He’d scared his mother. Reggie hadn’t wanted to call her, but he wasn’t cleared to drive yet. If he had taken a taxi, she would have been infuriated. And hurt. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her right now.
That was what had stuck with him. He had a concussion and broken ribs and had wrenched his right knee. He was going to be ok. It had taken him a while to convince his mother of that. Now he was signing the discharge paperwork and getting out of there a day and a half after the wreck that had totaled his truck. It felt awkward to have these people looking at him, knowing what his father had done.
Dr. Netorre had walked by his room last night. She’d paused to consult with another physician, right where Reggie could watch her.
Reggie remembered her from his childhood. He’d only been two or three years older than she was. Their parents had mingled all the time. She’d always just been that little girl who had stayed off to herself mostly. He’d followed her brother Dathan around more.
That his father could have killed her hadn’t been lost on Reggie.
She’d been with Annie, the pretty nurse from the emergency department. They had been chattering about something, their voices feminine and soothing just for him to hear. He wanted to talk to Nikkie Jean. To apologize on behalf of his entire family or something stupid like that. Reggie had just watched them walk away.
Until the older nurse had shooed him back to the bed, a suspicious expression on her face. She’d seen who he was watching. Probably thought he was as much of a freak as his father.
No doubt she was wondering what he had planned. Painting him with the same brush they’d painted his father.
Izzie MacNamara was on this floor somewhere. Reggie had hired a private detective three weeks ago to keep tabs on her. She still hadn’t left the hospital.
No one could tell him exactly why.
That was the one question he kept asking. Why?
He needed to find out why his father had shot her. Her, specifically.
They were still piecing together what his father had done. And his father was taking his attorney’s advice and saying very little. He’d shut everyone out.
Everyone. Including Reggie.
No doubt that was eating at the other people involved.
Reggie couldn’t imagine what Izadora—Izzie, he thought he’d heard someone call her—was going through. To have someone you worked with, someone you probably reasonably trusted, just walk up and shoot you...it had to be a life-altering shock. How could someone bounce back from that?
There were security videos from W4HAV. Someone had leaked them. To The Snotty Garlic, of all things. Reggie had them saved on his phone. He’d watched over and over as that woman had looked up at his father, a pretty smile on her face, and his father had just shot her. Before turning on Nikkie Jean.
Reggie would never forget how the two women had looked right before it had happened. Not until the day he died. Reggie had known Jordan Carrington his entire life, too. The man had been something of a mentor, had even written a recommendation for Reggie to get into the private school he’d attended as a teen.
The papers and reporters had gone on and on about an old affair between his father and Nikkie Jean’s mother. Speculating that Nikkie Jean wasn’t Jordan Carrington’s daughter, and as such, wasn’t entitled to the Carrington fortune. Said that Nikkie Jean had run away thirteen years ago to be with her biological father.
Reggie supposed that was possible. Although the girl didn’t look like Reggie or his father, except the hair. Reggie’s hair was just a shade darker. She was so small, too. Reggie was six-three, his father was just as tall.
Jordan Carrington was maybe five ten or eleven.
Of course, Jordan’s wife—Reggie couldn’t recall her name—had been tiny, too. Reggie wore reading glasses when needed. That was it. The only things he and Nikkie Jean had physically in common. Reggie had been mortified by the Garlic. As had his mother, and no doubt Dr. Carrington. Still were.
Other gossips had been speculating that Nikkie Jean had been involved with Reggie’s father in some sick repeat of history.
That had been quickly dispelled when Nikkie Jean was quoted on the news as saying the only man she had been involved with in four years was the one who’d stolen her heart, saved her life, and fathered her baby. And Wallace Henedy was the last man in the universe she would ever be involved with. How could anyone look at Caine Alvaro and compare him unfavorably to Wallace Henedy? Nikkie Jean had been floored by that, she’d said.
When she had been accosted on her way into the grocery store by a particularly pushy reporter, Nikkie Jean had told them to, “Get the hell out of my sex life, you sick perverts!” And then she’d asked the reporter who’d been harassing her if he liked striped or polka-dotted condoms best. The reporter had been shocked speechless. She’d gone on to tell the reporter the statistics for failed condoms, and that he should do an article on the proper usage techniques, to both prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Said she’d be happy to do a public service announcement on women’s health statistics, as well. That had been followed by information about the rapidly growing percentage of seniors who were contracting sexually transmitted diseases now.
The reporter had walked away quickly after that.
Nikkie Jean had had her hair in two pigtails and had been wearing pastel ponies on her scrubs. She’d looked like a twelve-year-old playing dress-up.
That had stuck with Reggie.
Nikkie Jean’s fiancé happened to be related to the governor of Texas. That had no doubt squelched a lot of the rumors involving Nikkie Jean, specifically.
There was no way she’d slept with Reggie’s father. Not that woman. It was in the way Nikkie Jean had looked at Dr. Caine Alvaro, even on the videos, as he’d stood huge and protective right by her side, a toddler sleeping in his arms.
Nikkie Jean loved Dr. Alvaro. Deeply, passionately.
Reggie had never been loved by a woman like that. He’d thought he had, but…Amanda hadn’t truly loved him. She’d made that perfectly clear.
Not like his own father had. All throughout Reggie’s childhood, he’d been certain his father adored his mother. That their marriage was strong.
He’d been an idiot.
Just what his father had thrown away would never make sense to Reggie. Never.
And Reggie never wanted to be like him again.
He finished his paperwork, thanked the nurses genuinely, and then got himself to the elevator.
It slid open. And there she was.
Reggie stopped short as they stared at each other. A pretty woman with large dark eyes, short dark hair that stuck up in wild curls, and a sweet mouth that was just made for kissing. For smiling. For laughing.
Izadora MacNamara stood, gawking at him. She was dressed in tie-dyed footed pajamas and a robe with cartoon aliens printed on it. Standing between Nikkie Jean Netorre and pretty nurse Annie.
Reggie froze. He had no idea what to say.
I’m sorry! just didn’t seem adequate.
I’m sorry my father did this to you?
He just stood there and stared.