The Wildflower (Completed) (Southern Nights)

Chapter 24

“The Heart of a Wildflower”

Chapter 24

 

Elizabeth sat on the raised table with her shoulders hunched over, feeling exhausted.  She lifted up one leg and crossed it over the other.  The only sound in the room was the crinkling of the paper that covered the table she was sitting on.

Yawning, she raised her head and stared at Zeb who was fiercely pacing the small hospital room they had been shut up in for the last half hour.  He hadn’t spoken a word to her since they were put in the ambulance and brought to the hospital and it was starting to really get to her.  It was bad enough that her nerves were already shot to hell and back.  His brooding was about to put her over the edge.

“Zeb, please,” she begged, “will you sit down or something.  You’re starting to make me dizzy,” she complained.

He paused where he stood and looked over at her.  Elizabeth could see so many emotions mirrored in that one look: worry, anger, fear…confusion.  She knew then that he was as close to the edge as she was if not already teetering on over, about to fall into the precipice.

Zeb was the type of guy that protected people.  He’d told her over and over that he would protect both her and Brandon, and tonight it was just too close of a call.  He would shoulder the weight of the world if it would keep the two people he cared about most in this world safe.

He walked over to where Elizabeth was sitting and stopped in front of her.  He let out a ragged sigh and grabbed her scratched up hand.  Pulling it closer to his face, he carefully inspected it.  The paramedics had cleaned and bandaged her hand so now it actually looked much worse than it really was.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart…so damn sorry.”

He placed his arms around her and Elizabeth instantly let herself sink into his warmth.  It was so easy to do now.  There was a time when she would have been scared to death to let a man get close to her like this, but now…now she was finding herself wanting to lean on the strong man that had his arms wrapped firmly around her.

After several long minutes of letting herself revel in Zeb’s warmth, she forced her head back so she could look up at him.

“What about Brandon?” she finally asked him.  “I don’t want him with that woman but I don’t want something to happen to him either.  What if whoever attacked me decides to go after him?  What then?  I don’t think I could live with myself if anything happened to him?”

Zeb squeezed her hand.

“Hush now.  I won’t let anything to happen to Brandon.  Right now, Hal Winters is on his way over to Nicole’s to pick him up.”  Zeb pulled his gaze away from her and closed his eyes for a minute.  “There is something else I need to tell you, Elizabeth.  I was going to tell you tonight after we had Brandon settled in but now, after what’s happened it makes me wonder if all of this is related.”

Now he had her attention.

“What, Zeb?  What is it?”

“The main reason the judge granted us emergency custody so easily was because Tom, the lawyer I hired to check into what had been done about my parental rights, contacted the adoption agency that you told me handled everything and they claimed they didn’t have anything on an adoption where you were listed as a birth mother.  They didn’t have anything under your name, his name or mine.  Tom then checked the birth registry and there is no birth certificate on file.  He also checked for any legal filings under Nicole’s name in the State of Georgia.  For all intents and purposes, there is no record of Brandon’s adoption or birth.”