“I’m going.”
“Hailey, it’s a two-hour drive. By the time you get there, I’ll probably already know what happened.”
“Even if he’s not the one hurt, he’ll need somebody. He won’t have a vehicle. He left here on his ATV and his truck’s still in the driveway.”
She heard him sigh. “Do not speed, Hailey Genest. You wrapping yourself around a tree won’t help anybody.”
“I’ll be careful. Call me if you hear anything.”
She hung up and made a quick trip to the bathroom. Then she called the Northern Star Lodge and got Rose. “Hailey, how are you?”
“I have to go to Lewiston. Can I drop off Bear with you guys?”
“Wait. Bear...that’s Matt Barnett’s dog, right?”
“There was an accident. I don’t know if he’s the one hurt, but I know he was on the helicopter to Central Maine Med. I’m going, but I don’t want to leave Bear, just in case.”
Just in case of what, she didn’t want to think about. She knew he’d said if his family got a phone call with bad news, they’d get Bear, but how high on their priority list would he be?
“You go ahead and go. I’ll send Josh to get Bear because he knows him. And I know Fran started carrying his brand of dog food, so he’ll stop and grab a bag. You just go ahead and leave.”
“Thanks, Rosie. I’ll leave his back door unlocked. Ask Josh to leave a note on the counter with the lodge’s number in case somebody from his family shows up, and to lock up when he leaves. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”
After hitting the bathroom, she grabbed a sweatshirt and a water. She hated leaving Bear next door, but she knew he was used to Matt being late sometimes. And, even if Josh turned out to be busy, somebody from the Northern Star would come and get him. And it would already be almost eight before she got there.
She ate up the miles without hearing anything from Whitford. Stopping for gas and coffee at the three-quarter mark, she tried to get through to Drew but, whether it was her phone or his, the call didn’t go through.
When she finally arrived, she parked in the emergency room parking lot and went through the sliding doors. She wasn’t sure where they’d be or if anybody would tell her anything, but she was going to try. She wasn’t being turned away until she knew what had happened to Matt.
Then she saw him.
He was leaned up against the wall at the end of the hallway, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. With his arms hanging limply at his sides, he looked like a man who was beaten and exhausted and praying for good news. But he wasn’t hurt.
“Matt.”
He lifted his head and it seemed to take a few seconds for his eyes to focus on her. “Hailey?”
She started toward him and he met her halfway, pulling her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. It wasn’t him. That meant somebody he worked with, maybe even a friend, was on the other side of the big, double doors, but it wasn’t Matt.
“Fran heard on the radio that two game wardens got on a flight here, that one was hurt, and she heard your name. That’s all anybody knew.”
“You didn’t have to drive all the way here.” But he didn’t let her go.
“I had to know.”
“It’s Pete. My friend Pete. He had a heart attack, I guess, and wrecked his quad. It was...” His words died off and he shuddered in her arms.
“Do you know anything yet?”
“I know he’s alive.” He took a deep breath and let her go.
She looked into his face and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “That’s good, then. Are you alone here?”
“A couple guys came, but there’s a kid—a young one—missing near a lake, so they had to go.”
“Do you want some food? Some coffee? Anything?”
He shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers. “I can’t believe you drove all the way here.”
“Your phone went to voice mail.”
“I broke it. At some point I crushed it somehow and my satellite phone’s in the cargo box on my four-wheeler.”
She nodded, knowing calling her would have been way down on his list of priorities anyway, if there at all. “I called the lodge and Josh is going to get Bear. I hope that’s okay.”
A small smile broke through the weariness on his face. “You don’t mess around in an emergency, do you?”
She felt ridiculous now that she’d seen he was okay. He could have been on his way home already and she’d be running around the hospital looking for him and his dog would be at the Northern Star. “It was stupid. I overreacted, I guess. I should have stayed home with Bear and waited for you to call.”
He grabbed her hand. “No. It means a lot to me that you came. I feel bad that it was for nothing, though. I should have called you.”
“It wasn’t for nothing.” She tried to keep the emotion from showing, but the relief was still making her shaky. She’d known her feelings for him had grown despite her resistance, enough so walking away from him had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but she hadn’t realized until now they were strong enough to knock the wind out of her.
He looked like he was going to say something else, but the double doors opened and a doctor emerged. “Warden Barnett?”
Matt released her hand and turned to face the doctor. “How’s Pete?”
“He’s going to pull through. You can come on back now and I’ll talk to you about his condition. I’ve spoken to Mrs. Winslow, who’s still almost an hour out, and she said I could update you. He’s not awake right now, but you can sit with him.”
Matt looked at Hailey, and she could see his desire to get through those doors in his eyes. “Go. I’m glad he’s going to be okay. Just go.”
“Thank you for coming, Hailey.” He didn’t look back again as he followed the doctor through the doors.
ONCE PETE’S WIFE and daughter arrived and the doctor had given them the good news Pete would be in the hospital for a few days, but would make a full recovery, there wasn’t much reason in Matt sticking around any longer.
There would be reports to write and so much paperwork he’d feel trapped in red tape hell, but that was for tomorrow. Or maybe, if he was very lucky, the next day. For now, he felt as if he’d been dragged for miles by a runaway horse, so he kissed Pete’s wife on the cheek and made his escape.
He felt a pang of regret when he thought of Hailey. It was a four-hour round trip for her and he’d given her maybe five minutes before he disappeared. He’d gone out into the hall at one point, but he hadn’t seen her and she hadn’t been in the waiting room. He didn’t blame her for leaving. He’d run off and left her with barely a goodbye and that was after he’d been a total asshole the night before.
Even though he’d acted like a jerk, she’d taken care of his dog and then driven two hours to make sure he was okay. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he’d be giving it a lot of thought when he wasn’t halfway to being a zombie.
He could either scrounge around for a ride back to Whitford, or he could dig deep and summon enough charm to sweet talk the ER nurses into giving him a bed or a cot to crash on for the night. He was leaning toward the latter, but he wanted to get some fresh air first.
As he passed the waiting room, he happened to glance in and saw Hailey curled up on the sofa, reading a magazine. He stepped inside and she glanced up.
“You’re still here,” he said.
The wave of unexpected feeling almost staggered him. He hadn’t realized until he saw her face how much he didn’t want to be alone right now. Staying with Pete’s wife and daughter had seemed intrusive, and so did calling his family, but he wasn’t ready for silence after the day he’d had.
But Hailey had waited for him and he could see the concern in her eyes just as clearly as he’d seen the relief when she spotted him earlier and realized it wasn’t him who’d been hurt. She cared. And so did he. More than he’d wanted to admit to himself. He’d known he was falling, but he hadn’t realized just how far.
She tossed the magazine onto the side table and stood. “You came on the helicopter with your friend, so I wasn’t sure how you’d get home.”
“Somebody would have given me a ride.” He kept his words tight, not trusting the emotions he felt to stay put so he could analyze them rather than them pouring out of his mouth. “A local officer, maybe.”
“Oh. Well, no sense in anybody going out of their way. You live next door to me, so it’s not out of my way. Maybe a little, since I have to drive by my house to get to yours and then backtrack, but it’s only fifty feet or so. And you’d probably be a decent guy and offer to walk that far.”
He smiled. “You’re babbling.”
Her expression grew serious and she shrugged one shoulder in an embarrassed kind of gesture. “I couldn’t leave you here all alone.”
Those words hit him in the gut and he wasn’t sure what to say.
“I know there’s nothing I could do,” she continued, “but I couldn’t just turn around and drive home, either, you know?”