Demanded by Him (Wanted Series #3) (2 page)

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my eyes popped
open.

I lifted my head. The fire past the end of my feet was out,
though a few crackling embers still glowed in the bottom of the pit.

Beside me, Addison was curled up and using my thigh for a pillow.

And then I saw her. The deer. She was standing near the water’s
edge staring straight at me. I could tell by the soft light over the lake
behind her that sunrise was looming, and the air had that distinct early
morning crispness that told me we’d slept through the night.

I turned my attention back to the deer. Her dark eyes were big and
shiny and she looked anxious as she flicked her ears.

I stretched my neck, turning it from side to side, and that’s
when I heard it- the faint sound of my phone ringing in the car.

Nobody ever called me at this time of day.

And in my guts I knew instantly. Something was wrong.

When I looked back, the deer was gone.

I tried to find something to put under Addison’s head, but there
wasn’t a good substitute for my thigh within reach.

I felt bad disturbing her, but I knew I had to get to my phone.
By the time I slid my hands under her head and scooted my leg out from under
her, the ringing had stopped. I laid her head down on the blanket.

She made a sleepy noise and shifted her arm under it.

A second later, I was making fast strides through the grass to
the gravel driveway.

I threw the door of my truck open and reached for my phone in
the cup holder. I had five missed calls and as many new messages. They were all
from the same number. I dialed it and waited.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Wyatt Jones. Someone at this number is trying to
reach me.”

“Yes, Mr. Jones, that would be me. My name is Mary, and I work
at Tanner Day Camp.”

My blood ran cold.

“I’m calling because Sophie had to go to the hospital.”

A lump formed in my throat.

“She went low and-”

“Where is she?”

“St. Francis Hospital in Durhum.”

“Is she okay?”

“She wasn’t at her best when she left here, but the EMTs assured
me that she was in good hands.”

“Is she by herself?”

“No. Her counselor, Ashley, went to the hospital with her.”

“Thanks, Mary. I’m on my way.”

By the time I tossed the phone back on the seat, I was wide
awake and full of adrenaline. I ran down to the blanket and dropped to one
knee, putting my hand on Addison’s shoulder. “Addison.”

She sighed and looked up at me through half closed eyes.

“We have to go now, Addison. It’s an emergency.”

She sat up, furrowed her brows, and scratched her head.

I grabbed everything in sight and shoved it all in the cooler,
realizing only afterwards that I probably should’ve dumped the melted ice out
first, but all I could think about was getting on the road as fast as I could.

Meanwhile, Addison wasn’t springing into action quite as quickly
as I needed her to.

“I need you to get in the car,” I said. “And buckle your seat
belt.”

She rose to her feet and stretched her arms over her head just
enough that a patch of skin on her stomach showed above her pants. “What’s
going on?” she asked, yawning.

“I’ll explain in the car.”

I shoved the blanket under my arm and headed up the hill with
the cooler. By the time I had everything packed in the car, she was climbing in
opposite me.

The squeal of me peeling out of the driveway probably woke
everything in the forest, but I didn’t care.

Addison gripped the handle on the door. “What’s going on?”

“I have to go to the hospital.”

“What?” She straightened up in her seat. “Why?”

“Cause my daughter’s there.”

She rubbed her eyes with her fingertips and raised her eyebrows
as if she were trying to wake her face. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry I can’t take you home first,” I said, turning my eyes
towards the road. “But it’s in the opposite direction.” I watched the painted
white lines disappear past my tires while I tried to estimate how quickly I
could get to Durhum if I sped the whole way. “I’ll call you a cab as soon as we
get there, and I’ll pay for it, obviously. I’m really sorry for the
inconvenience.”

“Did you say your daughter?”

“Yeah.”

“Is she okay?”

I tightened my two handed grip on the steering wheel. “No. She
went low.”

“Low?”

“She’s a diabetic.”

“Oh. I see.”

“It’s the kind of thing that can go from bad to worse pretty
fast.” I clenched my jaw. I wanted to strangle that woman on the phone. Why
didn’t someone catch her going low when a piece of chocolate could’ve fixed the
problem? Why did it escalate like this? Cause it was early morning?

But Sophie was so responsible about her diabetes. That’s the
only reason I even let her go to camp this summer- because she promised to stay
on top of it.

Then again, she was only nine. Maybe I’d done the wrong thing by
letting her go. But what was I supposed to do? Not let her be a normal kid?!
Keep her inside where she was never more than two feet away from her insulin?!
Fuck!

“Where is she?” Addison asked.

“St. Francis Hospital in Durhum.”

She nodded.

“I know it’s far, and I apologize again but-”

“You don’t need to apologize. I understand.”

I turned my focus away from the road just long enough to offer
her a grateful smile. The color had yet to return to her face, which made her
tangle of dark red hair look even more striking.

“Though when I say I understand,” she said. “I mean I get that
you have to go be with your kid, not that I understand you not mentioning her
before.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Yeah, well, that wouldn’t be the first thing you were wrong
about.”

I remembered last night, how she got down on her knees in that
little boat, her whole body glowing in the moonlight as she drank me down.
“You’re right,” I said, turning onto the highway onramp. “It’s not just that.”

Addison wedged her flat hands in between her knees.

“I don’t usually tell women about her,” I said. “I like to keep
any dating I do separate from my life with Sophie.”

“Sophie?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“It suits her.”

“Did you choose it?”

“No,” I said. “Her mother named her.”

“And is her mom already on the way to the hospital or”-

“No. Her mom died when she was little.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It was a long time ago, and it was probably
for the best.”

“What?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. That’s a horrible thing to say. I don’t
mean that, okay? Forgive me. It’s just- it’s a long story.”

“You don’t have to tell me about it.”

“It’s not that. I just can’t think about it right now.”

“Of course,” she said. “Focus on your driving.”

I nodded and exhaled, wishing I were already there.

“How old is she?”

“She just turned nine.”

“Nine?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason. I’m just still surprised you didn’t mention her.”

“No offense, Addison, but you’re not the only one with secrets.”

“What makes you think I have secrets?”

“Everybody has secrets.”

“Hmmm.”

“Not that I’m ashamed of my daughter.” My eyes started to water.
“She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I just don’t introduce her to
people who might not stick around, if that makes sense.”

She nodded. “It does. Kids need stability. There’s no reason to
have a parade of people going in and out of her life if you can help it.”

“That’s exactly how I feel,” I said. “Thanks.”

“So where was she? When she went low?”

“At camp. She was hell bent on going, and she was so adamant to
prove to me that she could be responsible enough about her diabetes that
everything would be okay.”

“I’m sure it was an accident.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.”

“I know,” she said. “But I’m sure everything will be okay.”

And even though I knew that’s what people said when they had no
idea whether things were going to be okay, I was still glad she was there saying
it to me and giving me a reason to hold it together- if only on the outside.

He had a fucking kid?! A little girl?! How was that even
possible?!

Shouldn’t he have mentioned that? Shouldn’t I have been able to
tell he was a dad?

Except I don’t know how I would know. There was nothing at all dad-like
about him.

Until now, of course.

I’d never seen him so panicked. There was evidence of cold sweat
on his forehead, and the tension he was feeling was palpable, like he was so
twisted on the inside it was stunting his ability to express himself.

I sighed, releasing the air slowly from my lungs so he wouldn’t
think I was complaining.

On the contrary, I understood. Or I wanted to, even though no
one had ever come to my rescue like that. Besides Mrs. Collins. But she didn’t
know she was doing it at the time, whereas Wyatt was clearly on a rescue
mission.

And it was weird to see him in a different mode. It was the
first time since we met that I felt like seducing me wasn’t his number one
priority, which was kind of lucky since I really felt like I needed to brush my
teeth. And as much as I wanted to flip the visor down and check if I looked a mess,
I didn’t think it was appropriate to blatantly worry about my own vanity when
his daughter was in the hospital.

I tried to imagine what he was feeling- what it must be like to
feel responsible for someone else.

Had I said anything uncharitable in the last two days about
children? I couldn’t remember. It was the kind of thing I would do. After all,
I didn’t understand them and never felt I was one.

So seeing a father in distress was a new experience for me. And
on top of that, I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that Wyatt was
clearly more than the conceited womanizer I took him for.

I mean, a real lothario would use their kid as a pawn to meet
woman. I saw guys do it with puppies in the park all the time. Nothing like a
cute little helpless thing to break the ice and prove to a potential hook up
that you’re not a serial killer.

Of course, Wyatt hadn’t done that. He’d kept his whole
daughter’s existence to himself. And that intrigued me.

It was a choice I would expect from someone with more maturity
than I’d given him credit for, a choice that protected all three of us in a
way.

And was his being a father why he made me feel so comfortable
last night when I was afraid to get in the boat? Why he didn’t rock it once
just to scare me like I was positive he was going to? Why he was so familiar
with The Little Mermaid? Why he left the band?

I had so many questions I suddenly wanted to ask him now that I
knew I didn’t have him figured out as well as I thought, but his eyes were dark
and sharp, and I could tell he was completely preoccupied by the thought of
getting to Sophie as fast as he could.

And what was that bit about her mom? That her being dead was for
the best? Shit. What a totally fucked up thing to say. I mean, if anything he’d
said in the last two days deserved further explanation, that was it. Maybe he
didn’t love her?

But that didn’t seem like a good reason to be happy she was
dead. And he must’ve seen something redeeming in her or surely Sophie wouldn’t
be in his life now.

I hoped he didn’t regret being with me at the lake. I hoped he
didn’t wish he’d been somewhere else when the call came through, besides by her
side, obviously.

“Is there anything I can do?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“Anyone I can call?”

Wyatt blinked and pursed his lips. Then he checked the clock. It
was almost six in the morning. “Yeah,” he said. He picked his phone up off the
seat and handed it to me. “Can you call my brother, Austin. Tell him what’s
happened.”

I turned the phone on and felt a pain in my heart. The
background was a picture of a little girl with stringy blond hair smiling on a
wooden swing. “Is that her?” I asked. “In the picture?”

Wyatt stole a glance at the screen. “Yeah.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“I know.” He swallowed. “And not just on the outside.”

“Austin, right?” I said, scrolling through the first few names
in his phonebook.

“Yeah.”

I hit the call button and waited. I was staring at Wyatt’s white
knuckles on the wheel when his brother picked up.

“This better be good,” he said. “You woke Karen up and
everything.”

“I’m sorry to call you so early,” I said. “My name is Addison,
and I’m in the car with Wyatt. He asked me to call because he’s driving us to the
hospital right now.”

“Jesus. Is everything okay?”

“We don’t know yet. Sophie went low. We’re on our way to St.
Francis Hospital.”

“In Durhum,” Wyatt added.

“In Durhum,” I repeated.

“You said your name was Addison?” Austin asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Will you tell my brother I’ll be there as soon as I can?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Tell him not to tell our parents yet,” Wyatt said, keeping his
eyes straight ahead.

“Wyatt doesn’t want you to tell your parents yet,” I said.

“That’s fine,” Austin said. “Can you stay with him until I get
there?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll stay as long as he wants me to.”

“No,” Austin said. “Stay until I get there.”

“But I-”

“Listen, Addison-”

“I’m listening.”

“I know that’s a lot to ask,” he said. “But Wyatt won’t want to
impose so he’ll tell you he doesn’t need you there.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But that little girl is his whole world.”

“I understand.”

“And he’ll hold it together better if you stay.”

“He seems fine now.”

“Just do it, okay?” Austin said. “Please.”

“Okay.”

“I can be there by this afternoon,” he said. “I’ll catch the
first flight I can.”

Flight?! “Okay.”

“Thank you in advance for looking out for my baby brother.”

“No problem,” I said, feeling like I should’ve been doing more
to help.

Austin hung up, and I ended the call but kept the phone in my
hand.

“Thanks,” Wyatt said. “What did he say?”

“He said he’ll be on the first plane he can catch, and he wants
me to stay with you until he gets there.”

Wyatt shook his head. “You don’t have to do that. I told you I’d
call you a cab first thing. This isn’t your problem. I don’t expect you to
stick around.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Really.”

“We’ll see how you feel when you get there. Hospitals aren’t
exactly the nicest places to hang around.”

“Sounds good,” I said, deciding I didn’t want him to waste his
energy arguing with me.

“Thanks for doing that, by the way.”

“No problem.”

“You’re very cool under pressure.”

I shrugged. “I’m always under pressure.”

“Well, I don’t think I could’ve heard Austin’s voice without completely
losing it so thanks for doing that for me.”

“It’s alright.”

“He’s not going to say anything to my parents yet, right?”

“I told him not to.”

“Good.” He ran his hand over his head. “The last thing I need is
them complaining about the dry air in the hospital room while my daughter
struggles for breath.”

The pain in his voice was tangible, and it was uncomfortable to
see him so flustered, so helpless, especially when he’d been nothing short of Mr.
Confident since I met him.

“My mom thinks I shouldn’t have let her go to camp. She told me if
something happened, I’d never forgive myself.”

“Don’t think like that,” I said. “She’ll be fine.”

He shook his head. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer. Every
day she had a new pitch for why I would be the best dad ever if I just let her
go to camp with her friends.”

“You did the right thing,” I said, surprised at the soft tone of
my voice. “You can’t protect her from everything.”

“I didn’t have a choice. She’s so persistent,” he said. “She’s
like you that way. She has to get what she wants all the damn time.”

“Daddy’s little girl?”

He smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is all my fault. She’s got me
wrapped around her little finger.” He breathed in sharply like the thought of
her little finger almost set him off.

“She’s going to be alright,” I said. “Just breathe.”

“God I hope you’re right,” he said. “Cause if she’s not…” He
exhaled through his lips but didn’t finish the thought.