Just as I thought about drifting back to sleep, I shifted to take the pressure off my arm. At the movement, my stomach hitched.
Not again.
Griffen rolled toward me, propping himself up on his elbow. The smile on his face was nothing I’d ever thought to see in real life. Open, happy, and overflowing with love. For me.
The pain in my arm faded into the background. A goofy smile spread across my face. I couldn’t help it. I was so in love with Griffen Sawyer, and he loved me back. A miracle like that deserved a goofy smile.
Blinded by the look on his face, the light in his green eyes, I leaned up to kiss him only to collapse back on the mattress with the yelp of pain.
Dumbass. How could I have forgotten the hole in my arm?
The stab of pain stole my breath and tried to turn my stomach inside out. Saliva flooded my mouth. Crap. I wasn’t getting off easy this time.
The goofy smile long gone, I scrambled from the bed, ignoring the pain and nausea, ignoring everything on my race for the bathroom. I almost didn’t make it. I fell to my knees on the marble floor and wrenched up the lid, just in time.
I hate vomiting. I don’t know anyone who likes it, but I really, really hate it. I especially hated knowing that Griffen was standing right behind me, watching me heave my guts up. I wanted to wave him off, but I was braced on my good arm and I wasn’t willing to risk moving the bad one. Someone needed to invent a decent pain med for pregnant women.
After the first heave, I caught my breath and lifted my head up. “Don’t watch.”
“Tell me how to help,” Griffen said, sounding a little desperate.
I took a slow breath and managed to get out, “Ginger ale,” before the next heave hit my gut. I wasn’t ready for anything to drink yet, but the ginger ale—actually ginger beer so spicy it burned going down—was the only thing that settled my stomach. Griffen disappeared and was back seconds later.
“The fridge up here is empty. I’ll run down to the kitchen and grab one out of the pantry.”
I let him go without a word, too busy puking up everything I’d ever eaten. I don’t know how long I sat there, the cold floor freezing my bare skin, my good arm wrapped around the toilet seat and clammy forehead pressed to my wrist. Eventually, it stopped.
I waited, just in case, but my stomach had decided it was thoroughly empty, and I was free to go.
I staggered to my feet, flushed the toilet, and headed straight for my toothbrush, catching sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. Yuck. My face was too pale, dark circles bruised under my eyes, my hair a hopeless tangle.
Once I’d brushed my teeth and ran a brush through my hair, I realized that I was hungry.
Hungry? How the heck could I be hungry? Maybe because I’d barely eaten anything the day before and had just spent a million years throwing up.
Whatever, I didn’t care. I wanted that ginger beer and then I wanted some food. Wandering back into the bedroom to check the clock, I realized that it was too early for Savannah to be on duty, and Miss Stiles might not be in the kitchen yet. If I wanted food, I’d have to make it myself. Not that I wasn’t fully capable. I could manage toast.
I scooped up Griffen’s sweater from the floor, the cashmere settling around me, soft and scented of the woods and Griffen. He wasn’t getting this sweater back. I pulled on a pair of jeans I’d left on the floor of the closet, shoved my feet into a pair of ugly-but-warm slippers and left the room in search of food.
No one else was up, not that I’d expected them to be. It was barely dawn, the weak light of the spring sunrise peeking through the closed curtains. Remembering that Hawk had told me to stay away from the windows, I went down the back staircase, my stomach growling in demand.
On the lower level, voices echoed down the hall, bouncing off the stone. Voices? Was Miss Stiles here early? With Savannah? I didn’t hear a woman, though. Griffen. Griffen and a man I didn’t recognize. A strong accent. Someone who’d grown up in the mountains around here.
We didn’t have anyone on staff with that accent. I would have remembered. The local accents varied from almost none—like me and my uncle Edgar and all the Sawyers—to a little Southern—like Maisie—to varying degrees of the mountain accents and dialects, some of which I could barely understand, and I’d lived here my whole life.
Whoever was talking to Griffen was somewhere in between town and mountains. Not so strong I couldn’t understand, but strong enough. No one I recognized.