Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) (35 page)

“And you’re in love with her mother,” Marci said.

Sucker punched to the heart, Ben jerked back, his elbow connecting with the wall. “Ow, sh—sharkbait,” he said, noticing Jade in the doorway.

“Is Zoe going to be okay, Dad?”

He rubbed his arm and glared at Marci. “She’ll be fine, sweetheart. But I have to go with her to the hospital and stay until Kezia arrives.”

Jade flung herself into his arms as if fired from a slingshot. She
smooshed her face against his, and her breathing hitched. For a moment he just held her, stroking her hair, immersing himself in the smell of bubblegum toothpaste and dog. He wanted to hold on tighter and tighter.

“Zoe’s scared of hospitals because of all the needles they stuck in her last time. So don’t leave her alone, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m
gonna give her Bolt. She can pretend it’s Sparky, and she won’t be scared.”

“Good idea.” Before he could chicken out, he whi
spered into the soft shell of her ear, “Love ya, kiddo. Behave for your mum.”

She pulled away and gave him a smile of such pure joy that hi
s knees joints nearly crumbled.

He couldn’t lose her, he just couldn’t!

Jade wriggled down and dashed off to her bedroom. He glanced at Marci, who leaned against the opposite wall studying him with speculative eyes.

“I have to go with Zoe, it’s important. Don’t take Jade away before I come back.” It killed him to beg, but he’d full-out grovel if he had to. His gut clenched and his ribs felt like they’d crack from the strain of suppor
ting his pounding heart. “Jesus, Marci. Please.”

Ben couldn’t look at the triumphant smile he ima
gined would be on Marci’s face, so he stared at his bare feet. “I’m going to change into warmer gear before the chopper arrives. If you need help to settle Jade, Shaye’ll stay with her, or my mum’s number is on speed dial.”

Then he walked down the hallway to his room. Beaten down. Hollowed out.

Chapter 17

Kezia startled awake in her hotel room to a triple whammy.

Still not pregnant. Still kinda blotto. And the phone was ringing.

The first whammy had lost its shock value since the tiny printed “
not pregnant
” appeared on the test stick last night. And just in case the test hadn’t made it clear, she’d risen a few hours ago and discovered she’d got her period at last. Yippee.

The second whammy? Blame that on drowning her troubles in a bottle of chardonnay while watching Grey’s Anatomy reruns and bawling her eyes out.

She squinted at the nightstand’s digital clock. Two in the morning.
Gesù
. The phone continued to blast high decibel shrills. Snatching up the handset, Kezia mumbled, “Wha-ya?” since apparently, her mouth had forgotten how to form actual words.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Ms. Murphy,” the crisp f
emale voice chirped down the line, “but I have Nick Russo at the front desk insisting I let him up to your room.”

The receptionist’s words jolted the last dregs of sleepy drunkenness from her system.

What was Nicky doing here? The ramifications exploded into her brain.

“Send him up, please,” she said, at the same time grappling with the nightstand lamp.

Her fingers finally located the stupidly small knob and light flooded the room. She hung up the phone and scrambled out of bed.

Ohgodohgodohgod
!
None of her relatives knew she was in Wellington. Easier to stay at an impersonal hotel than to explain the shit-fest of her life to one of her brothers. Had something happened to one of her nieces or nephews? Matt and his snazzy little sports car he always drove too fast?

Then on the heels of that: Zoe.

“
Nonononono!
” She pounced on her handbag, rummaging through the inside pockets until she found her phone.

With ten fat sausages instead of fingers she tried to locate the power button. She’d shut it down last night, knowing the only person she’d take a call from would be Zoe—and Zoe would be having way too much fun for a mother/daughter chat. Plus Zoe knew to ring Shaye or Piper if she needed some spare clothes or some other kid-like emergency.

The phone powered up and she fidgeted from foot to foot as the black screen slowly changed to color. Ten missed calls. Thirteen unread text messages. All from Ben and Shaye. She opened a random message from Ben.

Flying to Invers with Zoe. Joe thinks appendicitis. Call me!

Her heart stopped beating, until the knocking on her hotel room door kick-started it. Kezia stumbled on icy legs to yank open the door to Nick, who stood in the hallway dressed in jeans and hooded sweatshirt. His fists were clenched, dark eyebrows drawn together in hot thunder.

He let out a stream of Italian curses which would’ve caused his sister-in-laws to blush, and threw up his hands. “Christ and all his angels, Kezia!”

She thrust out her phone. “Zoe!” Her voice cracked like cheap porcelain and dissolved into a hiccupping sob.

Her brother reeled her in for a rough hug, a whiff of feminine perfume on his skin tickling her nose. “Don’t start with the tears,
Piccoletta
. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do—starting with, who the hell is Ben Harland and why is he with Zoe?”

Kezia pulled back and led Nick inside. “I have to call him—”

Nick shook his head, his dark hair rumpled and in need of a trim. “You won’t get hold of him, he’ll be in the hospital by now, you’re not allowed to use cell phones there, remember? Interferes with their machines or something—look, sit down and I’ll tell you what I know.” He slumped into the room’s only armchair.

After a moment, Nick sent her a pointed look and she stopped pacing and wringing her hands. “Sit.”

She sat, tensed on the very edge of the bed.

“Your friend Shaye rang looking for you about an hour ago. She was pretty surprised to find I didn’t know you were in Wellington, and that I wasn’t suffering from a personal crisis which warranted your sisterly attention. Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was? What a mission it became to track you down?”

Kezia’s cheeks heated.

“Yeah, little sister—lucky you’re predictable when it comes to hotel chains. You’re
still
going to hell for scaring the crap out of me and lying to your friends. Anyway—Shaye told me Zoe got sick at a birthday party. The local doc suspected appendicitis and ordered an airlift to Invercargill hospital.” His dark brown eyes, a mirror or her own, narrowed in speculation. “This Ben Harland guy went with her.”

Kezia blinked back tears and sucked in a deep breath. “Oh.”

“So.” Nick twirled the cord of his sweatshirt’s hood and glared. “This guy means something to you if you’re not freaking out about him being with Zoe.”

“He means something.”

No, Ben meant everything. But the last tie between them had snapped after the test showed a negative result. Ben was free to do whatever he needed to do. History wouldn’t repeat itself; a man wasn’t going to shackle his life to hers because she carried his child. Her stomach folded in on itself with a sharp cramp and she wrapped her arms around her middle.

“I don’t want to talk about it now. I need to get to Zoe.”

“Then hit the shower,
Piccoletta
, and we’ll make some calls. You smell like Uncle Alberto after an all-nighter.” Nick swung his legs off the chair.

Kezia grabbed a change of clothes and locked he
rself into the bathroom. Leaning against the door her heart throbbed in time with the blood pounding through her brain. Why hadn’t Shaye gone on the helicopter with Zoe? Why Ben? He’d made it clear from the beginning he didn’t want or need the extra responsibility in his life. Responsibility like her and Zoe, and the little baby she’d secretly hoped for, but had been only a wistful dream. Her eyes prickled hot, her chest tightening unbearably.

No tears, Kezia. No recriminations, no useless lon
gings, no time.

Getting to Zoe was the only thing that mattered now.

***

Ben hated waiting rooms on general principle. Bo
ring, too hot or too cold, and the magazines catered to fashion-crazed women or were two years out of date. But the waiting room in Invercargill’s hospital took on nightmarish proportions when he startled and almost fell out of the chair each time the sliding doors hissed open.

A zombie-faced man wandered into the room, glanced bleary-eyed at him and left again. His watch said an hour and a half had gone by since he’d let go of Zoe’s hand after the anesthetist took her under.

Wish they’d hurry the hell up—he was going nuts in here. Bad enough they’d waited hours while the hospital organized emergency surgery. At least after a shot of Happy Juice Zoe had been in a lot less pain.

After he’d left the theatre and stripped out of the butt-ugly scrubs they’d given him to wear, he grabbed a coffee from a vender. He crumpled the empty paper cup and tossed it at the rubbish bin. The cup bounced off the rim and clattered to the floor. Sighing, he closed his eyes. Story of his
frickin’ life.

The door sucked open with a bone-chilling hiss, but he kept his eyes shut. Someone would announce his name, if it was in fact a member of staff and not some other poor slob desperate for a snippet of news.

“Ben?”

He peeled open an eye, tipping his head forward from where he rested against the beige-painted wall. Kezia stood inside the doors, her blouse and jeans wrinkled, her dark curls
flat on one side, her eyes red and swollen. She looked like shit—not to put too fine a point on it.

So instead of asking her why the hell she’d switched off her phone and all the other questions burning his ass, he said, “She’s going to be okay,
Kez. Her appendix hadn’t ruptured and she shouldn’t be in surgery much longer.”

She nodded stiffly and crossed the short distance of faded linoleum, sitting next to him with her bag clamped to her stomach. “I’ve spoken to the surgical registrar. Thank you for taking care of her.”

Kezia stared straight ahead, maybe at the rack of pamphlets detailing your rights while in hospital.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.

He’d screwed up his chances with Kezia. Just how badly, he didn’t know yet.

Ben folded his arms and stared straight ahead with her. “You’re welcome.”

You’re welcome?
What a dumb-ass thing to say.

“I, ah, had to wait until this morning to charter a pr
ivate plane,” she said. “I got here as soon as I could. Zoe, did she”—a hitched breath and a click as she swallowed—“ask for me?”

Zoe’s lips moved over and over in the short flight to the hospital. He hadn’t been able to hear her words with his ears covered by the chopper’s headset and the roar of the rotors, but he knew she continued to ask for her mother.

“Yeah, a lot. But she held up like a little warrior once I told her you’d meet us at the hospital.”

He turned his head, noting
Kez’s hunched posture, her fingers gripped tight around the straps of her handbag. “I’m dying to ask. Why was your phone switched off?”

A sigh gusted out of her, puffing out a single curl of dark hair which had spilled across her face. “I switched my phone off because I didn’t want to talk to anyone after I took a pregnancy test.” A pause while she tucked the strand of hair b
ehind her ear. Her hands shook.

He jerked upright in the chair, his resting pulse rate hurtling into a sprint. “You’re pregnant?”

Heat blossomed deep inside his chest. A baby with Kezia? A little boy who he’d teach to cast a line and bowl a cricket ball? Or maybe another girl—dark eyes, corkscrew curls—a tiny Italian diva like her mamma.

“No. The test was negative.”

The warm spot disappeared and the words fell between them, loaded with live mines.

He couldn’t begin to imagine the collateral damage he’d done with the whole Marci-gate incident—and while he’d been screwing things up, Kezi
a had thought she was pregnant.

The world’s biggest
stronzo
, that was him.

“You should’ve told me.”

Kezia’s long, elegant fingers massaged her temples. “Would telling you have made any difference?”

“Shit.” Well, what could he say? If he’d known—oh, that explained her mystery tears on Friday afternoon—he would’ve only felt a million times worse. And the
problem with Marci would’ve magnified in his head to need-a-straitjacket proportions.

“It was only a suspicion, and I refused to use it to i
nfluence any of your decisions. Now it doesn’t matter. There’s no pregnancy.” Her clipped tones suggested the topic was now closed.

Jesus Christ. Did she think the only reason he would have wanted to be with her was because she might’ve been pregnant? What the hell happened to women’s i
ntuition? Didn’t she know she could shatter him into tiny pieces with just a glance? The woman bloody
owned
him, and she hadn’t a frickin’ clue.