“I get that”—Nolan shrugged—“but the public’s perception might be different. The media likes to spin things for dramatic effect, you know that. There might be people who will say you are only turning this tale for the royalties.”
“I’m not,” I insisted. “The royalties are going to the women and children’s transitional house.”
“I’m just telling you what people might say. I’d rather you didn’t face that kind of hostility, but if you’re prepared for it—”
“They can say whatever they want,” I assured him. “All that matters is the truth.”
Nolan didn’t look convinced, but he checked his watch again and frowned. “I have to run, I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t upset you, but I just wanted you to hear my thoughts. And I think it would be in your best interest to keep that in mind.”
“Thanks, Nolan.” I gave him a tight smile. “I appreciate it.”
“You take care now,” he said.
I wanted to. But when I shut the door behind him, I felt miserable all over again.
AT EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT, FOODdictated my life. I was tired and ached everywhere, and it seemed like every night, I had a new craving that needed to be fed.
Luckily for me, Birdie had stuck around and offered to be my personal shopper, making runs to the grocery store every night for ice cream or whatever else I deemed necessary at the moment.
Tonight, we were supposed to be having dinner with Ace and Father Hawk. It had become our Sunday night ritual, and even though it was a very odd combination to have sitting at one dinner table, it just worked.
But as I prepared the pasta, I couldn’t help but notice that Birdie had been gone for a long time. I’d sent her out for garlic bread, and she promised to be back in few minutes. That was over an hour ago. When I walked out to the driveway to check that I hadn’t missed her pull up, Ace was already out there.
“She still isn’t back yet?” I asked.
He grabbed his helmet and hopped on his bike. “No. I’m going to check on her to make sure she didn’t have any car trouble along the way.”
He tried to make it seem like that was a logical explanation, but the store was only a couple of miles down the road. If she had car trouble, she could have walked back by now, barring that her phone didn’t work, which it definitely did. Per my instructions, she always had a burner phone, and she always changed it out at the beginning of the month, loading it up with minutes.
“Hang on,” I said. “Let me try calling her really quick.”
I punched in Birdie’s number since habit taught me long ago not to store it in my phone under contacts. Ace waited, watching as it rang several times and then someone picked up. Someone who definitely wasn’t my sister.
“Hello?”
“Hello?” I answered. “Who is this?”
“My name is Tom,” he said. “I’m a medic with the Clark county ambulance service. Can you tell me who this phone belongs to?”
My stomach dropped, and it felt like the air had been punched from my lungs. Ace got off his bike and made it to me just in time before I collapsed against him and grabbed the phone.
“Who is this?” Ace demanded.
The previous conversation was repeated on speakerphone as Ace explained the phone belonged to Birdie, and she hadn’t made it home for dinner.
“It looks like she may have been involved in a car accident,” Tom explained from the other line. “We’re en route to Kindred Hospital now.”
Ace mumbled a few more words and hung up, somehow managing to load my heavily pregnant body into the passenger seat of Lucian’s Dodge Demon. He disappeared inside for a few seconds and returned with the keys.
“He didn’t say if she was okay,” I said. “Is she okay, Ace?”
I didn’t know how I expected him to have the answer to that, but I wasn’t thinking logically at that moment. I couldn’t go through this again. I just couldn’t.
“She’s okay,” Ace promised. “She’ll be okay. Birdie’s tough, remember?”
He gunned it down Summerlin, and I thought about what he said. “She isn’t that tough.”
Ace looked at me from the driver’s seat, his voice as steady and certain as I’d ever heard it. “She is.”