The Strength of the Pack

by Tymber Dalton

  Dead silence.

  “Why didn’t you ever stop him, Mom?”

  Silence.

  Eva looked and saw the call was still connected.

  “What…what are you talking about?”

  “Don’t bullshit me. You had to know what was going on, or at least have a suspicion. I know he didn’t do it to Ann and Gayle, but he never got over Michelle, did he? And how convenient, I looked just like her. And you were too damned scared to stand up to him, right?”

  “I…I…”

  “Don’t bother. Listen, if you honestly had zero clue what he was doing all those nights he came to my room, fine, I forgive you. But no, it’ll be a bloody cold day in hell before that manky sot sets eyes on me or my children ever again.”

  Wow, I went Brit on her. Yay, me.

  “Eva, I—”

  “Just stop, Mom. Stop right there.” Now she felt the twinges of a tension headache starting. “I need to go. Good-bye.” She ended the call and tossed her phone onto the couch.

  What would Nate have called that conversation? A cock-up, isn’t it?

  How could a day that had started out so well with her not peeing her panties before crawling out of bed have turned tits-up so fast?

  Maybe that was the term he used.

  She focused on breathing, relaxing, eating her cereal, and watching TV.

  Telly.

  She snorted. Yes, she’d admit, when Nate deliberately used his accent, it was sexy.

  Nate arrived home before Leo, Jesse, and Laurel. He put his stuff down and walked over to where she sat on the couch, her puffy ankles propped up and unable to focus on the TV.

  Literally unable to focus, because her eyes were even more blurry now than they had been when she got up.

  He knelt next to the couch and kissed her belly before kissing her. “How’s Momma?”

  He’d left his hair back and she reached over and untied it, fluffing it with her fingers. “Fine, Sir.”

  He sat up, scowling as he caught her hands and brought them to his lips to kiss them. “Okay, seriously. What’s wrong?”

  Damn him and his keen Dom intuition and spooky senses. “I had a call from Mom earlier.”

  “Is he in his grave? Sorry, that was in bad taste. Did he get hit by a lorry? Fall off a ladder? Struck by lightning—boy, that’d be ironic, wouldn’t it?”

  She snorted, “No.”

  His expression darkened as she told him what happened.

  “And?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “And…that’s it. She didn’t call back.”

  He cocked his head.

  “I’m not lying, Sir, I swear.”

  “Then what else is wrong?”

  “I’m about to give birth to a baby elephant. What do you think?”

  He arched an eyebrow at her.

  She pointed at the TV. “My eyes are bothering me and I started to get a little bit of a headache after I talked to her, but I’m okay. I’m probably overdue for an eye exam and have been pushing my luck not getting glasses before now. Pregnancy changes hormones and stuff. That’s all.”

  He leaned in and cupped a hand around the back of her neck as he kissed her. “Do you want to skip the club tonight?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “This is my last chance to get my Tilly fix for a while. Please?”

  He finally nodded. “Okay. But if you don’t feel good, we’re canceling. Or leaving early.”

  “I’m okay, Nate. Honest.”

  “So my cheeky girl went Brit, huh?”

  She smiled. “I did, Sir. Are you proud of me?”

  “I’m always proud of you, love.” He kissed her again before standing. “But make sure you tell Cherise that one. She’ll say you’re bloody brilliant.” He grinned before heading back down the hall toward their room to change clothes.

  Damn, she loved that man.

  Okay, yes, Leo did her a huge favor divorcing her. She didn’t see it at the time because of her emotional pain, but had he not divorced her, he’d be miserable, Jesse would be alone, so would Nate…

  And she’d be stuck in denial. Still.

  This was better. Much better, and worth every ounce of pain it took to get there in the process.

  * * * *

  The cruel irony that she now craved sushi didn’t escape her. “This is our secret, right?” she asked as she leaned in close.

  Nate smiled at her from across the table. “Would I betray you, love?”

  “No.” She shoved another piece of California roll into her mouth. “Count yourself lucky I’m not craving BK onion rings,” she said.

  “Oh, believe me, I am. Leo told me.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. He’d had to help her order because with her vision so blurry, she was having difficulty making out the text in the dim restaurant.

  By the time they reached the club, her headache was back. Not bad enough to make her want to cancel, but enough that Nate noticed.

  He stopped her before he even unfastened his seat belt. “Seriously—”

  “Seriously, I had two glasses of tea with dinner, and if I don’t get inside, there’s going to be an accident.”

  It was bad enough she had to carry spare panties in her purse—and not even fancy panties, just plain black panties. She also had a duffel bag in the backseat with a change of clothes, just in case.

  With Laurel, three different times she’d lost the race to the toilet and had learned to take extra clothes with her.

  Once they were inside, with her settled on one of the couches and with a chair for her to prop her legs up on, she shooed Nate off to go socialize and work on people. He’d offered to just go to be with her, but that wasn’t fair and she knew it. He liked what he did, and she liked that he helped people. She wasn’t jealous, because he wasn’t doing the kind of play with others that made her jealous.

  If he’d done any of their private play with anyone else, however, hooo boy.

  And she’d made it to the bathroom, although she hadn’t peed nearly as much as she thought she would. In fact, all that day, she’d actually been doing pretty good.

  Then again, as puffy as everything was getting, every ounce of liquid she drank was probably going straight into her extremities.

  Tilly arrived a few minutes later and practically mowed down several of their friends in her eagerness to get to Eva. Then she settled on the couch next to her, and that was all she wrote.

  Eva leaned her head onto her friend’s shoulder, glad to have her there.

  “You feeling okay?” Tilly asked after they’d been talking for a while.

  It wouldn’t do any good to deny it, so Eva started out by fudging that she had an argument on the phone with her mom about her father, and then listing her physical symptoms.

  Instead of blowing it off, Tilly sat up, scowling. “Say what? Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Wait here.”

  Tilly nearly mowed down a few more people as she bolted across the dungeon, interrupting Landry, where he was scening with Cris, to go through Landry’s pants pockets herself in search of something before heading out the door to the office.

  Marcia walked over. “Where’d she run off to?”

  Eva shrugged despite a bad feeling starting to take form in her gut. Or maybe that was the growing backache she was feeling. “I dunno.”

  Tilly returned moments later, carrying a bag. She didn’t sit down next to Eva, though. She sat the bag on the sofa and opened it. “Left arm. Sleeve up.” She pulled out a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. “Did I speak Klingon? Sleeve up, lady.”

  Eva rolled her sleeve up and obediently let Tilly take her blood pressure.

  Tilly frowned and took it again.

  And one more time.

  “What?” Eva asked.

  Tilly’s face was now an unreadable mask as she made a notation on a small notepad she’d pulled from the bag. “Do you remember what your BP reading was when you saw your OB l
ast week?” She took Eva’s pulse.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It was like 110/70, I think. Why?”

  “What is it usually, do you know?” Tilly noted her pulse on the notepad.

  “Why?”

  “Curiosity.”

  “I don’t know. Is there a problem?”

  “What’s your weight?”

  “One seventy-five this morning. What’s going on?”

  “How’s your eyes? You said your vision’s blurry?” Tilly shined a light in her eyes, checking them.

  “I just need glasses.” Eva’s back twinged again. “And I think I need to pee again.” Nate was in the middle of working with the person on his table, his back turned to them. Fortunately, she didn’t think he’d seen what was going on.

  If he had, she knew he would have been racing over to find out what was wrong.

  Tilly dumped everything into her bag, except for the notepad, which she tucked into the back pocket of her slacks, and the pen, which she stuck over her ear. She shouldered the bag before grabbing an arm to help Eva up off the couch.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I can pee by myself.” Another pain hit Eva, making her wince. “So what was my blood pressure, anyway? Why’d you check it so many times?”

  Tilly bird-dogged her all the way into the bathroom. “It’s probably nothing. We’ll check it again in a little bit, and before you leave tonight. You said you had iced tea with dinner. Well, caffeine can spike your BP. Make sure you drink nothing but water tonight. You also said you had sushi for dinner, right? Soy sauce? All that sodium can help raise your blood pressure, too.”

  “And I think it’s not settling well with my stomach,” she said as they entered the bathroom.

  “You feel sick?”

  “I…I don’t know.” She didn’t feel good, that was for sure. And she was starting to feel worse by the minute.

  “How’s the baby doing?” Tilly asked. “More active than normal? Less?”

  Eva stopped walking, thinking. “Less than normal. It’s getting big, though. That happens.”

  She felt warmth between her legs. “Dammit.” She waddled into the wheelchair accessible stall, mentally cursing that she’d just pissed herself as she slid the lock and crossed over to the toilet. As she squatted to go, she got a look at her underwear, the dark stain on the black fabric. Yep, she’d peed.

  Dammit.

  Then, when she finished, she wiped herself and froze.

  She could hear Tilly still there in the bathroom, the sound of her heels on the floor as she shifted position.

  “Til?” she softly called out.

  “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “Can you please go get Nate for me?”

  “What’s wrong, honey.”

  “Just…please go get him.”

  “Fuck that noise, you tell me what’s wrong!”

  Eva winced as a stronger, sharp pain slammed into her.

  She must have made a noise, because there came Tilly, kicking her medical bag under the door ahead of her before she dropped onto her back and shimmied under the stall door.

  When she stood and turned, she immediately saw the problem. “Fuck.” She unlocked the stall door, running out and yelling for Marcia. She returned immediately, pulling on nitrile gloves she’d taken from her pocket before helping Eva up off the toilet. “Okay, sweetie. You’re going to the hospital.”

  The toilet bowl was full of bright red blood. “Tilly?” Her vision was worse than ever. “My eyes.”

  Tilly looked grim as she reached over and flushed the toilet. “I know, sweetie. That’s part of it. I probably should have gotten you out of here as soon as I took your BP.”

  Marcia burst into the bathroom. “Tilly?”

  “In here.”

  Marcia pushed into the stall and gasped as she saw the blood on Tilly’s gloves. “Oh, fuck. I’ll call—”

  “I can have her at Proctor-Collins Med Center’s ER in four minutes. I timed it from here years ago, in case something ever happened. It’ll take an ambulance that long just to dispatch and find us and get here. Grab Nate. Have someone pack up his gear for him and have him give Landry his keys. We’ll take my SUV, it’s bigger.” She’d pulled up Eva’s underwear for her. “Bring me towels, too. Several.”

  Marcia ran out to do it.

  As Tilly was getting Eva out of the stall, Nate burst through the bathroom door. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  Tilly threw her keys at him and pushed past him and out the door with her arm around Eva. “You’re driving. My ride.” Marcia returned with towels, and now Cris and Landry followed them. Cris was still naked and hooded.

  “What’s wrong?” Landry said.

  “Get him dressed and follow us in Nate’s car with his gear. Proctor-Collins. I think she’s got pre-eclampsia, and probably placental abruption.”

  Eva realized the dungeon, other than the music, had gone silent, watching. “Fucking move your asses!” Tilly screamed, forcing everyone into frantic action. “And bring my purse and going home clothes!” she yelled after Landry.

  Another jolt of pain slammed into Eva as they were getting her into the SUV, laid in the back, the seat down. Tilly climbed in with her, pulling the back door shut behind her. “Drive it like you stole it, buddy, and don’t kill us. You know where we’re going?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tilly hit the cargo light. She yanked the bloody gloves off, inside out, and pulled a fresh set from the bag. Then she got out her BP cuff and stethoscope. Eva didn’t think it was just the dim light that made her friend’s face look so grim as she checked her vital signs.

  “Tilly?”

  “Shh, sweetie. Be a good girl for me. Just lay still. We’ll be at the hospital in a minute.”

  But Eva was feeling progressively worse, the headache throbbing, hurting more than any she’d ever had. “I love you, Tilly.”

  “Love you, too. Now shut your mouth and let me do my job.”

  This was bad. Really, really bad. She knew what Tilly had said. They’d been things she’d obsessed over with Laurel’s pregnancy, every potential thing that could go wrong.

  She’d barely thought about them with this baby. This pregnancy had been nearly textbook perfect.

  The headache grew even worse, as did her vision, and the backache. She was afraid, terrified to ask how much she was bleeding.

  Tilly braced herself with one of the oh shit handles as Nate rounded a turn. “Drive right up to the ER entrance,” Tilly said to him. “Hit the horn as soon as we pull in to get their asses in gear.” It felt like forever as Tilly stared down at her, checking her. “Hang in there,” she told Eva. “Be a good girl for me and hang the fuck in there.”

  The tires screeched nearly as loudly as the horn as Nate slid to a stop under the canopy in front of the ER door. He threw it into park, but Tilly was already out the back door and screaming for a gurney as Eva felt her vision fold into a tiny point before blackness took her…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Nate felt like his knees would give out when he saw all the blood in the car, on Eva, on Tilly’s clothes and arms as she climbed out of the SUV. She was barking orders and Eva’s vitals at a nurse and a security guard who’d run out to meet them with a gurney.

  “Go park it and get back here,” Tilly ordered. “I’ll stay with her.” He also realized she was now barefoot, her heels in the SUV. “Go!”

  He did, shattered as he watched them wheel Eva away, Tilly running alongside and once again talking to the nurse.

  Numb, he got the vehicle parked without hitting any other cars. As he headed inside, he realized he hadn’t grabbed Eva’s purse from the car. He returned for it, knowing he’d need her ID and insurance cards, before heading inside again.

  He started to run past the desk, following the sound of Tilly’s barking voice when the security guard stopped him. “Sir, you can’t go back there.”

  “That’s my wife!”

  “Sir, they need to work o
n her, and we need to get information on her.” He steered Nate to a chair at a desk where a grim-faced young woman in scrubs started taking Eva’s information.

  He was about to beg, plead with them to let him go back when he heard a code blue being paged to a bed in the ER.

  A few minutes later, Tilly slowly walked out. Her stethoscope was draped around her neck.

  He stood, terrified. “Well?”

  “They’re taking her to surgery right now. They have to deliver the baby and stop the bleeding.”

  His knees collapsed as he heavily sat again, fortunately landing in the chair. “I heard a code—”

  “That wasn’t her,” Tilly quickly said, “it was a guy next door to her. Cardiac arrest.”

  She looked down at herself and turned to the clerk. “Um…” She held out her hands. She’d peeled off her gloves, but still had Eva’s blood smeared on her hands, arms, all over her clothes. “Any chance I can clean up and borrow some scrubs so I don’t scare the natives?”

  * * * *

  Tilly left the scrubs on even after Landry and Cris arrived with her clothes, but she pulled on socks and purple Crocs from her bag. She also kept the stethoscope around her neck.

  “At least I look the part,” she mumbled to Nate as he stared at her. “I can probably talk my way back there once she’s in recovery.”

  “Why won’t they let me go back, Tilly?”

  She grabbed his hands and squeezed, hard, staring him in the eyes. “Nate, this is serious. She’s bleeding, and they have to save her and the baby. I’m sure as soon as it’s safe they’ll come get you, but right now, they’re focused on saving them.”

  “It’s too soon, Tilly.” He knew he needed to call Leo and Jesse. Hell, Cherise, too, if Marcia hadn’t already. “She’s only thirty-two weeks.”

  “And those are damn good chances,” Tilly said. “Seriously good. But even if it was just pre-eclampsia, they’d still have to deliver the baby. Unfortunately, with the rupture, they needed to get her in there fast. They’ve got anesthesiologists and surgeons and nurses and everyone else running around doing their jobs. They can’t take you back there right now. We need to call Leo.”