He still held her hand, though. He was evidently concerned about the thin tubing snaking from beneath the adhesive on the back of her hand, because there was no other reason he’d have held her so.
He. Alexander Reed. Alex.
The man who was—inadvertently and completely unknowingly—responsible for the baby that was even now kicking the life out of her kidneys.
He’d been her boss for three years, until she’d resigned last summer.
Nikki’s heart pounded so hard she felt faint.
“Easy there,” he murmured, casually reaching for the button that hung from a cord near her shoulder. “Don’t upset yourself. You’re fine. The baby’s fine.”
She swallowed, his assurance calming the panic roiling inside her. The baby. Concentrate on the baby.
She carefully pulled her hand from beneath his. “How did I get back to Cheyenne?”
He shook his head. “You didn’t. You’re still in Montana. Lucius Community Hospital.”
“You sure are,” the nurse entering the room agreed. “And we’re happy to see you’re awake.” She smiled comfortingly as she bustled around the bed, checking machines and making notes. “The doctor will be right in,” she told Alex as she deftly wrapped Nikki’s arm in a blood pressure cuff. “We’re a little busy today. Two babies on the way.” She finished with the cuff and made some more notes. “How are you feeling, hon?”
Nikki couldn’t formulate a coherent answer. But the nurse seemed to understand. “Just remain quiet,” she told her. “The doctor won’t be long.”
When the nurse departed, Nikki eyed Alex again. “What are you doing here?” Never mind what she was doing there. Not even the nurse had helped to answer that question.
Alex’s dark brown eyes were as unreadable as ever. “They called me when you were brought in.”
“They?”
He moved his shoulders slightly as if he were impatient with the question. She wasn’t surprised. When she’d worked for him, Alex had depended on her to handle the details. The man wouldn’t remember his own birthday if she hadn’t reminded him to check his calendar.
“The woman who owns that inn you were staying at,” he said. “The only phone number she had, other than your home, was your work number. The hospital called me, too.”
Her former work number. “Hadley Golightly?” Nikki wasn’t only trying to get details out of him. She was trying not to betray the fact that she was desperately trying to recall what had happened. “Tiff’s is a boardinghouse. Not an inn.”
“Fine. A boardinghouse.” Alex’s sharp gaze had strayed to the window. Narrow blinds covered it, slanted so the sun wouldn’t shine directly into the room. Not that there was any sun, from the looks of it. Just gray skies, heavy with snow. Typical January whether she was home in Wyoming or vacationing in Montana.
Her temples throbbed. “The baby,” she whispered. “You’re sure about the baby?”
“I’m sure.” He looked back at her, and the steadiness of his gaze eased her as much as his words did.
“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here, though.” Why hadn’t Alex called her family rather than come to Montana himself? It wasn’t as if he didn’t know who they were. Her sister, Belle, had worked for him at Huffington Sports Clinic, too. For a while, at least.
The whispery details of a blue, horse-drawn sleigh straight out of a fairy tale drifted in and out of her mind, as insubstantial as a curl of smoke.
Cody had promised her a sleigh ride for their honeymoon.
But that was years ago.
Nikki had gone on the sleigh ride alone. It was the last thing she remembered. Sitting on the thickly padded seat, the morning air bright and crisp on her face.
Or was that a dream, too?
She couldn’t seem to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, and the elusive details slipped away.
Would it be easier to deal with Alex than her foggy memory?
Probably not.
What was he really doing here?
She’d already removed herself from his life once.
This was backtracking in the worst of ways.
“How…how are things at the office?” She couldn’t seem to prevent the question from emerging any more than she could prevent the nerves jangling through the muzziness fogging her brain.
“Had to let another admin go last week.”
“Another one?” She’d heard the rumblings, of course, about Alex’s difficulty in hiring a permanent replacement for her. No matter how well she’d thought she’d excised Huffington from her life—and the man who’d taken one small Wyoming clinic and turned it into an innovative network spread across the United States— she’d still heard that, after she’d left, he’d gone through his first three administrative assistants in as many weeks. “What number was she?”
His lips pursed a little. It only made her notice them, which she had no business doing. “Six.” His gaze slanted from the window back to her bed.
She braced herself. Even though he’d never really seemed to notice her, it had always given Nikki a jolt whenever he’d looked at her.
She’d almost not taken the administrative assistant position in the first place, as a result of that. She hadn’t wanted to feel any sort of jolt from anyone. Not when Cody was still in her heart.
The jolt was there. As usual.
A dip, a sway, a leap. Deep inside her.
More than three and a half years since the April day she’d sat across from Alex’s desk and accepted the position, and it was as bad—or worse—than ever.
“How’s, um, how’s everything else with the clinics, then?” Her voice was a little breathless. She hoped he’d think it had something to do with whatever had put her in the hospital.
Knowing Alex, he knew more about those details than she.
His expression didn’t change. “You think I came here to discuss business?”
“You called me nearly five times a week at first to discuss business.” He’d stopped calling after that first month, though.
She’d breathed easier, but grieved a little harder for the job she’d really loved.
“I wouldn’t have had to make those calls if the personnel department had a clue about hiring someone competent.”
“It’s your personnel department,” she replied mildly. Huffington was entirely Alex’s baby. There was no higher authority in the company.
She had a fanciful image of herself hovering around the ceiling of the hospital room, watching this particular exchange. Discussing business?
The baby kicked again and she dragged her split persona down from the ceiling. “So…you came here to… what? Ask me to come back to my job?”
“You still consider being my administrative assistant your job?”
She shifted her shoulders. “No.”
“Then you’re employed elsewhere now.”
“I start a job very soon.” She hoped, desperately wishing she knew how long she’d been in the hospital. She’d been living on her savings for months, and her pride simply refused to let her take handouts from her family, no matter how easily they could have afforded it.
She was Nikki Day. She stood on her own two feet.
The