Always (Family Justice Book 1) (56 page)

“Got a woman on my lap so this better be good,” he answered playfully.

“Alex? Jesus. I need you—like stat!” he heard Drae yelling. Reminding him of earlier days when they’d been Special Forces guys, he heard the panic and fear in his brother’s voice, which got all his internal alarm bells going off at once.

Reflexively sitting straighter into ready-go mode, he asked sharply, “What’s wrong?”

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Drae hollered. “It’s Victoria. She passed out or something, man. Like—I don’t even know what happened.”

Dislodging Meghan from his lap, Alex stood, grabbed her hand and started walking from the room with the phone still at his ear.

“We’re on our way. Is she conscious? Give me more detail, Draegyn,” he bit out.

Meghan gasped but never faltered, picking up speed as they quickly headed for the front door.

“Yeah, yeah. She’s on the sofa but dude—she doesn’t look good. It’d take too long to get an ambulance out here. Better alert Ben to get one of the SUVs fired up. Or a van. I don’t fucking know!” he snarled. “Just something she can be comfortable in.”

Grabbing a set of keys off the console table near the front door, he gestured for Meghan to get her phone as they dashed out to the driveway.

“Just calm down, bro.” Alex told a clearly panicked Drae. “We’ll be there in four minutes. Where’s Stephanie?”

“Mom?” he sounded like he was trying to remember what planet she was on. “Oh, uh—she’s out to dinner with Calder. It’s just me here.”

Of course! Why not
, Alex thought.

“Okay. I’m hanging up now so I can drive. Help is on the way.”

Levering up into the truck, Alex made sure Meghan was secure then punched the gas and sped off down the road.

“Tell me,” she said quietly.

He sensed the frantic worry in her voice. Only hearing one side of the conversation had probably scared the fucking shit out of her.

“Tori passed out. Drae says she’s conscious now but he’s dead-panicked and wants to call an ambulance. Look, text Ben and tell him what’s happening. Ask him to get a van or something else big like that down to Drae’s.”

He appreciated that she didn’t fall apart or start blubbering. Probably her teacher experience taking over. Time for talk later—right now it was all about assessing the situation, marshaling resources, and getting whatever help they needed.

They flew down the winding road at supersonic speed, pulled up and stopped near the front steps, leaving plenty of room for Ben to get another vehicle into position.

Meghan was out of the truck and running for the door at least a dozen paces ahead of him.

They found Drae and Tori on the second floor in the nursery. She looked like bloody hell—way too pale and with a wild-eyed and terrified expression—while he was visibly shaking.

“Girlfriend,” Meghan quipped with a calmness he knew she was faking. “You’re a little late for Halloween if what you’re trying to do is scare us shitless.”

She moved swiftly to Tori’s side, taking one of the little woman’s hands in hers and giving Alex a look that said
Not good
.

Shit.

With his fiancée evaluating the situation with Tori, he motioned Drae aside where they could talk quietly.

“Details first.” It was Alex’s way of reminding Draegyn that he needed to be clear-headed.

“Okay,” the other man muttered. “Right. Details. Let’s see. She’s been weird the last couple of days, but mostly she just kept saying it was because she was uncomfortable. Um—she’s eaten, so that’s a good sign. We did nothing all day ‘cause she felt lousy so it’s not like she’d done too much. We were in the nursery and next thing I knew she dropped like a rock.”

“How long was she out?” he asked. “And did she hit anything on the way down?”

Drae glanced anxiously at his wife. “No. She went straight down but I was right there and broke the fall. She was completely out for at least a minute.”

“Anything else?” Alex prompted.

His brother visibly paled. “Yeah. Think I’m going to throw up.”

He grabbed his arm and gave a slight squeeze. “Hang in there, bro.”

Alex caught Meghan’s worried frown and hurried them back to the ladies.

With a practiced tone that the former commanding officer in him knew so well, his fiancée took control of Tori and of them. He was reassured knowing that she could hold her own in a crisis.

“Gentlemen,” she began. “This situation requires a doctor.”

Alex felt Drae stiffen at his side. He put his hand on his shoulder for reassurance. Meghan shot him a meaningful look that let him know he was in charge of keeping the worried father-to-be calm.

“Find out what Ben’s progress is,” she said to him with an absolute calm that he knew she was in no way feeling.

“Draegyn,” she snapped briskly so he would know she meant business. “Find Tori’s purse, grab whatever
you
need—then let’s get her downstairs. Might as well bring one of those rolling chairs up here. That way she won’t have to walk at all. We’ll roll her to the elevator and then out to the driveway.”

Alex was impressed when Drae didn’t hesitate—just broke into a fast sprint to do what he’d been told. After two lightning fast text messages, he found out that Ben was two minutes away in a conversion van the agency sometimes used to drive clients around.

Going to his assistant, who at the moment looked very small—although hugely pregnant—and quite terrified, he crouched down at her feet and reached for one of her hands.

“How you doing, little Mommy?” he inquired gently while rubbing her cold fingers.

It told him a lot about how worried she was when Tori groaned, “Alex. Something’s wrong—I just know it.”

He saw the concern on Meghan’s face and tried not to lose his shit.

“You okay with riding to the hospital, hon?”

“Don’t have much choice,” she murmured as her hand flew to her side.

“What was that?” he demanded. “Are you in pain?”

“No, it’s not pain,” she reassured. “But something is going on in there.”

Alex stood. “Meghan?”

His accelerating heart rate calmed the moment his woman touched his arm. She was breathing deeply and steadily—willing him with her eyes to do the same.

Drae came bursting back to the room pushing a chair to Tori’s side. They all gathered round and gingerly eased her from the loveseat onto the wheeled chair then made slowly for the elevator. Tori clutched at her husband’s hand like it was a life preserver.

Whatever was going on had shot whatever post-holiday tranquility Alex had hoped for right to hell. By the time they arrived at the hospital, having followed along behind the van—his nerves were shredded. The medical staff went into emergency mode the moment Tori was wheeled in, sweeping her quickly away to an exam room while he, Meghan, and Drae stood by.

“Somebody better call Stephanie,” Meghan muttered.

“I’ll take care of it,” he told her and wandered into the waiting room to make the call.

“I MEAN, IN ALL HONESTY,” Stephanie laughed. “Who does that?”

Calder chuckled, too. He’d been listening to her explain the antics and craziness that went on behind the scenes of a pageant and found himself enjoying every word she said.

First of all, she knew how to tell a story. He appreciated that. Drove him mental when someone had the floor and all they did was spew verbal bullshit.

And secondly, it was easy to lose himself in the sound of her voice. He liked how easily she switched from a Southern twang to ranch-hand delivery, and the fact that she didn’t hesitate to fling about dirty words. It was refreshing.

Their meal had been outstanding, making him quite pleased that he listened to Ria’s advice and gotten them a reservation at a recently opened, quaint Mom & Pop restaurant.

Of course, sitting across from her wasn’t exactly a hardship either. The sleeveless black lace dress with the strand of black pearls draped several times around her neck was ladylike and sexy-as-fuck at the same time. He’d been imagining slowly pulling the zipper down on the back of the dress and putting his hands all over her skin.

And as if that wasn’t enough of a distraction, she’d worn a pair of shoes that were fueling all sorts of decadent thoughts which he was having trouble pushing aside. Maybe if she didn’t kiss like an angel, he wouldn’t be battling a case of blue balls.

The phone in his suit jacket vibrated. Normally, he’d ignore it. Wasn’t everyday he got the chance to have dinner with a drop-dead sexy and very good-looking woman. But something niggled at him so he reached for it with an apology.

“Sorry. Half the fucking world knows we’re at dinner so if someone is calling it better be important.”

Stephanie waved him off with a dazzling smile. “Oh, go ahead. I know what it’s like,” she said as she picked up her phone which had been within her eyesight all evening and cocked it his way to make her point.

Accepting the call, which he noted was from his nephew, he said “Yo,” for a greeting and sat back in his chair to see what crawled up Alex’s shorts.

“Calder,” he heard his nephew bark. “Don’t speak—just listen. I’m assuming Stephanie is right there so don’t do or say anything to alarm her. I’m at Community Hospital with Drae and Meghan. Tori collapsed earlier and we brought her in to be checked out. She was stable the whole way here but who the fuck knows when there’s a baby involved, too.””

“Mmmm hmmm,” he answered so Alex would know he understood.

“Are you in town?”

“Yep,” he answered.

It was hard to miss the relief in Alex’s voice when he hurriedly said, “Oh, thank God. I’d suggest you wait to tell Stephanie something’s going on until we have more info but knowing her, she’d have my balls brass-plated and hanging from her keychain if I tried to hold her off.”

Calder snorted. “Smart man.”

“So anyway—tell her, don’t tell her—your call, man. Whatever. Just get over to the hospital as soon as you can, okay?’

“Will do. Thanks for calling.”

He pocketed the phone and returned his dinner companion’s easy smile.
Fuck
. So much for his horny-guy imagination. Shit just got real.

“Everything alright?” she asked. “You seem…”

He made a split second decision and blurted out what he knew. “Tori’s in the hospital. Alex says she’s stable but we have to go.
Now
.”

He watched as every drop of color drained from her face. Then she shuddered, sucked in a breath, and he saw a shimmer of tears gathering in her eyes. He remembered what she went through, losing her husband at such a young age, and figured that hearing the word
hospital
in connection with her only child might fuck with her head.

“Stephanie,” he muttered sharply to bring her back to the moment. “She’s fine, but we should go.”

She barely moved a muscle during the five minutes it took to call the waiter over, take care of the bill, and leave the table. He realized that the calm, unruffled composure she showed was a mask for whatever she was feeling. Putting an arm protectively around her waist, he guided her swiftly from the restaurant out to the car and got her settled. Ten minutes later, after the short, silent ride, they arrived, parked, and made their way to the emergency room.

DRAE WAS LOSING IT. EVEN though he understood that he couldn’t be in the room while Victoria was being examined, it was killing him not to be with her. He was scared out of his fucking mind, which meant that she was most likely terrified. What in the hell was going on?

He’d ignored Stephanie and Calder when they arrived. Although glad to see Victoria’s mother on the scene, he just couldn’t do chitchat at the moment. It was taking all his energy not to spin out of control and shatter into a million pieces.

Finally, their doctor waved him from the waiting room, and out into the hallway.

“Mr. St. John. Your wife is resting comfortably at the moment.”

Before he could bust out with the obvious question, he was told, “The baby is fine.”

Okay. He could
maybe
breathe again. But they weren’t entirely in the clear, something that the doctor’s serious face told him.

“What’s going on, Doctor?”

“Well, in the simplest of terms what we have here is a pregnancy-induced blood pressure episode. Her pressure dropped quite suddenly, which is what caused your wife to briefly lose consciousness.”