The Doctor Prince and the Outsider by Cami Checketts
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Steffan made it back to Augustine without incident and since he had no idea what to do, he went to work.
He worked for the next eight days straight. He went to the Sunday service at the hospital’s chapel—him and four patients and the vicar. He ate his meals in the hospital and only went home to sleep, shower, and put on fresh scrubs. He didn’t even go to morning workouts with Jensen.
Hattie. He missed her and prayed for her constantly. Ray and Macey shared some updates from Sutton Smith. She was in Belize with Wolf and Sadie. She was doing well. That was all they had. He wanted Macey to say Hattie missed him. Maybe she even ached for him like he did her.
It concerned him that she’d been so darling telling him her full name, returning his passionate borderline desperate kiss, and then she’d yanked herself from his arms and walked away. She hadn’t asked her to go with him. It concerned him that she hadn’t asked him to go with her. Would he have gone? She’d walked away from him without looking back. It stressed him that she hadn’t looked back.
Hattie was strong and independent. He could imagine her deciding she couldn’t be with Steffan and cutting him from her heart and her life. Could she do that?
Jensen’s updates were awful. The only prints on the knife were Franz Wengreen’s and Hattie Ballard’s—not so much as a smudge from William Rindlesbacher, yet the man hadn’t had plastic gloves on him.
They’d scoured that small cabin with the light bars that early morning and later on in the daylight. Not a hint of where the recording device had disappeared to. Jensen promised he had checked William thoroughly for the device and for gloves, no matter how disgusting that task had been. Steffan was a doctor and dealt with all manner of disgusting tasks, but that did sound foul. Had the man swallowed the recording device and hidden the gloves in a spot nobody would search?
There was no money trail from William to Franz. None. Franz and Treven had been roommates in college in Milan, and Franz had called William the night before he was stabbed and in William’s words asked him to meet at the cabin. The fabricated story checked out.
The media got ahold of the farce, disparaging Hattie from Rome to Budapest. Jensen, Ray, and Steffan all blamed William for the media hailstorm. It looked like they were going to have to release Treven Rindlesbacher from prison to avoid a very large scandal for their chief of police and the entire country of Augustine. That was horrible. What was worse was Hattie might never be free to live her life. She might never come back to Augustine and Steffan.
Hattie had been declared dead. Nobody wanted to try to retrieve that burned-out razor from a two-hundred-meter-deep ravine to find dental records. He guessed that was good news. At least William wouldn’t go after her.
She might as well be dead as far as he was concerned. He missed his mum desperately. That ache wasn’t even close to how frantically he missed Hattie.
Steffan was in his office late one night when a rap came on the door. Stretching, he went to open it. Curt and Aliya stood there. Aliya grinned, while Curt looked out of place.
“You left your mountain?” Steffan managed.
“My gorgeous wife is helping me live a little. We went out for Vietnamese food. Delicious.”
“Ah, you sweet hunky prince. You’re delicious.” Aliya kissed him, but thankfully had a little compassion for Steffan and didn’t extend the kiss for too long. She pushed her way into the office. “Love, shut the door.” He complied. She looked Steffan over. “Well, you look like crap warmed over.”
“I’m not actually sure what that means.”
“Well, it ain’t good. I can tell you that right now. What are you doing here?” She folded her arms across her chest and gave him a challenging glare.
“Here? As in at my hospital?” Steffan gestured around. “I work here. I run the place, actually.”
“Oh.” She waved her hands in the air. “I’m so hoity-toity and I ‘run the place, actually,’ he says in his smooth accent. Look how important I am.” Aliya got in his face. “And look how miserable and lonely and missing our beloved Hattie like somebody cut off your right arm you are.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. That was exactly how it felt.
“At least you’ll admit to it.”
Steffan shrugged and clasped the ends of his stethoscope in his hands. “I’m waiting for Jensen to figure things out.” It sounded weak, even in his own ears.
“I’ve got a news flash for you. William Rindlesbacher did a number on us. The jerk is a genius. We ain’t gonna win this battle. At least not quickly or without some miracles happenin’.”
“I believe in miracles.”
“So do I. But sometimes you have to give heaven a little push.” Aliya smiled. “Your turn, love.”
Curt straightened and smiled calmly at him. Nothing much riled Curt. “Do you remember what you said to me when I didn’t go after Aliya?”
Steffan shifted uncomfortably. “Something about chick flicks and a big gesture?”
“Yeah. That was good, but the part I really liked was, ‘If I found the right woman for me, I would leave anything behind, move heaven and earth, get on an airplane at least, and go tell her how I feel.’” Curt gave him a significant look. “I’ll never forget that call out. Then with those piercing blue eyes of yours, you said, ‘Give her a chance to at least love you or reject you. Give love a chance.’”
Steffan was having a hard time catching a breath. He had said all of that. Thrown back in his face, he wasn’t ready to act on it.
His hospital and his family needed him.
An ache ripped through him to hold Hattie close, worse than a ‘toothache that needed extraction’ as Hattie would say.
If only things could be different.