by Amelia Rose
“He’s gone, Alyssa. It’s just me.” Woody whispered as he leaned down and kissed the tears on her eyelids.
She gasped and flung her eyes open, blinking at the sudden light.
“Oh, Woody! “ She cried through quivering lips. “I thought I’d never see you again! I thought he was just tormenting me. First the screaming and then all of the noises…” She trailed off as more tears clouded her vision and ran down her cheeks.
Woody let go of her face and picked the knife up again, immediately sawing at the bonds on her hands. In a few seconds he’d freed her and she flung herself up from the chair into his arms.
She buried her face into his shoulder and sobbed uncontrollably. Woody stood very still for a moment before gently pulling back from her. He wiped her eyes with his fingers and then trailed his hand down to her stomach. “Is the baby okay?”
Alyssa’s eyes widened in shock and the corners of her lips began to tremble. “You mean…”
Woody tilted his head and studied her, but when she didn’t say anything else he reached in his pocket and pulled out the test.
She held it in her hand and looked at it, the blinking pregnancy still visible on the grey background.
They both smiled and hugged each other tightly. For a little while neither of them spoke.
*
Alyssa stared at the test in her hand in mounting disbelief. The burst of energy and relief that she had felt only moments before when Woody had let her free from the chair now faded into exhaustion and she found herself wanting to sit down again. She looked around the room but the only chair in there was the one that had kept her prisoner. And she was not returning to that chair for comfort.
Pregnant
It was only one word but in it there were a wealth of possibilities suddenly springing up around her. She closed her mouth and looked up at Woody, realizing for the first time since he’d handed her the test that this might also mean the end of their relationship.
“I didn’t know,” Alyssa stated softly, finally answering his initial question about the baby’s well-being. “He took me before I found out what it said.” She placed her hand over Woody’s that was still resting on her abdomen. “I wasn’t lying to you before. They told me I couldn’t get pregnant without surgery and hormone treatments.” Tears began welling up in her eyes as she spoke. “I don’t know what happened, but I will understand if…”
Her voice trailed off and she lowered her head to look at their hands. She couldn’t bear to think of the rest. He didn’t want kids. He had told her this and she knew what the consequences of her pregnancy might mean to their relationship. But she couldn’t bear to think of losing him now.
She felt his finger under her chin, his free hand pushing her face back up to meet his gaze. “When I saw this test, I couldn’t think of anything else other than you and that baby. I knew that I had to get to you no matter the risks because the two of you are the most important things in my life. I want to be there with you and our child, and I can’t imagine any part of any day in my life without you in it.”
He paused and looked down at her and she saw the concern and the worry as it stretched across his features before he started talking again. “When I went into that house today and saw that blood and realized that you were gone, I knew I couldn’t stop the world from turning. I will protect you and I will make sure that you have the best care possible but unless I keep you in a cage, things are going to happen. You are in no more danger with this pregnancy than you are driving to the grocery store and I had to come to terms with that.”
He leaned down and kissed her, his lips pressing into hers so gently that she was overcome with an overabundance of warmth and love. She put her arms around his neck and pulled him close, relief crashing down over her.
When the kiss was over, Woody swept her up into his arms and headed back to the car, her head resting on his shoulder. She finally let the exhaustion sweep over her and by the time he loaded her into the front of the Thing, her lids were so heavy she could hardly keep her eyes open.
*
As soon as Woody was close enough to town to get a decent signal on his cell he had called Melinda and let her know that he had found Alyssa but that Charles Sanders had gotten away. He could hear the edge in her voice, and he knew that he was in some serious trouble from her, but it no longer mattered.
Now he was in the waiting room of the hospital in Lawton while they stitched up her finger, checked out the wounds on her arms and checked on the pregnancy. She had been so mentally exhausted that she had fallen asleep before they had even been able to get down to the highway to drive to the hospital.
Woody had no intentions of returning to the farm until Sanders was safely behind bars. He told Melinda to close and lock the shop and to let all of his clients know that he would not be returning until further notice. He then called a friend of his, Zack, for a favor. Woody was just finishing up the phone call to ensure that Zack would come in and finish the repairs to the vehicles currently being worked on when he heard the door behind him open.
When Alyssa came out into the waiting room with the doctor he jumped to his feet and immediately hung up the phone. “How is she?” he asked, the excitement creeping into his voice.
“She and the baby are both fine.” The doctor said as a smiling Alyssa leaned against him. “We only had to put four stitches in her finger and none of them are severely broken, just a few hairline fractures. The skin on her wrists and calves will heal soon and we prescribed a salve to help with that issue.”
“And the baby?” he looked down at Alyssa and smiled.
“Do you want to tell him?” the doctor asked Alyssa.
“Tell me what?” he asked, worry edging each word.
“They did a special ultrasound known as a trans-vaginal, and they were able to see everything very clearly. In fact the umbilical cords are developed and it looks like the babies are growing well.” Alyssa told him, her smile broadening.
“Babies?” Woody repeated with an obvious shocked expression on his face.
“Yes. There are two eggs which have successfully implanted themselves,” the doctor assured him, handing over an ultrasound that showed two small white dots. “Since Alyssa has an irregular cycle, we calculated her gestation based on other information.” The doctor’s voice had lowered on this last part, and Woody realized that even though they were in their own section of the waiting room, they were still within earshot of the other patrons, but he didn’t care.
“And what does that mean?”
“Traditionally we would count back to the date of the last menstrual period but here we are using the believed conception date combined with the ultrasound to estimate that she is what we would consider six weeks along, even though it has only been four weeks since the eggs were fertilized.”
“So I have less than nine months before I’m going to be a daddy?” he asked.
“Yes, and given the fact that Alyssa is carrying twins I think that is a short estimate. Most twin gestations do not last the full nine months. These next few months are going to be important and she’ll need to be seen regularly by an obstetrician.”
“Is there any danger in traveling in the next few weeks?” Woody asked.
“As long as you take regular breaks so she can stretch her legs and go to the bathroom, I don’t see any problem with it,” the doctor stated. “I would just strongly recommend making an appointment within the next month.”
“Sure thing!” Woody exclaimed before turning around and grabbing Alyssa under her arms and twirling her around in the waiting room. When he kissed her, a round of applause shot up from the others who were there waiting.
Alyssa blushed and gave them a small wave before heading out with Woody to the parking lot. Once they were safely in the car, Woody headed north, away from Stanhope.
“Where are we going?” Alyssa asked when she realized they weren’t headed back to town.
“Wherever we want,” Woody answered. “Melinda
helped me make arrangements, and my friends at the bank made sure that the account was completely untraceable. I plan on keeping you out of Stanhope until Sanders is safely captured and locked back up. Hopefully they’ll catch him within the next couple of days and we can go home to start getting the house ready. Until then, I figure the road is ours.”
“Anywhere you have in mind?” she asked as she smiled at him and patted her stomach, still unable to believe that she was pregnant with twins.
“I thought that we might start taking in some of the sights around the country. Does that sound good to you?”
“Anything sounds good to me as long as we’re together,” she told him as she smiled, placing her hand over his and leaning back into the seat before closing her eyes. A few moments later her breathing was a lot heavier, and Woody knew that she was sleeping peacefully.
“I agree,” he whispered.
THE END
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9