Sharing Hailey Read Online Free PDF Page B

left?”
    Hailey slipped her phone out of her back pocket and turned it on. She prayed there wouldn’t be a call from Daniel. When she had service, she said, “No messages.” She didn’t mention that Daniel’s phone number appeared six times in her missed call list, but her stomach clenched.
    “Huh. Don’t be surprised if he shows up in a few days.”
    “Don’t worry. He doesn’t have the time to come chasing after me, even if he did have the inclination—which he doesn’t.” She sent another mental prayer that she was right. “You won’t have to make nice with him. He’s probably already found another girlfriend.”
    “I hope you’re right.”
    Hailey hoped she was right, too, but she was tired of talking about Daniel. She was tired of thinking about Daniel, worrying about him, being frightened of him. She just wanted to forget him for the next two weeks. “You’d better get back to your wife before she does something she shouldn’t, like cliff diving or bungee jumping.”
    Jake’s hazel eyes widened, and terror flashed across his face.
    Hailey felt guilty for teasing him. “I’m kidding. God, Jake, you need to chill. Nikki isn’t stupid.”
    Jake raised his hands in surrender. “I know, I know.” He laughed at himself, but it wasn’t an easy laugh. “I think I’ll just tie her to the bed for the next two weeks.”
    “Isn’t that how she got pregnant in the first place?” Hailey joked.
    “You’ve got a dirty mind, little sister.”
    “Wonder where that came from?”
    Jake grabbed a pillow from the bed and tossed it at her as he headed for the door.
    She caught it and threw it at his back. “You’d better watch yourself. I know all your secrets, and I’ll tell them to Nikki.”
    “You’ve already spilled, brat,” he called.
    “Not all of them,” she yelled as he disappeared through the bathroom.
    Forty-five minutes later she’d unpacked, changed into denim shorts and a yellow cami and was standing in front of the mirror in her bathroom, applying liquid foundation with a sponge to cover the bruises on her arms, carefully blending it. If Jake saw them, he’d go ballistic, and she hadn’t packed any shirts with sleeves long enough to cover them.
    A knock on the door startled her. “Just a second,” she said, quickly putting the sponge in her makeup bag.
    Nikki’s voice floated through the door. “Hailey, can I come in?”
    She screwed the top on the foundation. “Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.” She washed her hands and checked her arms. Looked good. She opened the door between the bathroom and her bedroom. Nikki was already perched on the bed. Hailey glanced around the room, expecting to see Jake. “How’d you escape your lesser half?”
    Nikki’s eyes twinkled. “Told him I needed to pee.”
    “He lets you do that alone?”
    Nikki laughed. “Yeah, I go so often, he got tired of hanging out in the bathroom.”
    Hailey laughed so hard, tears came to her eyes. “I can’t believe he actually followed you to the bathroom,” she finally gasped when the laughter had subsided to giggles.
    “Believe it.”
    Hailey sat on the royal blue and white pineapple quilt covering the bed, settling in for some girl talk. Jake must have already told her about Daniel.
    “I’d like to ask you a favor,” Nikki said.
    Hmmm . Maybe she didn’t know about him. “Sure.”
    “Landon’s girlfriend just dumped him. That’s why he came with us. I insisted, really. He was so upset, and I didn’t want to leave him alone.”
    Hailey was stunned. “You’re kidding, right? Why would any woman dump Landon? He’s smart. He’s beyond good-looking. I don’t know him very well, but from what I can see he’s the perfect man. I’ve never even seen him scratch his balls.”
    Nikki nodded. “I know. I couldn’t believe it. I never liked that bitch.” She waved a hand in the air as if she could sweep away her anger. “I was hoping you could build his ego back up. Jake told me you and Daniel