“It’s okay, Sasha. It’s nothing you did.”
She reached out her arms to Riley and scooped him close to her. His screams quieted down to sobs, but his crying didn’t stop. “Shh, Riley-bear, we’ll get you to the doctor, don’t worry. They’ll make you all better again.”
Erin dropped down into a chair, lifted her T-shirt and unsnapped her bra in an attempt to soothe Riley by nursing him, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He simply turned his face away and kept on crying.
“What can I do to help?”
Erin turned to the sound of Sam’s deep voice beside her.
“Can you get his car seat from the nursery and bring it through?”
“Good idea,” Sasha interjected. “And I’ll get his diaper bag ready for you, just in case you have to wait at the emergency room. Although with how upset he is, I think they’ll hurry you through.”
Between the two of them, they gathered everything Erin needed to get Riley to the doctor. Sasha left as Erin was buckling Riley into the baby carrier before carrying him out to the car.
“Have you got everything you need?” Sam asked, coming back inside after putting the diaper bag and Erin’s handbag in the car for her.
“I think so.” She thought for a minute, next to impossible to do with Riley’s distress filling the air. “Car keys! I think I left them in my office. They’ll be under some papers I think, on the desk. Can you grab them for me while I secure the car seat?”
“Sure.”
* * *
Sam had never seen the baby so distressed. It cut him to his core knowing there was little he could do to help. He made his way as quickly as he could to Erin’s office and looked around. No obvious sign of the keys, he noted, and reached to pat the papers on her desk. He gave a grim smile. The woman might be almost fanatical about keeping the lodge spick-and-span but she left a lot to be desired when it came to paperwork. It was endearing and reassuring at the same time that she was vulnerable in at least one area of her life. She seemed to handle everything else so capably.
He shifted some papers to one side, sending an envelope falling to the carpet. As he picked it up, he noticed the keys tucked behind another pile of papers at the corner of the desk. He grabbed them and was about to put the envelope back on the desk when he noticed the return address on the back.
It was the facility David had used for the DNA testing they’d recently done on Riley. Why would Erin have had correspondence from them, he wondered. He slid the papers out of the envelope and noted it was dated two weeks ago. His eyes skimmed the details quickly, then again more slowly as he tried to assimilate the words on the page with the confusion in his mind.
She already knew James Connell wasn’t Riley’s biological father? But why wouldn’t she have said anything? Why make him wait and go through all that rigmarole of asking further questions and only responding to the requests for testing once the court order came through? A flash of red clouded his vision as a fast-burning anger swelled through him. How dare she have withheld this truth?
What kind of woman did that? He shoved the letter back into the envelope and dropped it back onto the desk. Whatever her reasons, and he had to give her the benefit of the doubt, he wouldn’t be able to press her for them now. Right now their most urgent priority was to get Riley to the doctor and find out what, exactly, was wrong.
Erin had Riley secured in his car seat and she rushed to Sam as he exited the back door, pulling it closed behind him and testing to ensure it was locked.
“Here,” he said. “The keys.”
Erin all but snatched them. She slid into the driver’s seat of the car and tried to put the keys in the ignition. Now that his mother wasn’t near him, Riley started to scream again, the sound so wretched and heartbreaking that even Sam began to feel close to tears.
To his surprise, Erin slammed a fist on the steering wheel.
“I can’t do it,” she sobbed, tears now streaming down her face. “I can’t drive with him so upset. I need to be back there with him. You’ll have to drive us.”
Before he could protest, she was out of the seat and tucking herself into the back with Riley.
“Sam! Please, you have to drive us,” she implored when he didn’t move.
“Erin, you don’t understand. I haven’t driven since—”
“Sam, we need you. Please.” She was sobbing in earnest now.
He gritted his teeth and tried to still the anxiety that now tied his stomach in knots of sheer terror. A cold bead of sweat ran down his spine as he walked around the car and lowered himself into the driver’s seat. It hurt to breathe and his muscles felt as if they were locked solid, refusing to obey his mental commands to reach for the key in the ignition and start the car.