I wanted to answer him, but I just couldn’t. Suddenly, a rush of people came out of the automatic doors. People in scrubs and white coats with serious faces. Thorn opened my car door, and I felt myself being dragged out.
If a situation could be calm and frantic at the same time, that’s how I would have described it. There was a flurry of activity, but everyone around me was studious and professional.
Words about hypoxia and oxygen saturation swirled around me. Thorn was nearby at first, and I could tell he was on the phone with my mother.
“Brighton, you have to wait until the storm passes,” he said. “She’s here in good hands now, but you won’t be doing anyone any favors if you get killed trying to drive through that storm. Give it twenty minutes to pass and then you can come. The doctors will take care of her.”
“Meri,” I cried out as I looked back and watched the doors close with him on the other side of them. A nurse had shooed him out.
Thorn locked eyes with me and gave me a nod. He’d find a way to sneak him inside. I had to have Meri with me. I just had to have him there.
I was on a gurney being rolled somewhere. Bright lights above blocked my vision as they poked and prodded me. But it was all some sort of weird fever dream. I couldn’t hold onto a thought for more than a few seconds. I kept reaching for Meri, and then remembering that he wasn’t there.
A nurse leaned over me talking about informed consent. Could I sign a form for a procedure? What procedure? I thought. I was having a baby. What procedure could I possibly need?
Next thing I knew, Thorn was in the room. He told her that he was my husband. He signed the form.
They’d put an IV in my hand as soon as I’d come in. I felt that part as clear as day. Once Thorn signed the form, someone injected something into it. The medicine was icy at first, but then it burned and stung as it snaked up the vein in my arm.
At some point, though, it started to make the fuzzy edges even fuzzier. I was transported away to a place that wasn’t sterile and antiseptic. When they wheeled the gurney down the hall toward giant double doors, I could have sworn I was floating away on a bed of clouds.
We passed through the doors, and someone put an oxygen mask over my face. A blue cloth was hung right below my chest, and I tried to squeeze Thorn’s hand. But he wasn’t there. In the movies, the husband was always there.
Instead a nurse grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “He can’t be in here,” she said as if she could read my mind. As if she’d done this a million times.
That made me feel better.
Then I was dreaming.
Chapter Eight
I woke up to the sound of squalling. There was a baby nearby, and the little guy, or girl, had a set of lungs on them.
“Kinsley,” I heard a familiar voice say. “Look at that,” the voice cooed. “Mommy’s awake.”
“Mommy’s awake?” I asked groggily. I tried to sit up, but pain in my guts made me wince.
Where was I?
It started to come back to me just as Thorn stepped up to the side of the hospital bed I found myself tucked into. He had a little bundle in his arms. A little bundle wrapped in a pink blanket with an even pinker stocking cap on her tiny head. Little fists popped out of the blanket and swung around clumsily in the air.
“I’m really bad at swaddling her,” he admitted. “I was hoping the nurse would come back and do it again.”
“My baby…” I said as if the whole thing was a dream. It still seemed like one. “Is that our baby?”
“She most certainly is,” Thorn said. “Do you feel up to holding her? I think that would be good, but only if you’re up for it.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked as I fought through the pain and tried to sit up.
“Hold on, sweetie. Let me help you with that.” Thorn held the baby in one arm and used a little control box on the siderail to raise the head of the bed for me. “Let me know when to stop.”
“That’s good,” I said when he got to a point where I felt upright but not too upright. “Yes, please let me hold her.”
Thorn put the little bundle in my arms, and the squalling instantly stopped. The baby nuzzled against my chest, and her eyes got heavy.
“There,” Thorn said with a sigh. “It’s exactly what she needed.”
“Her eyes are blue,” I said. “I know that lots of babies are born with blue eyes and they change, but hers are really, really blue.”
“That’s not all,” Thorn said. “Look at this.”
He pulled off her little stocking cap, and a full head of blonde curls sprang free. She had his eyes and his hair. There was no denying it, but it was so strange. Had magic somehow changed things…
Before I could say anything, the door to the room opened and my mother and Lilith came bursting through. They both rushed over to the bed and threw their arms around me.
“Everyone else would be here, but for some reason, the hospital said only two more visitors,” Mom said as she squeezed me until I squeaked.
“Oh, now, Brighton, be careful. You’re going to split her open,” Lilith said. “She probably needs another hit of the good juice. Has anyone showed you how this works?”
Lilith held up a small wand connected by a tube to my IV. On the end was a bright red button.
“Not yet,” Thorn said. “She just woke up.”
“Allow me to demonstrate,” Lilith said and pushed the button.
As sweet, warm pain relief washed over me, she cackled.
“Morphine,” Mom said. “You push the button when you need it, but there’s a limit. It will make a soft clicking sound if you push it and you can’t have more yet. Obviously by the look on your face, you’ll be able to tell when you get a dose.”
“That’s nice,” I said as the pain in my abdomen melted away.
“So, you have a lot of explaining to do,” Lilith said with a wink.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, we were under the impression that your husband was going to be raising another man’s child. It was one of the more interesting scandals to hit Coventry, and now look at what you’ve done. How can we all be scandalized if it’s his baby?”
“And how?” Mom asked. “I didn’t think it was possible myself, but the likeness is undeniable.”
“And the lack of likeness to a certain someone else,” Thorn said gently. “But like Kinsley said earlier, sometimes babies are born with blue eyes and they change later.”
“That child is not half vampire,” Lilith said with a huff. “I can tell you that for certain.”
Just then, something under my covers stirred. It alarmed me at first, but then I laughed when Meri’s head popped out from under the blankets.
“We didn’t wake you, did we?” I asked.
“It’s hard to get a good night’s sleep around here,” he said as he climbed out from under the blanket and lay down next to my hip.
“You’re not going to shrug us off,” Lilith said. “Explain yourself. Explain how you’ve managed the boring task of having your husband’s child.”
“She is early,” Mom said. “Unless she’s not…”
Thorn and I looked at each other. He smiled at me again, and there was so much pride and joy in his eyes, I could barely believe that it could be true.
“Well, there was this one time…” I started to say.
“Oh, I knew it!” Lilith said and clapped her hands together. “Do go on, please.”
“Well, we didn’t know for sure,” I said.
“What?” Mom asked and cocked her head to one side. “Could you elaborate without going into more detail than what your mother needs to hear?”
“Well, it was back when Thorn and I were having some problems getting along. We got into a big fight. He stormed out, was gone for a couple of hours, and then he came back so we could yell at each other some more. Eventually, we realized how dumb we were being, but by that time, he’d drunk a six-pack of his favorite beer, and I was pretty
deep into a bottle of wine,” I said. “I think we made up.”
“We woke up the next morning next to each other in bed, but our clothes were on,” Thorn said.
“But they looked like a monkey had dressed us in the dark,” I added.
“So, we didn’t know, and we decided not to talk about it,” he said.
“I thought it would be better if we didn’t discuss it again because you both know how Thorn feels about things like that before marriage. We just left it alone,” I said.
“Like I said,” Meri snarked, “all it takes is once.”
“So, the baby is Thorn’s,” Mom said with a smile. “This is wonderful.”
“It is,” Thorn added. “I can’t believe it myself, and I would have been over the moon with her either way, but this is just so much more than I ever could have hoped for.”
I reached out and took his hand with mine. “We should name her so we can stop calling her the baby,” I said. “Did you have anything in mind? We didn’t get around to picking anything yet.”
“You should name her,” Thorn insisted. “You and your family.”
“No,” I said and squeezed his hand. “She’s your little miracle. You should name your firstborn.”
“I can’t get the name Laney out of my mind,” he said. “It’s been floating around in there ever since the doc handed her to me the first time.”
“Laney?” I said.
“You don’t like it?” Thorn asked. “Like I said, you and your family can choose.”
“No, I love it. It suits her perfectly,” I said.
“It really does,” my mom agreed as she slipped Laney’s stocking cap back on over her curls.
“I’m surprised I wasn’t showing more, because she’s not a tiny baby,” I said. “She’s big and healthy.”
“The doctor said something about your parts being tipped in there,” Thorn said and blushed furiously. “I didn’t catch it all, but he said that whatever it was, it made women show less.”
Later that evening when my mother and Lilith had gone back to Coventry for the night, it was just my little family left in the hospital room. Thorn sat in a chair next to the bed, and Laney slept against my chest. Meri snuggled against my feet, and so far, none of the nurses had acknowledged his presence.
I’d been out of bed once when a kindly nurse had helped me take a shower while Thorn held me up and kept my IV site dry. It had been quite the affair, but I felt so much better. A nice hot shower could fix a lot of things.
“Can’t he heal you?” Thorn asked when I finally gave up flipping through the television channels.
“He has as much as he could,” I said. “That’s why I was able to shower today instead of tomorrow, but there’s only so much we can do now. I want him to save his magic for Laney.”
Thorn looked like he was about to argue, but he just nodded in agreement. “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
“That last nurse said they had grape popsicles at the nurse’s station,” I said and Thorn sprung out of his chair as if it were on fire.
“Say no more, my life. I will get you two,” he said. “You want a Sprite? I know they keep them back there.”
“Do you think before you go to the nurse’s station, you could sneak to a vending machine and get me a Coke? I doubt they would approve, but I could really use one.”
“There are vending machines in the family waiting room,” he said with a smile. “I will hit those up before I obtain your popsicles.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I will return with your sugar buffet momentarily,” Thorn said before he leaned down and kissed me, and then Laney, on our foreheads.
One of Meri’s eyes opened. “Don’t even think about it,” he said.
“I wasn’t,” Thorn said with a chuckle.
He left the room, and I went back to flipping through the television channels. I eventually settled on the Weather Channel and watched as the storm system that had been terrorizing us moved off to the east.
“Thank goodness,” I said. “I was wondering how long we’d be dealing with these storms.”
“Something in the atmosphere has changed,” Meri said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, but he’d slipped back into sleep.
Once they took the radar off the screen, I flipped past the Weather Channel. I must have gotten to the local news station because the name Coventry flipped across the screen.
I watched for a couple of minutes as they talked about the tornado and showed some of the devastation. Most of the footage included shots of the National Guard helping people. Next up was a story about local contractors all descending on Coventry to help with cleanup and rebuilding. There were dozens of companies all volunteering their time and what materials they could afford. The news lady said that several GoFundMe fundraisers had been set up to collect money for building materials as well.
“Looks like we’re going to get a lot of help rebuilding,” I said, but Meri was still snoozing away.
I was about to flip to another station when Stewart Randell’s picture flashed on the screen. Instead of changing the station, I turned up the volume a little. Neither Meri nor Laney stirred.
The newscaster was dressed in a red blazer with red lipstick to match. Her hair was sprayed to within an inch of its life, and she talked about Stewart’s death as if she were giving a traffic report.
She said that local law enforcement had interviewed the stepfather of the deceased’s child. That was probably Jeremy, and she was talking about Dixon and his stepdad, John.
“Authorities release John Parker after the interview and will not confirm whether or not he’s a person of interest in the case,” the news anchor said as the station went to commercial.
Thorn came back into the room, and turned the TV volume back down. He set two Cokes down on my bed table and unwrapped a popsicle for me.
“Anything interesting?” He nodded toward the television and handed me the purple popsicle.
“Jeremy must have interviewed John Parker, but he wouldn’t tell the news if he’s a suspect or not,” I said.
Thorn laughed. “You’re in the hospital after just having our baby, and you’re worried about a case.”
“It just happened to be on the news,” I said. “Swear.”
“You should worry about other things,” he said and patted my leg. “If I find a way to get you a cheeseburger, will you promise to stay out of this?”
“What do you know?” I asked and narrowed my eyes at him.
“Kinsley Wilson, what makes you think I know something?”
“One, you were gone too long to just buy a couple of Cokes and grab a popsicle from the nurse’s station. Two, you’re trying to bribe me with cheeseburgers. That means something. I know it,” I said.
“Maybe the nurse just took a long time to get the popsicle. Hospital’s filling up apparently. What if that’s all it was?” he asked, but I could see he knew something.
“Spill it,” I said as Laney opened her eyes and stretched. “Please,” I whispered.
After a minute when Thorn was sure Laney wasn’t going to wake up, he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Fine, I do know that Jeremy interviewed John Parker, and I know that he’s not in the clear. I actually remember him from right before the tornado. He was trying to cross the bridge I was guarding to get into Coventry to pick up his stepson. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but it all makes sense now.”
“So, he was at the victim’s house?” I asked.
“He was, and there’s no way that he could have made it home before the storm hit. So, he was either at the victim’s house, or he found somewhere to shelter in Coventry until it was over.”
“The neighbors all acted clueless,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean they really were,” Thorn said with a shrug.
“You think one of his neighbors was involved in the murder too?” I asked. “Or at least involved in helping cover it up?”
�
�Jeremy is handling the case,” Thorn said and crossed his arms over his chest.
I was about to protest, but Laney beat me to it. She woke up, turned bright red, and let out a squawk that made Meri jump two feet in the air. Laney put her little fist in her mouth for a second but then pulled it out and began to wail.
Stormy Sky Magic (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 9) Page 7
