Page 14 of Four Money (Ever and Always 1)

“I’m sorry, sir.” The nurse behind the counter flinched, as if expecting Trent to take a swing at her.

Holly might not have been half as composed as him if someone had tried to keep her from being by her mother’s side when the time came. A full-body shiver ran down her spine.

The nurse winced as she took in Trent’s stony visage and Holly biting her lip as she came up behind him. “I feel for you. I do. I’m just doing my job.” The woman frowned. “Let me try again.”

She turned her back and whisper-shouted into the receiver of a wired phone with a zillion blinking lights. Then her head hung before she wrapped up the call and turned around. “I’m sorry, sir. He’s already gone.”

Gone? Holly thought that was the oddest way to put it. Had the man just gotten up and slipped out the door? No. They were telling Trent that his father was dead.

They hadn’t made it in time.

He would never get to say whatever it was that he would have murmured or to share those final moments with his parent to ease their transition to…wherever it was he’dgone.

“Trent, I’m so sorry.” Holly hugged him tight from behind, rubbing his solid abs and chest as he vibrated in her arms. He peeled her off and pivoted in a circle slowly, as if he were lost, before stepping aside into a quiet corner where spare wheelchairs were stashed.

Holly followed, completely unsure of what else to say. Nothing she could think of seemed profound enough. And he wasn’t responding to her sympathy anyway. He had more in common with a robot than a grieving man. Was he in shock?

“We all gotta go sometime.” His tone was flat, nothing like the animated way he’d talked to her about their dinner, their time at college, or even that puppy he’d frozen his ass off on a cold spring night to help her save.

Yet, he wasn’t breaking down. And when she glanced up at him, she wasn’t sure his emotion had anything in common with sorrow. It looked more like anger, his face red and his teeth gnashed.

“Are you…okay?” It was a stupid question. Of course, he couldn’t possibly be all right. But what exactly was he? She didn’t know him well enough to guess.

“Yeah.” He looked up at the ceiling and blew out a breath.

“You sure?” She had no idea how to handle him or what was coming next, but she expected him to crumble at any moment.

He didn’t.

So she just kept staring at him, unblinking, waiting for something that never happened.

“I’m fine,” he promised, though it couldn’t be the truth.

“Trent…” Holly reached out again, but he jerked back, shaking his head at her.

“What? Am I supposed to do, fucking cry?” Trent shouted, his hands flung out. “Because he died or because he hated his own son so much he didn’t even want to say goodbye?”

Holly stumbled back a step and then another. There was no world in which she could imagine it being her mother in there on that cold, steel table and her own eyes being dry. Hell, she’d bawled herself to sleep dozens of nights over the fear of it alone.

“That bastard! Good riddance.” Trent kicked one of the wheelchairs, toppling it and several others. “Fuck him and his close-minded bigotry.”

The resulting clang caused Holly to jump.

She’d been right about Trent. He wasn’t the kind of guy she could fall for.

Not even in lust. Not even for a night.

“Look, there’s obviously a lot going on here that I know nothing about.” Holly distanced herself from Trent as one of the nurses motioned to the security guard in the lobby. “Your roommates should be here soon. Why don’t I wait outside for them?”

Trent hung his head, his fists balling. The heaving of his back kept her from doing as she’d suggested, though. No matter what he claimed, he’d been stabbed straight through the heart, either by his father’s death or whatever it was that would forever be left unfinished between them.

Shit.

Holly took a tentative step closer then another, her fancy heels out of place as they clicked against the institutional linoleum. She put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. “I’ll be right by the door if you need some air.”

He jerked his head once in acknowledgement but didn’t go with her as she headed for the exit, hugging her churning stomach. Now she wished she hadn’t eaten so much of the rich offerings at Kari’s engagement party or shaken herself up with so much dancing—and making out, after.

She’d barely emerged into the neon night when the limo screeched to a halt under the emergency room portico. Andi was the first out, crossing to her and crushing her in a bear hug. “Where’s Trent? What’s happening?”

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