Page 24 of Deserving Ryleigh
“Got bad news. We can’t go up today,” Stone told them.
Ryleigh dropped his hand, and Tiny let her go. “Why not?” he asked.
“The fuel we ordered wasn’t delivered this morning. I’m not sure why. I called the place, and they said they had no record of our order, which is bullshit because I personally verified it with them last week. It wasn’t on their schedule, which is super weird. Anyway, we got it straightened out, but they can’t come out for a few days now.”
Tiny was disappointed, as he was looking forward to seeing the property from the air, but he understood that sometimes glitches happened. But when he turned to Ryleigh, he stiffened. She was staring at Stone intently, and she looked…guilty, for some reason.
“What? What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
She turned slowly to look at him, then blinked. “Um…nothing.”
Tiny’s lips pressed together. It wasn’tnothing, not if her reaction was anything to go by. He watched as she took a big breath and got control over her emotions. “Maybe we can do it next week then?” she asked Stone.
“I’ve already rescheduled,” he said with a nod.
“Cool,” she said.
Just then, Stone’s phone rang. He smiled apologetically at Tiny and Ryleigh, and answered. “Hey,Stellina, what’s up? What? Fuck. Okay, I’m on my way up there. Take a deep breath, she’ll be fine. They’llbothbe fine. I know…all right. I’m coming.”
Stone hung up and didn’t wait for Tiny to ask what was wrong. “That was Maisy. Something’s wrong with Reese. She’s bleeding. She thinks it’s the baby. Spike’s taking her to the hospital as we speak and everyone wants to head over to be there for her.”
“What do you need us to do?” Tiny asked.
“Can you get the hangar closed up? Everything’s good in here, I locked the chopper down when I realized we wouldn’t be going up.”
“Will do. Go. Get to Maisy. She doesn’t need to be stressed this early in her pregnancy.”
“That’s what I keep telling her, but she won’t listen to me,” Stone said with a wry grin. Then he sobered. “Thanks, man. I’ll see you later?”
“Absolutely, yes,” Tiny told him.
He and Ryleigh worked together to close the huge hangar door, then he once more took her hand in his asthey made their way back up the trail toward the cabins, much faster than their earlier stroll.
It wasn’t until they were on their way to the hospital that Tiny realized he hadn’t pressed Ryleigh about her reaction to the fuel delivery mix-up. But now wasn’t the time. She was worried about Reese, as was he.
He made a mental note to ask later though. He didn’t like when she kept things from him, and while he didn’t think she’d lie to him, since he’d asked her not to, not talking about something that was clearly bothering her was almost just as bad.
A couple hours later, everyone was back at the lodge at The Refuge waiting for word about how Reese and the baby were doing. She’d been airlifted to Albuquerque to their level-one trauma center, so they could better treat her and the baby.
Brick’s phone rang, and everyone immediately hushed as he answered it.
“Brick. Hey…yeah, okay…uh-huh…glad to hear it. I’ll tell them. When? Good. We’ll be waiting. All right. Later.”
“So? Was that Spike? What’d he say? How’s Reese? And the baby?” Alaska asked her fiancé impatiently.
“Yeah, it was him. Reese is okay. It was touch and go for a while, she lost a lot of blood, so they’ll be keeping her in the hospital in Albuquerque for a few days to make sure she’s really all right.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Lara breathed.
Tiny let out his own breath of relief. He had no experiencewith pregnant women and the things that could go wrong, but he was glad Reese was okay.
“And the baby?” Henley asked, holding her own newborn in a carrier against her chest.
“Premature, but breathing on his own.”
Everyone gasped.
“Wait—she gave birth?” Cora asked.
