Never to Love (20 page)

Anyone else would have tried harder to get ahold of Thomas, or at least told Madison I couldn’t reach him, but once we were on our way and Colton started voicing some of his fears, I only had one goal. Get him help. Now.

“Juli?” he asked, his voice a little unsteady.

God, it killed me to hear him hurting and not be able to fix it. He hadn’t cried, which I took as a good sign, but his voice still carried pain.

“We’ll be there soon, I promise.”

“Are you going to tell them about my medicine?”

Suddenly, I was grateful I’d invaded his and Thomas’s privacy when I snapped pictures of the prescription bottles. “Yes. Doctors need to know about all of the medication their patients take to make sure they don’t prescribe something that could be harmful when taken with something else.”

“Mom told me I shouldn’t tell anyone because they wouldn’t understand why I need to take them.”

“A doctor would understand. Don’t you get the pills from your doctor?”

“Yeah. I get them from different doctors. Mom doesn’t tell them about the others because she’s afraid they wouldn’t give me what I need if they knew about the other pills.”

Shock, disgust, and anger hit me all at once, making me nearly lose control of the car. Calming my voice so I wouldn’t scare him, I asked, “Have you told your dad what you just told me?” Even if he ignored my worries, which I admit probably sounded ridiculous, there was no way Thomas would ignore something like that.

“No. Mom told me not to tell him. She said he wouldn’t understand either and that she knew what was best for me. I had to tell him about the medicine so he knew to give it to me.” Suddenly, Thomas’s lack of overnight visits made much more sense.

“Colton,” I said, getting his eyes to meet mine in the rearview mirror. “I know I’m not your mom, and I know I’m not a doctor, but will you trust me? Just once? I need to make sure you’re safe, and to do that, I need to tell.”

Indecision marred his young face.

“You promised your mom
you
wouldn’t tell anyone, and you only told me because it was either that or risk me telling the doctor because I didn’t know it was a secret.

“If I could, I’d do everything in my power to help you keep your promise. I think above anything else, your mom would want you to be safe.” Which I couldn’t help but think was a lie. “It’s kind of like how you told your dad. If you didn’t get your medicine, you would get sick.” Another potential lie to my cynical brain. “If I don’t tell the doctor about the medicine, you could get really, really sick. Sometimes it can be fatal when the wrong things are taken together. Do you know what that means?”

“Yeah.” The indecision was slowly fading from his eyes and was being replaced with a hint of fear. I didn’t want to scare him, but I needed him to understand.

“If
I
tell the doctor, you’re not breaking the promise since
you
wouldn’t be the one telling. I’ve never met your mother, and I’ve never made any promises to her.”

With his mind made up, he said, “Okay.”

Before I’d backed out of the driveway ten minutes earlier, I’d used the navigation system in my car to find the closest urgent care for children. After hearing his secret, I decided to take him to the emergency room at the children’s hospital instead. They’d be better equipped to deal with anything above and beyond a sprained ankle. Luckily the urgent care was located on the campus of the hospital, so we were already headed in the right direction.

Thankfully, when we arrived, the ER waiting room was empty, so I was able to step up to the receptionist and sat Colton on the edge of her desk. “He hurt his ankle playing basketball,” was the first thing I said.

“Name?”

“Colton Ramsay.” I spelled it for her just to be safe.

“Date of birth?”

“May second, two-thousand and…” I quickly performed some mental math and finished giving the year, hopefully without too much of a delay.

She clicked a few more times and then a printer whirred from somewhere under the desk. Thank God the hospital already had him in their system.

With a wristband in place and a sticker on my shirt saying which kid I was with, we were taken back quickly.

While a nurse took Colton’s temperature and blood pressure, I discreetly studied the photos on my phone to learn the names and dosages of his prescriptions. The registration clerk had yet to come back to check my ID or ask for his insurance card, and I wasn’t going to let my lack of a legal relationship with Colton out of the bag any sooner than absolutely necessary.

When asking about medication, the nurse must have expected me to say he didn’t take any, since he was young and appeared perfectly healthy. Before she could move on to the next question, I recited the information I’d just memorized.

“Oh, and he takes one chewable antacid at bedtime,” I added.

The nurse finished typing and froze when she looked up at the computer screen. Due to the angle, I couldn’t make out what it said, but I could see something flashing red reflecting off of her glasses.

My heart raced with anxiety, and my stomach fell into my lap, but I had to keep myself together for Colton’s sake. Showing my fear would frighten him as well, and I wouldn’t allow that to happen.

“Excuse me,” she said. Dashing from the room, she didn’t bother taking the time to pull the sliding glass door closed behind her.

As soon as she left, I sent Thomas a text with the name of the hospital and the nearest intersection and then turned back to Colton. “How does your ankle—”

“Are you his mother?” a man, whose white lab coat was embroidered with “Jason Wynn, MD” asked, cutting off my question.

Before I could come up with a way to explain my connection, Colton answered for me. “She’s gonna marry my dad.”

Despite the queasiness his statement induced, when they seemed to accept his answer as valid, I went with it. “I was watching Colton when he twisted his ankle. Thomas should be here soon.”

“What condition is Colton being treated for?” Dr. Wynn asked, eyeing me as if he thought I would pull a gun at any moment. Movement outside the door caught my eye, drawing my attention to the two security guards—or were they police officers?—in the hallway. They definitely hadn’t been standing there when we came in.

“I’m not sure. Until recently, his mother had primary custody,” I explained truthfully. “Do you know, sweetie?” I asked, turning to Colton. Stroking my fingers through his soft blond hair, I needed reassurance he was okay just as much as he did. Maybe I needed it more.

“Um, I think the blue one is because my heart beats funny, and the big white one is because something is low, and the little one is because something else is too high. The orange things are supposed to help my stomach aches.”

“Do you know the name of the doctor who gives you the prescriptions?” the older man asked Colton. The concern laced with semi-controlled anger on the doctor’s face didn’t carry over to his voice but was enough to confirm my worst fears.

Colton looked at me, obviously not wanting to answer. Instead, I handed Dr. Wynn my phone to show him the pictures of the bottles.

“Three different doctors at three separate private practices and three different pharmacies,” he muttered as he typed the information into the computer. The lack of affiliation with the hospital explained why there hadn’t been a record of the medication in his chart. How fucking conniving was the evil bitch who had the audacity to call herself a mother? The doctor returned my phone and said, “We need to do some bloodwork.”

“Why didn’t the insurance company catch it?”

“These are generic and inexpensive. They were likely paid for out of pocket.”

“What about his ankle?” I asked, wondering if the doctor had forgotten the reason we were there in the first place. I knew it wasn’t nearly as important as everything else, but I couldn’t let the kid sit around in pain.

After pulling on a pair of gloves, he took Colton’s foot in his hands, gently moving it up and down, side to side, and around in circles. I wanted to hurt the doctor when Colton winced. “I think it’s just a sprain, but I’ll order X-rays to be safe.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Standing right outside the door, Thomas’s voice was loud enough to be heard by the stiffs in the morgue.

“Dad!” Colton called out.

Thomas pushed past the security guards to get into the room.

“Are you his father?”

“Yes.”

“Your son came in with a twisted ankle. We’ve come across some concerns with the medical history your fiancée provided.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Thomas glared at me. “She’s not my fiancée, and she doesn’t know shit about my son.”

I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to scream,
I told myself. I never cried, and although I had no compunction about screaming, I wouldn’t lose it in front of Colton. Thomas was doing a good enough job of that, and someone had to keep a level head.

“She’s not your fiancée?”

“Fuck no. She has no business being here.”

“Dad,” Colton whispered.

“I don’t know what she’s told you, but whatever it is isn’t true.”

“Dad,” Colton repeated, this time in his speaking voice.

“Madison told you to take him to urgent care, not the ER. I don’t know what your game is, but you need to stay out of our business and leave my son the fuck alone!”

Angry tears formed in my eyes, and one of the little bastards escaped.

“Dad!” This time Colton shouted, silencing the room.

“What!” Thomas yelled back. Realizing what he’d done, he lowered his voice as he stepped around to the other side of Colton’s bed and took his son’s hand. “I’m sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to yell at you. What do you need?”

“Everything Juli told them is true. I promised Mom I wouldn’t tell the doctor. She told him for me so I wouldn’t have to break my promise.”

Taking advantage of Thomas’s stunned silence, I leaned over to talk to Colton, barely resisting the urge to stroke his hair again. I nearly backed away from him when the security guard who had followed Thomas into what used to feel like a relatively spacious room took a step toward me, but I refused to show fear.

“I need to go. Your dad will take care of you now. I’m sorry about the yelling. None of it was directed at you. You didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered. Even though I hadn’t raised my voice, someone needed to let Colton know his father’s behavior was not okay.

“No. Don’t go!” Colton demanded. The bossiness in the kid’s voice sounded so much like Thomas.

“I have to, but remember, the only thing that matters is that you’re okay.”

Before I totally lost control of my stupid emotions, I pushed through the wall of bodies to get out of the room, much like Thomas had pushed his way in.

I didn’t get farther than the nurses station when a familiar man in a cheap suit stopped me. Looking past him, I recognized the social worker from the police station.

“Ms. Griffith, we need you to stick around and answer a few questions.”

Surprised he remembered my name, I looked at him and, after the accusations directed my way a few minutes earlier, was even more surprised he didn’t seem suspicious of me. All I wanted was to go home. That wasn’t true. All I wanted was to go back to that room and hold Colton’s hand to make sure he was safe. But if talking to these people was the only way I could help him at the moment, there wasn’t a damned thing that would stop me.

Juli

“What’s wrong?” Mom asked as I tried to keep a neutral expression on my face. I had two options: tell her how God-awful her turkey tetrazzini was or tell her about Colton and Thomas. Either would have been a truthful answer to her question.

“I have a lot on my mind,” was another truthful answer.

“I know we haven’t always been close, but I hope you know you can talk to me about anything.”

Could I? Colton was off limits. I wouldn’t violate his trust or privacy.

“Is this about your young man?”

“Remember when I told you I don’t date? That’s still true.” What I’d been doing with Thomas couldn’t be called dating. We never had an actual date.

“The pictures I saw of you with Brady Johns certainly looked like a date.”

“That was for work, Mom,” I said as I took another bite. Maybe I could distract her with gossip. Surely Uncle Leo had done something embarrassing lately. As much as I wasn’t interested, at least talking would give me an excuse to stop eating.

“Whatever happened with Thomas?” she asked before I could swallow the mouthful of disgusting slime I was trying to choke down. I really needed to stop having conversations with her when there was food, or in this case a food-like substance, present.

“It’s complicated. We fucked for a while, some shit happened, he became angry with me, and I haven’t seen them for a couple of weeks now.”

“Them?”

Shit. I guess Thomas and Colton were a package deal in my mind. “He has a son.”

“You’ve spent time with his son?” she asked in the way mothers who desperately wanted to be grandmothers did.

“He’s a pretty cool kid, but that’s about it. Don’t get any ideas in your head.”

“But think how perfect it would be. I know you’re not a kid person, but if you care for him, you could have a ready-made family. After what happened when you were younger, it’s not like you can just—”

“You don’t have to remind me, Mom. I actually think that might have been the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Don’t say that. You may not always feel this way.”

“Did you want kids when you had me?” I finally asked the question I’d had as long as I could remember. I always thought they should’ve named me “Oops Griffith.”

“Do your father and I seem like the kind of people who can’t keep their hands off of each other?”

“Not really.”

“You were definitely planned. We may not have known how to be good parents, but we wanted you more than anything. I think this little boy is starting to give you an idea of how that feels.”

“I have a lot of money and connections. If I wanted a kid, I could easily have one.”

“I think what happened to you warped your outlook on children and motherhood.”