Call him, my heart screams. But my brain doesn’t let me, because I know that Carter is right, I do need to talk to Travis, and it’s probably best that he isn’t here when I do.
I rub my hands over my bare arms when I look at Travis’ bags that still sit in the front entrance. It’s late, past ten, and he still hasn’t come back. Maybe he won’t for a few days. He has other places to stay, and I’m sure he has a lot to process.
Loneliness surrounds me like a cold blanket, and I shiver.
The house is so quiet, but it’s not just that. When Carter is here, even if he’s just working on his laptop, the place is always filled with his presence. Like a warmth that I can feel in every room. But I don’t feel that now. I just feel empty.
I should go to bed, and I’d tried, but the second I lay down, Carter’s lingering scent made my emotions go all erratic, and I had to get up, or I’d end up crying myself to sleep.
It’s going to be all right my heart cries, but my head counters, this is what I warned you about.
With a heavy sigh, I walk into the kitchen and grab the orange juice out of the fridge, wincing when I feel a small pain in my side. I rub the spot, feeling the baby move beneath my palm.
Three more weeks and he or she will be here. That’s what I should be focusing on. Not the fact that I may be losing the only person in my life who has ever cared about me. The only man that I’ve ever loved.
I pick up my phone that’s sitting on the counter and check my messages.
Nothing.
Swallowing hard, I scroll to his number. I need to hear his voice. Need to tell him I love him, that no matter what happens with Travis, that won’t change. I’m about to press dial, when I hear the front door open, then slam shut.
“Carter?” I put my phone back on the counter, hope surging through me. But by the heaviness of the stops, the uneven gate, I know it’s not him, even before Travis storms into the kitchen.
A prick of fear needles across my flesh.
“Where is he?” Breathing hard, he takes a few threatening steps towards me. There’s something in his eyes, a brightness that doesn’t look right. When I don’t answer right away, he yells, “Where is he?”
I flinch, which only seems to make him angrier.
“Carter went to New York for a few days. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll make a pot of coffee, and we can talk?”
“You want to talk?” His lips pull up in a sneer, and he corners me against the counter. “Okay. Let’s talk. How about we start with whether that’s really my kid.”
My breath hitches, not just because of the accusation, but because the way he’s trapping me sends off warning signals in my brain. I’d never think Travis would hurt me, or anyone for that matter, but right now he isn’t in his right mind. That’s obvious.
He doesn’t smell like alcohol, but I can tell he’s not sober. And he’s clearly looking for a fight.
“You know it is.”
“I don’t know shit.” He grabs my wrist, twisting just enough to cause pain, but not to do any real damage. “Not about you. But I did a little digging when I was away. Had a buddy look into your past. And it looks like you weren’t as sweet and innocent as you led everyone to believe. You had quite the reputation in Springcreek.”
“Travis, you’re hurting me.” I try to stay calm despite my growing panic.
“I’ll admit it. You’re good.” He gets in my face, his breath hot and stale on my cheek. He doesn’t release me, instead his grip tightens, and I know it’ll leave a bruise. “You couldn’t have me, so you played my brother.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Right. You two are in love,” he snorts, and moves closer to me so that his body is pressed hard against my stomach. “Were you in love with me too? How about the poor bastard that got you nocked up the first time?”
“Travis, please.” I try to push him away, but he doesn’t budge.
He’s not as big as Carter, but he’s strong, and I’m not really in a condition to fight him off. My first and only priority is to keep my baby safe.
“Or maybe that was your plan all along? Using me to get to him?” His fingers dig into my flesh. “Thought you could bag yourself a rich husband by sleeping with his brother.”
His accusations don’t even make any sense. It’s like he’s trying to find any and every excuse to think the worst of me.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Bullshit.” He releases me, and I see his fist flying towards my face.
Oh God. All I can do is brace for the impact. I pinch my eyes closed and pull back.
Crunch.
The sound of wood splintering in my ear makes me cry out.
Travis pulls his bloody hand out of the broken cupboard door, without so much as a wince.
I know he’s on something now.
“You took my brother away from me.”
“No. Carter loves you. He’d do anything for you.”
“Like raise my kid. Or marry the slut who I got knocked up.” Blood trickles from his hand to the floor, and already it’s swollen to twice the original size.
“This isn’t you talking. You’re not like this.”
“You took everything from me. My home. My freedom. My fucking brother.” He laughs a hysterical sound, then picks up a glass from the counter and throws it across the room. It shatters on impact. “You fucked my fucking brother.”
I need to get away from him.
Not caring about the tiny shards of glass that cut into my feet, I run out of the room towards the stairs.
Panic.
Fear.
They narrow my vision, make my legs feel like jelly.
I’m not sure if Travis follows me, I just run. Hard and fast. Until a sharp pain slices across my stomach, buckling me over, and a gush of something warm and sticky rushes down my leg.
I can’t breathe. Can’t scream.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
That’s all there is, blinding and paralyzing.
When I finally can catch my breath, I reach between my legs, then pull my fingers back.
Blood.
Thick and red, it runs heavily down my legs, staining the pink pajama bottoms I’m wearing, and begins pooling at my feet.
No. No. No.
This can’t be happening.
A strangled sound comes from my throat.
“Oh my God, Layla.” Travis’ hands are on me now, and I try to push him away. “Shit. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Call. Carter. Please.”
“Okay. Just sit down.” He takes my elbow and helps me down to the floor, hovering over me like he doesn’t know what to do.
Another stab of pain that feels like my stomach is being shredded from the inside causes me to gasp, and my vision to darken.
“Call him,” I cry.
“Okay.”
I lay down on the floor, pressing my cheek against the cool wood. Nausea rolls over me, mixing with the sense of impending doom. It’s a strange feeling. Fear and panic begin to fade, replaced by a sense of detachment. Like I’m floating somewhere on the edge of consciousness.
Stay awake, Layla. I bite my lip hard, tasting blood, anything to keep from fading into the emptiness that threatens to consume me.
“He’s not answering.” Panic edges Travis’ voice.
I can feel myself losing consciousness. I blink and my vision goes blurry. One black spot appeared, followed by another.
I can’t lose this baby.
“What do I do?” Travis is kneeling beside me, blue eyes now sober, but so full of alarm that he seems frozen to doing anything.
“Call…911,” I choke out, struggling to stay conscious.
I’m going to die. I can feel it – death. A cold darkness that presses in, ready to take me. Blackness swims through my sight, sucking me under, until it’s all I know.
Chapter 26
Carter
I couldn’t go
to New York. Something in the back of my mind warned me not to. And the minute I pull up to the house, I know I was right listening to that voice inside my head.
The front door is slightly ajar, but the house is dark.
I flip on the hallway light and my heart stops.
Fresh blood stains the hardwood. And it seems to be everywhere.
No.
“Layla,” I scream her name as I race from room to room, flipping on the lights.
The living room is empty, and so is the dining room. Taking two steps at a time I slam open the bedroom doors, and then the bathroom, but there’s no sign of her.
“Layla,” I keep shouting, praying that there’s some mistake. That she’ll answer me.
My body goes ice cold when I walk into the kitchen and my shoes crunch on the broken glass beneath them. One of the cupboard doors is smashed in, and a chair lies on its side in the middle of the room.
Travis. I have no doubt that he did this. Rage and fear boil inside of me.
God. I should never have left her.
I pull out my cell. The battery is dead.
“Fuck.”
There’s a landline in the living room, but my fingers shake when I press the numbers, dialing my brother.
He picks up on the first ring. “Carter? Thank God–”
“What the fuck did you do to her?” I scream. “Where is she?”
“I’ve been trying to call you.” I can hear the guilt in his voice, which only confirms my worst fears.
This time when I speak, my voice is low and dangerous. “Where the fuck is she, Travis?”
I hear him swallow hard, before saying, “University Hospital. They took her straight into–”
I don’t let him finish, just hang up, and race to the car. I speed through the city, going through at least two red lights, and parking in a no park zone in front of the emergency doors.
Let them tow me.
“Layla Harper,” I say to the receptionist at the front desk, trying not to betray my panic, but it’s nearly impossible. “I need to know where she is.”
“One moment.” It takes what seems like an eternity for her to check her computer. She frowns at the screen, making my chest squeeze, then looks up at up at me. “Are you family?”
“I’m her husband.” A small lie, because the moment she gets out of this damn place, I’m going to make it a reality.
Her lips tighten before saying, “She’s in surgery right now.”
I groan, a gut-wrenching sound that has the woman looking at me with sympathy.
“There’s a private waiting room set aside for her family. Here…” She scribbles a number on a pad and hands it to me. “Just take the elevators to the fourth floor and make a left.”
I start towards the elevators, pushing the button impatiently until the doors open. I’m aware of the looks I’m getting, and I know if I don’t calm down, someone is going to call security.
She’s going to be all right. She has to be. I’m not helping her by freaking out when I don’t know what happened. But the second I see my brother I lose my fucking mind.
Travis is sitting alone in the small waiting room, his head in one hand, while cradling the other injured one in his lap. He looks up at me when I walk in, and his expression drips with guilt, his face stricken and pale.
Blood stains his pants, his shirt.
Layla’s blood.
Remorse is all over his face, but I don’t care.
He starts to stand. “Carter, I’m sorry–”
I grab him by the collar of his shirt, picking him up, and slamming him against the wall. “What did you do?”
He doesn’t fight back, just goes limp in my arms. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“But you did,” I hiss.
“No.” He shakes his head adamantly. “I didn’t hit her. I promise. Yeah, I lost my temper. Said things I shouldn’t have. But I swear to God I didn’t hurt her. She ran out of the room, then the next thing I know she was bent over, and there was…blood.”
His eyes are glassy, his face distorted in a grimace, and even though I don’t want to believe him, I do.
“I was fucked up.” He drags his good hand through his hair. “I still am.”
“What are you on?”
“I went to a buddy’s house, I only did one line, but–”
“Cocaine?” I drop my hands and look at him in disgust.
“I know. Shit.” He sits down on the couch. “I’m sorry.”
There’s a knock and both our heads jerk in the direction of the door. A small middle-aged woman wearing scrubs frowns when she glances between us.
“Which one of you is the father?” she asks.
Me, I want to say. Instead, I grind my teeth, and look at Travis.
Something passes between us, and I see the final acceptance in his eyes.
“He is,” Travis says, nodding at me.
The doctor doesn’t look convinced, but she sighs and addresses me. “We had to do an emergency C-section. Her placenta detached from the uterus, and she sustained significant blood loss.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t move. I’m just waiting for the woman to tell me that Layla is gone. That she didn’t make it.
“She’ll be in post-op for a few hours.”
“She’s okay?” The words come out in a rush.
“We’re still monitoring her, but she’s stable now.”
“Thank God.” My hands are ice cold and shaking as I ring them together. She’s okay. She’s going to be fine. I glance up at the doctor. “And the baby?”
She smiles then. “He’s healthy. You can see him now if you’d like.”
He. It’s a boy. Layla hadn’t wanted to know what the sex was, so we hadn’t found out. Neither of us cared, as long as the baby was healthy.
Behind the doctor, another woman peers into the room, and looks between Travis and I nervously. “There’s a police officer here asking to speak to a Travis Bennett. They have some questions about what happened.”
Travis looks up at me, his face pale, and I can see the flash of hope that I’m going to somehow bail him out. When I look away, I hear the creek of the couch as he stands.
“I’m glad they’re both going to be okay,” he mutters, before following the woman out of the room.
The doctor is still watching me, lip pursed. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to your son.”
My son. Those two words chase away the anger that’s consumed me since I walked into this room and saw Travis.
The doctor leads me through a series of corridors to a small room, where a nurse is wrapping a screaming infant in a blue and white striped blanket. She smiles at me when I approach.
“He’s got quite the set of lungs,” she says, motioning for me to come closer.
He’s pink. That’s the first thing I notice. And bald. I swear the kid has zero hair. And what he does have is light brown like Layla’s. He keeps wailing, a sound that sounds more like a sheep than a baby.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s perfect.” She tucks the last of his blanket around him, then picks him up, and starts to hand him to me.
I hesitate. He’s so damn small. I swear I’m going to break him or drop him.
“You’ll be fine. Just make sure his neck is supported.” She places him in my arms, adjusting him so that his head is in the crook of my elbow.
Almost immediately he stops crying. My breath gets locked somewhere in the back of my throat, and a rush of emotion floods through me.
“He knows who his Daddy is,” she says, before moving to fill out a chart that’s attached to the glass bassinette.
Emotion floods through me.
His Daddy. Tears prick at my eyes as I trace my thumb across his small cheek, making his lips purse in a sucking motion. Damn, but I can’t control the way my vision blurs. Layla should be here with me, meeting our son together for the first time. Travis took that away from us. For that I’m going to have a hard time forgiving hi
m.
The nurse asks me a few questions as she fills out her forms. When she’s done, she smiles and says, “You can stay here. This will be your wife’s room once she’s released from post-op.”
“Do you know how long that will be?” I need to see her and she needs to see her son. Our son.
“It shouldn’t be that much longer.”
When she starts towards the door, I realize she’s about to leave me alone…with the baby.
“Wait.” I can’t hide the panic in my voice.
She turns, brows raised. “Yes?”
“What about…” I glance down at the small bundle in my arms.
I swear the woman is holding back a laugh when she says, “I’ll come back and check on you. If you need anything you can press the button on the bed.”
With those brief instructions, she leaves, and I sit down in the rocking chair that’s in corner of the room, and shift the baby in my arms, making him baa again. One tiny fist pulls free of the blanket and shakes up at me.
“You’re all right, little one.” I rock him, and croon, “You’re safe. And you’re mine. And whether your suborn Mommy wants to admit it or not, she’s mine too.”
The sound of my voice seems to soothe him, and he stops crying. His eyes open for the first time since he’s been in my arms, and he looks up at me.
I keep talking, and he seems almost mesmerized by my voice, “I’m your Daddy. You don’t know what that means yet, but it means I’m never going to let anyone hurt you.”
He yawns and his eyes close again. I’m fascinated by all his tiny movements, his small, swollen features. He’s all scrunched and wrinkled, but I’m already in love with him.
I’m not sure how much time passes before anyone comes back into the room. An hour, maybe two, but I don’t put him down because he seems content in my arms, and in all honesty, I don’t want to let him go.
“Mr. Bennett?” The doctor who had spoken to me earlier comes into the room, followed by a nurse, who doesn’t make eye contact with me, just reaches for the baby.
Both of the women’s expressions are severe. I almost don’t allow the nurse to take my son, wanting to use him as a shield to stop whatever news they’ve come here to give me. I know it’s bad. I can see it in their eyes.
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