Seeking Happily Ever After (Ever After #8) - Elena Aitken Page 0,68

and on about how much the baby cried and how she couldn’t handle the noise.” Katie sat up again. “It’s disgusting. I don’t know anything about anything, but I do know that Amelia should be with Nick and Charlotte.”

“Well…” Steph swallowed. “I’m sure Nick is going to do everything legally he can to make that happen. And now, maybe the courts will be able to see clearly what the best thing for Amelia is.”

“I hope so.” Katie snuggled the baby closer. “Do you want to…”

“No.” Steph shook off the offer to cuddle the little girl she thought of as a niece. “I should talk to Nick.” She looked around again. “Where is he?”

Katie sighed. “Probably making the nurses crazy. He refuses to sit down. They won’t let him back, and they won’t tell him what’s going on. All we know is she’s in surgery. Still. It’s probably for the best that he’s not in here.” Katie used her head to gesture toward Jeremy, who still hadn’t sat down. “I think Jeremy might kill him if he does. I don’t know why, but he’s blaming Nick for all of this.”

“But it was Billy.”

“I know.” Katie shrugged. “You can’t talk to him. Either of them.”

“I still can’t believe this, you know?”

“I know.” Katie nodded slowly. “But you know what…in a way, it’s kind of good that it all played out the way it did. I mean, otherwise Charlotte wouldn’t have been there. She wouldn’t have heard Amelia’s cries and…well, I don’t want to think about it.”

Steph nodded her agreement, as a question popped into her head. “How did she hear Amelia? I mean, the kid is loud, sure. But the lodge was a long way away from the cabin and…” She drifted off, unable to reconcile how Charlotte had heard the baby through the woods.

Katie looked down at the baby and smiled softly before looking up again. “Maybe it was motherly instinct?”

That felt right. And it was the only thing that made sense.

Stephanie bent and pressed a kiss to the little girl’s head, before going in search of the baby’s father.

Chapter Nineteen

It had been over an hour. Almost two.

Why weren’t they telling him anything? Where was the doctor? And why—

“Nick?”

He spun around so fast he almost hit Stephanie, who’d come up behind him.

“They won’t tell me anything.”

“I know.” Her voice was gentle. “Come here.” She held her arms open, but Nick shook his head.

He couldn’t relax. And he definitely couldn’t let himself seek comfort. Not when he didn’t know whether Charlotte was going to be okay or not. She was in there because of him. It was his fault she was fighting for her life right now. Sure, Billy had pulled the trigger, but Charlotte never should have been there by herself. She never should have been running from him. The fact that it was his lie that made her leave, that had driven her right into Billy’s trap, made him sick to his stomach.

No.

He wouldn’t rest until he knew she was okay. And if she wasn’t—no!

He wouldn’t, he couldn’t let himself think that way.

“Nick?”

“No.” He shook his head. “She needs to be okay, Steph. She has to be. I can’t lose her.” He looked at his friend. There was nothing but kindness and understanding reflected back at him. “I love her, Steph.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know. I love her,” he said again. “So much. More than anything in the world. It’s different with Amelia—I love her, too. But...”

“Nick?” Steph put her hand on his arm. “I know.”

He stopped and looked at her. “You know?”

She nodded.

“Like you know it’s not just for show? That somewhere along the way I fell for her?”

“Besides the fact that you already told me?” She grinned. “Yes. I knew. Right at the beginning,” she said with a small laugh. “I think you fell for her the first time you met her. But yes, I know. I think everyone knows.”

He let his lips curl up into a small smile.

“She’s going to be okay, Nick. She will.”

“She saved Amelia.” He dropped his head, at the memory of what he’d seen. How he’d found her like that. Unconscious, with the baby protected and loved. She’d gone to her. “Can you even imagine, Steph? What it must have taken for her to go to her?”

Steph shook her head.

The police had told them that Charlotte had obviously been in the altercation with Billy at the upper cabin before making her way to the main lodge—and Amelia. “What if she hadn’t have been