Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Gracen tried to argue …
Delaney had been the one to make the call. Malachi made a very good point. Hence, the deal that he would drive her to the ER, in her Jeep, just because, and he would also wait until she came back out to drive back to The Flats.
“Hey,” Delaney said to her companion to gain his attention.
It worked.
Malachi looked away from the window. “What?”
“I didn’t even think I needed to come here, honestly, but Gracen pressured me into it.”
So, here they were.
Malachi’s lips lifted at the corner into a partial smile. “Yeah, she’s pretty good at doing that. Still kind of bothered that we’re here, and nobody’s told me why. Fuck me for caring, right?”
Poor guy.
Perhaps the truth just wasn’t simple. If the reason for her bleeding and positive pregnancy test was a chemical pregnancy that was terminating itself, she didn’t know how to begin sharing that information with someone else. She could barely process it in her own mind.
It wasn’t time to share yet.
Delaney shrugged. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Really.”
Sighing, Malachi slapped the steering wheel of the Jeep. “Well, I’ll be out here waiting whenever you’re done. You don’t need me to go inside, right?”
Oh, God.
Absolutely not.
Delaney forced on a smile. “No, that’s okay.”
“Great.” Malachi scowled toward the rear entry door. “Hospitals give me the fucking creeps.”
“Better get over that,” Delaney returned, “seeing as how you’ve got a baby on the way.”
“Uh …”
The way his face blanked, and his mouth fell open at the fact point out to him had Delaney barking out a laugh. Real, true, and hard. It felt good. Malachi even grinned, shaking his head, in the seat next to hers.
“Get off it,” he joked back.
Delaney just shrugged. “All right, better get in and register. The faster I get that over with, the quicker I can be seen.”
“Text me if, for any reason, you need me to come in, okay?”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Delaney said, pushing open the passenger door.
Behind her, Malachi stressed, “Still, Delaney. Call me if you need something. I’m not going to pretend like Gracen didn’t spend a good twenty minutes arguing with me over whether or not she should come here with you. You don’t want to tell me what’s going on—so be it. The way my fiancée acted tells me more than enough. She wanted to be here, and you probably wanted her here with you, too. Instead, you got me. I can be inside with you in thirty seconds. Got it?”
She faced him, holding onto the edge of the Jeep door, and silently willed the deep pit in her stomach to fill with a bit of that protective love and concern she could feel radiating from Malachi. She truly did have the best kind of friends.
“Got it?” he asked again, stronger the second time.
“Yeah, I got it.”
He nodded toward the hospital, and his blue eyes darkened at the sight. “Even if it does give me the fucking creeps.” His gaze turned on the windshield ahead of him as he bitched under his breath. “Hate this place—they have crosses in every room.”
Over all the doors, in fact.
As if every person who walked through the door should automatically be assumed a Christian. Never had someone else voiced that private annoyance of Delaney’s until Malachi did at that moment.
“It’s kind of weird, right?” she asked.
His stare cut to her, and he shrugged. “Yeah, because it’s not God in there making people better. He’s not changing IVs and bed pans or doling out the medication. I don’t get it, I guess.”
“You know what’s funny?”
“Can’t think of anything,” Malachi joked.
Delaney rolled her eyes. “No, seriously. Think about it—people like Gracen barely look at those crosses over the doors or even think about them at all. It’s like any other decoration. It doesn’t mean anything to her. It doesn’t stick out more than anything else. She doesn’t overthink it or why it’s there. It just is.”
Something she saw and moved on. The sight of a cross, or the meaning behind it, didn’t hurt Gracen the way it did someone like Delaney.
Delaney couldn’t imagine what that was like.
Malachi’s jaws tensed as his head turned away once more. “I’d like to be able to do that.”
“Yeah,” Delaney muttered, “me, too.”
*
The rear entry to the emergency ward opened to a corridor where one could register with the receptionist waiting behind a pane of Plexiglass. Delaney stayed close to the heavy entrance door as a young mother with a sleepy toddler clinging to her arms finished checking in and waited for the person on the other side of the glass to push her son’s medicare card back through the hole.
She touched the boy’s forehead with her hand, and her brow furrowed at what she found. “He still feels really hot. That’s bad, right? It’s been since last night.”