“I know. I'm glad he was able to tell someone. Do you know where he is?”
“Let’s find out if he’s back yet.”
We head for the nurses’ station and find one nurse manning it. Her computer is beeping, she’s yelling commands to someone to our left, and the phone is ringing. She sees us and tells us to hold on as she picks up the line.
“Can I help you?” the nurse asks moments later, once she hangs up the phone and settles into her chair. It looks like the first breather she’s taken all day and I feel bad for interrupting it.
“I'm looking for Liam Morgan’s room.”
“Morgan?” She glances down at her computer and clicks at her mouse. “He’s in bay twelve,” she says in a rush and then picks up her phone that’s ringing again.
I turn to Jaxson and he grips my shoulders, giving me a smile. “You go in. I’m going to call my wife back.”
“Where’s Sam?” I glance around the hall. I was expecting to see her when I arrived as well.
“She went to grab some food. Liam told her to go eat before she bit his head off anymore. She’s not a happy hungry person.” He chuckles. “I’ll let her know you arrived too.”
Jax gives me one last reassuring shoulder squeeze before he walks off and I head down the hall towards bay twelve. Outside the room, I take a deep breath and shake out my hands to prepare myself for this talk Liam and I need to have.
I push the door open and I realize the nurse gave me the room, when I come face to face with a puffy black and blue Landon. Damn, Liam really did a number on him. Maria is stroking his greasy hair. She looks exhausted, pale, and her hair is a mess. For a second, I feel for her, having to deal with Landon and everything else she’s been through, but I quickly shake it off remembering what Landon told me about her wanting to raise my child.
Landon’s heart monitor spikes as his puffy eyes meet mine. "Holly."
"Sorry. They told me the wrong room.” I step back, realizing I spent too long staring at the scene before me to make an escape.
“Wait.”
"What?” I snap with my hand on the doorknob. “What could you possibly want?"
"I shouldn't have…”
"No. Save your breath. I'm sure you need your energy to heal. Feel better," I say roughly and spin on my heels to leave the room. Being in Landon’s presence, even if he looks like he got hit by a bus, makes my skin crawl. He tried to tear up my happy home for his selfish reasons.
Liam can make this right. He can keep his brother away from us.
I’m making my way back to the nurses’ station to find the correct Morgan brother’s room when I hear Maria call my name and the sound of her heels click on the tile floor. I stop and bow my head. I really don’t have the patience to talk to her, but on the other hand, there’s a little voice in my subconscious telling me to hear her out. I turn around, back to Maria.
"Holly, please." Maria touches my shoulder, her eyes silently pleading with me; she means no harm. "Can we talk?"
“I really want to go see Liam.” I can only picture what is going through the man’s mind since I haven’t arrived yet.
“I know, but it will only take a minute, I swear. And it might help put both of your minds at ease. Maybe help explain his fucked up actions." She glances back to the room where her husband lies.
“I’m not sure if you can excuse them.”
“No, maybe not. I had no idea what Landon was up to with you today. If I did, I would have stopped him. Please Holly, just give me five minutes,” she pleads.
“Alright.” I give in. “Five minutes because I don’t want Liam to think I’ve left him.”
We find two plastic chairs in a quiet part of the hall and sit down.
“I can safely tell you, to start, Landon doesn’t want Matty; he wants the thought of Matty.”
“I sort of figured that one out,” I mumble under my breath.
She leans back in the plastic chair and pushes out a deep breath. “Maybe things would have been different if our luck had been. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Landon and I have been trying to have a baby since we got married. We lost our first pregnancy shortly after we got married. After the third miscarriage, we tried IVF for about six months. Then just a few weeks ago, I was told I would never be able to carry to full term.”
I take her hand and squeeze. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I think there was a part me that always knew I wouldn’t be able to have my own. After our third miscarriage, I just knew somewhere deep inside something was wrong with me, but at the same time, I know plenty of women have babies after miscarriages, so we kept trying. Each loss has been devastating. Landon has been so supportive of me, but I’ve been so lost in dealing with my pain that I haven’t really been able to see what it was doing to him. It’s been killing him. He started drinking to where he blacks out almost every night.” Her eyes close tightly and tears leak out, running down her cheeks. “I’m worried about him, like how we all used to worry about Liam.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah. I didn’t see it at first because I was too focused on how much I hurt. But he hid it from me, like Liam did, so no one could see the suffering and pain.” She twists her fingers
