“But you’ll need to talk to Sparkle Marshall’s mom first. She’s got ideas about the wedding.”
My jaw dropped as I blinked. What the fuck was happening right now?
Actually….
“Um, Rose?” I asked tentatively, suspicion growing about the things my daughter got up to when I wasn’t around to supervise her.
“Yes, Daddy Danny?”
“Have you spoken to Marshall’s mom again? I mean, on your own? With your own phone and not resorting to stealing Marshall’s phone like you did on Monday?”
“I feel like I need to ask some questions,” Jackson muttered under his breath. “But they can wait, because this is all far too juicy.”
And I wondered where Rose got her inquisitiveness from. I glared at him before I returned my attention to Rose, who nodded eagerly.
“Yup! The last time”—my eyes widened until it felt like they were going to escape their sockets at the implied confirmation that there’d beenmultiplecalls between my daughter and Marshall’s mom since Monday—“I chatted with Grandma Cougar”—Jackson choked on a laugh—“was last night. I needed to tell her about Kooky Lucy. She was very excited for us.”
God, I needed to do better about who I allowed my daughter to talk to. Thank fuck it was only Marshall’s mom, but what if it hadn’t been?
Like a homing beacon, my eyes landed on her phone, still sitting where I’d left it on the bedside table. “Her number is in your phone, I’m assuming?”
She looked at me askance. “Duh. How else would we talk?”
How indeed.
But that solved my biggest immediate problem—how to contact Marshall’s parents.
I snatched the phone from the bedside table and wasted no time unlocking it and scrolling through her recent call history, looking for an out-of-state number. Then I groaned when I saw Rose had entered Marshall’s mom’s details underCougar. I held the screen up to Rose. “Really?”
“What?” Jackson asked, unable to see the screen from where he was sitting but too intrigued by the flow of conversation to not ask.
“What?” Rose asked with a sly grin.
Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes and decided it was better to just ignore them both and hit Connect.
As it rang, I placed the phone on the bed next to Marshall and put the call on speaker so he could hear his mom’s voice. Maybe she had a better chance of waking him up than I did.
After three rings, a cheerful voice sang, “Sweetie! How are you, darling?”
Before Rose could say anything, I jumped in with, “Hi, Evelyn. It’s Daniel.”
“Oh! Hello to my 100 percent confirmed-to-be-good-looking future son-in-law! What can I do for you?”
My heart thrummed frantically. How did I tell her that her son was unconscious and in the hospital? We’d only spoken once.
Fuck.
I squeezed Marshall’s warm hand, needing the firm reminder that I was doing the right thing.
Then I startled when I felt a fluttering squeeze in response.
“Marshall?” I asked anxiously, forgetting about the phone call with his mom to eagerly hover over him and cup his jaw, willing him to wake up with every fiber of my being. “Baby?”
“Marshall?” his mom asked, her tone immediately shifting from humor to worry. “What’s going on?”
Seeing as I was still so focused on Marshall, Jackson took over the call.
“Evelyn, is it? This is Jackson, Daniel’s ex-husband,” he said loudly enough for his voice to be captured by the speaker. “Marshall’s okay, but he’s in the hospital.”
