Page 104 of Wife Number One

I hoped with everything I had that she did.

She didn’t say anything or nod, but she did pick her shoes up from the floor and pulled them on her feet.

I glanced at Hawk.

He shrugged. “She didn’t say no,” he said loud enough so only I could hear.

She didn’t say no.

It was a start.

The hospital clinic was overrun with people. Hawk, Hayley Jade, and I all stopped just inside the automatic sliding doors, joining the line of people waiting.

“Fucking hell. This is going to suck,” Hawk mumbled.

A harried woman behind the registration desk glanced up and shot him a dirty look, clearly not at all bothered by his MC jacket or the bad-boy scowl he wore effortlessly.

In fact, if anything, his appearance seemed to piss her off even more. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did I just hear you whining no less than three seconds after you got here, when some of these people have waited hours without so much as a peep? You offering to volunteer your time to help out, Mr. Bad-boy Biker? No. I didn’t think so. Everybody is so willing to complain, but we’re all volunteers here, so listening to people whine isn’t on my to-do list today.”

Hawk blinked as the woman went back to taking the details of the patient at the front of the line. He nudged me. “Who pissed in her Cheerios this morning?”

I hushed him. Clearly the woman had supersonic hearing, and I didn’t want to risk her turning us away. “We can wait like everyone else. You don’t have to stay.”

His eyes darkened. “You think I’m going to leave you here alone in a room full of strangers?” His laugh was humorless. “Not a fucking chance.”

I tried to hide the breath of relief I let out.

I didn’t want him to go.

I didn’t want to do this alone.

We got to the front of the line, and the woman gave Hawk a glare then turned to me. “Name?”

I cleared my throat and tried to find my voice. “Um. It’s for my daughter. Her name is Hayley Jade…”

“Last name?” The woman’s fingers hovered over her keyboard, waiting for my reply.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to give my last name, or even Shari’s. I didn’t want there to be any record of us being here. I couldn’t really imagine Josiah having a contact at a hospital hundreds of miles from the commune, but fear made me paranoid. Fang had promised to get fake IDs for both me and Hayley Jade, but his contact hadn’t come through with them yet.

I had no idea what to say.

“Robinson,” he replied, giving his last name. “Hayley Jade Robinson.”

The woman looked between the two of us, her thinly plucked eyebrow raised. “That so?”

I glanced at him, not wanting to lie, but my heart doing weird things at hearing my daughter with his name.

I pinched myself through my skirt, the sharp stab of pain a reminder it didn’t mean anything. Nor did I even want it to mean anything. He’d just been helping me out when my brain had frozen.

But a little part of me had melted into a puddle.

“Yes, please, ma’am,” I said quietly.

The woman watched me as she typed in the name without even looking at the screen. “What’s a nice girl like you doing with a man like him?”

Irritation prickled at the back of my neck. Hawk was abrasive and rude sometimes, but this woman didn’t know him. She’d judged him solely on the fact he had an MC jacket on.

I tried to defend him. “That’s not your—”

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