Declare (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #4) (20 page)

I felt Alyssa’s hand squeeze mine a little tighter. She must have seen Hunter too and was trying to keep my focus on the task at hand. Or gain comfort for herself. I guided Eden through to the car park, and she handed me the keys to her rental car. She climbed into the passenger seat, curled herself into a ball, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Alyssa sat in the seat behind me and rested one hand on my shoulder in support the whole way.

It was a silent and anxious drive to the hospital. I could feel the tension rolling off Alyssa, but I could also sense something else. Relief. I knew she’d never admit it, but I could tell that beneath her worry and concern, she was glad it wasn’t me on the track.

I wondered whether it would make things harder when it came time for me to get back into a V8 for the endurance races. Then I remembered that I still needed to talk to Danny, and that I might not be back for the enduros at all. Momentarily, I considered the possibility that Morgan might not even be back in a car before then, but I pushed it out of my mind.

He
would
be okay.

He had to be.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: WAITING

I SAT WITH Alyssa in the waiting room. Now that Eden was in with Morgan, I was able to stop trying to be strong for her, so I fell apart in Alyssa’s arms. We had moved closer and closer during our short stay in the waiting room. At first, we’d sat side by side on the cheap suede couch, Alyssa’s two hands surrounding one of mine, lending me some of her warmth, but somehow over the course of an hour, I had ended up with my top half curled in her lap as she gently stroked my hair.

“Thank you,” I whispered to her for probably the fiftieth time. I glanced up at her face and took in her sad smile.

“I’m just glad that I’m here and that you didn’t have to go through it alone.”

I turned my face back to the wall. “Me too,” I murmured so quietly I wasn’t sure that she’d even heard me.

We weren’t family or important enough to be kept up to date on progress, so we just had to wait patiently for either Danny or Eden to remember we were there. The small TV in the corner kept getting turned on and off intermittently as we hungered for more information.

We soon tired of seeing the same footage again and again: Morgan’s car coming to rest in the bend before being slammed by the other two cars; Morgan being loaded onto a stretcher and carried away in the ambulance; me helping Eden from the trailer, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

It was late evening, well past eight, when Eden finally emerged from Morgan’s room. She looked like death warmed up. Pale skin; wide, bloodshot eyes; and pink, puffy cheeks where she’d rubbed her tears away. I reminded myself that as hard as the last four hours had been for Alyssa and me, they’d been even harder on Eden.

I sat up to give her space to sit and give us the prognosis.

“He’s awake,” she started before coughing lightly to clear her throat. “He’s badly concussed though. He has a broken leg, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, a concussion, and a sprained wrist. They . . .” She stopped again, summoning strength from somewhere within—it was a wonder she had any left.

Alyssa’s hand reached across my lap to hold Eden’s.

“They can’t say whether he’ll be back on the track this season.”

“But he will be back?” I asked softly. Even though there would be an opening if he was forced to leave the team, I didn’t want my opportunity to come off the back of Morgan’s tragedy.

“They won’t know for sure until he’s started physio. They—they’re hopeful. But there’s no guarantees.”

I nodded.

“He wants to see you,” she murmured. “There’re just a couple of minutes left before visiting hours are over.”

I swallowed and felt Alyssa squeeze my leg gently. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see him just yet, but I had no choice. He was asking for me, and what an injured man wanted, an injured man received. I stood before following Eden’s directions to Morgan’s room.

I knocked on the closed door and heard a soft, “Come in,” coughed from the room.

I pushed the door open and took in my surroundings. The curtains were half-drawn around the sole bed.

Morgan rested heavily against the pale hospital sheets with the bed angled up slightly so he was sitting almost upright. He was awake, but he still looked a little grey. Various monitors made a cacophony of sound in the room, ensuring that it was never completely silent.

He smiled weakly up at me as I entered.

I sat in the seat beside his bed, at a complete loss for words.

“Did you see what happened?”

I nodded, but then paused. I wanted to see what he remembered. “A car turned sharply into you and you lost control. When it stopped, you were in the blind. Two cars came through behind you, but they didn’t see you in time.”

“Who won?”

I chuckled. Of course that would be one of his primary concerns. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’m sure Eden is finding out as we speak.”

“Thanks, man,” he said, breaking the tension that was starting to creep into the room. “For looking out for Eden for me.”

“Of course,” I muttered. “Anytime.”

He reached out for my hand. “You are a good man, Declan Reede. You’re my best buddy.”

I smirked at him. “What brought that on?”

“I just love you man. I absolutely love you.”

I bit my lip to stop from laughing harder. Clearly, he was on some serious painkillers. I decided to have a little fun with him, and find out a few truths. “I have to ask you a question, and I need your honest answer,” I started.

He looked at me seriously, his face full of an earnest desire to please.

“What did you think of me when I first started?”

“You were like my little bro, bro.”

I chuckled, deciding to see how far I could push it. “Have you and Eden ever done it at a track?”

I half expected him to laugh or tell me to fuck off, but instead he seemed to think hard about his answer. “Once or twice.” He grinned. “Per meet.”

I wasn’t sure whether to grin or grimace. I knew for certain that I would be more suspicious whenever the two of them disappeared in the future. “How do you really feel about Hunter?”

“I wish it was you I was driving against. You—you gave me something to beat.”

“What about Alyssa? What do you think of her?” It might be dangerous territory because of their tenuous relationship, but I wasn’t going to give up the opportunity for complete honesty when it arose.

“Alyssa . . .” He grinned cheekily. “She’s a good sort. She’s good for you. And she’s got a killer arse.”

I immediately regretted asking him about Alyssa and decided to stick to safer topics. “Has Danny been in to see you?”

“Yep, he was here with Eden for a while.”

“Has he said anything about the accident?”

Morgan shook his head. “No, but man, I’m glad for good family. Danny’s paying for everything in the hospital. He’s even getting me a transfer to Sydney. I can’t fly with the hole here apparently.” He was pointing to his chest, no doubt referring to his punctured lung.

I was a little taken aback by his statement about family, until I realised he had to mean it figuratively. I knew how he felt; I often thought of the Sinclair Racing crew as an extended family, especially lately. It was the reason I wanted back in so bad. Besides, if there was any actual family in the team, I was certain I would know about it. Eden would have told me; she knew all the goss.

I didn’t get a chance to press him further because a nurse came in to shoo me out—apparently visiting hours were over for the night.

GOING TO the track the next day and pretending nothing had happened was almost impossible. The track was clear, the damaged cars completely repaired—the rest of the pit crews had spent a long night fixing them all—and the officials were preparing to start the new day of racing. But the scars were still evident in my team at least; one of our drivers was absent, everyone was exhausted, and we were all counting down the hours until the race meet ended.

The news slowly filtered through the ranks that Hunter—who’d gone on to win the race after the restart—had been investigated for being at the centre of a red flag event. Unfortunately, it was regarded as an accident and he’d gotten off scot-free.

Eden arrived late to the track with heavy purple bags under her eyes. She’d obviously had a very hard night. I felt bad that we hadn’t hung around the hospital longer to support her because, by comparison, our night had been easier.

When we’d arrived back at the hotel, Alyssa had quickly called our house. It had been too late to speak to Phoebe, so she’d had a brief conversation with Mum instead. We assured her that we were okay, that it was just a long night, and that we’d see her the following evening. After that, Alyssa and I’d curled into one another in bed and held each other silently the whole night long. I don’t think either of us had any sleep, but at least we had each other.

I hadn’t been at the track for long before the meeting I knew was inevitable was called. Liam came to find me and told me that Danny wanted to see me in his office. I refused to leave Alyssa alone, so I hunted down my boys to ensure they would be stuck like glue to her side.

“I CAN’T believe either of you would do something so reckless!” Danny was pacing from side to side along his desk and wasn’t looking at either Eden or me as we sat in his makeshift office.

To my surprise, we’d both been called in to face the music together. I assumed it was an act of mercy. He would have been within his rights to tear strips off us individually, which would have been infinitely harder for us to handle. Neither of us needed an explanation of what we’d done wrong, because we both knew that our run onto the track was not only stupid and reckless, but dangerous as well. Either or both of us could have been hit by a car, not to mention we had no doubt distracted the race officials at a time they should have been concentrating on other things.

“I’m sorry,” I started, but Eden raised her hand to stop me.

“It’s my fault, Danny. Declan was just chasing after me. I just—I lost my head. I would’ve been in more danger if he hadn’t been there.”

She was throwing herself on the fire for me, but I couldn’t let her. I had taken off with exactly the same mindset she had. I’d wanted to help. I’d wanted to get to Morgan and ensure he was okay. Even if Eden hadn’t made the dash, I probably would have done exactly the same thing. It was only when it became evident her needs were so much greater than my own that my intentions changed.

“Danny—” I tried to explain, but Eden again cut me off.

“Declan got me off the track. He stopped me from running blindly to Morgan. He was also the one who stopped me from falling onto the track when it got to be too much. Please, I know what he did was wrong, but he shouldn’t be punished for
my
stupidity.”

“No one is getting punished,” Danny assured us. He’d migrated to his seat and sat slumped with his fingers bridged on his nose. “The tribunal agreed to accept the extenuating circumstances and have given you both suspended sentences. But they don’t want to see either of you do anything so stupid again.”

We both nodded.

“Eden, I’m relieving you of your duties. Liam is going to monitor the next race on his own. Go back to the hospital and be with Morgan. They’ve said he’s able to be released later this afternoon, but he can’t travel by air. A car will be around to pick you both up and start the journey home later this afternoon.”

“Thank you,” she said before standing and crossing to his side of the desk. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly for a second. He patted her arm gently in a loving, almost familial gesture.

She unwrapped her arms from his neck, and he nodded toward the door to indicate that she should go.

After she’d exited the room, he sat staring at me for a second or two. I wondered if he actually did have some punishment for me that he hadn’t wanted to dish out with Eden in the room. She wasn’t the fuck-up after all. That was all on me.

“You make it very hard for me to put you in a V8 sometimes,” he murmured finally.

I’d blown my chance. I cursed my own stupidity for leaving Alyssa alone when I went on the track for the Mini race, for not telling her about misplacing my helmet, for allowing my temper to take over and giving that fuckhead Hunter a taste of what he deserved, for running onto the track after Morgan’s accident. So many screw-ups in just one weekend. All I could hope was that I could get him to understand why I’d reacted to Hunter the way I had. The fucker had assaulted Alyssa, and he deserved to pay for it.

I wanted to beg him to reconsider taking my chance away from me. I opened my mouth to try to come up with a magical statement that would fix everything, but I couldn’t think of one.

“Would you care to explain what happened yesterday before the race?”

I decided to go with the truth. “Hunter tricked Alyssa into thinking that I was waiting for her by the trucks. When she got there, he pinned her against the truck—” The rest of my statement was stuck in my throat. During the night, I’d managed to find out that he hadn’t been able to do much more than stroke Alyssa’s cheek and kiss her before Morgan had interrupted them, but it didn’t matter. He’d intended more—and that was as bad as the actual act in my eyes. My anger was rising just mentioning the incident. Alyssa and I had discussed going to the police, but she knew how unlikely it would be that anything would come of it.

“And Morgan found them like that?”

I nodded. “I didn’t see what had happened . . .” I trailed off. If I
had
seen Hunter with Alyssa, I would have fucking killed him. He was just lucky Danny had turned up when he did.

“Do you think Hunter had a grudge against Morgan as a result of that incident?”

I gaped at Danny. Was he really asking what I thought of Hunter? Did he think Hunter had a more nefarious role in the accident? I swallowed down my hope before it could grow. “Yes. Without doubt, but not as big as his grudge against me.”

Danny nodded. “Thank you for your honesty. I’m sure you understand that I take all actions and accusations very seriously.”

I nodded.

“And I want you to know I will be keeping a very close eye on the situation while watching for hard evidence of wrongdoing.”