“I don’t give a damn about the seat, and I’ll get you a new pair of boots.” The blood was flowing a little faster. “Tighten the belt a notch.”
Her hands fumbled as she loosened it, then pulled it tighter. He emerged from the tracks in the mud onto the main road and put the pedal to the floor.
“THE BABY’S STILL NOT moving,” she whispered forty-five minutes later.
Nick looked at the IV line attached to her hand, the belt around her abdomen that was hooked up to a machine, the stylus that was moving up and down on the paper, registering the baby’s heartbeat. “His heart’s beating. I can see the tracing.”
Sierra clung to Nick’s hand, as she’d done since they’d taken her out of the car and put her on a gurney. Now she was lying on a bed in a cubicle in the Sturgeon Falls hospital emergency room, surrounded by machines. They’d removed her bloodstained clothes and replaced them with a hospital gown that was tucked up over her belly. A blue drape was arranged over her legs, and a surgeon was stitching the gash.
There was barely room to stand next to her. Nick felt helpless. Lost. Terrified.
No one had told them a thing about the baby. They’d hooked Sierra up to that machine, seen that the baby’s heart was beating, and left her with the surgeon.
The doctor was putting the last layer of sutures into her leg. “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” he said without looking up. “You might need a transfusion. We’ll see what your blood count looks like.”
“A transfusion?” she echoed. Her face got even whiter. “Can they do that if I’m pregnant?”
“They may not have to do it. The fluids might be enough.”
Nick noticed that he hadn’t answered her question.
“I thought they’d do an ultrasound right away,” Sierra said.
“Nope. This was more urgent. You were losing blood too fast.” He tied off the last suture, snipped the end and leaned back as if to admire his work. “You need to stay off this for twenty-four hours, at least, but that shouldn’t be a problem. They’ll want to keep you tonight.” He glanced at Nick. “I’ll need to see her in my office in five days, to check how she’s doing.”
“Hey, I can hear, too,” she said.
A red flush crept up the older surgeon’s neck. “Sorry. I assumed your husband would be driving you,” he muttered.
Nick opened his mouth to correct the guy, then closed it again. His assumptions didn’t matter. It wasn’t the doctor’s business who he was to Sierra.
Husband. He’d never thought of himself as a husband. Or a father. The words were foreign. A few months ago, they would have terrified him. But they were only words. He’d felt true terror this afternoon, when he’d seen Sierra on the ground holding her belly, with blood pouring from her leg.
He gripped her fingers more tightly and put his free hand over hers. They stayed that way, with both hands entwined, as the doctor bandaged her leg.
When he finished, he pulled back the curtain to reveal a technician waiting with a familiar-looking machine. An ultrasound. Nick leaned closer to Sierra, needing to protect her, as dread twisted his stomach. If the baby’s heart was beating, why couldn’t she feel him moving?
What if the baby died? His stomach felt hollow, his chest too heavy. Ever since that first ultrasound, the child had been real to Nick.
Sierra couldn’t lose this baby. Not after losing her parents.
He held his breath as the technician put the wand on Sierra’s belly. The screen was black for a moment, then the baby appeared.
Bigger than the last time. He had his thumb in his mouth, but it looked as if he was just floating. “He’s not moving,” Nick said, his voice hoarse.
The technician glanced at him. “He’s sleeping, Dad.” She moved the wand around, got different views, clicked at different points. Very much like the last time. But the last time, Nick hadn’t been holding his breath.
Last time, he hadn’t been afraid his baby was going to die.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SIERRA’S JAW WAS CLENCHED as she stared at the screen. When he tucked her hair behind her ear, he felt her pulse racing in her neck. Panicked. He needed to distract her. “They took your hair down while they were checking your head,” he said softly. “Let me fix it.”
He pulled the loose strands together and began braiding. They flowed like a silken river through his fingers as he wound them together. When he finished, he picked up a rubber band off the ultrasound cart and fastened the ends together.
“Thank you,” Sierra murmured. She took her eyes off the screen to glance up at him. “Where did you learn to braid hair?”
The ultrasound technician gave him a short, approving nod. “Take care of her,” she mouthed.
His hands froze. Did that mean she’d seen something bad?
“Nick? What’s wrong?” Panic filled Sierra’s voice again.
“Nothing, sweetheart. What did you ask me?”
“Where did you learn to braid?”
“I went to camp one summer,” Nick said. “We had to braid those lame plastic things that you were supposed to hang around your neck.” He forced himself to keep his eyes on her and not on the screen. Why had the technician wanted him to take care of Sierra? Was something wrong? Was there something that had alarmed her? Something she didn’t want Sierra to see?
“I always wanted to go to summer camp. Was it fun?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.” The words slipped out before he realized it, and he wanted to snatch them back.
No. He’d have to tell her sooner or later. She’d have to know what she was risking, if she wanted him to stay.
She held his gaze. “Okay,” she said softly.
He had to look back at the screen, but nothing seemed different. After five agonizingly long minutes, the technician nodded. “I’ll get this to the radiologist right away. He’ll come back to talk to you as soon as he can.”
“Wait a minute,” Nick said. “What did you see? Is there a problem?”
“The radiologist will be by to talk to you,” she repeated. “I’m not allowed to tell you anything.”
“Just tell us if there’s something wrong with our baby.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re going to have to wait.”
“Wait?” He let go of Sierra’s hand. “You expect us to just sit here and worry? That’s bullshit. Tell us now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I can’t. You’ll have to wait.” She rolled her machine out of the cubicle, leaving him alone with Sierra.
He looked at the monitor, and saw the stylus moving. “His heartbeat looks the same,” Nick said, trying to sound cheerful. Upbeat. Damn hard, when it felt as if his heart had been wrenched out of his chest. “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves.”
“She’s going to die,” Sierra whispered, her mouth trembling. “And it will be my fault.”
Why didn’t you ask me for help instead of running through the woods yourself? Nick struggled to bury the anger. It wouldn’t help them now.
“I ran after Kyle,” she sobbed, “and now our baby is going to die.” Tears poured down her face.
Our baby. It was the first time she said that. She always called it her baby.
“He’s not going to die,” Nick said. “If he was going to, he would have already.” He had no idea if that was true or not, but he couldn’t let her lie there, thinking she had killed her child. “That technician was just mean.”
Sierra shifted her hand and gripped his more tightly. “You keep calling the baby he. I keep calling it her. Do you think it’s a boy?”
“Do you want a girl?”
Tears welled in her eyes again. “I want a healthy baby,” she sobbed. “That’s all.”
“We’re going to have a healthy baby,” he said. Sierra’s hand tightened on his, suddenly hopeful. We. He’d said we were going to have a healthy baby.
Not Sierra alone. Both of them.
Whatever happened, it would happen to him as much as Sierra.
He glanced at the heart rate monitor again. Nothing had changed. God, the baby had to be okay. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if they lost him.
Nick thought he’d banished the fear that had settled on his shoulders so long ago. The fear of losing someone he cared about. But it had dug its claws into him again, and the pain was tearing him apart.
He brushed damp hair away from Sierra’s face and used some of the rough tissues from the box on the counter to blot up the tears. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he murmured. How was he going to distract her? “I’ll tell you about camp while we wait for the doctor.”
He swallowed. This was it. Truth time. He was doing more here than distracting Sierra. He was ripping the curtains away from his past and exposing it to her.
“I went to camp one summer with my next-door neighbor,” he began. “His parents were sending him, and I was living with them, so they sent me, too.”
Some of the fear in her expression was replaced by curiosity. “Why were you living with your neighbor?”
“My mother took off when I was twelve.” He stared at the green drape concealing them from the corridor, and realized he couldn’t clearly remember what she looked like. “She left me with a neighbor and said she’d be back in a couple days. I never saw her again.”
“Oh my God. Nick.” Sierra propped herself on one elbow and reached for him. He wrapped his arm around her and urged her to lie down again. He hugged her for a moment as she twined her arms around his neck and held him tightly.
“That’s horrible,” she said into his neck. “How could anyone do that to their child?”
A wave of shame washed over him. He’d abandoned her when she’d told him she was pregnant. But he was trying to make amends. He wasn’t going to leave her again.
He interlaced his fingers with hers and eased away. He had to tell her the rest. “Mrs. Kelly was a kind woman, and her son was my best friend. She kept me as long as she could, but her husband was laid off and money got tight. So she had to call children’s services. They put me in a foster home.
“I was an angry kid, and I went through about ten of them before I turned eighteen. I lost count after a while. Some of them were okay, some of them weren’t.” The bad ones, the ones that still gave him nightmares, were memories he kept tightly locked away. “I got good grades in high school, because I knew it was my way out. I made it through college on scholarships and loans, and after I got my degree, I got a job at a small firm. Eventually, I left and started B and A.”
Sierra clung to his hands. “Did you ever find your mother?” she asked quietly.
“I never looked. Every once in a while I think about hiring a private investigator, but I’ve never done it.” He glanced at her then, to find her gaze riveted on him, her eyes pools of sympathy. “I guess I don’t really want to know. Maybe she was killed in an accident of some kind. Maybe that’s why she didn’t come back.” He pleated the blanket beneath his fingers. “I’d rather imagine she was dead than have to accept that she walked away from me and never looked back.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Sierra finally said. “I think… I think you don’t tell many people.”
“You’re the first.” His leg jittered as he waited for her to say something more.
She struggled to sit up. “You’ve never let anyone else get close, have you? You’re afraid of being abandoned again.”
“I don’t want anyone to get close. Or at least I never did before. I’m a bad risk,” he said. “I never knew my father—he took off before I was born. And even before my mother left, she was no prize. She liked to party a lot more than she liked having a kid. I have no idea how to be a father. No idea how to raise a child. All I know are lots of ways not to do it.”
Sierra put her hands on his face. “Listen to me, Nick Boone,” she said fiercely. “You’re a good man. You’ll be a good father. Our baby needs you. I need you.”
“Do you?” he murmured, as the memory of her flying out of the trailer, alone, replayed in his head.
Before she could ask what he meant, the curtain opened and a middle-aged man in scrubs moved to the end of the bed. As he consulted his notes, she clung to Nick’s hand.
She was gripping so hard it hurt, and her face was ashen with fear.
“I’m Dr. Moore, the radiologist,” the doctor said. He glanced at the heart rate monitor and nodded. “On the sonogram, I don’t see any problems with your baby.” He lifted her gown and studied the darkening bruises across her abdomen. “But you took a bad fall. I’m worried about the placenta.”
“What…what about the placenta?” she asked, clutching Nick’s shirt with her other hand.
“A fall like that can make it separate from the uterus. I’m concerned about a tiny area I saw on the ultrasound. It could be nothing, or it could be the beginning of a tear. We’ll do ultrasounds throughout the night, every couple of hours, to keep track of it.”
“What if…” She cleared her throat. “What if the placenta tears?”
“Bed rest in the best-case scenario. Worse-case, we have to deliver the baby.”
“How soon will you know?” Nick asked.
“If it’s a tear, it will get bigger. We should know by tomorrow. We’re going to admit you to the maternity floor as soon as they get a bed ready.” He drew the curtain again, and they were alone.
Nick’s hand was clammy against hers. “Bed rest. It won’t be too bad.” He smiled, hoping it hid the sick fear he was feeling. “A life of leisure for a few months.”
He was doing a piss-poor job trying to cheer her up, because she reached for his shirt and pulled him close, then sobbed against his chest. He wrapped one arm around her and held her tight, his free hand rubbing her back.
THE ROOM THEY’D WHEELED Sierra to was sickeningly cheerful. The yellow wallpaper had little bunches of purple flowers, and the beds had actual quilts instead of coarse hospital blankets. There was a small bouquet of fresh flowers on the night table, and a tiny bassinet on wheels sat next to the bed.
Nick wanted to smash it into a million pieces. One of the nurses saw him looking at it, and quickly wheeled it out, but it was too late.
Sierra had seen it.
She swallowed once, then again, and her lip trembled. But she held back the tears. “I… I think maybe she moved.”
His heart leaped. “Yeah?” He put his hand over hers on her abdomen. “Here?”
“Yes.” She shifted her hand and put it over his, pressing his fingers into her firm belly. “There. Did you feel that?”
“No.” He willed his fingertips to feel something, anything, but all he felt was the heat from Sierra’s skin.
“It was a tiny flutter,” she whispered. “But more than before.”
“Hey, it’s nighttime. He’s probably sound asleep.” Oh God, that was really lame.
But Sierra nodded. “Probably,” she whispered. She brought Nick’s hand to her mouth and kissed it. He touched her lips, finding them dry.
He grabbed the glass of water the nurse had left. “Have a drink.”
She sipped from the straw, then closed her eyes. Was she tired, or did she want to be alone? How the hell was he supposed to tell? Did she want him to go?
“Sierra?” He waited until she opened her eyes. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No!” She grabbed his shirt again. “Please stay, Nick. I… I need you here.”
The fist around his chest loosened. She needed him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A few minutes later, a technician rolled another ultrasound machine into the room. “Time for another one,” she said. She worked efficiently, and it took only five minutes for her to finish.
“What do you see?” he asked, knowing it was probably futile.
“One of the doctors will be in to talk to you,” she murmured, wheeling the machine out of the room before he could say anything else.
It took only fifteen minutes this time for a harried-looking doctor to come by and tell the
m that everything looked the same. “Any questions?” she asked. They’d barely shaken their heads when she said, “Great. I’ve got a baby almost ready to be delivered. They’ll do another sonogram in an hour or so.”
“Thank you,” Sierra murmured, but she had already left.
The wheels of a gurney clattered down the hall, and Nick saw a familiar-looking redhead lying on it. The bartender from the Harp was walking next to her, holding her hand.
“Murphy?” Nick said.
The guy turned to look at him and slowed. “Boone. Sierra. What are you guys doing here?”
“She fell.”
The redhead turned to look. “Is she okay?”
“Waiting to see,” Nick answered.
He watched as Murphy disappeared around a corner with his wife. Ten minutes later, Jen Barnes appeared in the door.
“Sierra? Nick? What’s going on?”
Nick moved closer to Sierra. “She fell. They’re doing ultrasounds to make sure everything is okay.” He couldn’t force himself to say “the baby.” It made it too personal. Too scary. He needed to be strong right now.
“May I come in?”
Nick glanced at Sierra, who nodded. He moved to the side, but kept hold of her hand.
Jen’s gaze drifted over their joined hands. “What happened?”
Sierra’s mouth quivered for a moment, then she swallowed and explained.
“Mark Cameron’s brother was the one switching out the wood?” Jen asked.
“Yes.”
“Poor Mark,” she murmured. “Poor Kyle. He must be in some kind of trouble.”
That was Jen’s reaction? Nick stared at her in disbelief. He wanted to throw the bastard in jail. Hell, the kid was probably the one responsible for the concrete Sierra had tripped on.
“Maddie fell once, a few months ago,” Jen was saying. “It was at the pub. Someone spilled a beer and didn’t say anything. She slid and hit the floor really hard. They did the same thing, a bunch of ultrasounds. They scared the crap out of her, too, but everything was all right.”
Delaney appeared at the door. “Quinn told us you were here. How are you doing? Is there anything you need? Anything we can get you?”
For Baby and Me Page 17