Secret Indiscretions (Carson Cove Scandals 2)

“Jackson?” I pushed an arm under his chin and pinned him to the wall. “We need to have a talk.”

“Who the fuck are you?” He struggled in my grasp and tried to claw at my arm.

“Your worst fucking nightmare.” I swung my other arm back and hit him as hard as I could before I leaned forward. “You’re going to…”

My words stopped because a crippling pain shot through the entire left side of my body. I gasped a couple of times and staggered backwards—into someone else—Jackson wasn’t alone in the room. Another rush of crippling pain hit me—next to the first one. I grabbed my side, and when I pulled my hand back, I saw blood. I staggered forward and saw that the guy behind me had a menacing glare on his face and a bloody knife in his hand. They were saying something, but my heart was pounding in my ears, and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I reached for the door, but my vision went blurry—my knees buckled—and then I felt something slam into my skull. I fell against the door, and my entire world went black.

* * *

“Mr. Alcott, can you hear me? Mr. Alcott?” A voice echoed in my eardrums, and I tried to force my eyes open.

There was a bright light. The voice was saying Mr. Alcott. I assumed God would call me by my first name, so there was a chance that I was still alive. My vision wouldn’t focus—my head hurt—hell, my eyeballs hurt. I tried to shift my weight and felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my side. The image of the guy holding the bloody knife tore through my thoughts. That snapped me back to reality, and my eyes finally seemed to figure out how they were supposed to work. The voice belonged to a doctor who was standing over me. He pulled out a penlight and tried to shine it in my eyes.

“Ow…” I pushed the light away.

“I won’t ask how you feel. I’m sure you feel like hell.” The doctor leaned forward. “I’m Dr. Weston. You’re at Carson Cove General Hospital. Do you know what day it is?”

“Uh—Monday?” I blinked a couple of times.

“That’s a start.” He nodded. “Can you tell me your name.”

“Jon—Jon Alcott.” I grimaced as I spoke.

“That’s better. I was worried you might have a concussion, but the CT scan didn’t find anything.” He put his hand on my wrist and seemed to be checking my pulse.

“What happened?” I tried to move and immediately groaned.

“Someone hit you over the head with something, and you got stabbed—twice. We had to do surgery. You’re going to be fine. Thankfully there was no internal damage that we couldn’t fix, but you lost a good bit of blood before the maid found you.” He let go of my wrist.

“Maid?” My thoughts started coming into focus.

“You were found in the stairwell at the Pembroke Hotel. I believe you were a guest there?” Dr. Weston raised his eyebrows.

“Right…” I nodded weakly.

“The police have some questions, and we’ve been trying to get in touch with your emergency contact, but the number on your forms doesn’t work…” He tilted his head. “Your wife? Mary?”

“Ex-wife.” I coughed—and that fucking hurt. “She changed her number after the divorce…”

“Ah, ex-wife. Sorry to hear that.” Dr. Weston nodded. “There’s a young woman in the waiting room who has been demanding to see you. We almost had to have her dragged out by security when we told her that this area of the hospital was restricted to immediate family only.”

“Melanie?” I sighed.

“I believe that’s her name, yes.” He nodded.

“Any chance you could make an exception?” I gave him a pitiful stare, which wasn’t hard considering how much I was hurting.

“Sure.” He smiled. “The cops want to ask you some questions too, but I told them you wouldn’t be able to answer any questions until tomorrow—which isn’t a lie. The nurse will give you something for the pain soon, and it’ll probably knock you out—I just had to wait until you woke up.”

“Thanks, doc. I appreciate it.” I adjusted until I was as comfortable as I was going to get and used the remote to raise the bed so that I could see the door.

I had no idea what I was going to tell Melanie. I was found in the stairwell of a hotel in the middle of a workday—she would probably think the worst. I had never cheated on anyone I had been with, but it would sure as fuck look like I was at the Pembroke Hotel for something other than a nap. Telling her why I was there meant telling her that Jackson was back in Carson Cove—and I wanted to handle that problem before she knew he was in town. It wasn’t like I could tell the cops the truth. I barged into his hotel room—it would look like self-defense—even if he wasn’t the one that stuck a knife in me.

“Jon—oh my god!” Melanie rushed into the room and immediately hugged me—which hurt like hell and made me groan.

“Hey…” I grimaced, but I didn’t push her away.

“What the hell happened?” She leaned back, and I could tell that she had been crying. “I overheard the doctors before they made me leave—they said you got stabbed!?”