Page 67 of Accidental Vegas Vows

Damien’s phone sprang to life in his pocket, his ringtone carrying along the empty beach. He fished it out of his jacket and sat straight up.

“What’s up, Carrie?”

I watched as his face morphed from excited dad and turned into something I’d never, ever seen before on him. Not when he’d come to me stressed out of his mind and asked me to watch Noah, not when he’d looked like he was about to break after the phone call in Disney.

My stomach sank and bile crept into my throat. I didn’t know what it was, but fuck, it wasn’t good.

“What happened, Carrie?”

He shot to his feet a second later, holding out one expectant hand for me. I took it, and he hoisted me up before turning back to the trailhead.

“Words, Carrie, I need fucking words!” he shouted, his voice warbling.

I opened my mouth to speak but decided against it as I followed his hasty footsteps.

“Where is he? Which hospital?”

Oh my God. Bile filled my mouth. I vomited next to the sign for the beach, the act of heaving only making it happen again and again.

“Stay with him. I’m on my way.”

Damien shoved his phone into his pocket as I pulled myself away from the sign. He clocked me, his eyes wide, his face damp, and I could see the fight in his eyes that pulled him in two directions. But he came back to me.

“We have to go. We have to go,” he croaked, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the woodland.

“What’s happened?” I asked. I wiped my mouth with my jacket sleeve as I tried to pick up the pace. It had only been a thirty-minute hike to get out here — surely we could make it back quicker than that.

“Noah had a seizure.”

Chapter 24

Damien

“Noah Blackwood,” I said.

“We don’t have a Noah Blackwood.” The short, stout woman behind the desk looked up at me, her eyes wide, her chair squeaking as she leaned back. She looked afraid of me, and I couldn’t blame her.

“Noah Thompson,” Liv corrected.

The woman typed at her screen again before nodding. “We’ve got a Noah Thompson here, but only his parents are allowed in.”

The smallest, tiniest bit of relief hit me for the first time in hours. “I’m his father,” I said. “And this is my wife, Olivia.”

“Do you have identification with the same last name?” she asked.

And there went any relief. I buried my face in my hands as I leaned against the high end of the desk. “No, I don’t. He has his mother’s last name.”

“And the mother isn’t here?” she asked, eyeing Olivia.

“His mother passed away a few months ago,” Liv offered. I wasn’t sure if I was thankful or disturbed by her air of calmness, but whatever it was, it was helping the situation. The woman seemed much more up to talking to her.

“Do you have anything to prove that?”

“Um, no, but…” Liv fished in her bag for her phone and pulled it out, flipping it around to show the lady her lockscreen. “But this is Noah and I in Disney. Does that count for anything?”

If I had any bit of me that wasn’t engulfed in stress, I could have cried from realizing that Noah was her fucking lockscreen. But I couldn’t do that right now.

The woman sighed and sucked her teeth, weighing up her options. But then she hit a buzzer and the doors to the pediatric unit opened, and I grabbed Liv before the woman could change her mind.

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