Daddy dominic, p.23
Daddy Dominic, page 23
Ed grimaced. “You just concentrate on taking care of Gwen. I need to go and check on the hospital camera feed. We’ve managed to get access to Gwen’s phone. There isn’t much on there, though. Some calls from a guy called Boss Man.”
“Maybe her old boss.”
“Hmm. Could be. Can you call me if she wakes up and is ready to answer my questions?”
Dominic nodded.
“Stay with her. She needs you more than you need revenge. Okay?”
“I’ll be here, watching over her.”
29
Her whimpers were the first sign that she was in distress. He jumped up from the chair he’d been sitting in for the last few hours.
She started thrashing around. Each movement was followed by a cry of pain that shattered him. He raced over to her.
“Darling girl. Can you hear me?” Dominic gently placed his hands over her arms. He didn’t want to pin her down, but she was hurting herself. “Gwen, wake up and look at me! Gwen!”
“Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed in a hoarse voice. She tried to kick out at him, crying out again in pain.
“Baby, stop! You’re hurting yourself! Stop!”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
A roar of fury came from behind him, and he wasn’t prepared as someone launched themselves at him, knocking him away from her. Luckily, he let go of Gwen quickly or he would have brought her with him. Turning, he faced the man who’d hit him.
A raging, completely furious Reuben Jones.
“Get the fuck away from her!” Reuben snarled, stepping toward him.
Dominic didn’t know Reuben well. But the few times he’d seen him, he always looked put together. Unruffled and calm.
Not this time.
His eyes were wild, his shirt half-untucked, and his hair was standing on end.
Dominic was staring at a man who was half out of his mind with worry. So even though he wanted to take the bastard down, he held back.
“I wasn’t doing anything to her.”
“You were holding her down! She wanted away from you! Did you do this to her? If you have anything to do with this . . . I will kill you.”
Anger flooded him that this asshole thought he could ever do that to a woman . . . let alone a woman he loved.
Fuck. He loved her.
There was no other way to describe his feelings for her. He planned to keep her. He was going to be everything she needed. All he wanted was her happy and safe.
Because he loved her.
But so did Reuben . . . that much was clear. He was protecting her.
“She was in the middle of a nightmare,” Dominic explained to the shattered man. “I was trying to get her to stop thrashing around and hurting herself.”
“What is going on in here?” The nurse from earlier entered the room. “One of the patients said they heard yelling.”
“They must have been mistaken,” Reuben said with a small smile. “I think Gwen was having a nightmare, though. I’m Reuben Jones, her emergency contact. I’m going to need to talk to the doctor in charge of her care.”
“It’s Xavier. He had an emergency, he’ll be back soon,” Dominic explained.
“All right. At least he’s a semi-decent doctor.”
Wow. Some high praise.
“Everything is fine here,” Dominic told the clearly nervous nurse.
“I don’t know. I think you should both leave. I can call security.”
They both stiffened.
No fucking way.
“I’m not leaving,” Reuben said darkly. “Call whoever the fuck you want.”
“She’s just doing her job and she’s trying to protect Gwen,” Dominic told him. “You’d want her to do that under any other circumstances.”
Poor woman was shaking in her shoes too.
“You’re right.” Reuben grimaced. Or was he attempting a smile? Hard to tell. “Get the hospital administrator down here. Please. I’m prepared to make a generous donation to the hospital for the exemplary care my best friend is receiving.”
She shot them both a suspicious look, but nodded and left the room to go call someone.
No doubt she wanted to wash her hands of the two of them.
A whimper from Gwen drew both of their attention. “Dom? Dominic?”
Dominic moved over to her side, remaining on alert in case Reuben decided to go for him again. But the other man was too busy staring down at Gwen with such anguish on his face that it hurt Dominic to look at him.
“I’m here, darling girl. You’re safe.”
“Where am I? Why can’t I open my eyes? What’s going on?”
“Shh. It’s fine. I’m going to hold your hand now.” He slid his hand around hers. “Your left eye is swollen but you should be able to open the other one. It might hurt because you have a concussion, but the room is pretty dark.”
She managed to crack her right eye open, letting out a small cry.
“Don’t do it if it hurts, Andy,” Reuben commanded, coming over to her other side.
Andy?
“Reuben?” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“The hospital called me. I’m your emergency contact, remember?”
“That’s where I am? The hospital? I hate the hospital. Why is everything blurry?” There was such confusion and pain in her voice that he felt ill.
“It’s okay, darling girl. You’re safe. You’re in the hospital. You have a bad concussion and some bruising around your stomach, ribs, and on your legs and arms.”
“I was . . . car accident?”
“You don’t remember what happened?” Reuben asked sharply.
Dominic sent him a look. “She needs calm right now.”
Reuben glared at him, but to his surprise he nodded. Then he wrapped his hand around Gwen’s free one.
Did he love her?
Was this more than friendship?
Don’t be a dick. A woman can be just friends with a man.
“She’s my best friend,” Reuben told him, almost as though he could read his mind. “Don’t make it into anything else.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Gwen turned her head to look up at him.
“Nothing, baby. I promise. You just lie there and don’t stress.”
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry.” A sob broke from her mouth.
“Hey, why are you sorry?” Dominic cupped the side of her face with his hand. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“R-Reuben.”
“I’m here, Andy. I’m right here. Don’t you worry, I’m going to find whoever the fuck dared to touch you and I’m going to kill them. I’m going to get you the best care available. And then, when you’re feeling better, you’ll come back with me. I’ll set you up with a nurse at my place.”
“Like fuck you will,” Dominic snapped. “You are taking her nowhere. Gwen is mine. And she stays with me.”
Reuben just smiled. “Not. Fucking. Happening.”
“What is going on in here?”
They both glanced over as Xavier walked in, frowning. Behind him stood Ed.
The sheriff winced as he saw Reuben standing there. “Great. Just my luck you’re her best friend.”
“Sheriff. Xavier. Good. I want an update on her health and the investigation into who did this. Right now.”
Ed sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Why? Why me?”
“No,” Xavier said.
“No?” Reuben said smoothly.
“What you need is to calm the fuck down. Both of you. The last thing Gwen needs is to be fought over like she’s a bone. She is meant to be relaxing. She needs sleep. Do you think this is what she needs?”
Guilt flooded Dominic. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We need to do what’s right for Gwen.” He eyed Reuben. “But I am not the enemy. I want to look after her.”
“Like you did while she was here.”
“Reuben . . . don’t be angry,” she whispered. “Dom takes good care of me. I don’t . . . I don’t know what happened, but I don’t think he was here.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” Xavier said. “I’m going to check your vitals. Then Ed has some questions to ask you.”
“Ed?” she asked.
“I’m here, Gwen. Are you up to answering some questions for me?”
“I don’t . . . what happened?”
They all exchanged grim glances. Xavier checked her over, then moved next to the door. “I’m going to stay in case she needs me. Also, you both upset one of my nurses, so be prepared to smooth some feathers.”
“I’m sure a donation to the hospital will take care of everything,” Reuben said.
Xavier sighed. “Money doesn’t solve everything. But in this case, it will probably help. Does Juliet know you’re here?”
“I texted her when I arrived. I flew into the small airstrip I put in by her house. Didn’t want her to get a fright if she heard a plane land.”
“Our house. All right, then.”
“I’ll try to keep this short, Gwen,” Ed told her, moving closely. “But if you want to do this alone, you can tell me.”
“Not happening,” Reuben said.
“No way,” Dom said at the same time.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she cried.
Both of them tightened their hands around hers.
“That’s fine, Gwen,” Ed reassured her. “Can you tell me what your last memory is of?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” She sniffled, clearly starting to panic.
“This might be too soon,” Xavier said.
“I know,” Ed said grimly. “But we need all the information we can get. The person that brought her in to the hospital seems to be a ghost. He kept his face down and his truck isn’t registered. I have no idea who he is.”
“It . . . it’s okay. I want to help.”
“That’s my brave darling girl,” Dominic murmured. “You can do this. We’re all right here to help you.”
Gwen was still kind of confused about what was going on. She knew that she’d been injured somehow and that Reuben and Dominic were here.
“I didn’t tell you about Reuben. He’s my best friend.”
“I know, darling girl.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was going to. I came to Wishingbone to find out what I could about Davidson. He was mean to Juliet.”
“What?” That word was snapped from across the room. Xavier? “What did he do to Juliet and why don’t I know about it?”
Someone sighed. It sounded like Reuben. “Because it was reported to me. He was saying things about her to his friends. Laughing about my sister.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me or Brick?” Xavier asked.
“Why would I?” Reuben snapped back.
She moaned as her head throbbed. Nausea bubbled in her stomach.
“Both of you calm down,” Dominic said. “That isn’t important right now.”
“We’ll talk later,” Xavier said darkly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Hey, it’s all right,” Dominic told her. “I don’t care that you didn’t tell me that your best friend is Reuben Jones. Or that he’s the reason you’re here in Wishingbone.”
“You sent her here to spy on Davidson?” Ed asked.
“It was a reason to get her out of New York.” Reuben sounded so tired. Had he been awake all night? “She hasn’t been well. She left her job suddenly, and she was so stressed all the time. I heard what Davidson had been saying. I could have ruined him without sending her here . . . but I thought it would be good for her to come here.”
She’d known it had mostly been a ruse to get her here. To Wishingbone. Heck, he’d probably been hoping she’d find a Daddy here.
And you did . . .
“Dom-Dom? You upset? With me?” It was so hard to think.
“No, baby. I told you already that I’m not, remember? No one is upset or angry with you.”
“She’s a bit confused because of the head injury,” Xavier said.
Uh, that explained it.
“I told her not to tell anyone that she knew me or why she was here,” Reuben explained. “I knew people wouldn’t be as accepting if they knew she was my best friend.”
“How come we’ve never heard of her?” Xavier demanded.
“I don’t have to tell you shit,” Reuben said.
“Reuben,” she whispered, knowing he was upset. “I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not. And it’s my fucking fault for sending you here. I never thought . . . I didn’t think you’d be in any danger. I thought we could pin something simple on Davidson and fucking ruin him. Hell, I can do that shit with my eyes closed. And I thought you knew about Andy.”
“Andy?” Xavier asked. “Wait, Gwen is your friend, Andy?”
“Yep.”
“You didn’t think to tell us that Andy is a girl?”
“Why does that matter?” Reuben asked smoothly. “Is there something wrong with having a girl as my best friend.”
“Of course not! God, you’re irritating sometimes.”
“You’re just jealous because you’re not my best friend,” Reuben said.
“Do you think Davidson could have gotten word about why Gwen was here?” Ed asked, interrupting the budding argument.
“Fuck. Fuck!” Reuben said. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. How would he know? All she has done is some research into him and one night she went to his restaurant for dinner.”
“And got on his bad side,” she whispered huskily. She remembered that. “I couldn’t find anything. None of the locals like him. But I can’t think . . .” She tried, but nothing was coming to her and her head was pounding.
“Don’t force it,” Dominic soothed. “It will come back to you eventually, but you aren’t to make the pain worse.”
“Dominic is right,” Xavier said. “You have to let it come to you.”
It was so frustrating, though. There were so many things that she should know. However, they were just beyond her grasp.
“Just tell us what you do remember,” Ed said. “Have there been any other threats? Other than from Liv?”
“No. Not that I recall.”
“What threat from Liv?” Reuben asked. “Does this have anything to do with you rescuing her the other night?”
Ed quickly explained the threatening note that Liv left outside Gwen’s hotel room, and how her parents had taken her to Florida.
“She got off too lightly,” Reuben said darkly.
“She’s just a kid.” She forced her good eye open to look up into his blurry face, then she closed it again. “My vision is blurry. And it makes me feel ill.”
“You might feel like that for a while,” Xavier soothed. “I’m going to keep you in here for forty-eight hours and then I’ll let you go home if everything looks good and you have someone to take care of you.”
“She does,” Dominic and Reuben said at the same time.
Uh-oh. She needed to diffuse things before they started arguing. She really didn’t want to stay in the hospital, but the idea of having to move made her want to vomit.
“Liv didn’t really know what she was doing,” she said, hoping to distract Reuben. “She’s young and was under this Darius guy’s influence.”
“I don’t care if she’s just a kid,” Reuben snarled. “She better have told you everything about him, Sheriff.”
Oh dear. He was about to explode.
“How I do my job is none of your business, Reuben,” Ed replied firmly.
“It does when my best friend is lying beaten in a hospital bed. So do you think this Darius guy is the one that kidnapped her?” Reuben asked.
She tensed. Was it? Why couldn’t she remember?
“What happened to me?” she asked. “I was kidnapped? Someone hurt me? Why don’t I remember?”
“It’s all right, baby. You have a concussion so that’s why everything is muddled,” Dominic told her.
“Do you remember going to the Wishing Well for drinks?” Ed asked.
Did she?
A vague memory tickled at her brain. “Dildo to his face.”
Someone cleared their throat awkwardly. “Yeah, that’s it. Georgie was telling you that story.”
“I don’t remember leaving. Where did I go?”
“You drove back to the hotel,” Ed told her. “We have you on camera arriving. It looks like someone was talking to you from the shadows. Do you remember that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Who was it?”
“We couldn’t see them on the camera,” Ed told her.
Her breathing grew faster.
“All right,” Xavier said calmly. “I don’t think Gwen’s memory is going to return right now and we’re upsetting her. Let’s leave it there for now.”
“No. No! I need to know! How did I get here?”
There was silence.
“The not knowing is worse,” she cried.
“Shh, darling girl. You’re safe. I’ll tell you. It looks like you were kidnapped from the hotel carpark. We don’t know who took you or where. But someone brought you here to the hospital. A big guy with a beard. We don’t know who he is or if he had anything to do with your kidnapping.”
But why would someone kidnap her?
Big guy. Beard.
“Flannel?”
“Yes, he was dressed in flannel. You remember him.”
“Calls me girlie. Think might be same guy in truck when I fell off bike.”
“Shit,” Dominic swore. “I forgot about that. When she fell off her bike the other day, a big guy wearing flannel with a beard stopped to help her. Fuck. Could it be the same guy? Could he have fixated on her and kidnapped her?”
“We’ll find him,” Ed promised. “Is there anything else about him you can remember, Gwen? What road were you on?”
“I don’t know. I just . . . I don’t think he would hurt me.”
“Sometimes those are the people you have to be wary of,” Reuben told her. “Sheriff, I expect hourly updates on your investigation. If you find anything, I want to know.”
“Reuben, you can’t demand that sort of shit,” Ed grumbled.
There was a knock on the door.
“Reuben, Jack, the hospital administrator is here,” Xavier said.
