“I know,” Hannah said, her eyes filling with tears when Cherry didn’t respond. “She’s tough as nails. And she’d never leave me.”
I nodded, before turning and walking out. Every now and then, it got to all be too much for me, especially with Cherry just lying there like that. If she’d only give us a small sign that she was going to be okay, I’d find it a lot easier to keep the faith.
Blade followed me out.
“Hey, man, do you want me to talk to Davenport?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But don’t say anything about Cherry. If he’s involved in all of this shit, it might be best he doesn’t know you know her. Go pay him a visit and see if he volunteers any information. I’m going to take Hannah and Grace down to the cafeteria for some coffee and a little break. Call me if I need to know anything.”
“Will do, boss.”
Blade walked away stoically and I wanted to call him back and check in on his mental state, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk about any of that. In the end, I let him walk away. Work would do him good.
Chapter 32
DEREK
My fingers trembled as I sprinkled the golden pollen into the tiny opening of the vial. I’d taken a botany course in med school and learned about a lot of unconventional herbs and flowers and plants that had all kinds of effects on the human body. I never thought it would be as useful as it was turning out to be now, though.
Brugmansia arborea, also called Angel’s Trumpet, is a gorgeous plant with large trumpet-shaped gold, pink or white flowers. My grandmother grew them in her garden. After my parents died, I inherited their property, and thus, the Angel’s Trumpet was now conveniently mine and since nobody was living there, I could easily pick a few flowers every few days without anyone seeing me.
It was all very simple, almost frighteningly so. The pollen was easy to harvest, with just a few shakes of the flower onto some parchment paper, making for easy transport when I couldn’t take the whole flower.
And I made sure to close my office door every morning while I sprinkled the pollen into the vial of saline so it would be easy to conceal and explain, should I have to.
Shaking it up until it was completely mixed up, I slipped it into my pocket and sat back down at my desk. I was tired. Exhausted, really. I was too busy dealing with Beddingham’s demands that I couldn’t concentrate properly on my patients.
I’d not signed up for all this fucking stress. I’d been born with a silver spoon in my mouth — I’m not cut out for this shit.
To top it off, this morning at breakfast, I’d discovered that I had another problem to deal with. Hank told his wife Jenny, who was friends with Beddingham’s nephew, who told his uncle, who told me, that Blade was back in town. Information like that spreads like wildfire in this town and it didn’t take long to get back to me, just like that.
I hated that fucker.
I wondered if Rose knew he was back.
I didn’t see how she wouldn’t have heard already, considering it had gotten to me. Half the town probably figured he was here to see her, now that she’d broken up with me.
Hell, she’d probably called him herself.
He’d left her, but she never stopped thinking about him. I’d seen her staring off into space for years, a wistful look on her face. I knew she was thinking about that bastard, but I kept my mouth shut, letting her deal with her feelings, thinking she’d come around at some point.
But she never did.
Instead, she stayed the fucking ice queen, freezing me out. Hell, I’m surprised we managed to have two kids.
Most of the time, she recoiled when I touched her.
Most of the time, it was much easier to blame Blade instead of myself.
So, now he’s back. I had no idea what that meant, but there’s no fucking way I’m going to let him claim my wife. She may say otherwise, but I still hadn’t signed those divorce papers and I’m certainly not going to do so if she starts running around with that asshole.
“She’s probably just doing it to humiliate me, to force me to sign,” I muttered to myself. “Fuck this.” I stood up, grabbed a pile of patient files and headed out into the hallway. Rose couldn’t do shit to wear me down. I had a lot more stamina than she thought I did.
I patted the vial in my pocket and rounded the corner, stopping short when I saw a massive man blocking my way.
“What’s up, Derek?” he growled, his heavily tattooed-arms crossed over his boulder-sized chest.
Chapter 33
BLADE
I was glad I caught him off guard.
He looked like I knocked the wind out of him for a second, and I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t laugh at him.
The Derek I knew twenty years ago was exactly the same man standing in front of me. Derek always had an air of privilege about him. He was rich and blonde and perfect back then, and he knew it. He had zero worries in life, and he mocked those that did, completely out of touch with the kids in school that weren’t born with blood as green as his.
Because of that disconnect, he had no problem being a bully.
He was so fucking full of himself that he had no idea what an utterly manipulative and selfish asshole he truly was.
So, throwing him off his well-rehearsed game held a secret pleasure all its own. Never mind that he’d married Rose after I left. To think of his clammy fucking hands touching her was enough to make me want to rip his pretty little head off already.
“Blade!”
“Hey,” I nodded, blocking his exit.
“I heard
