Raw Need

by Cherrie Lynn

  “I know what happened, baby. I know. You don’t have to talk, okay? Just rest. I only wanted you to know I’m here.”

  “I look awful.” When she went to raise a hand to her face, he gently caught it and held it.

  “You look beautiful. You look more beautiful than I’ve ever seen you.”

  “I’ll have . . . an ugly scar.”

  They must have her on some good drugs if she was worried about something so inane, and she sounded as if she was going to nod back off any second. He smiled, continuing to caress her brow. “No, you’ll have a beautiful scar. It gave your daughter life.”

  “Is she okay? They won’t let me see her, Zane.”

  “She’s okay. And you’re okay. Everything is fine, and you need to rest. You’ll get to see her soon. I’m going to go outside so you can sleep, okay?”

  “Stay with me,” she said, the strongest words that had come from her yet.

  “Only if you sleep. No talking. Sleep. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Snuggling his hand to her cheek, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and he prepared himself to stand in this uncomfortable position for however long she wanted to hold on to him. “Zane? Will you sing to me?”

  His voice was his livelihood. He was an assassin on the mic. He could stare down a sold-out audience twenty thousand strong and not blink. One girl lying in a hospital bed asking him to sing only for her made him break out in a cold sweat.

  He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Anything for her. “What do you want to hear?”

  “‘One Dream,’” she said softly. At least it was one of his. A slower tempo, older song they rarely performed live, so he hoped he could remember all the words. When he opened his mouth, though, they came, and he did his best for her until her fingers loosened around his and he was certain she’d slipped off into heavily medicated dreams. Maybe he would give her a happy one; he hoped so.

  According to the plain white clock on the wall, ten minutes had ticked past when Savannah quietly came up behind him. “Is she asleep?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. She’s been restless. Probably waiting on you to get here.”

  “Are you okay with me being here?”

  “Zane, at this point, I’m okay with whatever makes her feel better.”

  “Your parents obviously don’t agree.”

  “We almost lost her. I’m not too worried about what they think right now.”

  “She’s out of the woods, right?”

  “So far so good. Everything has been stable since she delivered. Her blood pressure skyrocketed, and she was in danger of liver failure or a stroke. I think the saddest thing, though, is the doctor warned us she will always be at risk for this if she ever wants to have another baby.”

  How much tragedy could one woman tolerate? He ached for her, because in his heart he knew she was going to be a wonderful mother. She would want more kids, and she deserved them. “She mentioned your brother just now,” he said, turning to gauge her reaction.

  Savannah drew a breath, her fingers tightening a bit on the bed’s side panel. “Poor thing. She’s been through a lot.”

  “She said he told her something, but she didn’t say what.”

  Then he felt like an utter ass, because Savannah stood stoically for a moment, but then turned away with a hand to her mouth.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay.” Her voice was wavering. “If he was ever with her, I’m sure it was today.”

  “I don’t want to overstep . . .” Sighing, he gave up, not knowing what the fuck to say. He felt as if he’d been dropped in the middle of a movie, a real fucking tearjerker, but no one had bothered to hand him the script. On the bed, Rowan still clutched his hand, sleeping on. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks, and he could only hope she was having sweet dreams.

  Savannah turned back, swiping upward underneath both eyes. “Like I said. If she wants you here, you’re welcome here. I just wanted to check on her, but I’ll leave you two alone. Do you need a chair?”

  “That would be magnificent.”

  Chuckling, Savannah slid the corner chair over beside the bed, and he was able to sit without disturbing Rowan’s grip on him. “Mike is out in the waiting room, if you need him,” she said as she headed for the door.

  “I’m good here. Tell him I’ll catch up with him later.”

  He should’ve known his brother wouldn’t stay away. After an entire hour had ticked by—his arm was pretty much numb by then—someone came in, but since a flurry of nurses had been in and out while Zane watched Rowan sleep, he didn’t look up until a strong hand squeezed his shoulder. “Take a break, brother,” Mike said quietly.

  “I can’t. If she wakes up, I want her to know I’m here.”

  “She’ll know.”

  “She’ll know because she’ll see me.”

  Mike sighed and scrubbed a hand over his hair. “Zane, her family wants to see her too.”

  “That isn’t her family. Savannah is, maybe. No one else.”

  “That is her family. That’s her only family.”

  “That’s the family that threatened to take her daughter away from her.” Jase had finally broken down and told him that much.

  “What?”

  Zane sent his brother a hard, unwavering look. “Did I fucking stutter?”

  “They’re just upset and looking out for her.”

  “No. They don’t give a shit about her.”

  “That isn’t true. They’re a mess right now.”

  “Tell them she’s sleeping, and she’s fine, and they don’t need to disturb her. She needs rest.”

  “Don’t be this way, man. It’s not going to help anything. They aren’t bad people, they’ve just been dealt a shitty hand.”

  “No shittier than hers. No shittier than ours.”

  “Zane. You need to let them see her.”

  “Then tell them to come fucking see her. I’m not stopping them.”

  “That won’t work, and you know it. I don’t want to see security come drag your ass outta here. Don’t make a scene.”

  “I’m not making the scene here.”

  “Christ,” Mike cursed under his breath, pacing a few steps away.

  “You’d stand by and let that happen, I guess?” Zane accused. “You’d take their side and let me get tossed out? Man. I never thought I’d see it.”

  “Fuck you, kid. Really, fuck you, after everything we’ve been through. All I’m asking is for you to be an adult about this. If you won’t, then there’s nothing I can do for you.” When Zane let that go in silence, Mike walked back over, reclaiming his grip on Zane’s shoulder. “Come on. Come see the baby.”

  “They haven’t let Rowan see her yet.”

  “It’s not that no one has let her. She can’t get out of bed, and they can’t bring the baby out of the NICU to her. She’ll get to see her soon. Come on.”

  He wanted to fight, but in the end, he knew it would be more detrimental to Rowan’s mental state for a scene like Mike described to play out in her hospital room. So, pressing a light kiss to her forehead, he gently extricated his hand from her light grip. She didn’t stir. But it took everything he had to turn and let Mike lead him from her room.

  “I told you not to get involved in this, didn’t I?” Mike said as they stepped out into the hallway. “One day you’ll learn to listen.”

  “I remember telling you once not to get involved, and you didn’t listen, and it worked out pretty well for you.”

  Mike didn’t seem to have an answer for that. Savannah was coming up the hall toward them with three coffees balanced between her hands, and Mike was watching her with the same look in his eyes he’d had the very first day he’d seen her in the cemetery after Tommy’s service, that mix of awestruck admiration and utter devotion. Seemed that day had sealed both his and Zane’s fates. “Yeah,” Mike said. “I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “You okay?” Savannah asked Zane as she reached them
. Mike relieved her of two of the coffees and passed one over to him.

  “Yeah,” he replied dully.

  “Well, my parents are incoming. We should clear out and give them some space.”

  Fuck, that pissed him off, and he had to scald his tongue with burning hot coffee to keep from saying so. Savannah might not be in any mood to hear a tirade against the people who had given her life.

  He followed them down the hall in the opposite direction from which Savannah had come, tuning out Savannah and Mike’s conversation. Rowan had looked so small in that hospital bed. He should have been here at her side when it all went down, but he couldn’t have been, could he? Sighing, he pulled out his cell phone and absently glanced as his text message count: 243. Jesus. He didn’t have the energy right now. Everyone in his life was probably going fucking nuts, and his social media notifications would be almost as bad, if not worse. It was the price of remaining approachable. Most of the fans were great, but there were always assholes who didn’t realize the guys on the stage were actual humans with actual human problems that necessitated taking a day off at times. There wasn’t any help for it. It wasn’t easy to replace the singer on short notice.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  When he looked up at Savannah’s words, after they’d walked what seemed like a mile, he found himself staring through a large window into a busy nursery. Savannah was pointing. “They won’t let us in yet, but we can see her. She’s just . . . so tiny.”

  He couldn’t see much. A little hand with splayed fingers that probably couldn’t wrap all the way around one of his. A miniature foot. A pink hat on a tiny head. Tubes everywhere.

  “Kid’s a fighter,” Mike said, hugging Savannah to his side. She nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  Even with his limited view, Zane lifted his phone and shot a few seconds’ worth of video. He zoomed closer on the little hand waving, the little foot kicking. She was a wiggler. The next time Rowan opened her eyes, she would see her daughter, even if it was only a little bit of her.

  “Did she settle on a name?” Zane asked as he ended the recording.

  Savannah glanced back at him. “Zoey.”

  “Z names are pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.”

  “Well, don’t pat yourself on the back too much,” Savannah said with a chuckle. “It’s a name she’s always loved.”

  He’d never even asked her about names, had he? The whole baby thing . . . it hadn’t been real to him. But it was in his face now. Amazing how such a tiny being was so fucking huge.

  Where the hell did they go from here?

  Chapter Eighteen

  She woke to a dark room, alone and scared and so weak that a pathetic attempt to lift one arm only left her dizzy and nauseated. Panic began to blossom in her chest and she couldn’t remember . . .

  “Hey,” a gentle voice said beside her, and she realized she wasn’t alone after all. “Rowan?”

  She turned her head—she could do that, though it made the room swim. Zane sat in the chair beside her bed, half his face in shadow and half in the dim light emanating from somewhere in the room, and surely she must still be asleep, must still be dreaming, because he couldn’t be here.

  Still, it felt so real when he stroked the hair from her forehead.

  “Zane?”

  “I’m here, angel. Right here.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, but fell closed again. Minutes or hours passed, she couldn’t be sure which. The next time her lids slid open, he was still there, his head down. Her mind was still stuck on his last words before she’d drifted off. “Why?”

  The one word jerked his head up and he blinked at her. “Why am I here?”

  Swallowing thickly, she nodded, wincing at the wash of dizziness that overcame her.

  “Because I fucking love you, Rowan.”

  “Zoey,” she said suddenly, her eyes springing open wide, all other symptoms and weaknesses forgotten. Looking down at her flat stomach, she clutched wildly at Zane’s forearm, her strength returning for a moment. “Zoey! Is she . . .”

  “Zoey’s fine, darlin’, look. Look here, see?” He was holding something in front of her, but it took her bleary, watery eyes a moment to focus on the cell phone in his hand, where a video was playing. An incubator with a little bundle inside. As she watched, a tiny, swarthy hand closed around the edge of the white blanket, fingers grasping, then let go and waved in the air, as if saying hi.

  “Oh my God,” she breathed, renewed tears filling her eyes. “Oh my God, she’s so tiny, Zane.”

  “She was four pounds, twelve and a half ounces. Small but mighty. Mike says she’s a fighter. That’s as close as I could get, or you would see her face. But she’s fine, Rowan. Mike’s right. She’s strong.”

  Tears streaming in earnest now, she laid her head back on the pillow and sobbed while he soothed her, continually caressing her forehead, gently wiping her cheeks while she cried and cried. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay,” he said over and over.

  “I was so afraid I would lose her too.”

  “We were just as afraid we would lose you. Are you in pain?”

  She shook her head. The pain of her surgical wound was nothing compared to the pain in her heart. She would take days and days of the former if it would alleviate the latter. “Baby, it’s all over,” Zane said, sounding a little perplexed. “She’s here and she’s fine.”

  “I know,” Rowan said, taking a deep breath. “I know.” Lifting her eyes, she looked at him, really seeing him for the first time. He was here. Zane had come to her. And he’d said . . . “You said you loved me?” she asked, sounding tiny and confused.

  A grin broke across his beautiful face. “I did,” he said. “I was wondering if you noticed.”

  “I—”

  He laid a finger to her lips, silencing her before she could babble her confusion at him. “Shh. You’ve been through enough. Know that I’m here for you, for whatever you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “How are you here?” she asked, looking over at the darkened window, nothing but the moon and stars and city lights beyond. “It must be the middle of the night.”

  “The nurses are fans,” he said, still with that grin, and she couldn’t help but chuckle, lifting a hand to her head. Little by little, some strength was returning.

  “Make sure we don’t end up all over Instagram,” she cautioned.

  “Well, I can’t guarantee that, but it was the only way I could get in here to you. I didn’t want you to wake up alone.” His face darkened as if the very thought was unbearable to him.

  “None of them asked you for sexual favors, did they?” she teased.

  “Well . . .”

  They both laughed, but she winced, and his hands went immediately to her. “Shh. Don’t hurt yourself. They said they might be able to take you to see her tomorrow.”

  “I always pictured the ideal birth,” she admitted, staring down at her vacant belly. “I’d hoped, with everything else going to shit, that at least she wouldn’t be born into any kind of trauma, that she would come out healthy and they would lay her on my chest and we would bond and everything would be perfect.”

  “Some of us aren’t meant for perfect,” he said gravely. “Who knows why? I’ve been sitting here thinking about it all night. You and I, after everything we’ve been through in our lives, we’re warriors by now, and maybe we aren’t alive unless we have a war to fight. People who lead charmed lives will never understand. I’d rather be like us, Rowan. I’d rather know we can withstand anything life throws at us. Because we can. We’ve proven it over and over.”

  “It isn’t too much to ask for a little charm, is it?” she asked. “Every now and then?”

  “Oh, I think we can find it every now and then, don’t you?” He studied her face for a long moment. “We found each other, against all odds.”

  Amazing, really, how their paths had merged from the respective wildernesses of their separate lives. So amazing that
, in that moment, the sheer miracle of them took her breath away. How could she have ever turned her back on that without giving them a chance? How could she have run from him without first fighting like hell?

  Of course, when it came to her precious daughter . . . Zoey would have to come first. No matter what. “Does anyone else know you’re here?” she asked, lacing her fingers through his.

  “Mike and Savannah.”

  “My in-laws . . . have they seen you here?”

  “They know I’m around. So far I haven’t seen them.”

  “They’re going to be a part of my life, you know. A part of Zoey’s. And I want them to be. I just can’t have any friction right now, Zane. We all have to figure out how we . . . fit together. Everything is so unstable. I know the thought of me with someone else, already, hurts them so much.”

  “I understand,” he said. “I’ll stay away, if that’s what you need me to do. I’ll wait for you.”

  “It isn’t fair for me to ask that of you.”

  “You didn’t ask, did you? I offered.”

  Of course, it was what she wanted. But it wasn’t anything she had dared to expect from him. “I’m afraid it’s the only way this might work. To take it slowly.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time, Rowan. I’m ready to give it all to you.”

  He was simply too good to be true. “At the expense of your millions of poor drooling fangirls?” she teased.

  “Ah, the poor fangirls will have to find some other schmoe to waste their drool on.” On and on, he’d been stroking her hair, her cheek, with his free hand, looking at her in a way that made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, even lying in a hospital bed after having her stomach ripped open. “I’m officially off the market.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “For being here. For everything. For giving me time. I have some things I need to work on. I’ve spent so much time running, Zane. Escaping.”

  “We all do that.”

  “But I have to stop. There are some things I need to face. I’m afraid I won’t be able to move on until I do.”