Fated Bliss (Bliss #2) (17 page)

“Oh, man,” I complained and dragged my feet out the door.

“What are you, five?” he called after me.

“Asshole,” I yelled back, grinning.

His laugh followed me until I walked into the foyer. As I came around the corner, I ran right into a hard chest.

Two hands shot out to steady me as I looked up. It was none other than Mr. Johnston.

“Watch out,” he cautioned me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms too intimately for my liking. “Can’t be too careful, doll.”

My skin crawled.

“Sorry,” I mumbled and stepped back, putting some much-needed distance between us.

“No problem, doll,” he drawled, shooting me a wink.

Ewww.

I made a mental note to check and see how long this sleaze-ball was staying. I was already ready for him to go.

“Where are you running off to?” Mr. Johnston inquired as I stepped closer to the front door.

I flashed him an incredulous look, saying, “Errands.”

He gave me what I was sure he thought was his most charming smile. “Oh, okay. Well, I hope to see you around, Samantha.”

Gag me.

I sprinted out the door, not saying anything else.

Creepy McCreeperson needed to go quickly. I was going to talk to Grey about him when I got back.

This was one of the downfalls of running a B&B – you couldn’t pick and choose your guests and sometimes had to deal with the more unsavory ones.

∞

The windows of my Ford F150 were down, so I kept my voice somewhat low as I sang along with Bruno Mars. I didn’t have the most attractive singing voice and didn’t want to embarrass myself.

It’s happened before.

During my down time, my mind kept going back to Ben. I couldn’t help but feel as if something happened to him. There was the niggling feeling in my stomach that said he didn’t mean to leave me hanging like that. Nevertheless, it was insanity to keep going back to that. I was never going to see him again to find out.

I turned into my parent’s driveway and was surprised to find it empty. Mom and Dad were almost always around during the day, which was why I decided to come over. I had missed them and didn’t get to see them as much as I wanted yesterday – I was too exhausted.

Movement in the yard snagged my attention. A man was bent down working on the lawn. There was something very familiar about him…

Ben?

I blinked a couple of times, sure I imagined it. In the midst of my utter bafflement, I barely stopped in time and almost drove through my parents’ garage door.

That was close.

I turned off the ignition and stared at the man’s back again. I had to be seeing wrong.

Nope.

The man’s movements and proportions were identical to Ben’s. I had enough time with him to learn every curve, every well-honed muscle to know for sure. However, that was impossible.

There was no doubt in my mind that I was cursed. Only I could have the memory of my one-night stand haunt my every waking hour.

It was freaky.

I almost reached for my phone to call Mom and Dad, but I decided to question the man in the yard. Well, if he was who I thought he was, he was no man. The only person working in the yard should be the teenager that wrecked it.

On that thought, I examined the yard closely. He’d cleared most of the grass already, getting the soil ready for the sod, but I could clearly see how bad it was. There were deep ruts lingering from the tires in the section he hadn’t gotten to yet. Still, I was surprised that he had the yard somewhat back to normal. Well, as normal as it could be without grass, but it was even at least.

The trudge across the yard was annoying – I kept getting dirt stuck in my flip flops or they would stick into the wet soil. I’d need a hose before I left.

“Hey,” I called out, but I got no response.

As I closed in on the kid, I noticed white wires belonging to earbuds coming out of his ears and dropping down around his neck. His head bobbed up and down to the beat, too. Tools were laid out around him – a rake, a shovel, some type of knife thingy, a hoe, a garden fork, and a trowel. He was completely engrossed in what he was doing, unaware of my approach.

That should have been my first sign of warning.

I tapped his shoulder from behind. “Excuse me.”

“Argh!”
he bellowed and shot to his feet, the action an explosion of movements. His hand flung out, and I had to make a quick jump backward to evade it. As my feet landed on the ground, one stomped down on the end of the rake. The handle shot up and smacked me in the side of my face with a loud
crack
.

“
Ahhh!”
I screamed, clutching my face as pain blasted through the left side of my jaw, cheek, nose, and forehead. Shit, the whole left side was on fire! Blood filled my mouth and started flowing down my mouth from my nose.

“Oh, my God!” the kid yelled.

I jumped again, hoping to get away from him and his crazy hands. Because I was still covering my face, I was blind, not able to see anything on the ground. I tripped over the handle of another tool and went down. Something seared my arm, the pain excruciating, as I landed on the ground with a solid
thump
. I screamed again, writhing in agony.

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit,” the boy chanted. I could feel him crouching down next to me. “Don’t move,” he ordered, his voice quivering. “Oh, God. Stop moving. It’s…uh…”

I didn’t recognize the noises falling from my lips. They sounded like cries, moans, squeals, screams, howls, and shrieks all mixed together. I was far from caring, though. Everything throbbed with an ungodly amount of pain, especially my arm. It felt like someone had just fileted my skin.

The kid pried the hands from my face, explaining, “I need you to look into my eyes. Come on, lady.”

Slowly, my eyes fluttered opened. The blow to my head must have really messed me up because I was staring at Ben, albeit a much younger version of Ben, but it was Ben nonetheless.

“I’m…I’m dyin’,” I decided between cries. It all made sense. No wonder Ben disappeared – he died somehow, and his ghost had come for me.

“God, I hope not,” Ben’s ghost muttered, his eyes huge.

If I wasn’t dead, then he couldn’t be real, I concluded irrationally. As I lifted my hand to touch him, the pain intensified. “Ow,” I howled.

Nope, not dead.

You weren’t supposed to feel pain like this if you were dead.

Right?

“I’m gonna get you some help. I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No! They’ll take forever,” I forced out, trying to block out the agony.

The kid, whoever he was, put his trembling hands on his head, close to losing it. “Dad!” he shouted suddenly and ripped his phone from his pocket. A second, an hour…hell, I had no idea how long – I was in too much pain to know for sure – the kid started talking. “Dad! Oh, my God! Holy shit, Dad. She’s bleeding all over the place. She fell, and she landed on a fork – you know one of the sharp garden ones that curve outward. It…oh, Jesus, Dad! It’s sticking through her arm and coming out the other side!”

What?!

That broke through my agonized induced haze, and I looked down. Sure enough, three distinct prongs were sticking through my triceps.

That was it – I was done.

Everything faded into darkness.

Chapter 15

Ben

“Oh, shit,” Lincoln
breathed, panicking. “She passed out! Dad,
she passed out!
”

My heart was in my throat, but I kept it together. “Okay, Linc, I need you to stay calm. You’re at the Raiden’s, right?” I questioned, sorting through my rapid thoughts. How in the world this happened, and who the woman was, was beyond me.

“Yes!”

“Is anyone there with you?”

“Besides the chick unconscious and bleeding out on the ground, no!” Linc snarled, far from calm. “Everyone left!”

I’d ask more questions later, but for now I needed to find a way to get him here. I already knew that the ambulances around here came from one town over and they took forever, so that was out of the question. It would take too long to drive there and back. If she nicked an artery, she’d bleed out before I made it.

“Does she have a car?” I asked, figuring she had to have gotten there somehow – she didn’t appear out of thin air.

“Yes. A truck.” There were tears of relief in his voice. “There’s a truck in the driveway.”

I needed more info before we could proceed further. “How bad is the wound bleeding? Is blood squirting or is it a steady flow?”

“There’s blood everywhere, Dad. Her nose and mouth…her arm.”

“I’m more worried about her arm, Linc. Is it squirting or is there a steady flow?”

“A…a steady flow,” he answered finally, his voice shaking.

“Good. That’s good news.” If she had, in fact, nicked the artery, the fork was staunching the blood flow. “Put her in the truck and get here, Linc. It’s only five minutes. I know you’re freaking out right now, but don’t drive too fast and do not, I repeat,
do not
jostle her arm. And be careful. The last thing we need right now is for you to wreck.”

“Okay, Dad. Okay. I’ve got this.” He didn’t seem convinced and sounded like a scared little boy instead.

“You do. I have faith in you, Linc.” I took another deep breath. “Just get her to me safely.”

“Okay, Dad. Yeah… I have to get off the phone if I’m gonna pick her up.”

“That’s fine. Remember, don’t jostle her.”

“Okay…okay. No jostling,” he repeated, preparing himself. “I’ll see you in a minute.”

Disconnecting, I pocketed my phone. I sprinted out of my office and down the hallway, sliding to a stop by the nurse’s station. “I need a gurney. Do we have a gurney?”

Lily’s eyes bugged out, but she answered, “Yes. There’s one in the back.”

I pointed to my other nurse, Joan. “Go get it and have it waiting out front.” I pointed at Lily as Joan took off running. “Get one of the rooms ready and have a few bags O negative on standby. Linc called. Someone’s been hurt and is bleeding badly.”

“On it,” she assured me and took off, needing no further instructions.

Because this was a clinic in a small town, we were outfitted with everything an emergency room required to operate. All sorts of cases came through these doors, so this wasn’t Lily’s first crisis – she’d have the room prepped and ready to go.

I jogged out front, ignoring the other patients in the waiting room, and rushed through the automatic doors, where we had a covered drive through entrance. Joan joined me almost immediately with the gurney, and we waited silently.

Minutes later, a forest-green extended cab Ford F150 turned into the parking lot and headed our way. I could see the white of Lincoln’s knuckles through the windshield, but like I told him, he wasn’t tearing ass to get here.

Finally, he stopped in front of us and jumped out. I registered the blood covering his clothes as he threw open the back door and gently picked up the woman. If I hadn’t already known it was the woman’s blood, I would have been out of my mind with worry. You should never see your child like that.

“Lay her down,” I ordered and rounded the gurney, trying to assess the woman. There was so much blood smeared over her face that I couldn’t see where or how badly she was injured. Though I detected a great deal of swelling to the left side, I couldn’t make out her features either. Like Lincoln described, there was a garden fork sticking through the skin of her right arm, but I didn’t get a good enough look too see how serious it was.

Lincoln placed her on the gurney carefully. “She was groaning on the way, but she still hasn’t woken up.”

“You did well,” I barely replied and looked at Joan. “Let’s move.”

Together, we ran with the gurney through the waiting room and into the back. Lily was outside room six and waved us in. As soon as we were inside, Joan locked the gurney in place. After donning a pair of gloves, I began the initial assessment as Lily checked the patient’s vitals.

“Joan, start an IV. Lily, when you’re finished, clean the blood off her face and find the source.”

We worked for a few moments in silence, and once I was sure the patient wasn’t dying or bleeding out, I circled the bed, needing to closer examine her right arm. Lincoln was waiting in my periphery, so I questioned him as I sat on a stool and rolled closer to the patient.

“What happened exactly?”

Like a geyser, the information erupted out of him, his words rapid. Later, we’d have a long discussion about gardening tools and safety – we needed to have a chat about his excessive cursing as of late, as well, though I’d leave that for another time – but for now, I focused on the fork sticking into the poor woman’s arm.

I instructed Joan to administer a three milligram IV push of morphine before I touched the fork. Once she was done, I rotated the woman’s arm, inspecting it from all angles, careful not to jar it. Luck was on my patient’s side, because her wound wasn’t deep and missed the artery – there was only a small layer of skin covering the prongs. Lincoln could have easily ripped it out just by carrying her. To be safe, though, I needed the woman conscious before I could proceed. I would check her mobility to make sure the muscle wasn’t damage. If the muscle was damaged, we’d have to put her under in the back operating room, and only then would I remove the fork. For her sake, I hoped that wasn’t the case.

“Oh, no,” Lily whispered, breaking my concentration.

I glanced up at the patient’s face and froze. Everything in me, even time, came to a crashing halt.

Samantha.

Samantha was on the gurney.

Now that the blood was mostly gone and I wasn’t so worried about her dying, I could look at her openly. A very prominent bruise ran straight down her face, starting at her hairline, extending down her left brow, continuing over her eye, on the side of her nose and partially on her cheek, down her busted lips, and ending at her jaw.

Blood roared in my ears, and I became lightheaded as time sped up again. I shook it off as Lily said, “That’s Samantha Raiden.”

Raiden?!

This had to be the universe’s idea of a sick joke.

Or maybe it was fate.

Hell, it didn’t matter.

Samantha was here.

In Bliss.

It all made sense now – Brad’s eyes, Emma’s smile and lips, and Brad’s description of his spitfire daughter. They all reminded me of her, and I didn’t put two and two together.

She’d been under my nose the entire time.

I wanted to laugh hysterically at the absurdity and incredibility of it all, but I kept my shit together. She needed a doctor, not a love-sick shmuck.

“Linc, call Pops and have him get in touch with Brad,” I barked, not able to tear my eyes from Samantha. Even horribly injured, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“I have Grey’s number,” Lincoln replied. “Mr. Raiden gave it to me in case I needed it.”

“Then call him,” I ground out.

Lincoln stepped aside and began talking in a low voice as I wheeled around to Samantha’s left side and pressed along her cheekbone and brow, checking for fractures.

“I don’t feel any breaks, but I want X-rays as soon as she wakes and we remove the fork,” I told Lily and Joan.

“Ben?” Samantha mumbled, her face scrunching up, and then flinched. “Jesus, that hurts.” Her speech slurred slightly.

“I’m right here, Samantha,” I comforted her, keeping my voice soft and quiet. “Open those pretty gold eyes for me, sweetheart.”

“My head feels funny. It hurts, and it’s all fuzzy.”

“You hit your head pretty good, but you’re okay. We’re gonna take great care of you.”

As she tried to move her right arm, she let out a loud groan. “That hurts. Did someone put a hot poker in my arm?”

“Open up, Samantha. I need to take a good look at you,” I coaxed.

“How are you even here? You left me,” she grumbled, growing irritable. “You left me after makin’ promises. We said no promises.”

Oh, fuck me.

We couldn’t do this while my nurses
and
my son were here to witness it.

“Samantha…come on. Open your eyes.”

Her lids twitched a few times before she finally opened them. She winced again, the light hurting her eyes, and sucked in a breath through her teeth. After breathing through the pain, her gaze settled one me.

God, it felt like the sun was shining on me to see those golden eyes again.

A dopey smile tugged at Samantha’s lips. “Hey.” Her brows scrunched, and she flinched again. “The last time I saw you, you were a teenager. It was really weird, Ben.”

“I know, Samantha.” I cracked a smile, imagining her reaction to Lincoln. “When you’re feeling better, I’ll explain it all to you. Right now, I need you to try and move your fingers.”

“Okay,” she whispered, seemingly confused.

She wiggled her fingers perfectly, and then I had her do a few more series of movements at my instruction. My earlier assumption was correct – the fork missed the muscle. Even if it nicked it slightly, she still had mobility which was promising.

“Why am I in Dr. Melbourne’s clinic?” Samantha questioned, starting to work her way through the fog.

Of course she knew Pops – she’d lived in Bliss all her life.

The universe is laughing at me; I just know it.

“You were in a bit of an accident,” I explained.

“Wait.” She licked her lips, feeling the laceration. “What’s wrong with my face? It hurts…like
everywhere
.”

“You were in an accident,” I repeated.

“That included my face?” she snapped, then regretted it if the deep hitch in her breath was anything to go by.

“Try to stay still. We’ve given you some pain meds already. Is it still pretty bad?” The last thing I’d ever want was her in pain.

“Really? You’re just figurin’ that out? I’m not moanin’ and groanin’ and flinchin’ every second because I feel peachy, Ben.”

I bit back a chuckle.

There’s my fiery hellcat.

“Joan, two more milligram IV push,” I called out.

My only focus had been Samantha, so when I looked up, I was surprised to find Lily, Joan, and Lincoln watching Samantha and I with a wide arrange of expressions on their faces – amusement, shock, and suspicion.

“Joan?” I questioned, irritated.

“Right. Uh, sorry, Doctor,” she rushed, immediately moving.

“Wait?” Samantha whispered, blinking repeatedly. She glanced around and then stared at me. “You’re really here?”

I dipped my face down, getting closer to her, and smiled sadly. “Yeah, I’m here, sweetheart. We’ve got a lot to talk about, but we’ll do that after I get you bandaged up.”

I did not expect the palm connecting with my cheek, rocking my head to the side with its force, nor did I expect to hear the sudden agonized scream that went along with it.

I rolled my stool backward and jumped up, working my jaw back and forth as I placed both hands on Samantha’s shoulders to keep her from moving. A glance at her arm proved that I was too late – she tore the fork from her arm when she slapped me.

“Damn it, Samantha! I know I deserve that, but you just hurt yourself even more!” I shouted, pissed. It was more at myself than anything.

I grabbed some gauze and covered her arm, hoping to staunch the bleeding. “Now lie still and don’t move. I need to flush the wound and stitch you up.” I glanced at Joan, who had stopped with a syringe mid-air, dumfounded by my outburst. “Make that three milligrams.”

“Ye…ye…yes, Doctor,” she stammered, whirling around.

“You’re an asshole,” Samantha seethed through the pain.

“I know. But I’m the asshole that’s trying to make you better, so work with me a little, okay?”

“Get me another doctor,” she demanded, her teeth gritted.

“Nope. Not happening. If anyone is touching your beautiful body, it’s me.”

My bedside manner was gone, out the proverbial window.

“There isn’t another doctor,” Lily interjected.

I shot her a glare.

“Well…shit,” Samantha muttered. “This blows.”

My sentiments exactly.