Free Unforgiven by Lorhainne Eckhart Page B

dialed the doctor’s number, but it was the answering service that came on. “Is Doctor Watts there? He asked for me to call him back. This is Jill Robertson.” She was really fighting the wave of nausea, swallowing back the bile, feeling awfully warm. The person on the other end said something, but she couldn’t make it out. “Excuse me? I didn’t understand that.”
    “This is the answering service. I’ll page the doctor and have him call you.”
    She puffed her cheeks out and started toward the bathroom. “Have him call my cell,” she said, and she didn’t wait for the woman to respond. She dropped the phone, raced into the bathroom again, and vomited.
    ***

Chapter 15
    “I told you I can drive myself.”
    “Just shut up, already,” Ben said, driving his Range Rover with Samuel shoved in the back beside Jake. Joe was following, driving Samuel’s car, and Logan rode shotgun.
    “You’re not driving, Samuel, so enough about it,” Logan said. “You’re half out of your mind with worry, and we have a lot to settle, so just sit there and enjoy the ride.” Then he said something to Ben that Samuel couldn’t make out.
    He’d not said a word to Jake, not one on one, but being stuck in the back with his brother as if they were two years old wasn’t something he appreciated. He could have said “Screw you” to Logan, Ben, and even Joe and gone his own way, but there really was something about Logan and all his brothers coming together like this that meant something to him—something he really couldn’t name.
    “So tell me again, Samuel, what the doctor said.” Jake was pushing again.
    “You know what, Jake? I really have had about enough of you asking about my girl. She’s no business of yours, so just butt out.”
    “Enough!” Ben yelled from the front. He slammed his foot on the brake, skidding the tires on the highway, pulling to the shoulder, and stopping. He turned to the back, jabbing his finger Samuel’s way. “Stop it. You don’t get to have the corner on caring for Jill. You fucked up, you idiot, when you got cold feet and said goodbye in the worst way. And you”—he jabbed his finger Jake’s way—“have been in love with Jill from the day Samuel found her. I knew it, saw it, and said nothing. But you moved in on her, and she fell into you because you made things easy for her. She realized, though, that she had made a mistake, but by then, well, shit happens, and your relationship is in the shitter.
    “Am I clear enough? Are you understanding this? We’re Wildes, and we don’t move in on our brothers’ women. Jake, you’ve moved on, you have a woman, a great girl—Chris. Samuel, you should meet her. You two need to work out the fact that there’s now a baby in the picture, about to be in the picture, yet not one of you is willing to talk about the biggest elephant in the room. Neither of you know who the father is—could be you, Samuel, or you, Jake.” He stared over at Logan, who was resting his arm on the door, appearing more than happy to let Ben say what he needed to say.
    “And I have no intention of taking sides in this,” Ben said. “Both of you should realize that I’m done with that. I want to see my brothers, both of you, and I’m not going to start tiptoeing around, picking and choosing who I can see and who I can’t.”
    “Well, you already did, when you didn’t come to my wedding,” Samuel said.
    Ben didn’t shake his head. He just leveled this look at Samuel that wasn’t friendly. He heard Jake swear beside him.
    “You didn’t get married, Samuel,” Logan said without turning around.
    “No, Samuel,” Ben said. “You’re right. I didn’t because I couldn’t. Carrie’s father had a heart attack.”
    There was a pounding on the window. Ben rolled it down, and Joe poked his head in. “What the hell is going on? Why’d you stop?”
    “Had to deal with these idiots,” Ben said.
    “So what are we doing, sitting here all night on the side of