EMBER - Part Three (The EMBER Series, #3) Read Online Free PDF

conversation about Maisy or her sister. I want Vanessa's focus to drift back to her upcoming wedding, not the complicated dynamics of Dane's ex-girlfriend's family.
    "There's no one by that name registered." She doesn't look up from the computer screen in front of her. "Do you want me to try a different surname? Sometimes patients are admitted under the name that their insurance has listed."
    I wouldn't know where to begin with that. When I saw Cleo at the museum her hand was void of an engagement ring and she spoke about marriage as if it would be part of her future. If she's not here under her maiden name, I doubt she's here at all.
    "No, but thank you for checking." I scoop my smartphone into my palm from where I'd rested it on the counter before I turn to walk away.
    "Wait." The woman behind the desk taps her fingers over her keyboard. "There's a Cleo Durand. Did your friend just have a baby?"
    I should confess that she's not my friend. I should tell her that I'm on a fact finding mission that is only meant to quell my own desperate need to know more about the man I'm falling in love with but I don't do that. Instead I turn back towards the desk with a bright smile on my face. "That's her. She had a little boy."

Chapter 9
    I stare down at the white, rectangular card in my hand. The woman at the reception desk had jotted Cleo's room number down for me. I'd walked away after thanking her in the direction of the elevators but before the lift raced back down to the lobby to pick me up, I'd darted out the hospital's main entrance doors.
    I'd hailed a taxi then and during the entire ride back to my apartment, I'd contemplated whether I had any right to go see her. The woman doesn't know my name. It's highly likely that she won't remember my face either. Vanessa saw her without a swollen stomach which means that she's now a mom. A random woman who drew her portrait in a museum months ago is not someone she's going to remember.
    If I'm being completely honest with myself, the only drive behind my desire to see her today was curiosity. She's Maisy's sister. She's also someone who is fundamentally important to Dane. She's not part of the fabric of my own life though and waltzing into her room, when she's just given birth to her first child, is not only selfish, it's also intrusive.
    I turn just as I hear the faint knock on the door. I know it's him. He'd sent me a text hours ago asking if he could come over. I hadn't replied. It wasn't because I didn't want to see him. I longed to feel his arms around me and to hear his deep voice telling me again that he loved me.
    My deliberate avoidance of him was wrapped up in that small card with the number 2049 written on it. He's been looking for her. I inadvertently found her and as much as my heart knows that I should hand him the card, my mind is causing me to pause.
    Cleo is part of Maisy's life and even though Dane has been struggling with Maisy's refusal to leave his house since we met, I sense that there's a light of promise at the end of that tunnel. Guiding him back into the vicinity of Maisy's grasp isn't something I want to do.
    I tuck the card into the front pocket of my jeans before I swing the door open.
    "Bridget," he whispers my name as his arms circle my waist. "I was worried. You didn't answer my call or the messages I sent."
    I fumble to find the right words. I pull back from his embrace to look up into his face. "You're wearing a ball cap. You look so young when you wear one."
    "Young?" His brows shoot up. "How young are we talking?"
    I push on his shoulder playfully. "You're one of the happiest people I've ever known."
    He tugs the cap off his head before he rakes his hand through his messy hair. "I wasn't until I met you."
    The concept of a man's words causing a woman's knees to go weak is real. I'm proof of that. I cling to the front of the dark sweater he's wearing. "You say exactly the right thing."
    "I say the honest thing." He brushes his lips against my forehead.