Page 183 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
“Oh.” Trevor cleared his throat and thought for a moment. “Uh…well.”
Her uncle was indeed stepping away from his duties at Fairweather, telling people that retirement suited him, but there were also whispers of something more happening. A mental decline. An unknown illness keeping him in its grips. Jamison thought there were too many rumors for any of them to be true, office gossip, and nothing more, but she hadn’t seen him in a long time. The difference was staggering.
“Sometimes… sometimes people we love do bad things,” Trevor continued. “It’s not our fault.”
“But why?” Madison whispered. She reached for him, and Trevor looked startled for a moment, but then extracted the little girl from Claudia’s arms.
Settling her on his hip, Trevor gave a lengthy pause before answering. “Because the world is a bad place, and it has bad people in it, and sometimes those people are supposed to be our family. They’re supposed to love us, but they don’t. They love the badness in them more, and you know what, Madi? That’s not your fault. You have to keep being good and not think about the bad people anymore.”
The hospital door creaked open again.
“How are we doing in here?”
Holden sauntered in as if he hadn’t been knocked unconscious by a flying projectile during the explosion. A line of stitches cut across his forehead, and he shot a smirk at Emily.
“Hey there, Speed Racer.”
Emily hadn’t hesitated. Hopping onto Holden’s lap after he took a hit to the head, she’d gotten them the hell out of there.
A small blush tinted Emily’s pale face, but she mirrored Holden’s smirk. “That truck handled pretty well. It was smart of you to steal it.”
Holden wiggled his eyebrows. “Stealing trucks and saving the day is kind of my job.”
Talking on the phone, Will came in behind Holden, looking as tired as they all felt.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll tell them. Yes, Evie. I will properly yell at everyone involved, but please calm down. Okay, okay, okay. Bye.”
Putting his phone in his pocket, Will took a cleansing breath. “We are all in trouble from now until the end of time because we didn’t tell Evie what was happening.”
Albie had just been born, but it felt as if it had been months. Dizzy all of a sudden, Jamison placed a hand on the wall, and after settling Damon on the bed, Liam returned to her.
“I’m ready to go home,” she whispered. “But I want to know what the authorities have learned.”
“Are you sure?”
“I need to know.”
“Me too.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Tell me you’re okay.”
She closed her eyes and breathed him in.
“I’m okay.”
“Well, that makes one of us.”
Liam peered out the window of the taxi as they pulled into the staging area. Spotlights flooded the scene while dozens of men and women moved around in various groups.
“Looks like Anderson made it.”
They exited the cab and approached a cluster of feds holding Agent Anderson at its center. “Has anyone heard how Carter is doing?” Jamison asked.
“My dad said Carter isn’t leaving Evie's side,” Liam replied over the noise. “Carter tried to send Izzy home to get some rest, but they started arguing since Iz refused to leave her post.”
“Who won?”
“Carter ended up winning when Abe said they should consider the girls and Josie, who all needed to get some sleep in a real bed.” Liam took her hand as they entered a thicker crowd of people. “But then Samuel and Evie got upset over the idea of being separated from the girls, and now they’re all camped out in Evie’s hospital room having a giant sleepover, from what it sounds like.”
Smiling felt wrong, but the image in her head left her with no choice. She was ready to be home and meet her new nephew, but first, they had to deal with the aftermath of Michael.
