In Your Heart - Smeltzer Micalea - Страница 56

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I pulled into the parking lot behind my store and headed inside.

Arden was working today and she greeted me with a cheery smile. “Hey, I ordered you a sandwich when I got my lunch. I figured you probably forgot to eat. It’s on your desk.”

“You’re a life saver,” I told her honestly. I didn’t know what I’d do without her.

I headed into my office and set my bag down before tearing into the sandwich. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until she mentioned food.

By the time I finished and washed my hands Emma was breezing into the store. She greeted Arden before heading towards me. I motioned her into my office and closed the door.

“I feel like crap.” She declared, sitting down in the chair across from my desk. “I swear I’ve been fighting a bug for weeks.”

“You need to go to the doctor,” I scolded her, grabbing her dress from where I’d stashed it.

She waved away my concern. “I don’t have time.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Emma Rayne you do so have time to go to the doctor.”

She rolled her eyes and kicked off her combat boots. “You sound like my mother…only she’d be shoving some kind of herbal tea at me.”

“That’s because your momma is a smart lady. Now strip down.”

She laughed. “Just try not to poke me with seven hundred pins this time.”

I glared at her with my hands on my hips. “Then don’t wiggle so much.”

Once she was down to her bra and panties I went to work helping her into the dress. It’d been a week since she last tried it on and now it looked like a real dress. She couldn’t see herself yet and I hoped she loved the dress as much as I did. It fit her perfectly and the design was so her. To say I was pleased with my handiwork was the understatement of the century. It still needed some tweaks, but it was pretty close to perfect.

I covered Emma’s eyes and led her over to the floor length mirror.

“One, two, three.” I counted and dropped my hands.

Her gasp of delight was exactly what I wanted to hear. “Sadie,” tears welled in her eyes, “this…this…is amazing.” She twirled around, examining it from every angle. “I love it. I really do.”

I grinned. “I’m glad.”

I was stunned when she tackle hugged me.

“Whoa,” I held her, trying to keep us upright.

“Thank you so much,” she cried against my shoulder, “I know I’ve been such a bitch to you lately, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

I rubbed her back. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She stepped back, wiping her face.

“I think you’d be just fine.” I laughed and pointed towards the stool. “Stand up there. I need to fix a few things.”

She did as I asked and I grabbed my pins and tape measure.

I turned on some music while I worked and we talked for a bit as I marked things and scribbled notes down.

“Sadie,” she said suddenly.

“Yeah?” I didn’t look up from my notebook.

“I don’t feel so good.”

I looked up just in time to see her start swaying. “Emma!”

She fainted and fell off the stool. By some miracle I managed to catch her in my arms but I sagged under her dead weight.

“Arden!” I yelled. “Arden! Hurry, please!”

The door to my office crashed open and when she saw me holding Emma her hands flew up to her mouth. “Oh my God! Is she okay?”

“I don’t know!” I cried, my body shaking with worry. “Help me lay her down and then call 911.”

Arden nodded and rushed forward, helping me lay Emma down on the floor before dashing away for her phone. I grabbed a bundle of fabric from another project I was working on and bunched it under her head. I felt panicked and I kept trying to run through a checklist of things to do when someone fainted, but my mind was empty.

I sat down on the floor beside her and smoothed her hair away from her forehead.

“Emma,” a tear coursed down my cheek, “wake up. Please.”

“An ambulance is on the way.” Arden burst back into the room and knelt on Emma’s other side. “I thought this might help.” She laid a dampened paper towel over Emma’s forehead.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” I asked Arden.

Before she could answer Emma’s eyes started to open. When she went to sit up I forced her back down with a hand to her shoulder.

“Just relax. The ambulance is coming.”

“Ambulance?” She asked, blinking her eyes wider. She seemed confused.

I nodded. “You fainted.”

“I’ve never fainted before.” Her voice was nothing but a whisper.

“I know. That’s why the ambulance is coming. I think you need to be looked over.”

She nodded slightly, surprisingly not fighting me on this. Her eyes closed once more, but she wasn’t asleep. Her hand felt around blindly and I reached out to hold hers.

The ambulance arrived and everything from there happened in a blur.

I followed the ambulance in my car since the assholes wouldn’t let me ride in it and then had to park a mile away.

By the time I made it into the hospital and found her room she’d already had blood drawn and was lying in a bed looking incredibly weak. How had I not noticed how thin and pale she’d become? Or the purple rings beneath her eyes? Had I become so absorbed in what was going on in my personal life that I’d stopped paying attention to the things around me?

“Can you…” Her voice was barely above a whisper and she pointed to a cup of water on a tray beside her bed. Some idiot had put it far enough away that she couldn’t reach it.

I grabbed it and held it for her while she took a few slow sips.

When she spoke this time her voice sounded a tiny bit stronger. “Can you call Maddox?”

“Oh! Of course!”

In all the madness I’d forgotten to call him.

“I’ll be right back,” I told her.

I stepped outside of her hospital room and searched my purse for my phone. The stupid thing was buried all the way at the bottom. I pulled it out and rang Maddox’s number.

I never called him and when he answered he seemed to sense that something was wrong. “Sadie?” He questioned, confused as to why I’d be calling him. “Is everything okay?”

I swallowed thickly. “No, it’s not.” I pressed the heel of my free hand against my forehead.

“What’s wrong?” His voice grew high with fear. “Is it Emma? Is she okay? Are you okay?”

“It’s Emma. We’re at the hospital—”

The line went dead.

I really hoped he didn’t get himself killed trying to get here.

Before I could step back into Emma’s room my phone was lighting up. Only the caller wasn’t Maddox.

“Sadie,” Ezra’s voice was panicked when I answered, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Emma was at my store and we were doing a fitting for her dress and she passed out. She hasn’t been feeling well so I made her go to the hospital…although, she didn’t protest, so I think she realized it was past time to see a doctor.”

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes. I’ve got to go catch Maddox before he leaves. I don’t think he should be driving right now.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

“Bye.” He hung up the phone, but not before I heard him yell, “Get out of the fucking car, Maddox!”

I stuck my phone into my pocket and stepped back into Emma’s room.

She slowly rolled her head towards me. “You look like shit.” I tried to laugh, but it was forced.

“I feel like shit.” She tried to push herself up so that she was sitting, but it wasn’t working. I rushed over to help her, trying to get her more comfortable. I hated seeing someone I loved so miserable. I hoped it was nothing bad. “I should’ve gone to the doctor a while ago,” she mumbled, “but I’ve been so focused on the wedding that I just assumed it was stress.”

“This,” I pointed at her, “is way more than stress.”

“Yeah, I can see that now.” She nodded at the stark hospital room. “God I hate hospitals. They smile like death and bleach.”

I pulled up one of the chairs closer to her bed and sat down. “Do you want some more water?”

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