by Tessa Bailey
I just needed to find the perfect time to pop the question. I knew I wasn’t the world’s most sensitive man since I didn’t have a lot of practice at being romantic. But I wanted my proposal to be something Jocelyn would always remember. A story she could tell our grandchildren after we’d grown old together. It was the only time she was ever going to get married, so I wanted to do it right.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of time to consider what to do today since my calendar was booked solid with meetings and conference calls. So I put the ring back in the drawer and focused on getting a jump on my workday. The sooner I got started, the sooner I’d be able to leave and see my woman.
* * *
“Sir, I know you told me not to disturb you during the conference call, but your brother’s on the line and he said it’s an emergency of some kind. He tried your cell, but it went straight to voicemail,” my secretary said quietly as she peered around my office door.
I glance down at my phone and realized that I had missed his call because it was set on silent. “Excuse me for a moment while I deal with something urgent,” I said into my office phone before putting them on hold.
“Your brother’s on line two,” she informed me before closing the door.
“Alec? Is it Mom and Dad?” I asked as soon as I picked up his call.
“Fuck, Andrew,” he swore. I could hear sirens in the background. “Thank God I found you. Jocelyn’s been in an accident and I need you to meet me at the hospital.”
My heart plummeted at his words. “What kind of an accident?” I demanded as I leapt out of my chair and ran for my door.
“Hold on,” he muttered into the line before I heard him talking to someone in the background. “What hospital are you taking her to?”
“Cancel my call. Wipe my schedule completely. Jocelyn’s been in some kind of accident and I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I instructed my secretary. “Call Mark and tell him he’s in charge until further notice.”
“We’re on our way to Northshore University Hospital,” my brother told me. “We should be there soon.”
“We?” I wanted to know. “Who’s we and what the hell happened?”
“We were in a car accident. She was giving me a ride back to the building because I let one of the rookies borrow mine today while his was in the shop,” he started.
“Alec!” I yelled. “I don’t care about that. What the hell happened to Jocelyn?”
“Sorry. I’m still a little rattled,” he apologized, and I felt bad since he’d been in the accident too. “She was fine when we left the rink. I swear to God, if I’d known she wasn’t feeling well, I never would have let her get behind the wheel in the first place.”
“It’s okay, Alec. I’m not going to blame you for an accident just because you were sitting in the passenger’s seat of her car,” I assured him.
“Shit, bro.” His voice cracked. “One minute, we were joking around about how I was lucky she was heading my way since she hardly spends any time at her place anymore. The next thing I knew, she stopped mid-sentence and got this weird look on her face. She got really pale all of a sudden and then her eyes rolled in the back of her head.”
I tried to remain calm as I listened to Alec’s explanation. The last thing I needed was to get into an accident myself on the way to the hospital to see her. I took a couple of deep breaths before I asked anything else.
“Do they know why she passed out?”
“No. She hasn’t regained consciousness yet and they aren’t sure if it’s because of the fainting or the bump on her head from the airbag,” he answered.
“How long has it been?”
“I’m not sure, Andrew. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes since the crash,” he guessed.
That wasn’t very long, so it didn’t necessarily mean she had a serious head injury. I’d been knocked unconscious for that long before during a hockey game.
“How bad was the accident?”
“The Fiat is totaled. I grabbed the wheel and managed to turn away from oncoming traffic, but we still got nailed by a pickup truck before I pulled the emergency brake,” he said.
“And you’re okay?” I asked.
“Some bumps and bruises, but nothing serious. Most of the damage was to her side of the car, so Jocelyn bore the brunt of the impact.”
As relieved as I was to hear that my baby brother was fine, I didn’t like hearing that a truck had slammed into Jocelyn’s side of the car. “It shouldn’t take me long to get there. Maybe twenty minutes depending on traffic.”
“I’ll make sure they take good care of her,” he promised. “Call me when you pull up and I’ll let you know where to find us.”
I disconnected the call and concentrated on navigating traffic on Lake Shore Drive. I zipped in and out of my lane, swerving around slower moving vehicles, determined to get there as fast as possible. I managed to shave five minutes off the drive and pulled into the E.R. entrance. Luckily, there was an open parking spot in front that I grabbed before racing inside. I called Alec as I was walking through the doors.
“We’re in the emergency room,” he told me before I could even ask.
“I’m right outside. Where are you exactly?”
Alec asked someone in the background if they could come get me. “One of the nurses is on her way to you since they probably don’t even have our information in the computer yet. Wait for her by the check-in desk.”
Not even one minute later, a young nurse dressed in pink scrubs hurried up to me. “Mr. Rourke?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Follow me,” she said before swiveling away and marching back the way she came.
I had no choice but to hurry if I wanted to keep up, but we didn’t have far to go. She stopped at the first exam area and pulled the curtain back. Alec was sitting on a hospital bed, his hands held out as a doctor was bandaging them. He already had another bandage on his forehead, and I could see that his wound was still bleeding.
“Jocelyn,” I rasped out since she was nowhere to be seen.
“She woke up about five minutes ago,” he reassured me. “Her heartbeat was regular the entire way here. She said she wasn’t having any chest pains and no shortness of breath.”
All of that sounded good, but it didn’t tell me where she was right now so I could see her with my own eyes. “Where is she?”
“I’ll go find out and be right back, sir,” the nurse who’d brought me back here said.
“I told them you’d want her to have the best care possible—no expense was to be spared,” Alec said, explaining why it seemed we had our very own private nurse. “The hospital administrator came down when and assured me she’d get VIP treatment.”
“Good thinking.”
“You may have to sign some autographs and donate some packages for a fundraiser or something too. When he found out exactly who we were, he mentioned he was a hockey fan. That’s when the private nurse was offered.”
“Whatever it takes,” I agreed. “You know that. As long as someone can tell me where to find Jocelyn.”
“I’m sure it won’t be much longer,” he told me in an effort to calm my nerves.
“How did you manage to ride in the ambulance with her?” I asked, knowing that they didn’t usually allow something like that.
“I told them I was her brother and I wasn’t going to let them leave without me,” he said. “Mom told me you were going to pop the question soon, so I figured it was close enough to the truth.”
“Damn, she has a big mouth. You better not spill the beans to Jocelyn,” I warned. “I don’t think she has any idea that I’m even thinking about proposing already. And I don’t want her to know until I’m ready.”
“You got it,” he said before twisting his fingers in front of his lips in a locking gesture and tossing away the key. “My lips are sealed.”
“Sir,” I heard from behind me. I turned to find the nurse from before looking at me expectantly. “I’ve found Ms. Dever
eaux if you’d like to come with me to see her.”
I looked back at Alec and he shooed me away.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to locate her,” she apologized. “They took her for an x-ray of her leg due to a suspected break. I don’t know the results yet, but I’ve made sure they know to rush them.”
“And her head?” I asked.
“They’re going to order a cranial CT scan to start and then possibly an MRI just to be safe,” she assured me. “They’ve already drawn blood to run some labs as well.”
It sounded like she was receiving excellent care, and I was lucky that my brother’s swift thinking had resulted in the special treatment we were now receiving. Having a nurse dedicated to watching over Jocelyn and keeping me informed made the process much less frightening.
“I requested they take her to a private room upstairs when the x-ray is done since she’ll need to stay overnight,” she told me as we rode in the elevator. “From what I understand, she’s feeling very sleepy and they’ll let her doze on and off but not for too long just in case she has a concussion.”
We stopped at the nurses’ station on the way, and she spoke with one of the other nurses while I waited impatiently.
“All right. It looks like Jocelyn has already been brought to her room, so we can find her there.”
I followed her down the hallway to a corner room.
“I’ve made sure the rest of the staff knows you’ll be here even when visiting hours are over, so you shouldn’t have any problems. But please try to be relatively quiet since she and the other patients need their rest to heal.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, nodding my head.
“I’ll go make sure everything is okay with your brother and bring him to Jocelyn’s room when he’s ready,” she said before she walked away.
As I slowly opened the door so I wouldn’t wake her if she had fallen asleep, I heard Jocelyn speaking.
“So you’re telling me I got pregnant even though we were using two forms of protection?”
I paused mid-stride, stunned by what I was hearing as she spoke with the doctor.
“Although you were still taking the pill, the interaction with your antibiotics would have rendered it ineffectual,” the doctor replied.
“I knew that,” she snapped. “The doctor who prescribed them to me told me we needed to use condoms. And we did. Each and every time.”
“Condoms are ninety-eight percent effective in preventing pregnancy when used correctly,” the doctor spouted off. “You could have been one of the two percent that slipped through or there was an issue with your use of them. They could have been outdated, had a tear or hole. There are several common mistakes that decrease the efficacy.”
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated in a questioning tone of voice.
“Yes,” the doctor confirmed. “We can run some additional tests, but based on the information you provided when you were admitted, I would estimate you’re probably around four to six weeks along in the pregnancy.” The doctor’s voice was moving closer to the door. “I’ll be back to check on you in about an hour and can answer more questions if you have them. After you’ve been able to process what I’ve already told you.”
He swung the door open, revealing to Jocelyn that I’d been standing on the other side during their conversation. Her shocked eyes met mine as I walked towards her and grabbed her hands with mine.
“Marry me,” I blurted out what was probably the worst proposal in the history of mankind, but my brain wasn’t working right now after having learned I was going to be a father.
Tears welled in Jocelyn’s eyes. Not exactly the reaction I’d been hoping for even though my proposal had lacked the romance she deserved.
“We’re not getting married just because I’m pregnant!” she cried out.
“Jocelyn, I want to marry you because I love you, not because you’re carrying my baby,” I tried to explain.
“You don’t get it. You’ve had the perfect life. Loving parents. A younger brother who adores you. The chance to play the sport you love professionally. A thriving business,” she moaned. “And me? My mom died. My dad basically threw me out of his life. I lost ice skating. The only thing I’ve had to hold on to for so very long is the career I’ve been trying to build. And now I’m pregnant and I don’t even know if I’ll have that anymore.”
“You’re right. I don’t get it because I was lucky compared to you,” I agreed. “But here’s the thing. I have you. And you have more now because you have me too. I’m sorry those things happened to you, but I swear that I will do everything in my power to make sure nothing bad ever happens to you again.”
“You can’t stop bad things from happening,” she argued.
I leaned down until our noses were touching. “But I can shield you from the worst of it if something goes wrong. I can be the shoulder you cry on when you need one.”
“I don’t need you to fix everything for me,” she groused, quickly losing steam.
“Your being pregnant isn’t something for me to fix, Jocelyn. It’s a tiny miracle that will make our life together even better.”
“Pregnant?” a male voice gasped behind me in surprise. “I thought there was an accident?”
I swiveled my head and saw her dad standing awkwardly in the doorway. His face was pale, and I could see that his hands were shaking.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, Josie,” he assured her while glaring at me. “I know I messed up and badly, but when I got the call from the hospital telling me you’d been in an accident and needed me? It was like the bottom of my world fell out all over again—the same as when the police came to tell me your mom had died.”
Jocelyn started to sob and gripped my hand even harder as she stared at her dad. Her fist was pressed to her mouth, and she was biting down on her knuckle. It was clear that she was deeply moved by his confession, and he took it as a sign that he could move closer to her.
“The whole drive here, all I could think about was the time I wasted. If your mom were still alive, she would have kicked my ass the second I even suggested you move away from home to go to a boarding school—regardless of how good their skating program was. She would have told me to figure out a way to keep you at home even though you were just a teenager and I needed to travel for work. And she would have murdered me when she realized how far apart I’d let us drift while I was consumed by my grief.”
She was staring up at him with wide eyes, shocked at his confession. I knew her relationship with him was something that constantly worried her. She’d admitted to me once that the hardest part was not understanding how he could have pushed her away like that when the only thing she had wanted was for him to hold her even closer in their time of need. I was relieved to see that he had finally come to his senses even though he had the worst timing ever because we needed time alone to discuss the news we’d just heard. Plus, Jocelyn was already in a fragile state after the accident and having learned she was pregnant.
When she finally spoke, her question surprised me because it was so mundane. “How did they know to call you?”
“They said I was listed under the ‘in case of emergency’ contact in your cell phone. I set it up when I first got you a phone and it must have transferred with your contacts each time you changed phones,” he explained.
“I didn’t even realize it was in there,” she said, still focused on the logistics of how he was standing here beside her hospital bed instead of the meaning behind it.
“I know I haven’t given you much reason to trust me since your mom died, but I’m determined to prove you can,” he swore.
“You really, really hurt me, Daddy,” she confessed, tears streaming down her face. “I needed you, and instead of protecting me, it seemed like you pushed me as far away as you could.”
“Josie-girl,” her dad sighed before he closed the small distance that remained between them and glanced down at her stomach before continuing. “I hope to hell you
never understand what it’s like to stand in front of your child and know how much you’ve let them down.”
Jocelyn’s hands hovered protectively over her belly. “I won’t,” she swore.
“I could have lost you forever and I never would have been able to forgive myself. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but please tell me you’ll give me a chance to try to make this right,” he begged.
“I missed you,” she admitted brokenly.
“Me too, Josie-girl,” he said hoarsely. “I might not have let it show, but I missed you like crazy. I was so damn afraid to reach out because I knew I deserved your anger. I just didn’t know how to make things right after all this time.”
“We’ll just have to take some time to get to know each other again,” she said as she smiled up at him through her tears.
As happy as I was that it looked like her dad wanted to be a part of Jocelyn’s life again, I couldn’t help but wish he would leave so we could talk about the baby and my lame proposal. But it looked like it was going to have to wait until they’d finished their reunion.
Chapter Fifteen
Josie
My mind was completely blown. When I’d woken up this morning, I’d had no way of knowing that my entire world would change in what felt like the blink of an eye. The day had seemed like any other right up until the moment I’d started to see spots swimming before my eyes and couldn’t keep my eyes open. One minute, I’d been putting up with Alec teasing me about moving in with his brother. And now, here I was—pregnant, with a possible broken leg, reuniting with my dad, and trying to figure out what to do about Andrew’s lame-ass proposal.
There was a soft tap on the hospital room door before the doctor walked in to check on me. He frowned as he looked between my father and Andrew after noticing the tears on my face.
“Ms. Devereaux needs her rest,” he said in a disapproving tone of voice.
My dad sighed resignedly and kissed my cheek lightly. “I guess that means I should head out, but I promise I’ll be back in the morning.”