Page 60

He hated leaving her there, but he’d get her whatever she wanted.

Stepping out of the hospital onto the wet pavement, he braced for the paralyzing panic. The few times he’d gone out in LA, he’d hidden behind baseball caps and sunglasses, but he hadn’t grabbed either in his mad rush to get Addison medical care.

It felt odd, standing in the middle of a crowded street after months in seclusion. Yet the nausea, the tremors, the white spots that had danced at the edge of his vision every time he’d tried to leave his buddy’s place never came. On a grateful sigh of relief, he crossed to the bakery.

The place sold scones, but not hot chocolate. Pulling out his phone, he found a café two blocks away.

As he walked, he kept waiting for someone to turn and look. To recognize him. For the cell phone cameras to lift and point. But no one paid him any attention. Some people rushed along with dogs in tow. Others crossed busy intersections without once glancing up from their phones. He was invisible. Just another person on the street.

The rain started as he slowed at the flower shop at the corner. Addison seemed like someone who’d like flowers, but he didn’t know which were her favorites. Did she like roses? Tulips? Despite all but living together, he knew nothing about her. What was her favorite candy? Her go-to snack?

Hurrying into the shop, he had them make the largest, most colorful bouquet they could manage.

This time, on his way back to Addison, people did look. He was a random guy in sweats and no rain jacket, half-jogging through the rain with enough flowers for a wedding in one hand and hot chocolate in the other. The scone, he’d stuck in his pocket.

Dodging a couple of empty gurneys in the hallway, he pulled back the curtain and stepped into her cubicle.

Addison wasn’t there.

Chapter 32

With the IV removed and the fever reducers working, Addison felt a little better. And she needed to pee.

The earlier lull had picked up into a rough chop, and it was clear that they needed her bay released. The nurse swung by to tell her that she’d be discharged soon, leaving the curtain open as she rushed to the next bay over. The Accident and Emergency department had filled since she’d arrived—a different world from the prior quiet.

That was when she saw him, talking to a freckle-faced nurse.

It took her a second to place him, and even then she couldn’t recall his name. Kyle’s friend—someone he’d introduced to her at his birthday a few years back. But why was he here, in the exact hospital she was? Had Kyle sent him? For what purpose? It wasn’t as if Kyle knew she was even in Ireland—every single text and email she’d sent to him had bounced back for months.

Despite the rehydration and fever reducers, she still felt dog-tired and light-headed, but she couldn’t be imagining him.

What the hell was his name anyway?

Fighting the heaviness at the base of her skull, she set her feet on the floor. Where were her shoes? She’d come with shoes, didn’t she? Crap, no. Oliver had carried her. Barefoot except for her ankle socks, she stepped into the bright corridor.

But the man and the nurse were gone.

She scanned the corridor. There. At the far end, her brother’s stocky friend paused by a door. A quick glance over his shoulder, and he slipped inside.

Was it stupid to go after him herself? Yes. She barely knew the man. But they were in a crowded hospital, with staff milling around. All she had to do was scream and someone would come running.

Picking up her pace, she reached the door and swung it open—damn, a stairwell.

Okay, well, she wasn’t stupid. No way was she going to track him into the isolated stairs.

She could get someone to go with her. Oliver? Hell no. What if they got into a physical altercation? A stray punch to his face might destroy months of surgery and recovery, and she refused to be responsible for that.

Her bladder protested the long wait. Dammit. Turning, she looked for a restroom.

After using the facilities, she searched out the nurse who’d been speaking to him, finding her stepping out of one of the blue-curtained bays.

“Excuse me, but who was that gentleman you spoke to earlier?”

The nurse blinked at Addison as though she were crazy. Which, in her defense, was a fair assumption. After all, she stood before her, crazy-haired and shoeless. “What gentleman?”

“The man in the puffer jacket. I think I know him.”

“Ah.” The nurse resumed walking, leaving Addison to follow. “He was looking for someone I’ve never heard of.”