She has a daughter. Then the pain set in. She was in love with another man... the father of her child.
No wonder she never reached out to me. This was all the confirmation I needed that Lola didn’t love me anymore.
Chapter 8
Lola
I pulled back the green curtain and stared at the little girl in the bed.
“Mama!” Jenni threw her arms up in the air, ready for me to lift her away.
I was so thankful I met Marika at the estate, or I would have had to wait for a lift to get me here or hope that Marika would leave her meeting and take me to the hospital. And, living in a rural town, it would have taken a long time to get a lift. I’d probably still be at the estate waiting instead of giving my baby girl a hug.
“Are you alright, sweetie?” I raced over and examined her from the top of her head to her feet.
“She’s fine.” Lydia got up from the chair on the other side of Jenni’s bed.
My heart, which had been pumping like crazy since I first got Lydia’s call at Hudson Estate, was finally slowing down.
“What happened?” I lifted my little girl into my arms as she kept pulling at her earlobe.
“I gave her some peas to eat. She said she was hungry, so I grabbed the frozen peas in your freezer and gave them to her.”
“You gave them to her frozen?”
She nodded. “Oh yeah. I have a nephew I babysat when he was about Jenni’s age, and he loved frozen peas—they were like candy to him. I figured Jenni would like them too.”
“Did she choke on them? Is that why she’s here?”
“No, she, uh...” Lydia nibbled on her lip. “She got it stuck in her ear.”
I blinked, not sure if I had heard her correctly.
“Her ear?”
Lydia sighed. “Yes. I know it sounds stupid, but that’s what happened. I went to get her sippy in the kitchen and was away from the table for less than a minute, and when I came back, she was tugging on her ear.”
I sucked on my lips, trying to hold back a laugh. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t. It burst forth, causing Jenni to giggle too.
The laughter was mainly because of relief. When Lydia said she was taking Jenni to the emergency room, I thought the worst.
“Why didn’t you say that on the phone?”
“Really? How could I? You ended the call before I could say anything other than we were headed to the hospital.”
I frowned. “Sorry. I heard hospital and freaked out.”
“Anyway, I tried getting it out myself with some tweezers, but that just pushed the pea in deeper.”
Right at that moment, a man stepped into Jenni’s area. I’d call it a room, but only curtains separated the beds.
I turned to gaze upon a tall, drop-dead gorgeous guy with a stethoscope hanging around his neck. His green eyes sparkled as they landed on me.
My god, he was gorgeous.
“Well, hello, Doctor.” Lydia’s ridiculous smirk was back.
“Hello. I’m Dr. Fexy.”