“I’m with the kid,” Grant agreed.
“Stop calling me a kid,” Jenna shot back heatedly.
“Remember that time Jenna disobeyed the fire department, and slid through a tiny crack in an elevator door, when it was stuck between floors, to help deliver a baby,” Lexi said, her voice full of pride. “She’s a total badass.”
“A badass in high school that could have gotten herself killed,” Grant growled. “It was reckless. She could have hurt herself, or worse, made the elevator shift. We had no idea what could have happened.”
Jenna sent him a withering glare that had Dylan’s brows raising. Not many people stood up to Grant, his growl loud and intimidating. Not to Jenna though, which was odd in itself. Instead of arguing back, Grant just stared at the girl, his gaze angry.
Jenna looked away first, glancing back to Lexi. “Want to come see?”
“The baby?” she asked hesitantly, her voice quavering with nerves.
“Of course, the baby. You don’t really think anyone’s going to let you get away with hiding out in here, do you?”
“I was hoping. At least, for a few hours.”
“It’s been a day, Lex,” Jenna said. “A whole day and we all need to see you. You need to come be part of the family. Now more than ever.”
Dylan was glad they’d woken up with Grant and Jenna in the room. He loved Lexi and he wanted to take care of her with the gentlest of touches. He would have coddled her.
Jenna had no such compunction.
“Can I put on some pants first or do you want me to shuffle down there in my little paper dress, boss?”
Jenna seemed pleased with herself. “Auntie Beth brought your bag when she came. There are clothes for you to change into if you’re up to it.”
“Give me an hour,” Lexi said, wincing as she attempted to push herself into a sitting position. “I’ll jump in the shower and get my life together. Well, as much as I can anyway.”
“I don’t think you’ll be jumping anywhere,” Dylan commented, sitting up with her. “But we’ll get you cleaned up and feeling better.”
“We?” Lexi asked. “I can do it.”
“Come on, kid. Let’s give them a few minutes to get ready.” Grant stood and waited for Jenna to join him.
She did, but the look of her face was grudging, Grant’s nickname obviously grating. Jenna glanced at Lexi before leaving the room.
“I’ll be back.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” Lexi murmured when the door was closed behind them. “You can go, too,” she told him. “I’m sure I can do this on my own.”
Dylan threaded their fingers together. “Why are you trying to get rid of me, babe? We’ve been in this thing together for months; I don’t know why you think I’d walk away now.”
“I don’t need you to walk away,” she countered. “But I don’t know that I want you seeing me naked in the shower right now. I don’t even know what I look like without clothes on today.”
“And you think I’m going to take one look at you and hit the door? Lex, I don’t care what you look like under your cute little hospital gown. You carried a baby in there. You delivered her in an elevator and almost didn’t make it. Anything from here on out is a miracle, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Him.”
“Him what?”
“Him,” she said again. “I delivered a him in an elevator.”
“It’s a boy?” Dylan couldn’t help the laugh that fell from his mouth.
Walkers. Nothing ever went as planned.
Alex pushed Dylan out of the bathroom while she showered and dressed. He could be as saintly as he wanted, but there were just some things a boyfriend shouldn’t see. If it was his baby she’d had, things might have been different, but she needed to keep her body to herself right now.
She didn’t want him to see that her belly looked more like a deflated balloon than anything else, and he definitely didn’t need to see the alarming amount of blood that was evacuating her body at a rapid pace.
She’d honestly thought she was going to die in that elevator. She’d been playing it off since it happened, as if it hadn’t been that big of a deal, but seeing the light fade out, feeling her chest work so hard to take a breath, had been terrifying. She’d thought she was going to die.
And in that moment, her biggest concerns were that Jenna would have to live with reliving those moments for the rest of her life. Or that she’d somehow done something wrong, that maybe the baby wasn’t going to make it either.
She’d felt like an utter failure.
And to top it off, she’d woken up completely alone. Not just that her family and friends weren’t by her side, but like she’d told Dylan, she was empty inside.
Her constant companion was gone.
She didn’t even know his name. Since he was supposed to be a she, Beth and Logan had no name prepared for him. Last she’d heard, they were still working on it.
Oh sure, they’d all been there when she’d been rushed into the hospital, but the baby was number one, and Alex totally got that. That was how it was supposed to be. But she couldn’t help the twinge of sadness she felt knowing that their journey together was over. She’d thought she’d have more time to savor it, more time to have a few quiet moments with her little partner in crime before their big day.
Maybe even more time to come to terms with not being pregnant anymore and where that left her life.
She hadn’t expected it to change her so drastically. There was an overwhelming sense of loss at not having him inside her anymore. Not that she wanted to keep him; it still wasn’t anything close to that. But she’d held him inside her body for so long, she’d helped him grow, and she wondered if maybe she hadn’t been ready to let him go just yet.
Physically, she was going to be just fine. She’d had a placental abruption, a small one, but being that they weren’t in a place with medical intervention, things could have gone a lot worse.
Alex gently squeezed herself into her leggings and tossed on a sweatshirt, feeling far better than she did when she woke up. When she threw the door open, Dylan was waiting for her, back in his suit vest, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, phone to his ear.
“You okay?” he asked her.
She nodded, not wanting to interrupt his phone call. Instead, she shuffled to the bed, ready to sit down. When she finally sat, she winced, thinking maybe sitting was actually the worst thing ever.
“However quickly you think you can get it done, get it done faster. You’ve got two days.” He listened intently for a second. “Then take them off the Lockwood project and get them on this. Get everyone you have if you have to, whatever the cost. Work overnight. I don’t care. Two days is the deadline, no wiggle room.” He nodded, even though the other person couldn’t see him. “Fine. Get it done.”
He hung up and immediately knelt in front of her, grabbing her socks and sliding them on her feet.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Like someone ripped a baby out of my vagina and then set it on fire.”
He paled, but continued helping with her socks. “You want me to call the nurse? Maybe she can give you something for the pain.”
“This is after taking something for the pain,” she told him. “But I’m not going to lie, I don’t think I can walk all that far just yet. They told me to take it easy. I might need to catch a ride to go see the baby.”
“Jenna’s already out in the hallway with a wheelchair.” He stayed in front of her, his hands on her knees as he looked up and locked eyes with her. “I love you, Lexi. Hearing what happened, being halfway across the world, you had me so damn scared. And all I wanted to do was be here with you and get my hands on you and tell you how much I need you in my life.”
Alex’s eyes stung and she sent him a small smile. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “Yeah. So, you can have your space to feel how you need to feel about all this, but you don’t get to do it without me. Don’t shut me out.
Talk to me, tell me what you need. I’m here for you.”
She put a hand to his cheek and rubbed the stubble there with her fingers.
“Just stay with me, hotshot. I don’t know what’s going on in this head right now, but I do know that I need you. So, if I lose it or go a little crazy, just stick with me.”
He tilted his head and kissed her palm. “Always.”
Alex’s nerves skyrocketed when the elevator dinged, signaling their arrival on the NICU floor. Dylan pushed her wheelchair, following Jenna’s lead, since she seemed to know where she was going.
As she’d said, her entire family was gathered around a big window, presumably looking at the baby.
“Look who decided to join us,” Jenna said happily as they approached.
In the deepest recesses of her heart, she was worried they’d be disappointed with her. Maybe they’d think she should have seen the signs sooner or that she wasn’t really the right person to carry the baby. That maybe she’d done something wrong.
But seeing their faces, the pride and love there, her worries all fell away.
Without so much as a word, Andy burst into tears and instead of turning to Owen, she headed straight for Alex, wrapping her arms around her sister’s neck.
There were no words between them as Alex squeezed her back, just the knowledge that they were both there. Owen put a hand on her shoulder, looking down at her with a gentle smile.
“You scared the shit out of me, pipsqueak,” Spencer growled before dropping an uncharacteristic kiss on the top of her head. “Don’t do it again.”
Alex chuckled.
And then her father was standing in front of her, looking a little frayed around the edges but still smiling, relief lifting the heavy weight off them all.
“Your brother’s right. You had us all scared.” He grabbed both of her hands and held them in his, squeezing her with affection. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Alexa.”
“You’re all a sight,” Alex told them. “But my eyes aren’t the part of me that are the sorest.”
Spencer blanched. “At least you’re feeling up to making disgusting jokes.”
“Spencer, I don’t want to ruin the mystery for you, but women have babies by pushing them out of their vajayjays and it hurts. If they don’t do that, they have their stomach cut open and their guts ripped out and it hurts.” She shrugged. “But let’s all talk about the miracle of life and the adorable baby and forget that part.” Alex pointed to the window. “Can I see him?”
Dylan pushed her chair to the window and she got her first look inside, her breath stalling in her lungs.
He was little. So, so little. Beth and Logan, like the proud parents they were, hovered around his warmer as he slept soundly. Beth looked up, her eyes lighting up at the sight of Alex in the window, before she rushed over and pressed her hand to the glass of the window.
Alex put her hand on the window, their connection as solid and firm as the glass between them. After a second, Beth hurried into the hall. Alex struggled to stand on her own, pushing away the hands that tried to hold her down in the chair.
Dylan helped her stand.
By the time Beth got to her, she was ready for her embrace.
They’d had a rough road, she and her sister. They’d struggled and fought; they’d been swimming upstream in their relationship for years. But suddenly, they were in still waters. They held each other, arms wrapped tightly around each other, saying everything that words could never explain.
“Thank you,” Beth whispered in her ear after long minutes.
“I wish I could have cooked him a little longer for you. I’d have never come to Boston if I knew I was in labor. I really had no idea.”
“We all know that, Lexi,” Beth assured her, holding her sister at arm’s length. “He was ready to come out and he’s a fighter. He wouldn’t have listened to us no matter what we told him.”
“So, he’s a true Walker?” Alex joked. When Beth’s lips twitched and everyone looked like they wanted to laugh, Alex asked, “What?”
“Come meet him,” Beth said, helping her sit in the wheelchair and prying the handles away from a reluctant Dylan. “I’ll bring her back, Dylan. I promise.”
Alex patted his hand before Beth wheeled her into the NICU. Logan greeted her with a grateful hug and a kiss on her forehead. She tolerated it mostly because he was standing in front of the baby warmer. When he moved, she finally got a good look at her little buddy, lying there in his diaper with little probes taped to his chest.
He looked like a baby, small little features, button nose, long fingers.
But still, he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“So,” Alex whispered through her emotion, her eyes never leaving the baby. “What are you going to do with all that pink stuff you got for your little girl?”
Beth and Logan both let out watery chuckles.
“What do you think?” Beth asked.
“I think we did pretty good,” Alex said with a nod. “Don’t you?”
“We make a good team, Lexi, don’t we?”
“We do,” Alex agreed. “Plus, this little guy. What’s his name? Did you decide?”
“Walker.” Beth smiled. “Walker Alexander Hallowell.”
Alex felt her own lips twitch. “Walker, huh? Guess you’ll fit right in around here, little guy. The rest of us Walkers do things our own way, too. You must get that from your mother.”
“Or his aunt,” Logan added.
Alex looked up at them both. “Thank you, guys, for letting me do this for you.” She swallowed thickly. “I’ve kind of come to realize how important it is to be a part of something bigger than just me.” She looked back at the baby. “And this little guy, well, he’s bigger and more important than anything I’ve done on my own.”
“You’re thanking us?” Logan asked, shaking his head. “You just made all our dreams come true, Lex. We owe you everything.”
“I don’t want everything,” she admitted, looking to the window and seeing Dylan standing there smiling at her. “Just one thing.”
Two days later, Dylan drove Alex home and it wasn’t until they pulled in the driveway that it occurred to her that her house was still unfinished.
When she mentioned it, Dylan sent her a look. “I took care of it.”
Confused, she hurried at a sloth’s pace inside, only to find her house completely back together. It was no longer a work zone and everything was repaired and absolutely gorgeous. The hardwood floors were perfect, the windows were all new, the paint pristine and fresh. There was even a new set of furniture.
She headed straight for the kitchen and stopped in her tracks. It was the kitchen of her dreams, every Pinterest board she had come to life in her own house. White marble countertops on gray cabinets, subway-tile backsplash, iron-pipe shelving. It was even staged. She didn’t even know who half of the stuff belonged to.
“How did you do all this?” she asked, looking around.
“I made a few phone calls.”
“Dylan, I don’t even know where this stuff came from?” She fingered a tea towel she’d never seen before as it hung off a little hook near the sink. The gorgeous, ceramic-front farmhouse sink.
“Keep what you want. Whatever you don’t like, I’ll have the designer come by and take away. If you want something else, tell her and she’ll get it.”
Overwhelmed, she sat at the barstool and just took the room in.
“This is insane, you know that, right?”
“What? That I fell in love with a pregnant woman over a cup of half-caff and helped her rebuild her kitchen after she set it on fire?”
“Well, that’s cherry-picking the story a bit,” she complained.
Dylan leaned on the counter across from her, taking her hands in his on the surface and just holding them, his eyes snagging hers.
“I love our story.”
“Now that the baby is born, it might get boring.”
“With you?” he aske
d doubtfully. “Somehow, I don’t see that happening.”
“I can be boring,” she argued.
“Me too,” he countered. “Let’s be boring together.”
She shook her head. “Are you sure you want to—”
“Don’t finish that sentence, Lex. Whatever doubts you have, don’t doubt that. You’re what I want. Yesterday, today, and forever. No questions. No doubts.”
“Even though I’m not—”
“You’re everything I want. Every. Single. Thing.”
She felt it from him, with every action and every word. Her doubts stemmed from how she saw herself, not how he saw her.
“I love you, too,” she told him. “I worry I won’t be enough for you. That you’ll want someone more important than me.”
“Lexi,” he whispered. “There’s no one more important than you.”
“You won’t get mad when my family drops in every five minutes?”
“You won’t get mad when mine doesn’t?” he shot back.
“You won’t mind when Jenna stops by unannounced or I decide I need to babysit Walker for an entire weekend.”
“Hasn’t bothered me yet. I like picking Jenna’s brain and the baby is a non-issue. He and I are already old friends.”
“So, we’re going to do this thing?”
Dylan laughed, gently scooping her up off the chair and heading toward the stairs.
“Baby, we’ve been doing this thing for six months. Where have you been?”
“I’ve been right here,” she said, hanging on as he headed to her bedroom. “Just making sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
Dylan chuckled, settling her on the pillows. “I know exactly what I’m getting myself into, babe. My very own Bad Girl of Sweets, her crazy ass family, and a future brighter than anything I could have imagined before that day that I saw a woman desperate for her caffeine in a coffee shop.”
He laid at her side and she curled herself into him.
“My knight in shining coffee.”
Delivering History (The Freehope Series Book 4) Page 26