“I can do that,” I said instantly. “She can stay with me.”
“Good. Now, I’ve given Harper some painkillers, but she’ll need bed rest and plenty of fluids. We’ll be a little while longer discharging her, but the nurse will let you know as soon as she’s ready to be taken home. Oh, and—” Dr. Hunter lowered her voice even further. “Harper has asked us not to call the police, however—”
“We called the police,” Caleb cut her off. “They’re on their way.”
I looked at him questioningly. He gave me a reassuring nod. “Jamie texted. The police took Vince into custody and Jamie’s on his way here. The police will be here shortly tae take a statement from everybody. Including Harper.”
“Right,” Dr. Hunter said. “Then Harper stays until the police have asked their questions.” She seemed appeased and left us to return to her duties.
As soon as she was out of sight, I just began to walk forward.
My feet slapped hard in my flats against the hospital linoleum floor as I rushed away from the waiting room.
I heard Caleb calling my name, but I only stopped when I reached an empty corridor with a vending machine in it. And then I bent over, my hands on my knees, and began to sob.
He could have killed her.
The bastard could have killed her.
Caleb pulled me up and crushed me to him, my arms automatically winding around his back to hold on tight as every feeling and fear I’d gone through that night spilled out of me with absolutely no control.
“I could have stopped this.” I sobbed, the words garbled. “I should have. If I’d just—”
“No.” He shushed me, stroking my hair. “You dinnae get tae blame this on yourself, wee yin. I won’t allow it.”
I did blame myself for not pushing Harper harder. But I heard the steel in Caleb’s voice and shut up. Eventually the hard sobs that racked my body calmed to silent tears that didn’t seem to want to stop leaking out of my eyes.
“Harper okay?” Jamie’s voice brought me out of my Caleb cocoon, but I didn’t lift my face from where it was pressed against his chest.
“Harper’s going tae be fine,” Caleb said, giving me a squeeze. “He messed her up pretty good, though.”
I tabulated her injuries in my head and felt my fear melt to wrath almost instantly. I lifted my head but didn’t pull out of Caleb’s embrace as I turned to Jamie.
His eyes searched my face and I knew I looked a mess but I didn’t care. Jamie informed me, “The police have Vince in custody. He still hasn’t fully come down from whatever drug he’s on and he pretty much admitted tae them that he beat Harper because she wanted tae break up with him. The police are on their way here tae take a statement from you two and Harper.”
Reality of daily life after abuse was nothing new for Harper. But this was different. I felt it in my bones. It made me cold with stifled panic. “How do I get her through this? She’ll blame herself. She’ll see it like she allowed him to do this to her.”
Caleb turned me to face him and said sternly, “You just keep telling her that this wasn’t her fault. Every day for as long as it takes tae sink in.”
“You don’t understand … her history … this … she doesn’t deserve any more pain. She’s been through enough.” Tears spilled down my cheeks again as a feeling of powerlessness overwhelmed me.
“Hey.” Jamie’s hand came down on my shoulder and I looked up at him through blurry vision. “You did well back at the flat when we found her. You kept it together even though it was awful for you tae see her like that. You find that strength you had in that moment and hold on to it tae be there for her again.”
Jamie’s advice would stick with me over the next few days. Somewhere I’d find the strength to be what Harper needed, but worried constantly that it wasn’t enough.
I went in alone to be with Harper while the police interviewed her and took photos of her injuries. Although she told them everything that had happened (and I had to shut out the visuals her description produced because they made me nauseous), she was angry with me for calling the cops.
“I told you not to,” she hissed as they left us in the hospital room.
I slipped my arm around her waist to help her up off the bed. “Well, I did. Vince needs to face charges for this and you know it.”
“Yeah, so his defense team can drag up my history and twist it around on me to make it my fault. That I’m out looking for this kind of shit.”
I glared at her. “You do not. This is not your fault and you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.”
She looked away, tears burning in the eye that wasn’t swollen shut.
“Harper …” I ducked my head so she couldn’t avoid my gaze. “Do you think for one second that I would have let him anywhere near you if I thought he was capable of this?” Then an awful thought occurred to me. “He hadn’t … he didn’t hit you before this, right?”
Her gray-blue eye blazed with ire at the suggestion. “No.”
“Then how can you blame yourself for something you didn’t even know he was capable of? He was high and messed up. This is not your fault.”
“We both know that once he started saying negative things about my work and once I started to suspect he was on drugs that I should have walked away.”
“You had hope.” I squeezed her arm. “You wanted to believe he could change. There is nothing wrong with that. And when you realized he wasn’t going to change, you made the choice to leave him. It isn’t your fault that he attacked you for that decision. Do you hear me?”
Harper nodded, but the dull expression on her face told me she still wasn’t ready to forgive herself.
While Caleb got us a cab to my place, Jamie had taken the Range Rover back to Harper’s to collect some clothes and toiletries for her. I had to hope she’d forgive me for the invasion of her privacy, but I didn’t want to let her out of my sight long enough to get her clean clothes and pajamas. By the time we got to my apartment, Jamie had arrived with her things.
She’d barely acknowledged him or Caleb, and sensing her distress that they had paid witness to all of this, I settled her in my bed and ushered the two big Scotsmen out into the living room.
“I would offer you a coffee—Strike that. I would offer you a freaking kidney for what you both have done tonight.” I gave them a teary, grateful smile. “But she’s not doing great and—”
“You need us tae go,” Caleb cut me off, giving me a reassuring nod. “We get it. We’ll leave you be. But call me if you need anything.” He pressed a sweet, tender kiss to my forehead and I pressed my hand over his heart in thanks.
Jamie surprised me by wrapping me up in a big hug, but I quickly recovered, hugged him back, and whispered a thank you to him.
Once they’d left, with Caleb gone, I felt an emptiness I couldn’t explain. It was an emptiness that frightened me almost as much as the woman lying broken in my bed.
Only able to deal with one thing at a time, I shoved Caleb to the back of my mind and got down to the business of watching over Harper. That night I slept on the armchair in my bedroom, waking every hour or so to check that Harper was okay. She slept deeply, thankfully, exhausted by her ordeal.
The next morning, however, she woke in pain and I forced some food down her throat so she could chase it with painkillers. Harper was a terrible patient. Partly because she still hadn’t forgiven me yet for calling the police, and partly because she spent her life constantly on her feet. Her energy was admirable, but trying to keep her in bed when she needed bed rest was exhausting.
Despite her protests, I called Jason. She knew her boss had to be informed because she had a broken wrist and wouldn’t be able to work for a while until it healed. Jason and his wife, Gillian, appeared at my apartment less than two hours after I called to tell him what happened.
He walked in seeming to have been struck haggard by the news. Gillian, a tall, striking woman who took a long sabbatical from professional tennis to be a full-time mom—a fact visible in her broad shoulders and muscular arms—had kind hazel eyes that were filled with horror when she took in the sight of Harper in my bed.