He winced slightly and shifted away from the contact. “I’m sorry.” The sigh he gave sounded like it came all the way from the bottom of his boots. “I shouldn’t have told you like that.”
Her stomach rolled. “How else should you have? Why didn’t anyone else tell me?” The baby was five months old. Her accident had been five months ago. In all the patching and suturing, was she supposed to believe that none of those doctors or nurses had noticed that she’d recently given birth?
He tugged at the jumbled blankets and smoothed them out, gently tucking them once more beneath her chin. Then his hand moved away. “Until a couple months ago, you weren’t in any condition to be told.”
“It’s no excuse,” she said thickly. “Maybe if they’d told me, I’d have remembered. Dr Granger—”
“Has your best interests at heart.” His dark eyes were solemn.
Tears burned her eyes. “Did I know he was sick when I left?” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “Did I just dump him off on his father to deal with? Am I that callous?” Fresh horror hit. She grasped his arm. “What about the transplant? Did it work?” The questions seemed to be jumping out of her, one on top of the other.
“It’s too soon to know if it’ll work,” he said quietly. “But his doctors are optimistic. It’ll take a few weeks to be sure Linus is producing new blood cells the way he should be.”
Her fingers relaxed. “That’s what we named him?” Of all the names she could have imagined choosing, Linus was not one of them. “Like the comic character? Charlie Brown’s best friend with the blanket? Linus like that?”
He looked away and began adjusting her blankets again. “Yeah.”
She rubbed her wet cheeks. “His father must have named him.” Then she cringed because she sounded as callous as her mother would have sounded.
She pushed aside the tidy blankets and then pushed aside Adam—which was about as easy as moving the side of a mountain—and rolled off the bed. She yanked open the old-fashioned wardrobe and pulled out the canvas bag she’d used when she’d moved from the hospital to Fresh Pine. It wasn’t large. The size of a shopping bag, really. But all of her present possessions—four days’ worth of clothes before a laundry session was necessary—would still fit.
“What’re you doing?”
“I have to see him.”
“Eric? Or Linus?”
She frowned, hesitating for a moment. Waiting for that sense of panic.
But it didn’t come and she finished tucking a folded pair of blue jeans into the bottom of the canvas bag. “Linus. Though even I realize I’ll have to see his father, too. Did you meet him? After the transplant?”
“Before.” His voice was short.
“What did you think of him?”
He didn’t answer right away. “There wasn’t a lot of time to think. But I will tell you that no matter what went on between the two of you, I don’t believe he’d harm Linus. He’s too devoted.”
“Whereas I was on a highway heading to Canada,” she said harshly. “Don’t suppose he happened to tell you why that was?”
His silence was answer enough. She grabbed the T-shirts stacked on the middle shelf and flicked a look toward Adam. “What?” She thrust the shirts in with the jeans and pointed at him. “What else haven’t you told me?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.” Then he pulled out his cell phone.
“No. No more pictures,” she begged. “No more videos.” She couldn’t take any more today.
“No pictures,” he assured. He finished tapping the screen and held the phone to his ear while he paced back and forth in the limited space between her bed and the window. “No video—Hey. Need a favor.”
He was obviously addressing the person he’d dialed.
She turned back to the wardrobe and grabbed her underwear, tucking the panties down into the corners of the bag.
“See if you can get another ticket on my flight tonight,” Adam was saying behind her. “I’ll text you everything you’ll need for the reservation.”
The space between her shoulder blades tickled and she looked back to see his gaze on her.
The second he realized she was looking at him, he made a point of looking out the window. As if the view of the clinic’s small parking lot below was the most interesting thing in the world. “If there’re no more seats on mine, then get us both on the first available one tomorrow.”
Laurel focused on her own task. She could hear the faint buzz of words coming out of his phone but couldn’t make out the words. Except the buzz sounded agitated.
Or maybe she was just projecting.
“Kane, save it for now,” Adam spoke again. “You going to help me or not? Yeah. I’ll text you her birthday. You’ll need it to get the ticket. Thanks.”
The wardrobe was empty. The canvas bag bulging. She still made herself wait a moment before she turned around to face him again. “That plane ticket you’re talking about. It’s for me?”
“Obviously.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. He didn’t look exceedingly happy about it. “Thank you. Soon as I...figure out things, I’ll pay you back.”
He looked pained. “I’m not worried about the money, Laurel. I’m worried about you.”
“Well, don’t be. You’ve done more than enough for me already. I understand why you came here now.”
His head jerked back an inch, his eyebrows lowering warily. “You do?”
“My... Eric...couldn’t very well make the trip. Not now with the baby in the hospital. It was very decent of you to come all this way instead.”
His lips twisted. “That’s me. Decent.”
She set the loaded bag on the foot of the bed and went into the bathroom. She plucked her toothbrush from its cup on the countertop, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. Then it occurred to her. “Was Eric at UB, too?” She pulled open the little drawer beneath the sink to grab the rest of her toiletries and went back into the bedroom.
“No. You told me
