Dr. Meyers, who stood at the foot of the bed and blocked Blythe from Adam’s view, turned sharply when the door opened, then smiled weakly and waved for Adam to enter.
“Come on in,” Dr. Meyers said. “You’re the one person she wants to see.”
Adam rushed to Blythe’s bedside. The attending nurse jumped aside to prevent his knocking her down.
“Babe? I’m here.” Adam reached down and lifted her hand in his.
Despite her round face and fat tummy, Blythe looked so small and delicate lying there in the hospital bed, her red hair strikingly bright against the pristine white pillowcase. Her face was so pale. Her makeup was a tearstained mess.
She squeezed his hand. “I was so scared. I don’t want to lose Elliott. I can’t... can’t...”
“Hush, babe. Hush. Don’t even think it.” Adam looked at Dr. Meyers. “Nothing’s going to happen to you or Elllott.”
“I shouldn’t have started calling him by his name, should I?” Clinging to Adam’s hand, she lifted it to her abdomen. “Giving him a name made him a real person, and now if.. if ...” She burst into tears.
Adam sat down on the edge of the bed and took his wife in his arms. He gazed up at the doctor, unconcerned that the man would see tears in his eyes.
“Blythe. Adam,” Dr. Meyers said.
With Adam’s reassuring arms around her, Blythe swallowed her tears. Adam wiped her face with his fingertips.
“Blythe has developed what is known as placenta previa.”
Blythe and Adam stared at the doctor, their heartbeats accelerating as fear spiraled through them.
“I know it sounds like some sort of disease,” Dr. Meyers said. “But it isn’t. At this late stage of your pregnancy, the placenta should have moved upward and away from the mouth of the uterus, but instead it is still covering the edge of the os—the mouth of the uterus. In fact, the placenta is actually touching the os, and that’s what’s causing the bleeding.”
“How serious is this condition?” Blythe asked. “Is EI... our baby in danger?”
“Your pregnancy is in its thirty-second week, so if we have to take the baby, he should survive,” Dr. Meyers explained. “But we’re going to do everything possible to avoid doing a C-section now, so we can let your baby do a bit more growing.”
“What can you do?” Blythe hugged Adam, sighing as she absorbed the comfort of being in his strong arms.
“We’re going to keep you in the hospital for a few days. You’re to stay in bed, except for bathroom privileges. We’ll carefully monitor the situation, give you extra iron and vitamin C and, if necessary...” Dr. Meyers hesitated. “If the bleeding continues, we’ll have to give you blood transfusions.”
Blythe nodded her head. “I’ll do whatever is necessary for the baby.”
“Is there any danger for Blythe?” Adam asked, stroking his wife’s back, wishing more than anything he could do something—anything—to keep her safe and well.
“Ninety-nine percent of women today who have placenta previa come through okay, as well as their babies.” Dr. Meyers walked over and patted Adam on the back. “We’re going to take good care of Blythe, and if she improves, she might be able to go home in a week or so. Of course, she’ll have to stay in bed, and someone will have to be with her twenty-four hours a day.”
“If she’s allowed to go home, I’ll be there with her all the time,” Adam said.
“But you can’t do that,” Blythe told him. “You can’t possibly stay away from Wyatt Construction for weeks. We can hire someone. A nurse.”
“I can run the business from the house, if necessary.” Easing Blythe down onto the bed, he held her gently by the shoulders. “I’ll hire around-the-clock nurses for you when you come home. But if you think I’m going to leave you alone for one minute, you’d better think again. Nothing is more important to me than you and Elliott.”
Tears choked Blythe. Closing her eyes, she turned her face into her pillow and cried.
Adam walked Dr. Meyers out of the room and asked him if he’d been totally honest with them about Blythe’s condition. Joy walked over to where the two men stood talking,
“I was completely honest with you,” Dr. Meyers said. “We want to do everything possible to bring this pregnancy to term, but if the hemorrhaging worsens, we’ll have no choice but to do a C-section.”
“May I go in to see Blythe?” Joy asked.
“Go right on in,” the doctor told her, then turned to Adam. “If you’d like to stay the night with Blythe, I can arrange it.”
“Arrange for me to stay as long as she’s in here,” Adam said.
Dr. Meyers shook his head and laughed. “I’d tell you that you can’t do that, but knowing you and the way you feel about your wife, I realize it would be useless. Just try not to antagonize the entire hospital staff while you’re playing nursemaid.”
Adam was well aware of the fact that the staff of Decatur General prayed to see the end of him. In the two weeks since Blythe’s admission, he hadn’t left the hospital. He ate his meals with her, showered and shaved in her bathroom, had a separate business phone line put in and oversaw everything that concerned Blythe’s care. No one could budge Adam. None of Joy’s and Craig’s attempts to persuade him to leave had worked. And Dr. Meyers’s subtle threats hadn’t been effective. Even when Blythe begged him to go home, he had refused.
And now he was glad he hadn’t been swayed by other people’s tactics. What if he’d been miles away at a construction sight when Blythe had begun to hemorrhage so heavily that Dr. Meyers decided he had no choice but to do immediate surgery?
She was in her thirty-fourth week of pregnancy. Dr. Meyers had said he didn’t foresee any complications, but he had alerted the NICU at Huntsville Hospital, just in case.
Joy and Craig found Adam sitting alone in the waiting room, his hands between his spread knees, his head bowed. Joy sat down on one side of him, Craig on the other.
“Any word yet?” Craig asked.
“Not yet.” Adam didn’t look up, he just kept staring down at the floor.
“Everything is going to be all right,” Joy assured him. “Dr. Meyers is one of the best obstetricians in the state. He’ll bring Blythe and the baby through just fine.”
“He’d better.” Adam growled the words deep and low. “If anything happens to her...”
Joy patted Adam on the back. “I’ll go get us some coffee.” She signaled to Craig that he should reassure Adam, then she stood. “I’ll be right back.”
When Joy disappeared around the corner, Craig cleared his throat. Adam didn’t respond. Craig grunted.
“It’s all right,” Adam said. “You don’t have to try to cheer me up. I know Joy thinks there’s something you can say to me that will help me stop worrying. Well, there isn’t.”
“Yeah, I know there isn’t.” Craig stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back on the sofa. “If it was Joy in there, I’d be half out of my mind, just the way you are.”
“I don’t know how it happened. I don’t even know when it happened. But somewhere between the night I got Blythe pregnant and tonight when they wheeled her into surgery, I fell in love with that woman.”
Craig chuckled. “Are you just now realizing that fact? Hell, man, everybody else has known it for months.”
“What do you mean everybody else has known?”
“Me. Joy. Martha Jean. Sandra. Dr. Meyers. Every employee of Decatur General.”
“Has it been that obvious?”
“Yeah, to everyone but your wife. You haven’t told her, have you?”
“No, dammit. She went into surgery not knowing how I really feel.” Adam shot up off the sofa and paced back and forth in the small waiting area. “Hell, I didn’t even admit it to myself until... I’m not giving her a divorce. I don’t care if she throws a fit. I don’t care what she threatens to do. I’m never going to let her walk out of my life and into another man’s arms.”
“Mr. Wyatt?” A tall, slender nurse called his name.
> Adam rushed over to her. Craig stood and walked across the room.
“Yes, I’m Adam Wyatt.”
“Dr. Meyers would like to see you. If you’ll come with me.”
“Is something wrong?” Adam asked. “Is Blythe all right?”
Adam had never been so afraid in his entire life. If anything had happened to Blythe, he didn’t think he could bear to go on living.
Twelve
“Your wife is fine, Mr. Wyatt.” The nurse smiled.
Letting out the breath he’d been holding, Adam suddenly felt light-headed.
“Dr. Meyers thought you might want to come into surgery and be present at your son’s birth.”
“What? Is that possible? My wife is having a cesarean.”
“Yes, I know. But Dr. Meyers is the kind of obstetrician who doesn’t mind making the birth process a family affair.”
“You mean I can actually go in there and be with Blythe during the surgery.”
“If you’d like,” the nurse said. “But you’ll have to hurry. Your wife has already been prepped and given an epidural.”
Craig walked over and put his arm around Adam’s shoulder. “It’s the experience of a lifetime. I’ll never forget the day Missy was born. It’s a special memory Joy and I will share forever.”
“God, Craig, I’m scared.”
Craig laughed. “So was I. But Blythe will be strong enough for both of you.” Craig turned to the nurse. “Did Mrs. Wyatt tell Dr. Meyers she wanted her husband with her?”
“She insisted,” the nurse said. “Please, Mr. Wyatt, let’s go. We’ll have to get you suited up.”
Adam followed the nurse’s instructions, suited up in sterile garb and went into surgery. Blythe lay on the operating table, drapes arranged around her exposed abdomen and an IV connected to her left hand.
“I’m here, babe,” he told her as he sat in a chair that had been placed near her head.
She held up her right hand. Clasping it gently, he brought it to his mouth for a kiss.
“I told Dr. Meyers I wasn’t going to have this baby without you,” Blythe said. “Our bargain was that we’d share everything.”
“Thank you.” He whispered the words against her ear.
The surgery took about ten minutes. Just before Elliott Adam Wyatt was eased from his mother’s body, Blythe asked that the screen protecting Adam and her from viewing the graphic details of the surgery be lowered enough to allow them to see the actual birth.
Adam watched while the nurse suctioned his son’s nose and mouth. Elliott let out a loud cry. Adam’s heart stopped for one brief moment. Tears momentarily clouded his vision. Blythe squeezed his hand.
While the nurse put Elliott through the normal routine for newborns, Dr. Meyers attended to Blythe. She and Adam couldn’t take their eyes off their son, the most wonderful, precious thing either of them had ever seen.
“May I hold him?” Blythe asked Dr. Meyers, who immediately motioned for the nurse.
“Give Elliott to his father,” Dr. Meyers said. “Y’all can hold him briefly, then we want to get him into the ICU nursery.”
“ICU nursery?” Blythe squeezed her husband’s hand. “What’s wrong? Is Elliott—”
“Elliott appears to be just fine, especially for a premature infant,” the doctor said. “Sending him to the ICU nursery is strictly standard procedure.”
The nurse handed Elliott, wrapped in a soft blue blanket, to his father. Adam stared down at the infant in his arms. His son. The tears brimming in Adam’s eyes spilled over and streamed down his cheeks. Sitting beside Blythe, he placed their baby into his mother’s waiting arms.
Blythe held Elliott, noting every feature of his tiny face. She slipped her index finger into his hand, smiling when he instinctively twined his little fingers around hers.
“He’s beautiful. Isn’t he?” She glanced up at Adam and saw that he was crying. Adam Wyatt. Her big, macho husband was weeping with the joy of fatherhood.
Grinning, Adam licked the tears off his mouth. He reached over and caressed the sparse strands of hair on Elliott’s tiny round head. “He’s got your hair. Kind of a coppery red.”
The nurse leaned over and took Elliott. “Y’all will get to see plenty of him. We’ll bring him to your room later, Mrs. Wyatt.”
“You get some rest, Blythe,” Dr. Meyers told her, then turned to Adam. “You go get some coffee, hand out cigars and make a few phone calls. By then Blythe will be in her room, and if everything checks out with Elliott, y’all can see him again.”
Once back in her room, Adam stayed with Blythe, holding her hand, resting his head on her pillow when she dozed off to sleep. He didn’t know how Blythe would react when he told her that he’d changed his mind about the divorce, that he could not—would not—let her go. He had to find a way to approach the subject without antagonizing her, without making her feel as if he weren’t giving her a choice in the matter. And that was the problem. He didn’t intend to give her a choice in the matter. There was no way he was going to lose this woman!
Blythe’s hospital room looked as if half her florist shop had been transported there. Adam, typically old-fashioned, overpowering man that he was, had surrounded her with every luxury. In the three days since Elliott’s birth, Adam had been at her side constantly, except for a trip home every afternoon to shower, shave, change clothes and make a few business calls. He seemed unable to drag himself away from her and Elliott. She had known he would be possessive of Elliott, but she had never dreamed he would shower her with so much attention after their child was born.
Dr. Meyers had been pleased with her recovery and surprised at Elliott’s nearly six-pound birth weight. He had told Blythe that her son might have weighed nine pounds if he hadn’t been a few weeks premature. Since she and Elliott were doing so well, they were going home this afternoon.
Home with Adam. For a few more weeks.
Blythe tried not to think about how soon she and Adam would end their marriage and she and Elliott would move into the beautiful mansion Adam had built for them. If only she could be with Adam, she’d gladly live in a two-room shack.
The nurse helped Blythe dress Elliott in the blue-and-white going-home outfit she and Adam had chosen on one of their many shopping sprees. Adam waited impatiently in the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Something was wrong. Blythe had sensed it the moment he’d arrived today. Adam was nervous. And Adam was never nervous. He was often agitated, occasionally aggravated or angry, but he wasn’t the nervous type.
She knew nothing was wrong with Elliott. Dr. Wilson, the pediatrician she and Adam had chosen, had given their son a clean bill of health. Dr. Meyers had said she’d come through the cesarean without any complications and if she took good care of herself and followed his instructions, she would recover completely in no time. So, if Elliott was fine and she was fine, then the problem had to be with Adam.
Maybe he was eager to set the wheels in motion to end their marriage. Maybe he wanted to discuss their divorce, but didn’t want to upset her so soon after surgery and Elliott’s birth.
On the ride home, Adam was unusually quiet. Blythe tried to engage him in conversation about Elliott, about his business, about Elliott, about her business, even about the weather—everything and anything except their marriage.
The nurse Adam had hired met them in the driveway, took Elliott from the car seat in the back and carried him inside. Blythe would be glad when she had recovered enough from the surgery to lift Elliott without any help. Adam came around to the passenger side of the car—a new Mercedes he’d bought to accommodate an infant car seat—opened the door and scooped Blythe up in his arms.
“Are you warm enough?” He glanced at her simple wool coat. She had refused to let him buy her a fur of any kind. “Do you need a blaaket?”
“I’ll be fine from here to the house,” she assured him.
He carried her inside, straight to her bedroom, which was filled with pink ros
es. Her favorite flower. He deposited her on the side of the bed, then helped her out of her coat.
She glanced around the room, taking special note of the bassinet she had asked Adam to place by the side of the bed. Even if he had insisted on a nurse to help her with Elliott, she intended to have her son at her side during the night. Adam had made no protest and had agreed he’d lift Elliott into her arms until she could do it herself.
“I want Elliott in here now,” she said.
“Ms. Hobart will bring him to you in a little while,” Adam told her. “I need to talk to you first.”
Blythe’s heart caught in her throat. Here it comes, she thought. He’s going to ask me to sign the divorce papers today so that by the time of my six-week checkup, he can leave me and resume the life he led before I trapped him into marriage.
How could he be so heartless? So callous? To ask her for a divorce, today of all days? How would she get through this without bursting into tears? She had no idea how she’d survive without breaking down, but she couldn’t do that. If she did, he’d know she loved him and wanted to be his wife forever.
“What do you want to talk to me about?” she asked, but couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
Adam bent down on one knee, removed Blythe’s slippers, then stood, pulled the covers down and lifted her into the middle of the bed. He fluffed the pillows at her back.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“rm fine. What do you want to talk to me about?”
Adam walked over to the vanity stool where he had laid his briefcase, picked it up, opened it and removed the legal document from inside. “I want to discuss our divorce.”
She went cold all over, despite the cosy warmth of her bedroom. A tight fist clutched her heart. She shouldn’t be surprised. It was what she’d expected.
“Our divorce?” she said. “We agreed to divorce after the baby was born and he and I had our six-week checkups.”
“That’s what we agreed to before we married.” Holding the document in his hand, Adam sat down on the bed beside Blythe.
The Tender Trap Page 17