Page 179 of Wicked Little Thief

“I can drive. I don’t want to wait for you to get here.”

“No, baby, I don’t want you driving. Get an Uber. I’ll go down to the ER and see if Aiden is working. If he’s not, I’ll call him and ask him to come in as a personal favor to me.”

“Thank you, Liam. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I’m not kidding about the Uber, little bee. You are not in the right frame of mind right now to get behind the wheel.”

“I just ordered priority pickup with Lyft. They’ll be here in seven minutes.”

“Okay honey, I’ll see you soon.”

He hung up and headed down to the emergency room.

As usual, the ER was a flurry of activity, but there was a young nurse at the nurse’s station.

“Hi, Allie. Do you know if Dr. Matthews is working tonight?”

“He’d logged out, but we paged him when a woman showed up here and asked for him, so he came back.”

“Okay.”

And even though he didn’t think he’d acted like he was mad, the poor woman looked like she was about to cry when she quickly added, “Dr. Cunningham said he’d want to know she was here.”

“I think Dr. Cunningham was right; he’d want to be here. Do you know where Dr. Matthews is right now?”

Another nurse, who’d obviously been listening to their exchange, piped up, “He headed toward the waiting room when he found out that’s where she was.”

Liam started toward the waiting room, but before he opened the door, he could see through the window Aiden holding Dakota in his arms. The man’s eyes were closed as he stroked the back of her hair—his cheek against her temple.

It looked like Liam wasn’t going to have to call in any favors after all.

He turned around and decided to search Steven out. Liam wanted to make sure the ER Director knew they had a VIP coming in.

****

Utah

Her phone chimed with an incoming text as she sat in the back of the ride share.

Liam: Aiden was already here and met your dad the minute the EMTs wheeled him in.

Utah: That’s good news, right?

Liam: It’s great news—Aiden is the best cardiologist there is.

Utah: Do you think Dakota knows he’s the doctor working on Dad?

Liam: I saw him talking to her in the waiting room. Your dad is in good hands. And I already talked to Steven. He’ll make sure your dad is taken care of.

Utah: Thank you. I love you so much for doing this for me and my family. I owe you.

Liam: Not for this you don’t. I’m glad I can help.

Utah: The app says my ETA is ten minutes. I’ll come find you once I’ve talked to my family.

Liam: I’ll be here.

This was not how she wanted to introduce Liam to her family. She appreciated that he was giving her space to talk to them without feeling the need to be there with her.

---