Once he was through security, he headed for his gate then stood in line to board the plane. Thankfully, when Marcus had made arrangements for his ticket, he’d booked a business class seat for Ryan. At least he was physically comfortable.
He thought about the moments just before he’d left the house to meet his flight. His mom had been holding Jason, but Hannah had been absent. Since their conversation in the kitchen when he’d tried to get Hannah to consider a future with him, she’d been suspiciously absent whenever he’d been around.
He’d scared her off. Pushed too hard.
And in hindsight, he could admit that mentioning an engagement might have been too much when they hadn’t even agreed to be in a relationship. But he thought he’d seen in her eyes the same thing he felt. Love. He was sure it was love. Well, he was positive it was love on his part, but he’d been certain it was love on her side too.
Ever since he’d committed to returning to BlackThorpe, Ryan had questioned if it was the right decision. His heart said no, but his mind said otherwise. Though he wanted to stay around, he knew that he needed to get back to his life. To his job. His hope was that if they put some distance between them and their time in Afghanistan, that Hannah could see for herself that she was a good woman. That her issues weren’t insurmountable.
After listening to what she’d said that day in the breakfast nook, he’d come to understand that everything he said to her was being filtered through her belief that she wasn’t good enough. That belief had fortified the walls that she kept firmly in place between herself and others. His hope and prayer was that the time she spent with her therapist over the next little while would begin to weaken that belief.
Though it pained him to walk away, Ryan accepted that he needed to do just that. She was safe with his family there to support her and Jason. And from a distance, he’d continue to be a friend. A friend who loved her very much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Hannah woke to the sound of Jason crying through the monitor on the nightstand beside her bed. Shoving back her blanket, she scrambled off the bed and darted across the hall into Jason’s room. When she reached the crib, she leaned over to pick him up.
“Hey, baby,” she said softly as she lifted him from the crib. When she pressed her cheek to his forehead, she realized he was burning up.
Panic began to spread through her as she spun around, trying to figure out what to do first. Holding Jason close, she left his bedroom and made her way down the short hall to the bathroom. Her hand shook as she opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out the thermometer.
It took her a few tries to get it to swipe across his forehead correctly, but the number was alarming enough to send her from the bathroom to her bedroom to change her clothes. She laid Jason on her bed and continued to talk to him as she quickly switched out of her pajamas and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
She was a nurse. She should know how to deal with something like this. But she was a mother first, and the panic she felt was overriding her ability to draw on her medical knowledge as a nurse.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself and clear her mind to deal with the situation.
Medicine. She needed to give Jason a dose of medicine so that she could work on bringing the fever down. She couldn’t risk him having a seizure on the way to the ER. Once that was done, she laid him in his car seat.
Thankfully, the night was warm, so she didn’t have to change Jason out of his pajamas. But as she moved down the flight of stairs to the main floor of the apartment building she now called home, Hannah felt chilled to the bone. And so very worried.
Once at her car in the small parking lot, her hands continued to shake as she pressed the button to unlock it. Finally, she had the door open and could snap Jason’s car seat into place. She took the strap of the diaper bag off her shoulder and dropped it into the passenger seat as she twisted the ignition to start the car.
“Please, God. Please, God. Let me get to the hospital before anything else happens.” She continued to repeat that over and over as she drove as fast as she dared through the darkened streets. Jason let out the occasional whimper but was otherwise quiet.
When Hannah had first gotten the car—a hand-me-down from Maya—she’d hung a mirror on the seat where Jason’s rear-facing car seat was strapped, so she could still see him when she was driving. But right then, the darkness hid his reflection from her. She needed to see him.
Her breath came in sobbing gasps. Jason had to be okay. He just had to be.
Once at the hospital, she found a parking spot, then attached the car seat to the stroller so she could move more quickly from the parking garage to the ER. She met only a few people along the way, and when she got to the ER, they took her information right away. Hannah was dismayed to see that Jason still had a significant temperature when the intake nurse checked it.
It wasn’t until he was settled in a bed as they waited for the doctor that Hannah wondered if she’d overreacted. But then she looked at him, laying listless on the mattress of the bed they’d put him in, and she knew she had made the right decision.
Unable to leave him like that, she picked him up and settled back in the chair next to the bed. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. The trembling that had started in her hands slowly spread to the rest of her body, and she cradled Jason closer so she wouldn’t drop him.
She didn’t know how to do this. How to be the only one caring for him. She felt so alone and as if she’d failed him. It was her job as his mother to keep him safe and healthy. After feeling like she’d failed him for the first few months of his life, it had been her goal to never do that again. And yet, here they were in a hospital with a fever that she knew wasn’t safe for anyone, especially a baby not even a year old.
How had this happened?
Things had been going so well. Even after Ryan had left, she’d managed to keep her heartache hidden as she focused on moving forward with her life. Gradually, the indications that she was improving became more evident.
There was the first night that she hadn’t needed the night nurse to watch Jason. Then the day her therapist told her they could go from two or three sessions a week, to just one. Then the way it had become more common for her to finish all the food on her plate. And finally, the way her clothes were fitting her better.
The interview with Stacey Adams had been cathartic in a way she’d hadn’t imagined possible. The knowledge that she’d been in control of how her story was presented had been empowering. She’d been grateful to Stacey for the compassionate way she’d handled it. Though Hannah had told her about Jason, together they’d made the decision to not talk about him during the interview.
Though it hadn’t been bluntly stated in the blog Stacey had posted, the sexual assault had been inferred. Hannah was fine with that. She was sure people already assumed it had happened, so there was no need to deny or try to hide it. And admitting it to Stacey had been freeing. She was a victim but denying the assault had happened wouldn’t make the memory of that event disappear.
Talking about it to the therapist and then to Stacey had been one more thing that had empowered her. There was no shame in her story. She had done nothing wrong, and in telling her story, she had shone a light on the wickedness and cruelty of the men who had held her.
Each of those things had been a step in the right direction and contributed greatly to her emotional healing.
The Callaghans and Ryan had been there for her too, offering friendship and support. Though Ryan had been back in Minneapolis, he’d kept in constant contact with her. Texting at least once a day, and usually calling her every couple of days.
She’d worried that things would be awkward after their conversation, and they had been until he’d left. That had been on her though, because she’d retreated. Something she had quickly come to regret once Ryan had left. The knowledge that he wasn’t under the same roof as her for the first time since they had met had been more distressing than
she’d thought it would be.
But then had come that first text, checking in on her and telling her about his day. That had been followed a couple of days later by a phone call. Which had set a pattern for the weeks that followed. His care and concern had continued on, just as it had when he’d been present with them.
And as of the day before, he was back in town. With a friend. At least that’s what she had overheard when she’d been out at the Callaghan home over the previous weekend. Makayla had been talking with Sammi, wondering if the friend Ryan had mentioned bringing with him was someone special.
The words had felt like a knife to her heart. Not that she hadn’t expected this, but for it to happen so soon hurt more than it might have if more time had elapsed. Though she’d felt alone in having to deal with Jason on her own earlier at the apartment, she was grateful that she wasn’t out at the house anymore. Seeing Ryan with someone special would definitely have been more than she could handle just yet.
Just two weeks earlier, she’d moved into the building that was owned by the Callaghans. She had one of the two-bedroom apartments while Bennett and Grace lived on the third floor in one of the larger ones. There was some talk of Tristan moving into the other smaller one, but he hadn’t made that decision official yet.
While she had been pleased about the apartment, she was even more excited to finally be able to enrol Jason in a reputable daycare so that she could find a job. It wasn’t that she wanted him in daycare, but she needed to get a job. Needed to find a way to support herself and Jason. Staying at the Callaghans had meant that she had minimal expenses, but they were also letting her stay rent-free at the apartment, so her money was stretching much further than it might have had she been completely on her own.
Movement nearby had Hannah straightening. Keeping Jason close, she turned to see a doctor approaching them. She thought about getting to her feet but wasn’t sure that her legs would support her.
“So it appears this little guy has a fever,” the doctor said as he glanced down at the file in his hand. “Why don’t you lay him down here, so I can have a look at him?”
Reluctantly, Hannah laid him back down on the bed. Her heart hurt when he let out a small whimper, but otherwise, he didn’t react to being separated from her. While some might find a baby making strange to be frustrating at times, Hannah relished it because that was an indication to her that Jason knew how important she should be to him.
But though his eyelids fluttered briefly, he otherwise didn’t react to the doctor’s interactions with him. Hannah clenched her hands together, watching from the other side of the bed as the doctor checked Jason over. She was hoping that his problem was an ear infection or something easily treated, but when the doctor looked in his ears, he made no comment about seeing any infection.
“We’re going to run some tests to see if we can determine what’s going on,” the doctor said as he looped his stethoscope around his neck. He was an older man who gave her a gentle look. “We’ll take good care of him. If his fever doesn’t break or come down in the next little while, we’ll admit him until we get the test results. Someone will be in shortly to draw blood.”
Hannah couldn’t do more than nod her head. All her experience as a nurse seemed to fly out the window when it came to Jason. Which was ridiculous. What good was it to have all that knowledge, only for it to become useless at a time when she really needed it, all because she fell apart?
She leaned forward, resting her cheek on the bed next to Jason’s head, and kept watch over him. She laid her hand so that her fingers rested on his chest, just so she could feel the rise and fall of it as he breathed.
People came and went from Jason’s bedside. Drawing blood. Checking his temperature. They’d even done a spinal tap on him. And at some point, when he resisted taking a bottle, they hooked him up to an IV, and that was when Hannah knew that they’d be staying. All of it had been horrible—for both of them.
“Hannah?”
She looked up with tired eyes at the sound of her name and saw Davis Colson standing at the foot of the bed. His brow was furrowed as he looked from her to Jason. He reached for the chart that was attached to the foot of the bed.
“What happened?” he asked, even as his gaze scanned the information on the chart.
“I woke up to him crying, and when I checked on him, he was really warm. He had a high fever, so I brought him in.” Hannah rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I think they’re going to be admitting him.”
Dr. Colson nodded. “I think that would be for the best. At least as long as his fever is up and until we have the results of the blood tests.”
Hannah sighed and turned her gaze back to Jason. “You don’t think it’s anything serious, do you?”
“Most the time, fevers like these aren’t indicative of anything serious, but you know that I can’t make any guarantees.” He gave her a small smile. “We’ll just have to wait for the test results.”
“Sorry,” Hannah said with a shake of her head. “I’m a bit of a basket case.”
The doctor came around and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t apologize. It’s perfectly understandable, but we’re going to take good care of him and find out what’s going on.” He paused for a moment then said, “Would you like me to let Max know what’s up?”
“No,” she said without hesitation. “They’re all supposed to be going up to the Callaghans’ cabin for Canada Day. I don’t want to worry them. Like you said, it’s probably nothing. So you won’t tell him, will you?”
“Of course not. Not without your permission.”
Hannah let out a sigh and looked back at Jason. “Thank you.”
She pulled out her phone to check the time, surprised to see that it was already seven. They’d been in the ER for over five hours. Exhaustion like she hadn’t experienced since being in that dark cell pulled at her. But she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t rest until she knew that Jason was going to be okay.
If something happened to him…
Hannah gasped at the shaft of pain that went through her. Alone. If something happened to Jason, she’d be alone again. She and Jason were a family. They were supposed to be a family forever. Someday she would leave him, but by then, Hannah hoped he would have found someone to add to their family. Someone who would mean that Jason wouldn’t be alone when God called her home.
Please, God. Don’t let anything happen to Jason. Please.
She blew out a puff of air, trying to calm the rampant fear that was eating at her. Even when she’d first been kidnapped, she hadn’t felt that kind of fear. The thought of losing Jason eclipsed every fear she’d ever experienced before.
As she sat there, she searched her mind for a song or a verse that would calm her, but there was nothing. For the first time, there was nothing. No song, no Bible verse. She felt so alone with her fear. A fear that a small part of her mind knew was irrational, but it was robbing her of everything.
“We have a bed ready for him, Ms. Walsh.”
Hannah looked up to find an Asian woman standing at the end of the bed. She gave a nod before getting to her feet, praying her legs would hold her.
“Your son is very beautiful,” the woman said as she began to move the bed from its spot.
Hannah glanced at Jason then said, “Thank you.”
The woman continued to ask questions about Jason as they moved through the hallways of the hospital. Hannah followed her into the room then watched as the woman and a nurse carefully transferred Jason to the crib there.
After the Asian woman left them, the nurse picked up the chart and made a few notations on it. “So it looks like we’re still waiting on some test results.”
Her brow furrowed as she read the chart then she moved to Jason’s side. Hannah watched as she took Jason’s vitals. He fussed a little, but nothing like he normally would have.
“His fever has come down a bit,” the nurse said.
Though that was all she commented, Hannah could fill in the rest:
but not enough.
“Can I hold him?” Hannah asked as she went to sit on the chair next to the crib.
“Sure. You’ll just need to be careful with the IV.”
Hannah nodded and felt a huge sense of relief when Jason was finally settled in her arms. As she cradled him close, a memory of the last time she’d held him before the fever flashed through her mind. It had been as she’d given him his last bottle before bed. He’d been alert—although a bit sleepy—and he’d been trying to hold the bottle by himself. Sometimes she let him do that, but usually the bottle went flying at some point during the feeding.
As she looked down at his lethargic form, the contrast between the night before and then added to the fear that seemed to have a stranglehold on her mind. She couldn’t do this alone. She wanted to, but she knew she was falling apart, and Jason needed someone who could be strong.
She wanted to call Ryan and ask him to come to her side. He was supposed to have arrived the day before. The family—and family friends like her—were to head up to their cabin that day. But in spite of that, she knew he’d come. She was almost certain of it.
But then…his friend.
Perhaps he wouldn’t come and would just send someone else to be with her.
What if she was overreacting?
Maybe the results would come back indicating an easily treatable infection of some sort. Then all of her fears would have been for nothing. And she would have disrupted Ryan’s time with his family—and his friend—for no reason. At some point, she’d have to let them know she wasn’t going to the cabin, but she wasn’t going to call anyone to come sit with her.
Hannah bent over Jason, pulling him close. She closed her eyes and prayed again for his fever to come down. For nothing serious to be wrong. For peace.
Finally…finally…the words of a song came to her. The song she sang each night as she rocked Jason before bed.
A Little Ray of Sunshine_A Christian Romance Page 28