by Sosie Frost
“Harder on you. When I thought about Jude and you…”
Now wasn’t the time to tell him the truth.
Especially now that it was the truth.
“I love Jude,” I said. “And he loves me.”
“And I love you both.” Eric shook his head. “I’m so fucking sorry I pushed him into the mashed potatoes and hit him with a turkey. And he’s hurt, and you’re here doing…” He waved at my tummy. “Things with your body.”
“I’m so glad you’re here. You have no idea what it means that you came to find me.” I pulled him close and kissed his cheek. “But you can’t stay.”
“I want to help. How can I help?”
“There’s going to be a lot of…hair-flying and bodily fluids and screaming. Some very Wes Craven gore is gonna happen in a bit. I know you’re upset, and I know you mean every word you say. I love you for it, but…” I forced a smile. “I’m going to tell you something I used to say all the time when I was little.”
“What’s that?”
“Get the hell out of my room.”
Eric backed away, respectfully nodding. “Okay. Duly noted. What can I do for you though? Anything. Whatever you need.”
I pointed to my purse. “There’s an overnight bag waiting at Jude’s, in the entry way. Take my keys, collect the lampshades Phillip is eating, and bring my clothes back.”
“Okay.” He nervously stood. “What will you be doing?”
“Uh…creating life. I’m kinda stuck where I am right now.”
“And Jude?”
My throat closed. “He’s not doing well.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“They’ll put him under.”
“Like surgery?”
I shook my head. “For brain injuries, they’ll do a medically induced coma. To help rest the brain. Let it start to heal to avoid swelling.”
Eric rocked to my side, leaned down, and kissed my head. “He’ll be okay. He’s got a baby coming. That’ll fix any man right up.”
“Here’s hoping.” I wished I felt as confident as I sounded.
“Don’t have that baby until I get back.”
“No promises. She’s pretty insistent.”
“Then I’ll hurry. I’ve missed too much already. I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
I thanked him, but Eric couldn’t give me the only thing I needed.
Jude.
I wanted an update. News from the doctor. A peek at his CT scan.
A minute to talk to Jude.
I wished I could tell him I loved him. But it wasn’t possible, so I was going to do the next best thing.
Have my baby. Start our family. And we’d be there when he woke up.
It wasn’t the best way to start our lives together, but it was the only one that made sense.
Me. The baby. Jude.
This was going to be our fairy-tale.
And I’d make sure it had a happily-ever-after.
25
Jude
“Jude?”
Her voice called to me like music.
“Jude.”
The fog hadn’t cleared. I battled through the confusion and disorder that was my brain. It wouldn’t let me open my eyes.
At least it meant I could listen to her.
“Jude. Wake up.”
I loved that voice. That quiet, tinkling sound of patience and sweetness and…
A sudden, sharp cry stiffened me, but Rory’s whisper hushed the squeal into nothing almost immediately.
I didn’t know that voice, but I knew she needed me. I tried to wake up.
The brush of softness against my lips dragged me from the darkness. Rory’s kiss woke me from the deepest sleep.
I opened my eyes.
“Hi.” Her voice remained soft, but her smile shone brightly. “Jude?”
My throat ached in dryness. Her hand brushed over my forehead. Cool. Refreshing.
“Where am I?” My words rasped. Rory offered me a sip of water from a straw. “What happened?”
“You’re in the hospital.”
“Again?”
Rory smirked. “Again. You were hit during the game.”
“What game?”
“The championship.”
The lights were too bright. They haloed the angel at my bedside. Dark against light, softness layered over the pain.
“Did I play well?”
Rory’s smile grew. “You scored the winning touchdown…before getting knocked out.”
“We won?”
“You won.”
That was a cause worth celebrating. I tried to sit up. Rory pressed a hand to my chest. She jostled the bundle in her lap.
The squirming, wiggling bundle.
I stared at the pink blankets.
That didn’t make sense. What the hell had happened?
“Jude, I want to introduce you to someone…” Rory turned the blanket down and revealed the tiniest, sweetest face I’d ever seen. Her skin was shades lighter than Rory’s, but her eyes, her hair, her nose…everything was her mother. “She couldn’t wait to meet you.”
My heart monitor beeped too quick. It set off an alarm. “G—Genie?”
“Well…I was thinking of calling her Dawn.”
I struggled to get up. Rory didn’t let me move. “I missed the birth?”
“You were unconscious.”
“For how long?”
“We put you under for a day and a half. But your scans are clearer now. No swelling, no major damage. Only a little bleeding we have to monitor.”
“I missed the birth...” The disappointment and guilt shredded me. “I’m not missing anything else. I swear to you, Doc.”
Rory squeezed my hand, but she leaned away to allow a doctor and nurse to examine me.
This was familiar. I’d been poked, prodded, tested, sampled, and monitored before.
It always ended the same. I was fine, but a little piece of me was lost to the fog.
A nurse took my temperature. The activity hurt my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Darkness consumed me for a moment.
Silence.
Fog.
“Jude?”
Her voice. Pure music. I shifted and woke.
Rory sat at my bedside. Beautiful. Exhausted. The only face I ever wanted to see.
“Where am I?” I asked.
Rory frowned. She glanced across the room. A doctor filled out paperwork and nodded.
“He might be a little groggy for a while,” he said.
“Retrograde amnesia?” Rory whispered.
“Perhaps.”
“His short-term memory?”
“We’ll have to find out.”
Me? Amnesia? What the hell was going on? My heart monitor chirped.
Why did I have a heart monitor?
Rory took my hand. “You’re in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
She hesitated. “You were playing in the championship game. You got hurt.”
Fuck me. I knew it was going to happen.
“Did we win?”
“You scored the winning touchdown, but you were injured on the play. You’ve been in the hospital for almost two days. You have a concussion, but you’re going to be okay.”
I’d stopped listening.
Rory held a bundle of blankets in her arms. Pink. Wiggling.
Oh Christ. What did I miss?
I stared at the swaddle of impossible tininess. Little dark fingers poked from the blankets.
“The baby…” She was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen. “You…you…”
“I went into labor at the game.” Rory presented her daughter. Our daughter. “Jude, this is Dawn.”
Dawn.
“God, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” My words sounded hollow. The damned injury. What kind of man missed his baby’s birth? “I promise you, Rory. I wasn’t there for this, but I won’t miss anything again. I’m going to be there for everything.”
&n
bsp; “I know, Jude. Just rest now.”
Rest sounded good, but I felt like I had been sleeping for hours. Days.
Years.
I laid my head down. The fatigue overwhelmed me.
Then the fog.
I slept.
I woke with a blink.
Nothing made sense. An IV stuck in my arm, and the sterile coldness surrounded me. I tried to get up. A hand pushed rubbed my arm.
“It’s okay, you don’t need to move.”
Her voice.
Music.
I focused on Rory’s face. She smiled.
I think I’d always loved her smile.
“Where am I?” I whispered.
A tear fell across Rory’s cheek. Had I caused that?
“You’re in the hospital with a concussion.” Her voice trembled. “You’ve been here for two days.”
“Two?”
“We put you to sleep to help your brain rest and heal.”
“From what?”
She didn’t look at me now. “You were hurt at the game.”
Game. The thought swirled. A memory stuck for a moment before getting lost in the haze. “What game?”
“The championship. You scored the winning touchdown.”
And yet she was crying.
Why was she crying? What the hell had happened?
How badly was I hurt…?
I pulled myself upright. My head didn’t like that. Neither did the tubes inserted into parts of me that never needed to be tubed before. I flinched, but the pain faded. I stared at the bassinet beside the bed.
A little bundle of pink blankets swaddled a sleeping baby.
Oh fuck.
“You had the baby,” I said.
Rory rubbed her cheek. The tears wouldn’t stop. “Yes. I had the baby while you were under.”
The fog in my head burned away, seared through by the quiver in her voice, the streaks of tears on her cheeks.
Nothing should have upset this woman.
I refused to let her cry, to be in pain, to feel anything but absolute joy.
Her baby was born.
Our baby.
And, in an instant, the haze cleared.
“Dawn,” I said.
Rory turned. “What did you say?”
“Her name is Dawn.”
Either I was wrong and Rory sobbed with disgust, or the fuzzy memories of the conversation meant my head hadn’t been right for a while. Her relief cracked in wavering sobs. I gestured for her to come closer.
“You’re okay?” Her voice was a whisper. “I knew the drugs had to wear off, and you’d be confused but—”
Aside from a headache and the ringing in my ears, I was fine. “It’s coming back. I can’t believe I missed her birth.”
“It’s okay. You’ll be there for everything else.”
I shared her grin. “I swear it. I love you, Rory. I want nothing more than to take care of you both.”
Her eyebrow arched. “I might be taking care of you for a while.”
“Am I in bad shape?”
“You’re pretty tough, but it was a rough hit.” She leaned in to kiss me. “But I’m going to fix you. I’ll put you back together, Jude Owens. You aren’t getting away from me that easily.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Doc.” I looked to the bassinet. I remembered carrying a football into an end zone, but I had never held anything so important before. “Can…do you think I…?”
Rory nodded. She cradled Dawn close to her chest. She leaned over me, careful to keep her hands on the baby as well, just in case my head decided to fog.
Never again.
Not now. I couldn’t let myself go now. Not when I held the baby in my arms.
My daughter.
“She’s mine,” I whispered. “Rory, I don’t care if she’s not my blood. She’s mine.”
“Then my last wish came true.”
Her joy would heal every last ache in my soul. I stared at Dawn, at her chubby cheeks and tiny hands and her sweet, pouty lips, just like her mom’s.
What had I almost done?
I’d got hurt. Badly. I’d walked onto the field to protect Rory and nearly destroyed myself and my chance with my baby.
Never again.
“Rory, there’s something I have to tell you,” I said. “The reason I played in the championship game.”
“I understand, Jude. You wanted the chance. The win.”
“No. I wanted to walk away.”
She frowned. “Then…why—”
“Coach Thompson threatened me. If I didn’t play, he’d tell Frolla to ruin you. They’d have destroyed your credibility with the fellowship. He wanted to strip you of your medical license. I had to play…” I grimaced. “And I have to play next season too.”
“No,” Rory said. “No, you don’t.”
“I won’t let them destroy your reputation.”
“You won’t have to. I’ll destroy theirs.”
Rory pulled her phone from her pocket. She let me listen to the devious recording she had captured. Coach Thompson’s voice was muffled but unmistakable.
“…We’re going to the championships, and Jude Owens will lead us there on a smear of his goddamned brains if that’s what it takes.”
Her eyes brightened, and she almost kissed the phone. “I recorded Thompson and Frolla. I’ve already given a copy to Leah…with a couple secrets selectively edited out. She’s distributing it to the media as soon as you’re well enough to collaborate the story. The league might not care about last year’s cheating, but they’re taking a hard line on player safety. The union won’t let this go unpunished. Coach Thompson and Clayton are done.”
I grinned. “I’m glad you have a fully functional brain to plan these things.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rory brushed her hand over Dawn’s blanket. “If I’m so smart, why did I wait twenty years to tell you how much I loved you?”
“Because it took me twenty years to get my eyes off the field to see what really mattered.” I cradled Dawn closer. “I thought football was my life, and the championship my greatest achievement. I was wrong. This is what I wanted all along. I wanted a reason to wake up. I found it.”
“I can’t promise this won’t be complicated,” she said.
“No. This is something even my head can understand.” I pulled her close for a kiss. “I’ve been a part of a team for twelve seasons. Now it’s time to be a part of a family.”
“I love you, Jude.”
“You two will be my everything.” I kissed her once more. “My career might have its ever-after…but this is the start of a beautiful fairy-tale.”
Epilogue - Rory
I tossed the manila envelope on Clayton’s desk.
“My resignation from the fellowship program.” I gave him a sweet smile. “Thank you for the opportunity, but I feel my expertise is better suited elsewhere.”
Clayton’s eyes shimmied over my body. I let him gawk. I was rocking the post-pregnancy body and looked fantastic for having a three-month-old daughter.
“Is that all I’ll find in this envelope?” he asked.
“Did you want a thank-you card as well?”
“I expected a lawsuit for paternity.”
I tilted my head. “You aren’t my child’s father.”
“Biologically—”
“Clayton, if it wasn’t for my baby, I’d have forgotten all about you. Soon enough, I will. I don’t care if she is your blood. Dawn is Jude’s daughter, and you will not take his child from him. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly.” He opened the envelope. “Where will you go?”
“I was offered a specialized position at Ironfield Regional—more pay, better hours. Your program didn’t compensate its talent well.” I arched my eyebrow. “Though, from what I hear…it won’t be your program for much longer.”
“You’re fortunate I don’t sue you for recording a private conversation.”
“And you’re lucky I don’t leap over this desk and
beat you senseless for putting Jude in such danger.” I shrugged. “However, I’ve learned a great deal about remaining professional through this fellowship. I thank you for all the faith you had in me.”
“You are a good doctor.”
“I’m a great doctor, no thanks to your efforts. Good luck with the future league investigations, Clayton. You’re going to need it.”
I didn’t let him answer, though I did do a celebratory dance once I slammed the door behind me.
Was I allowed to feel good about that?
Vindicated? A little proud?
Yes and yes.
It was a moment to close a chapter on my life. I thought he had scarred me for life. Instead, I was given the greatest gift of all.
A family.
I returned home to find Jude and Dawn on the couch. Sports Nation was muted on the TV, but his attention focused on the little baby asleep on his chest. He grinned and let me take Dawn.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Clayton won’t be a problem.” I patted her back. “Did she eat?”
“Had a bottle.”
Never thought I’d be grateful for the weird pumping apparatuses that came from the baby shower, but they were a damn life saver. Jude needed time to bond with his daughter, and they both loved the time dinner time while resting in her daddy’s arms.
I took Dawn into her room, resting her in her crib. If Jude had his way, she’d sleep on him all day and all night. Even Phillip followed us, crashing under the crib and taking up his watchful post.
Jude followed me, grinning like a fool.
“Got some good news of my own,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You’re looking at the Rivets’ new assistant offensive coordinator.”
I spun, shocked. “What?”
“Amazing, right?”
“You…you went in to get a job as the running back coach!”
He shrugged. “They fired Thompson, and Coach Vine took his spot. They needed to fill the offensive coordinator position, so they juggled inside the administration. They wanted me to help with the overall offense.”
“That’s amazing, Jude!”
He wrapped me into his arms, but the heat of his hands immediately shifted into something a little more daring than just a hug. With a wicked smirk, he led me into the bedroom.