Read Online Serial Bride by Ann Voss Peterson - Free Book Online Page B

her?”
    He shrugged. “When she disappeared, she was about to marry another man—a man Ingersoll didn’t think was worthy of her.”
    â€œAnd Reed was attacked. Almost killed.” She looked up at him with wide eyes. “We need to call Perreth, tell him to meet us at the hospital.”
    â€œWhy?” Bryce asked, though he had a good idea of where her fears were leading.
    â€œIf Louis stalked Diana…if he kidnapped her tokeep her from marrying Reed…if he tried to kill Reed once, he might try it again.”
    Â 
    S HE THOUGHT she was prepared to see Reed in the ICU. She’d even told Bryce she could handle it, that he should drop her off and park the car and try to call Perreth at least once more before wrestling with probable cell phone interference within the concrete walls of the hospital. She’d prepared herself while climbing five flights of stairs when she learned two of the three elevators were under repair during the off hours. She’d even had a warning of exactly how hurt he was when one of the nurses manning the nurses’ station told her he was still unconscious. She knew she could handle it.
    But she was wrong.
    At least when she’d found him, he’d looked like himself. Injured, but still Reed, the future brother-in-law she knew. The man Diana loved. Now—swathed in white, with tubes snaking everywhere, his black hair shaved clean, and his face pale and lifeless as wax—he barely looked human. It was as if the Reed she knew had disappeared right along with Diana.
    â€œCan I help you?”
    Sylvie spun in the direction of the voice.
    A uniformed police officer stood at the curtainseparating Reed’s cubicle from the rest of intensive care.
    The nurse had told her Perreth had arranged for protection, though she had to see the officer with her own eyes before she believed Perreth had finally done something right. “I’m Reed’s sister-in-law. Or at least, I was supposed to be. He and my sister were to be married.”
    The officer gave her a kind smile. “Do you have identification with you?”
    â€œYes.” She dug in her purse, finally locating her Illinois driver’s license. Wincing at the awful picture, she stepped away from Reed’s bed and handed it to the officer.
    After examining it and checking with the nurses’ station, the officer stepped outside the cubicle and pulled a curtain across the open door.
    Sylvie moved to the bed. Bryce would arrive any moment. She wondered what he’d think when he saw the officer posted at the door. That she was simply off base about Perreth? Or that she was trying to ditch him again?
    She had to admit he’d been a help to her. A big help. And she didn’t relish the prospect of running around the campus by herself at night. But the longer he was with her, driving her places, lending her his coat, the more she was beginning to like having him around and the more she knew she couldn’t let it go on.
    Steering her thoughts away from Bryce and to Reed, she touched a spot of skin on his hand that was IV needle free. She’d heard stories about how people in comas could hear, just not respond. She knew she should talk to him. Say something. But she had no idea what. She had no good news to tell him. And if he really could hear her, he didn’t need to know the bad.
    â€œMs. Hayes?” A woman in a white coat pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the room. “I’m Dr. Afton. Mr. McCaskey is under my care.”
    After some hand shaking and a few pleasantries Sylvie didn’t have the patience for, the doctor got down to business. “Our tests indicate we were able to stop the bleeding in his brain,” the doctor explained. “I don’t expect any long-term problems, but we’re still watching him carefully at this point.”
    â€œWhen will he regain consciousness?”
    â€œIt’s hard to say. Right now the