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The door had barely closed behind Shaylee when Hattie ripped off the robe and quickly slid into her own clothes. Her blue Gymshark shorts had a couple rips and the gray T-shirt did as well, but they were hers and they were clean and they were her ticket out of here. She slid on her socks, tied her favorite hiking shoes, and then hurried to the door. Easing it open, she looked both ways. To her right was the nurse’s station, to her left … the stairs and freedom.
The two nurses were chatting and looking at their computer screens. She eased out the door and speed-walked to the left. Her head still hurt, but miraculously everything else was feeling halfway normal.
“Hey,” a female voice called from behind her.
Hattie looked over her shoulder.
Melanie stood from the nurse’s station and started her direction. “Where are you going?”
Hattie didn’t waste the oxygen to answer. She took off running down the hallway. Footsteps pounded after her. Shoot. What was the penalty for escaping a hospital?
Staying meant jail time for a murder charge she hadn’t committed, so escape was her only option.
“Wait! Stop!”
Sprinting down the long hallway, she saw the sign for ‘Exit’ fast approaching. Praise was due to her parents and aunt and uncle watching over her from above. Nobody else in heaven would want to waste their time on her.
She burst through the door. The stairs. Perfect. Pumping down the stairs, she hoped beyond hope they exited to the outside. She needed distance from this hospital, one handsome doctor prince, and especially the impending doom of Detective Chief Jensen.
She hit the landing, but sadly it wasn’t the outside entrance. The door led into the hospital’s main foyer. She had to get across the wide open space.
“Stop!” Melanie yelled from above her. “Please stop. We won’t hurt you.”
No, but they’d probably strap her to the bed until Jensen came for her.
She pushed open the stairway door and could see couches, chairs, and desks in the waiting area, lots of windows framing the open space, and two lovely sets of sliding glass doors with glorious sunshine on the other side. Freedom!
Racing out of the stairway, she plowed right into a body. A man. A man had dared to step right in her way, wrap her up in his strong arms, and hold her against his strong chest.
A man in gray doctor’s scrubs, the V-neck showing off just how nice that chest was. As she made her way from his chest up to his face, she drew in a breath and would’ve cursed, but Dr. Steffan was looking at her with such concern that she held it in.
The stairway door burst open from behind and Melanie and another nurse rushed out, both panting for air.
“Angelica.” Melanie stared between them and sighed. “Oh, thank you. You caught her.”
“I did.” Steffan searched her face as if hoping for answers to why she’d run from the nurses. “I’ll bring her back to her room,” he told the nurses. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Melanie said.
The other one muttered something about wishing she’d run into the prince’s arms.
Oh, boy.
Hattie tried to pull back, but Steffan held her fast. She didn’t like how very, very perfect it felt to be in his strong arms.
“Angelica,” he murmured, staring at her with those blue eyes that made her knees weak.
Ridiculous. Hattie Ballard didn’t get weak in the knees, even if the man was a prince, a doctor, and the most handsome and nicest guy she’d ever encountered.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Perfect. Just headed out for an evening run. I like to do that after dinner. Aids digestion.”
He stared for half a beat, and then he chuckled. “I’ll have to try that.”
“You should. Now, if you’ll please excuse me.” She tried, and failed, to pull out of his arms.
“I’m going to walk you back up to your room to rest,” he said in a no-nonsense, doctorly voice.
