Page 56 of Booked for the Holidays
The bell jingles above the door and my mom breezes in.
“Brought you sustenance,” she announces, like I’m not fully capable of feeding myself.
Though with all the holiday events and the store restock and Liam consuming nearly every waking thought, she might be right.
I accept the egg salad sandwich and bag of chips she pulls from her purse. Unwrapping the sandwich, I see the avocado peeking out and my mouth waters. I love avocado.
Before I can thank her, her phone rings.
It’s the default ringtone at an ungodly volume, and it takes her far too long to answer. I’m about to jab the button for her when she bats my hand away and gingerly picks it up.
“Hi, Jasper.”
I turn my attention to my sandwich while I wait for her to finish the call, but an audible gasp snaps my head back up.
“Oh, my goodness,” she exclaims, clutching her chest. “Liam hit a tree?”
Liam.Hit a tree.
A vivid horrifying image flashes through my mind. Liam’s body flung from a snowmobile, slamming into a tree trunk like a rag doll. My limbs go numb.
Liam. Hurt.
Injured.
Dead?
Appetite gone, my chest cinches tight, and I think I might throw up.
“What?” I whisper, my voice so thin it barely exists. My gut twists so hard I nearly double over.
“But he’s okay?” my mom asks, pressing her lips together when she nods. “Oh, that’s good.”
He’s okay. Not dead. Good.
She keeps nodding, murmuring something I can’t hear, but it does nothing to settle the storm inside me.
I stand abruptly, my untouched sandwich forgotten. I grab my purse with shaking hands.
“Juni, where are you—” She starts, but I cut her off.
“Can you watch the store?” I blurt. I don’t wait for her to hang up. I’m already grabbing my keys and bolting for the door.
Twenty minutes later, I’m screeching into the parking lot of the Summit County Hospital.
“Take a breath, Juniper,” I mutter, trying to calm the thundering in my chest. “Don’t kill yourself on the way to check on him.”
Liam is okay. He’s alive. But that doesn’t ease my heart at the thought of what could have happened.
What if he was gone? And I’d been standing there playing it cool, pretending I didn’t care. What’s the point of guarding my heart if I could’ve lost him anyway?
Cranking the steering wheel, I fly into a parking spot. I almost forget to put my car in park and nearly hit another car.
“I’m so sorry!” I call to the startled driver across from me, then slam my door and sprint for the entrance.
I blow through the automatic doors like a woman possessed, the sound of my boots squeaking against the sterile floor echoing through the ER.
“Liam Hargrove?” I pant to the nurse behind the desk.
