flu, there’s not much anyone can do,” she said, her voice vibrating with annoyance. “Now that I’m here, you can go home and I’ll check in on her.”
Not a fucking chance, lady. “No, I’m staying. I won’t be a bother, really. I just came out to make her a cup of hot tea.”
Helena reached into the cupboard and pulled down a coffee mug. “I’ll make it for her,” she insisted.
“No, I’ll do it,” he said just as adamantly, already seeing the jar that Elle had described that held the loose tea leaves. But beyond that, he couldn’t remember what she’d told him to do. Fuck.
“Do you know how to make hot tea from loose leaves and a ball strainer?” she asked, clearly realizing that he had no goddamn clue. “I didn’t think so. Watch what I do and then you’ll know for next time.”
He begrudgingly let Helena handle the process, though he kept a close eye on her every move. He just didn’t trust this woman. Hunter knew the suspicion he was experiencing toward Helena at the moment was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help what he felt.
When she finally had a generous amount of tea leaves steeping in boiling water, she turned toward him, her mouth pinched with a noticeable amount of irritation. “So, are you the one putting ideas into Elle’s head about selling the house?” she asked him point-blank.
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a hip against the counter, refusing to confirm or deny her accusation. “What makes you ask that?”
“Because it wasn’t an issue until she started spending time with you,” she said, displeasure permeating her voice. “Now, all of a sudden she has all these wild ideas about selling the house and buying my half of the business, when things have been just fine as they are.”
Hunter shrugged, though he found Helena’s account of the situation interesting and completely skewed. “You’re not her blood relation, you treat her like shit, so why wouldn’t you want to go your separate ways?” he asked blatantly.
Helena’s spine stiffened and anger flashed in her eyes. “You have no idea how I treat Elle,” she replied defensively. “If she’s been filling your head with lies—”
“She didn’t need to tell me anything. I saw for my
self how badly you treated her,” he said, his own tone filled with equal animosity as he cut the older woman off before she could twist the blame around to Elle. “Obviously you didn’t realize at the fairy-tale ball that I was standing right behind the column near the entrance where you and your daughters were watching and waiting for security to turn away Elle. I heard your entire rude conversation, including how you’d deliberately left her name off the RSVP card and how fucking happy and satisfied you were when security told her to leave. So, yeah, I have a pretty good idea how you feel about Elle.”
By the time he was done with his tirade, Helena’s eyes were wide and her complexion was a humiliated shade of red, and Hunter was fucking glad that he’d called her out on her shit. The other woman said nothing more, probably because she realized she would not win any kind of argument with Hunter.
“I think I can handle Elle’s tea from here,” he said, gently but firmly pushing her out of the way so he could remove the ball strainer, then added a teaspoonful of sugar. Then, without another word to Helena, he picked up the cup of tea and returned to Elle’s bedroom, closing the door firmly behind him.
Elle’s eyes were closed, but as soon as she heard him come back, they opened again and she gave him a faint smile when she saw the mug he was carrying. He set the drink on the nightstand and helped her to sit up in bed, and while she insisted she could only drink half of the tea, he encouraged her to finish all of it, just to make sure she stayed hydrated.
She settled back under the covers and quickly fell asleep again and he went back to his reading. A few hours after consuming the tea, just when Hunter decided that he would try and get some shut-eye, as well, since it was nearing eleven p.m., she started moaning and clutching her stomach and thrashing on the bed, piquing his worry all over again. Then, abruptly, she woke up and rolled herself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, and while Hunter was immediately behind her, he wasn’t quick enough to catch her as she fell to her knees in front of the toilet and began throwing up.
He knelt beside her, holding her hair back and feeling so fucking helpless as he watched her puke her guts out. There wasn’t a whole lot in her stomach, just liquid and bile, but violent shudders wracked her body, over and over again, leaving her gasping for breath and eventually shaking from the trauma of it all. She slumped against him for support, and he leaned back against the nearest wall and held her in his arms on the bathroom floor for a few extra minutes, in case another round of nausea hit her. Her face was buried against his chest, her fingers curled into his cotton shirt, and he felt her tense up as more pathetic, painful whimpers escaped her throat.
She looked up at him, her face abnormally pale with dark shadows forming beneath her normally bright eyes that were now a dull blue. Tears pooled and slid down her cheeks as she moaned, her features pinched in pure anguish as another wave of agony wracked her body.
“Oh, God, Hunter, it feels like there are a dozen knives inside my stomach, it hurts so bad . . . and my heart is racing so fast and . . . something . . . doesn’t feel right.” It took effort for her to speak.
Hunter’s decision to take her to the hospital right now was immediate, because his own gut was clawing at him that something was very, very wrong. And even if this was just the flu, it was getting progressively worse and there was no fucking way he’d be able to live with more regrets and what-ifs if something horribly bad happened to Elle. He wasn’t taking any more chances with her health.
He helped her up from the bathroom floor and made her sit on the bed while he rushed around the room to put his shoes on, pocketed his cell phone, and made sure he had his car keys on him. He put slippers on her feet, bundled her into the soft, warm robe he’d seen in her bathroom, and with his arm secured tight around her waist, he opened her bedroom door just as her legs seemed to give out on her.
“I can’t stand . . .” she whispered, her voice so weak Hunter could barely hear her.
She started sliding downward, and doing his best to keep a lid on the panic threatening to consume him, Hunter swept her up into his arms and strode toward the entryway, his fear climbing at a rapid pace. Helena was sitting at the kitchen table doing something on a tablet, and as soon as she caught sight of him power walking toward the front of the house carrying Elle’s limp form, she jumped up and rushed to block the path he was taking, forcing him to come to a jarring stop, which he didn’t appreciate.
“What are you doing?” she demanded haughtily.
Hunter found it odd that Helena hadn’t asked the more obvious question, such as What is wrong with Elle? or Is she okay?, when her stepdaughter was clearly barely conscious in his arms.
“Get out of my way,” he said, glaring at Helena. “I’m taking Elle to the hospital.”
The other woman rolled her eyes, though there was a nervous energy about Helena that Hunter didn’t miss. “She has the flu,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, her eyes blinking rapidly, anxiously. “She just needs to sleep it off.”
