Page 67 of From Rivals to I Do

“You know, I’m not too sure how to proceed with all of this as I am now but I gotta say, I ain’t too mad about it.”

“Eli, Darla is not who you think she is,” Mitch says with a sigh, his face going from happy-go-lucky and grinning to concerned, fast enough to make your head spin.

“Why? What’s wrong with her?” I ask.

“She’s a maneater, that’s what’s wrong with her,” Mitch says. “She likes to mess with your head, chew you up, and spit you out like you’re nothin’. I’ve told you this before!”

I can sense the anger and vitriol spewing out in his bashing of Darla, and it leaves me feeling confused. . . but he’s made it clear we’ve discussed this before.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten but I have amnesia, Mitch,” I reply. “I hardly remember you, to be fair.”

“Sorry, I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Mitch says. “She’s an awful person.”

“How would you even know that? Did you date her?” I ask, and he immediately looks repulsed and anxious.

“What, me?” Mitch asks, pointing to himself and laughing nervously. “No way, no! My buddy, Joe—”

“From the bar,” I say as a flash of a memory peeks through. “Joseph, from the bar. I went to tell him off, and you said you’d talk to him about following her around, right?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“You’re good friends with him, so you’re already biased,” I say. “If I’m remembering correctly, we’ve also already spoken about his bad deeds before. He’s not without sin either, and honestly, he seems to be the villain here. So, with all things considered, I don’t understand why you hate her so much.”

“Eli, it’s a bit more complicated than all that,” Mitch stammers. “And we aren’t supposed to get you all riled up.”

“Well, it’s a bit too late for that,” I say, feeling a bit angry at his poor attitude toward Darla. “I may not remember everything, but I know how I feel about her, and you should respect that.”

The room falls silent, the only sound coming from the television, the murmurs of the cowboys in the western I’d been watching on and off droning on in the background. Mitch looks off toward the window, as if he’s deep in thought, before shaking his head. “Well, I better get going,” he says suddenly.

“What? But you just got here,” I say, raising my brow. I really must have upset him more than I thought.

“I’ve got some stuff to take care of,” Mitch replies as he gets up. “Take ‘er easy, Eli,” he says before he disappears out into the hallway. . . and there’s something about his weird, erratic behavior that leaves me with an odd sense of unease.

Rosita is going to be so irritated with me, I think to myself as I look down at the time on my phone. That took way longer than a half hour. I sigh as the doors slide open. My eyes immediately scan the hall, looking to see if I can find Rosita to apologize. Guess she’s in a patient’s room, I think as I walk back onto the ward and get to the nurse’s desk, just in time to see a familiar face.

Joseph’s face, and he’s coming out of Eli’s room.

Panic immediately sets in, and I duck down as he walks by, his cowboy boots clicking loudly on the tile. What is he doing here? And why was he in Eli’s room?

I need to find out.

Poor Rosita will have to wait.After I glance toward Eli’s room and see that none of the machines are going off, and that he’s preoccupied with the TV, I stalk down the hall after Joe. After seeing him, I have a horrible feeling that it really is all connected to Joseph.

Quietly tip toeing down the hall—glad I was wearing flats—I watch from a pillar as he boards the elevator, waiting for the door to close before flying as fast as I can down the stairs, hoping I won’t lose him in the shuffle of the hospital. Thankfully, however, once I reach the bottom floor and peer out the doorway, I can still see him a few steps ahead of me. So, like a lion on the prowl, I creep after him into the parking lot.

For once, I’m glad that I have to park farther out to make the walk to the hospital shorter for the patients when I realize that whatever he’s driving, our cars are in the same area. I duck and weave between cars, making sure not to be seen as he gets in his car, and I make a mad dash for my own.

I need to know where he’s going, I think to myself. There’s no reason for him to be anywhere near Eli.

Ever.

I get to the back of my car, and I squat down, watching him as he sits there. Luckily, he takes a moment before he leaves, and as he slowly pulls out of his spot, I scramble for my front seat. I twist the key in my ignition, praying that it’ll start, and when it does, I am in hot pursuit.

I quickly put on some sunglasses as I follow closely behind, but I’m still sweating bullets when we have to stop at a light. I duck down and try to find the ascot that I had worn out one day. When I find it, I wrap it around my hair as well, trying to hide my identity the best that I can.

Lucky for me, Joe doesn’t look back at all, seeming to be far too focused on getting to wherever it is that he needs to go. So much so that I almost lose him three different times once he speeds into the hills, hitting about eighty.

Where is he going in such a hurry? I ask myself as I continue to tail him. Does he live out this way? But then he takes a sudden turn up a very familiar dirt road, and my mind feels like it might explode.

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