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After the morning’s drama with Roxie, to say he was in a piss-poor mood would be a gross understatement.
When Alex had told him she was fine, his frustration had grown. He didn’t know shit about women—what man did?—but he knewfinewasn’t a good thing. Her beautiful whiskey-brown eyes had been filled with fear, and her damn hands hadn’t stopped shaking.
So, no. He didn’t believe for one damn minute that she wasfine.
But what the hell was he supposed to do?
He snatched up the phone and barked, “Sheriff O’Conner.”
“It’s Roxie.”
He sighed. She was the last person he wanted to talk to. “Look, Rox, I’m really not in the mood for your bullshit right now—”
“Shut up and come over,” she interrupted. Her tone had his Spidey-senses tingling. “Something’s wrong with Alex. I’m not sure if I need to call the paramedics, too, but you need to get over here. She got a delivery—”
He didn’t hear the rest of her sentence. He was already out of his office and bellowing for one of his deputies to meet him at Roxie’s.
Racing the few blocks to Comfort Food on foot, he barged through the front door. Ignoring the stares of the customers, he ran behind the counter to Roxie. Before he could open his mouth to ask about Alex, Roxie placed a finger over her lips.
“Don’t let anyone in the back,” she whispered to Nina.
Nina nodded, but the concern on her face filled him with trepidation.
“What the hell happened?” he asked Roxie as they hurried to the back.
“I don’t know.” Her voice trembled, and that trepidation grew. “Alex was in the office doing paperwork and a delivery came in for her. Nina brought it to her. She said when Alex opened it, she started looking queasy. Then, when Alex read the card, she got sick. Literally. She ran into the bathroom and puked.”
Shuddering, she continued, “Nina and I tried to help her, but she kept throwing up. When she started dry heaving, I got scared with her being pregnant and all. Then she started shaking. She wouldn’t respond to us when we called her name, and she started shaking even harder when I tried to get close. That’s when I called you.” Roxie gestured to the partially closed bathroom door. Her green eyes shone with worry and guilt. “She’s still in there.”
Every part of him wanted to rush into that bathroom and see what was wrong. To wrap Alex in his arms and offer her whatever comfort he could. However, considering what Roxie had told him, he needed to exercise caution, needed to gather as many facts as possible first. There was no way in hell he was going to risk scaring Alex any further.
He needed to be logical. He was the sheriff, for fuck’s sake. Logic was his job. But damn if his emotions weren’t all over the place. Emotions he hadn’t even known he was capable of feeling until this morning, when Alex had brought them out in him.
Duty, he reminded himself.Do your fucking duty. That’s how you can help Alex.
“What was it?” he asked.
“What?” Roxie replied.
“The delivery.”
“Oh. A bunch of flowers. White roses. A few dozen of them.”
“They still here?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He appreciated Roxie’s to-the-point answers. She knew him well enough to understand he had very little patience when he entered what she deemed “cop mode.”
“They’re still in the office. No one has touched them since she ran out of the room.”
He glanced at the archway leading to the front of the café. “Deputy Chase should be here any minute. Tell him what happened and have him find out where those flowers came from.”
“Okay. Um, Quinn?” Her cheeks flushed a fiery red. “About what happened earlier—”
“Not right now, Roxie.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “We’ll deal with all that later.”
He approached the bathroom door with caution, nudging it all the way open. The air left his lungs in a rough whoosh, as if someone had slammed him in the ribs with a two-by-four.
