Neely Kate leaned close to me. “When that receptionist gets out here, you make a beeline for the back.”
“Thank you,” I murmured. Neely Kate was bound to get into a lot of trouble for this, but she was grinning ear to ear.
The receptionist waddled next to Neely Kate, clearly irritated. “What is the meaning of this?”
I edged back to the door, slipping through the opening. I would have made a clean getaway except a woman pointed at me and shouted, “She was with the girl who has Ebola! She must have it too!”
I knew I didn’t have much time, so I hurried down the hall to the first exam room. I peeked through the window in the door and saw a little boy with his mother.
The receptionist burst through the doors, flinging them open so hard they bounced off the walls. “You can’t be back here!”
I looked into the second room and found it empty, then quickly moved on to the next room. “I’m sorry, but I have to see Mason.”
She was shorter than me, but she had to outweigh me by a good seventy pounds. Still, she was faster than I’d expected. “You are in a lot of trouble. Security is on their way.”
I moved to the next window. An older couple looked up at me with alarm, not that I could blame them. Shouting was still streaming in from the waiting room, and now some crazed woman was playing Peeping Tom.
The receptionist had quickly gained ground and was several feet away. My desperation grew. I wasn’t leaving until I saw Mason with my own eyes.
“Mason!” I called out. But what if he was in a coma hooked up to wires and IVs? He wouldn’t be able to hear me, let alone find me.
“Miss,” she hissed, her fingers digging into my arm as she caught up with me. “This is a hospital filled with sick people. You are being disrespectful by shouting like that.”
“I don’t want to make trouble, really. I just have to see him, then I’ll leave. Please!” I shouted.
I put up a good fight, but she started tugging me back up the hall.
Just then a door at the end of the hall opened, and Mason appeared in the opening. “Rose?”
The sight of him upset me instead of giving me relief. A nasty cut about two inches long ran across his forehead, and the left side of his face was covered in dried blood. The front of his shirt had a large bloodstain on it, and his face was paler than usual. “Mason!” I jerked hard and broke loose, running down the hall toward him.
“Hey, it’s okay.” He pulled me into a hug, and I clung to him, even though the thought registered that this was all wrong. I was supposed to be the one comforting him.
“You’re covered in blood.” My voice broke.
“I’m okay.”
The receptionist grabbed my arm. “You are leaving now.”
Mason’s grip on me tightened. “She’s staying.”
“Mr. Deveraux, she and her friend have disrupted the entire waiting room in a stunt to get her back here without permission. We can’t reward bad behavior.”
“Neely Kate, I presume?” I heard the dry amusement in his voice.
The woman crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “It’s not amusing, Mr. Deveraux. That young woman has convinced half the waiting room that she has Ebola.”
His eyebrows lifted as he looked down at me. “She told everyone she had Ebola?”
“No.” I tried to look innocent. “She only asked a hypothetical question.”
I could see he was trying to decide if he actually wanted to know more.
“I asked the receptionist nicely, Mason, I swear. But she wouldn’t let me back here, and she wouldn’t tell you I was here. I was scared to death. I knew you were getting a CT scan of your head, and I kept envisioning you in a coma. I couldn’t just sit out there and wait.”
He gave me a soft smile. “It’s okay. I’m sorry you were so scared.”
“She has to come with me, Mr. Deveraux.”
Mason stepped between us. “And I said she’s staying.” When the woman still glared at him, he gave her his no-nonsense look. “Or I can leave with her.”
She huffed out a loud breath. “I’m filing a report.”
“You go ahead and do that,” Mason said, sounding angry. “And I’ll file one too.”
“I’m sorry,” I said as he ushered me into the room and shut the door behind us. “I didn’t mean to cause so much trouble. But I had to see you or at least know you were okay.”
“No.” He grimaced as he sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed my hand, tugging me to sit next to him. “This is all my fault for not calling you in the first place. How did you know I was here?”
“Joe.”
A scowl covered his face, then he grimaced in pain.
I turned to look at the gash on his forehead.
“Honestly, Rose, it looks worse than it actually is. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot, and I have a nasty cut.”
“I can see that. Do you really need to get a CT scan?”
He frowned. “Joe talks too much.”