Unforgiven (8 page)

“No, they’re not married,” Logan said. “Jill wouldn’t go through with it.” Everyone was looking at him then.

“What?” Ben said.

“She knew I was upset that no one in my family had showed for our wedding. She believed she was responsible and worried I’d hate her.”

“It’s more than that, Samuel,” Logan said. “It’s partly because of your relationship with your brothers that she loves you. She has no intention of marrying you until you sort this out. She’s right, too.”

He couldn’t believe Logan knew so much. “You seem to know a lot about this, Logan. I’m not really liking this too much.”

“Jill phoned me, Samuel,” he said. “She needs you to make things right with Jake. She’s very upset that she’s the reason you’re divided from your family. She can’t live with that.”

“So is that the reason I’m here, that you called this little reunion, because Jill called you?”

Logan crossed his arms and took a deep breath, his chest rising as if he needed to tell Samuel something he hadn’t planned on. “She surprised me,” he said. “It took a lot of guts on her part to pick up the phone to call me, to reach out for help. Any woman doing that and thinking of your relationship with your brothers and how important it is…that says a lot about a woman to me. I may have been wrong about her. She didn’t try to make excuses about what she’d done with Jake and you. She’s carrying her part of this triangle.”

“You know what, Logan? At some point we’ll maybe have a conversation about that, but right now I need to find Jill,” Samuel said. He was already dialing as he talked to Logan. The phone was ringing, and he waited until his voice came on the voicemail. “Jill, this is Samuel. Pick up.” He waited for a second, nothing. He finally hung up. “Damn it. She’s not answering.”

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked again, stepping around Ben.

“Jill’s not answering the phone.” He was already dialing her cell phone, but it too went right to voicemail. “Shit! Of all the times, Logan, to call this emergency family meeting. Jill hasn’t been feeling well, and we were just at the doctor’s. He ran some tests. Sounds like whatever has turned up is enough that he’s worried. Crap, what if something happened to her?”

He was thinking of who else he could call. He didn’t really know anyone in the building, and then he thought of who was close enough. He started walking as he dialed. It rang only once.

“This is Erin.” She sounded distracted.

“Erin, this is Samuel.”

“Hey, Samuel. Just how stupid are you, dumping this case—or should I say thank you? I’ve got to tell you, Rob was pretty pissed at you, as Mrs. Stowles didn’t want to deal with anyone other than you. With what she was paying this firm, this could end up costing you big as the golden boy you are…”

He pulled the phone from his ear, as Erin was going on and on. He knew Rob was mad. It had been a stupid move, telling Rob he had to go because of a family emergency. Even he knew that as far as the partners were concerned, emergencies only happened when you weren’t in the middle of a big case, especially when you were only an associate.

“Erin, stop. That’s not why I’m calling. I need you to go over to my place and knock on the door. Jill isn’t answering the phone, and I can’t get a hold of her. I need you to get her to call me.”

“Seriously, Samuel? Give the girl a break. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you. Have you thought of that?”

He jammed his fingers in his hair and pulled. “Erin, this is serious. I’m not there, and there’s a problem. The doctor is trying to get a hold of her. I’m starting to get worried that something happened with her, to her. Can you please, please just go there?” He had to grit his teeth so as not to yell at her over the phone.

She must have picked up on his frustration—and he was really, really frustrated. She stopped and said, “Okay, I can hear that you’re upset about this and really worried. Yes, of course I’ll go over, but I don’t know Jill. Who should I say I am so she doesn’t think I’m some kook showing up like a crazy person?”

“Just tell her I’ve been trying to call her, and so has the doctor. There’s a problem and she needs to call the doctor and then call me. Please stay there with her and make sure she calls me so I know what the hell is going on. The doctor wants her in the hospital. Do you understand?” He was running his hand over his head.

“Okay, give me your address. But you owe me, Samuel. You owe me big.”

He breathed a little easier, a little more relieved, as he rattled off his address and then hung up. When he turned back to his brothers, he saw that they too had finally gotten the urgency of the situation.

***

Jill really wasn’t feeling well, and as she took in the Stay and Save motel room with two double beds, she wanted nothing more than to have a shower and climb under the covers. She’d just spent the last hour in and out of the bathroom, puking her guts out. The only saving grace was that she’d finished her report and emailed it in before Samuel left. She really needed to evaluate what she was doing, but she also needed to feel better before she could make a decision that could affect her life, the rest of it, and the baby’s.

After everything that had happened between her and Samuel, she couldn’t live like this anymore, feeling like the bad guy. She could only be with him if he wanted her, loved her completely as much as she loved him. And the baby—she needed to call the doctor. She should have heard back from him already. After all, he’d said he would rush the tests.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and fished her phone from her purse on the other. The voicemail was full. She frowned when she heard Samuel’s urgent message. He sounded worried, demanding she pick up. Then there was the doctor’s office, asking her to call, that it was important—and a second one from the doctor. When she listened to the time, she realized the doctor had called yesterday and left the second message earlier today, and Samuel just a few minutes ago. She ran her hand over her face, pressing her thumb and forefinger into her brow as she felt a wave of dizziness hit her again.

Her hand was shaking as she dialed the doctor’s number, but it was the answering service that came on. “Is Doctor Watts there? He asked for me to call him back. This is Jill Robertson.” She was really fighting the wave of nausea, swallowing back the bile, feeling awfully warm. The person on the other end said something, but she couldn’t make it out. “Excuse me? I didn’t understand that.”

“This is the answering service. I’ll page the doctor and have him call you.”

She puffed her cheeks out and started toward the bathroom. “Have him call my cell,” she said, and she didn’t wait for the woman to respond. She dropped the phone, raced into the bathroom again, and vomited.

***

“I told you I can drive myself.”

“Just shut up, already,” Ben said, driving his Range Rover with Samuel shoved in the back beside Jake. Joe was following, driving Samuel’s car, and Logan rode shotgun.

“You’re not driving, Samuel, so enough about it,” Logan said. “You’re half out of your mind with worry, and we have a lot to settle, so just sit there and enjoy the ride.” Then he said something to Ben that Samuel couldn’t make out.

He’d not said a word to Jake, not one on one, but being stuck in the back with his brother as if they were two years old wasn’t something he appreciated. He could have said “Screw you” to Logan, Ben, and even Joe and gone his own way, but there really was something about Logan and all his brothers coming together like this that meant something to him—something he really couldn’t name.

“So tell me again, Samuel, what the doctor said.” Jake was pushing again.

“You know what, Jake? I really have had about enough of you asking about my girl. She’s no business of yours, so just butt out.”

“Enough!” Ben yelled from the front. He slammed his foot on the brake, skidding the tires on the highway, pulling to the shoulder, and stopping. He turned to the back, jabbing his finger Samuel’s way. “Stop it. You don’t get to have the corner on caring for Jill. You fucked up, you idiot, when you got cold feet and said goodbye in the worst way. And you”—he jabbed his finger Jake’s way—“have been in love with Jill from the day Samuel found her. I knew it, saw it, and said nothing. But you moved in on her, and she fell into you because you made things easy for her. She realized, though, that she had made a mistake, but by then, well, shit happens, and your relationship is in the shitter.

“Am I clear enough? Are you understanding this? We’re Wildes, and we don’t move in on our brothers’ women. Jake, you’ve moved on, you have a woman, a great girl—Chris. Samuel, you should meet her. You two need to work out the fact that there’s now a baby in the picture, about to be in the picture, yet not one of you is willing to talk about the biggest elephant in the room. Neither of you know who the father is—could be you, Samuel, or you, Jake.” He stared over at Logan, who was resting his arm on the door, appearing more than happy to let Ben say what he needed to say.

“And I have no intention of taking sides in this,” Ben said. “Both of you should realize that I’m done with that. I want to see my brothers, both of you, and I’m not going to start tiptoeing around, picking and choosing who I can see and who I can’t.”

“Well, you already did, when you didn’t come to my wedding,” Samuel said.

Ben didn’t shake his head. He just leveled this look at Samuel that wasn’t friendly. He heard Jake swear beside him.

“You didn’t get married, Samuel,” Logan said without turning around.

“No, Samuel,” Ben said. “You’re right. I didn’t because I couldn’t. Carrie’s father had a heart attack.”

There was a pounding on the window. Ben rolled it down, and Joe poked his head in. “What the hell is going on? Why’d you stop?”

“Had to deal with these idiots,” Ben said.

“So what are we doing, sitting here all night on the side of the road, or can you drive so we can get somewhere?” Joe was leaning in, talking to Ben and Logan—the three older brothers.

“Why didn’t you say anything about Carrie’s dad?” Logan said to Ben, and Joe was leaning in, cars passing, bringing up a tail wind that shook the Range Rover. One vehicle honked, maybe because they were parked and Joe was standing a little too close to the road.

“What’s going on with Carrie’s dad?” Joe asked, leaning in and then purposely looking around to Samuel and Jake.

“He’s had heart trouble for a while,” Ben said. “And he finally had a heart attack. I got a call from Carrie’s stepmother. He didn’t want to trouble Carrie, but he was having chest pains. Carrie wouldn’t have gone. I had to get her up there to see him. They’ve had a strained relationship that they’re working through, which is why I couldn’t hop on a plane to this numbskull’s wedding—which didn’t happen, by the way.”

Joe seemed to pull back and tapped the window. “Well, let’s go. I’m not comfortable standing out here while you guys debate whatever it is you’re debating.”

Joe was already walking away when Ben rolled his window back up and pulled back into traffic. Yeah, of course Samuel felt like crap. He was starting to realize that whatever had happened with his brothers had nothing to do with them picking a side and more to do with the crises going on in their lives. When had they stopped talking, stopped knowing what was going on with one another?

“So what’s going on with you and Carrie?” Samuel asked. Maybe it was his way of breaking the ice.

Ben didn’t say anything for a minute as he glanced up in the rearview mirror, still driving. The way Logan was watching Ben seemed curious. He was the only one who seemed to know about all of them, to pull them together, to keep them together.

“Carrie, well, she keeps me on my toes,” Ben said. “We’re good. She’s hard headed, stubborn, but I like having her there. We’re both at the point of trying to figure out what to do next. Her father and stepmother have a bed and breakfast, so she understands that. When the fishing lodge came up, we snapped it up. It was a great deal. It’s something we can do together. The money I left the oil industry with isn’t going to last forever. It was just a cushion, and it’s drying up. I’m going to ask Carrie to marry me. I haven’t brought it up before now.”

“Hey, congratulations,” Logan said, “but is marrying Carrie what you want or what you feel you need to do? It sounds to me as if it’s just something on a list.”

Samuel couldn’t help thinking the same thing.

“Of course I want to marry her. It’s just—” He stopped, and Samuel could see he was thinking about something. Whatever it was, Samuel hadn’t realized there was more going on with Ben than maybe any of them knew.

“Just what?” Jake asked. He had been sitting quietly, taking everything in.

“I’m not sure she’s ready. At times, I notice she’s trying to find herself. We thought she was pregnant.” He shook his head, glancing up in the rearview mirror. “She wasn’t, but it was enough of a scare for Carrie that I saw she’s not ready to be a mother—and I want kids. I don’t know. I just need to give her some time.”

Samuel didn’t know what to make of Ben’s dilemma. With Jill, she’d never once said she was scared of the baby. She was having it, but that was a whole other scenario. “You know, Jill never once has said she doesn’t want this baby. Not once has she said anything about it, whether she’s happy or sad. She hasn’t mentioned buying anything—a crib, furniture, clothes. She only mentioned once about a bigger place.”

He hadn’t thought much about it until now. Maybe he really didn’t understand how women thought past his own fears of being tied down, but there was something about Jill and the thought of her never being in his life that he couldn’t get past. He felt empty without her. He felt empty without his brothers, and one couldn’t balance out the other.

No one said anything, but he could feel them watching him. The small space they were sitting in had become tense as he brought up Jill and the reason they were there.

“I didn’t know that, Samuel. I didn’t know how Jill felt,” Jake said.

His cell phone rang, and he reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled it out. Erin’s name flashed on the screen. “Erin, where are you?”