Boudreaux 01 Easy Love (27 page)

Having eaten all of the soup, I close the lid and come to a complete and utter stop. Written on the top in marker is
H. Peters
on, with the ‘on’ almost completely worn off.

H. Peters.

It can’t be!

I scratch my neck, which has just begun to itch, and log into the employee time clock program to bring up Hilary’s logs, print them out, and compare her comings and goings to the dates of the transfers.

Sure enough, every day there was a transfer, Hilary clocked out right around 2:00. Not long after Mr. Rudolph would have left for the hospital.

I page down Adam’s email, looking for the description of the woman who picks up the checks.
 

A woman in her mid-thirties. Blonde hair, average height, average build.
 

Hilary.

I swallow, but realize my tongue suddenly feels thick. My throat itches. Cheeks are tingly.

“Shit!” I stare down at the empty bowl and my heartbeat triples. It’s getting harder to breathe. My lips feel funny.

“Kate?” Mr. Rudolph is standing in the doorway, frowning. “Are you okay? Your face looks swollen.”

I shake my head and pull my purse out of my drawer, looking for my EPI pen, but I don’t have it. “Peanuts.”

But my mouth is so swollen, it sounds like
veanuth.

“What?”

“Ate peanuts,” I repeat and point to the bowl. “Ambulance.”

I’m struggling for breath now. My eyes are swelling shut.

I’m going to die. The bitch killed me!

“I need an ambulance,” I hear Mr. Rudolph say. “She has an allergy and can’t breathe.”

And suddenly, everything goes black.

***

“Kate?”
 

Someone is yelling at me. I try to open my eyes, but can’t. Everything is dark. My throat hurts.
 

“Kate, did you eat peanuts?” The same voice keeps shouting at me. I can only nod.

“It’s a nut allergy,” I hear another person say, as I’m being wheeled in a bed. “Gave her an EPI shot, and got her airway open.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kate O’Shaughnessy,” someone says. I don’t recognize any of the voices. Where is Eli? I want Eli. I can’t see. I touch my face, and it feels totally foreign. “Here’s her ID and insurance card.”

Someone has been going through my purse.

“Okay, guys, wheel her back to room nine.”

I’m shuffled about, lifted onto a new bed, changed from my clothes to a gown. All blind. My tongue is too big for my mouth. I itch
everywhere
.

“You can’t talk to me, can you, Kate?”

I shake my head.

“I’m Dr. Coggin,” the kind man says. “Just nod yes or no, okay?”

I nod yes.

“I hear you have an allergy to peanuts, and ate some?”

I nod.

“Do you know how much?”

I shake my head no.

“Are you itchy? Warm?”

I nod vigorously.

“Still having problems breathing?”

I hold my hand up and tilt it, as if to say
so-so
.

“Okay, we are going to give you some Benadryl and steroids in an IV, and it’s going to make you sleepy, but it should calm all of this down. If you have visitors, can they come back to see you?”

I nod and lie back, frustrated that I can’t talk or swallow. I’m quite sure I’m a drooling mess.

I want to cry, but my eyes are so swollen, my tear ducts don’t work.

There’s a prick in the back of my hand. “I’m putting in your IV, Kate. I’m your nurse, Mona.”

I nod.

“Because this Benadryl is going directly into your bloodstream, you’ll get sleepy pretty fast.”

Good.
Maybe I’ll wake up half-way normal.

“Kate?”
 

My head turns at the sound of Savannah’s voice. She takes my free hand in hers.

“Oh, my God, Katie, are you awake?”

I nod and squeeze her fingers, but the medicine is already making me tired. I need to tell her that it’s all because of Hilary, but I still can’t talk around my tongue, and now my body is feeling heavy from the drugs.
 

“Sleep, Kate,” Van says. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

“Where’s Eli?” I hear Beau ask Van as he also comes into my room.
 

“I don’t know,” Van responds. “We can’t find him.”

What does she mean they can’t
find him
?

I moan, frustrated, but can’t fight sleep as it slips over me.

Chapter Eighteen

Eli

“Look, it’s just government bureaucracy,” Sal, the shipyard foreman, says in frustration. “It’s their job to find these kinds of things.”

“It’s OSHA, Sal,” I reply coldly. “I don’t give a fuck if what you say is true, the bottom line is, you either fix that hydraulic system to their specifications, or they will shut down that whole line.”

He shakes his head and paces his office in frustration.
 

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he insists. “It’s perfectly safe.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Sal, you’ve been with us since I was a kid. I respect your opinion, and I’m not saying that it’s
un
safe. I am saying that it didn’t pass the OSHA inspection, and it has to be fixed. I don’t want to be called back down here for another ass-chewing by that inspector. You know the regulations. We operate within them, one hundred percent of the time. If you don’t want to work that way, I’ll find someone else who does.”

“Are you threatening me?” He scowls and props his hands on his hips.

“No. I’m explaining what I expect to happen. Get it done. You have twenty-four hours.”

I walk out without another word, frustrated that I was brought in on this in the first place. I’ve just spent three hours away from the office, where I have to fire a man who I’ve known almost half of my life.

Fuck.
And have charges brought against him.

But not before I sit down with him, man-to-man, to ask him just exactly what in the ever loving fuck he was thinking.

Not to mention, now that the case is closed, Kate will be leaving.

And why does the thought of that make me want to punch a wall? I’ve known since the day I met her this was temporary. We’ve had fun. I’ve enjoyed her.

I’ll enjoy women after her.

I stop next to my car and shake my head before opening the door and lowering myself inside.

The thought of other women does nothing for me except turn my stomach.
 

I pull my phone out of my pocket and frown when I realize the sound had been off. Four missed calls from Beau, all over two hours ago.

He can be damn annoying.

I punch the button for voice mail and pull out of the shipyard.

“Eli, Savannah and I are on the way to the hospital. Something’s happened to Kate.” My heart stills, then trips over. “I’m not sure what’s happening. Where are you?”

The next message fifteen minutes later: “I’m almost to the hospital. Answer your fucking phone.”

I floor the accelerator and try to call Beau, but it goes straight to voice mail, as does Savannah’s phone.
 

What the fuck has happened to Kate? Panic sweeps through me, picturing her broken and hurt in a hospital bed. Sweet, loving Kate is the last person on this Earth that deserves to be hurt. She’s so damn
good
.
 

Living in a world without her is incomprehensible, even if she’s not mine.
 

And she can’t ever be mine.

But she’d sure as fuck better be okay.

I find parking, run into the hospital and ask for Kate’s room number, rushing away as soon as the numbers are out of the receptionist’s mouth.

It seems to take forever to find Kate’s room, and just as I walk through the door, I see Kate reach up to Beau standing next to her, place her hand on the back of his neck, and pull his ear down to her lips.

“Hey, wrong brother—”

Beau puts a finger up, stopping me. Savannah and Lila are listening closely.

“Go ahead, Kate. What is it?” he says softly.

“Hilary,” we all hear her rasp. “Not Mr. Rudolph. She stole the money, gave me peanuts. I have proof.”

We all gather around her. I grip her leg, thankful that she’s alive, but fucking pissed at how swollen her beautiful face is. She looks like she went ten rounds with the devil himself.

“Enough for me to go have her arrested now?” Beau asks anxiously. Kate nods, and Beau kisses her forehead and leaves immediately, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he hurries out.

“What’s happened?” I ask Savannah and Lila, as I take Beau’s place next to Kate. Her hand is small and warm in mine. “Are you okay,
cher
?”

“Wanted you,” she says.

“Don’t talk,” Lila says soothingly. “Someone,
Hilary
, slipped her peanuts. She’s very allergic.”

“We told Hilary that at girls’ night out,” Savannah adds with mutiny in her eyes. “That little bitch knew exactly what she was doing.”

“Lunch,” Kate adds.
 

“She brought you lunch?” Lila asks and Kate nods. I brush her hair off her forehead and cheeks, kissing her lightly. I can’t stop touching her, reassuring myself that she’s okay.

“Thank God for Mr. Rudolph,” Savannah adds. “He walked in just as the reaction happened. Her airway closed up. He called the EMT’s and they brought her here. She’s been sleeping since I arrived, and her tongue is just now small enough for her to talk.”

“I knew I didn’t like that woman,” Lila adds.
 

“Sleepy,” Kate says.
 

“Sleep, baby,” I whisper in her ear. She tightens her grip on my hand. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

She nods and slips into sleep.

“I’m going to make that woman’s life a living hell,” I announce calmly.
 

“Good,” Lila says. “I’m going to go call Rhys and her parents. I’ll be back.”

Lila leaves and Savannah leans back in her chair and watches me quietly for a long minute.

“You’re in love with her.”

“I love her so much I can’t breathe,” I admit, surprised. “I think I just figured that out.”

“But you’re still going to let her leave.” It’s not a question. I glance up and hold my sister’s gaze for a moment, then look back at the sweet woman lying in this bed.

“I am,” I reply quietly.

“Eli—”

“It’s the way it should be. She deserves so much more than me, Van. I am a toxic, broken asshole.”

“Well, the asshole part is true enough, but the rest? No, you’re not, Eli. You’re one of the best people I know.”

I shake my head and kiss Kate’s hand. “No, I’m not. I’m your brother. You’re supposed to think that.”

“No, you’re wrong there,” she replies. “But I’m not going to fight you on this today. It’ll keep.”

We sit in silence, watching Kate sleep. She’s so still. Lila returns, and not long after, Declan. He looks as distraught as I feel when he lays his lips on her forehead and kisses her softly, whispering how sorry he is, how we all love her, that she’s going to be okay.

Words
I
should have said.

“Love you too,” she whispers to Dec and opens her eyes.
 

“You’re awake?” Dec asks.

“Hard to sleep with you hanging on me,” she says, making Dec laugh.
 

“May I please come in?” Mr. Rudolph is at the door, looking shy and uncomfortable. I stand and shake his hand.
 

“Thank you. For everything.”

He nods and approaches the bed, smiling kindly at Kate. “I see that you’re feeling better.”

Jesus, how bad did she look when they brought her in?

“Getting there,” she says. “Tongue is smaller.” Her eyes fill with tears. “Owe you ‘pology.”

“No,” he says, and covers her hand with his. “Beau filled me in. It never occurred to me to tell you about Serena. She’s been sick a long time, and everyone in the office knows. I would have suspected me too.”

“Thanks,” Kate says, and closes her eyes, tired again.
 

“Get well quickly, sweet girl,” he says, and stands to leave. “I need to get over to see Serena. Take care of Kate.”

“How long are they keeping her?” I ask after Mr. Rudolph leaves.
 

“Just until tomorrow. They’d let her go today, but she had so many breathing problems, they want to continue the IV steroids to make sure she’s in the clear.” Lila’s gaze never leaves Kate as she relays the information to me. “She scared the shit out of me.”

“All of us,” Declan says. “Is it true that she wasn’t breathing when the paramedics got there?” he asks Van.