“You can have your job back if you want it,” I tell him. “Just make sure you shoot me if I ever ask to do any more publicity like this weekend and I’ll do the same for you,” I tell him dryly.
“Then why do you need an agent?” he asks me, sounding offended.
“Keep the book sales up, I guess. Plus your fee is an excellent tax dodge.” I remind myself.
“Any chance I can get something to eat?” I ask him next, feeling hungry now. Feeling something inside apart from wondering where the hell Lucy is.
There’s a hot meal waiting in a private room, and I give Shaun his first task as my newly re-hired agent.
I describe Lucy to him and her situation in this hotel when she tried to check in originally.
“I need you to find her,” I tell him. “She’s probably with her father now but I’m not sure if they’re here in the hotel or even in the city still. You need to find her and bring her to me,” I instruct him.
“Sounds like it could be a needle in a haystack,” he moans, but my steely look and low growl as I lean forward changes his mind.
“…But I’ll get right on it. If she’s here, I’ll find her,” he gulps and leaves me to my meal before my next speaking engagement.
I know she’s here. I can feel it.
Forcing down some food I tell myself everything will work out, reminding myself what she told me herself, glancing across the empty table as if she’s sitting there, where she should be.
‘Just for a little bit. Until I can get dad sorted someplace else.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Lucy
Getting my dad away from Nathan is more about saving him then embarrassing myself.
He does know I’m not leaving, doesn’t he?
I just need to get my dad out of here before he hurts himself or makes Nathan lose his temper.
Dad being dad though, sees it very differently.
“It’s a good thing I came down after all,” he says to me as we get into the elevator.
“I know he’s some sort of a hero to you, a famous author and all that. But Jesus, Lucy, he’s older than I am!” he says with disbelief, shaking his head and wincing as we both watch his hand swell a little more around the knuckles.
“We should see a doctor,” I murmur, wondering if I’ll end up stuck for the rest of the night in a hospital ER instead of wrapped in Nathan’s arms like I’d planned.
Dad tries to say he’s fine again, but it’s clear by the time we get to the car that he’s not.
He looks pale and his hand is looking nastier by the second.
“Dammit, Lucy,” he growls. “If you’d just stayed with Marie like you were supposed to none of this-”
He tries to stay mad but then stops. Looking like he’s going to be ill.
“We’re going to the hospital. I think you broke it,” I tell him, fishing his keys out of his jacket pocket myself and driving him there.
Not my city, but there’s a hospital not far from the hotel, with a sign at the first exit I see which I take as a good omen.
“That looks broken alright,” the nurse says at a glance once we get to see someone at the hospital. But it’s what happens when she routinely takes my dad’s blood pressure that speeds everything up and leaves my head spinning.
Dad’s whisked away and I’m left hanging, worrying now more than being upset with him before a doctor appears to fill me in.
“Hi, Lucy? I’m Doctor Bernhardt. Your dad is fine. He has a slight fracture in his hand but it’s his heart we’re more worried about. We’d like to keep him in for a day or two. Just for observation and maybe a small procedure.”
“Can I see him?” I ask, feeling like coming to the hospital was the right thing after all.
Dad looks paler than before, but at least he’s not badmouthing Nathan or me for what’s happened between us.
I wonder still how much he’s pieced together. I mean, I never actually went into detail about Nathan and me. Probably just as well.
His hand is bandaged up and he’s hooked up to a lot of machines to measure his heart from what I can tell.
“It’s a good thing you got me here when you did, Lucy,” he says gravely, reaching for my hand with his good one.
“I might have to stay here for a bit, have something they call a stent put in my heart. Not a big deal but something they want to monitor for a day or two afterward,” he says, his whole attitude so different from just an hour or two ago.
“Do you need me to stay?” I ask. Blushing a little from how it must sound, but if dads gonna be alright then I know where I need to be.