Only the Beginning: Only You, #4

by Thorpe, Elle

  I nodded, then thought better of it and replied with words instead. “Yes.”

  He winked, then yelled to someone. “Hold up for a second. He’s awake, and I’m going in.”

  The metallic grinding noise stopped, and Ethan crawled through the smashed-out window, pressed something soft and white into my hand, then helped me hold it to my head.

  “They won’t let me stay in here while they’re cutting you out, but you need to hold that there, okay? I can’t see how deep it is, but since you’re awake, it may not be as bad as it looks. Head wounds bleed a lot. Try to stay conscious, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  A phone rang, and Ethan peered around the mangled wreck of my jeep. “Your phone has been going off ever since we got on scene.”

  “Glove box.”

  Ethan popped the button on it, but nothing happened, so he tried again with a closed fist. It sprang open, and he fished through the mess of papers until he came up with my phone. It was a lot less damaged than my jeep was.

  Ethan eyed the screen. “Sadie?”

  “My daughter. She’s only fifteen. She’s alone.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” he said, shuffling the rest of the way out of the car.

  The grinding noise started up again, and I groaned. I still had no real recollection of what had happened. All I remembered was lights and noise and then nothing. Eventually, the grinding noise stopped, and the driver’s-side door pulled away.

  Ethan’s face appeared in front of me again. “Hey, mate. Just gotta get this collar round your neck, then we’ll get you out.”

  “I’m fine,” I insisted but let him put the collar on anyway.

  Then Ethan stepped away, and two other guys cut me out of my seat belt, lowering me carefully onto a stretcher.

  “I’m fine, really, this is unnecessary,” I complained, trying to sit up.

  I had a headache like nothing I’d ever felt before, but other than that I had nothing more than minor aches and pains. I’d live. I was pretty sure of that. But I let him push me back down and load me into the ambulance. Where else was I going to go? My jeep was a write-off. And my head probably did need stitches.

  Ethan shone a light in my eyes, took my pulse and my blood pressure and few other things as sirens blared and we raced through the streets to the hospital. He sat back and met my gaze. His face was grave.

  “Shit. Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked. “Am I dying and I just don’t know it?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, you should be right. All your stats are good, considering the state your car was in. You’re bloody lucky.”

  “Then what?”

  “Your daughter…”

  Fear gripped my throat like a vice. “Did you talk to her? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. But she’s been calling you because your missus is in labour.”

  “What?” I roared, struggling to sit up again, but I was strapped to the damn backboard. I winced at the pain in my head. “Let me up!”

  Ethan got in my face again. “Riley. Chill. They were in an ambulance on their way to the same place you’re going right now. You’re not going to get there any faster by moving.”

  “It’s too early, though. She’s not due for five more weeks.” I struggled against my restraints some more. She couldn’t be in labour yet. I had all these plans about how that would go. Bianca would wake me in the middle of the night and whisper that the baby was coming. I’d drive us to the hospital, and I’d be there to see my son enter this world. I’d missed Sadie’s birth. I didn’t want to miss another one of my children making their entrance. Fuck.

  Ethan sighed. “Mate, you’re going to need some scans and tests to make sure you don’t have bleeding on the brain once we get there. Sounds like your wife was pretty far along. I think you should prepare yourself for meeting your kid a little later.” He placed what was supposed to be a calming hand on my shoulder, but it was anything but.

  I eyed him with a steely gaze that told him exactly what I thought of his tests.

  “Not a chance in hell. Give me something to sign if you need to, but do it quick, because as soon as this ambulance stops, I’m going to find my family.”

  Ethan sighed. “Fine. If I let you up, will you at least let me put some butterfly strips on that cut?”

  I nodded, and he undid the clips, letting me sit up and pull off the cervical collar. As we rolled into the hospital emergency bay, Ethan stuck one last plaster to my head and eyed his work.

  “It’ll hold, but you have to get looked at properly as soon as that baby is here, okay?”

  I didn’t answer. I’d had worse injuries playing football. I’d do the tests, but not until I knew that Bianca and the baby were okay. The vehicle stopped, and I was out the door and running for the entrance, Ethan yelling directions to delivery behind me. My legs were wobbly, but nothing was going to stop me from getting to my family. I took the stairs to labour and delivery ward two at a time, my head pounding and my vision blurring. But with every step I prayed I’d make it in time. And that this baby would be okay.

  I skidded into the delivery ward waiting room, quickly noting Sadie wasn’t there, then rammed the buzzer by the locked door repeatedly. After what felt like a lifetime, a static voice came over the small speaker in the wall, then buzzed me in once I’d identified myself.

  The nurse sitting at the desk on the other side of the door held a chart in her hand and glanced up as I entered. She blinked.

  “What on earth?” the woman asked, standing and taking a step back.

  I could only imagine what I looked like. Head all held together with tape. Hair messed up and full of blood. Eyes wild, chest heaving. Shit.

  “Bianca James,” I urged. “Where is she?” I whipped my head around the space but I was at a cross intersection. There were four different directions Bianca could be, and I was wasting time.

  “Sir, you can’t go in there if you’re under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And your head is bleeding,” the woman said.

  “What? I’m not!” I yelled.

  She edged towards the phone. That stopped me in my tracks. Was she…scared of me?

  I held my hands up and tried a lower, calmer voice. “Please. I’m not on anything. My partner is here somewhere in labour, and I need to get to her.” I took a step forward, but the woman held up her hand.

  “Stop right there. I’m calling security.”

  Well, fuck. That was just great.

  43

  Riley

  I couldn’t believe after everything else that had happened tonight, I was about to be kicked out of the delivery ward for being a suspected junkie.

  “Please,” I begged the nurse, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.

  But the old bitty had already made her mind up about me and wasn’t letting me past. I could storm by her, of course, I was twice the woman’s size, but where would that get me? No closer to finding my family. I clamped my fingers into fists and fought down the urge to scream. Where was Bianca?

  Behind me, the door buzzed open again, and I spun around, expecting to see security guards. But Ethan, my paramedic, waltzed in in his heavy boots and jeans and clapped me on the shoulder. “You find her yet, mate?”

  “No, not yet. I’m having a few problems being…admitted.”

  Ethan and I both turned back to the nurse, and in stunned disbelief, I watched as the old dragon lady’s expression turned from wary to…something I couldn’t even name. Did she just bat her eyelashes at Ethan?

  He sauntered over and put his arm around her shoulders, his dark skin contrasting sharply with the pale white of the woman. “Irene, this is Riley, and he really needs to see his girl. He was one of my patients and he won’t go get treated until he sees her. And as you can probably imagine, just by looking at his head, I really want him to get treated so he doesn’t die of a brain bleed and lose me my job. I cleaned him up in the ambulance, but it’s temporary.”

  The woman, Irene, gazed
up Ethan’s muscular frame, and I almost rolled my eyes.

  “Room twenty-two,” she said without even glancing back at me. “But clean up first. Wash those hands!”

  “Thank you,” I called, more to Ethan than the nurse, and took off down the hall.

  “I’ll be in the waiting room to take you for those scans the minute you’re done, Riley. No excuses!”

  I threw him a thumbs-up, found the nearest bathroom to scrub the dried blood from my hands and face, before sprinting again through the corridor. My heart thumped as I scanned the numbered doors, rapidly approaching the one that had a twenty-two stencilled on the front. I skidded to a stop in front of it and pushed it open with a gentleness that was at complete odds with the way I felt inside. Inside, I was a complete mess, my emotions pinging around my body like fireworks. But on the other side of the door, the room was quiet and smelt fresh and clean. The lights had been dimmed. And there in the middle, were the two most beautiful women I’d ever seen in my life. I searched the room, but there was no one else here. No tiny baby, and Bianca still appeared very pregnant. Relief swept through me, and I breathed a full breath for the first time since Ethan had told me she was in labour.

  “Dad!” Sadie yelled. She ran from her position at Bianca’s side and threw her arms around me.

  I winced when pain shot through my side but kissed the top of her head.

  “Oh my god, you’re here. Bianca’s water broke, and we had to get an ambulance, and I didn’t know what to do and—” Her eyes went wide as she took in the makeshift gauze bandage keeping the cut above my eye closed.

  “Shh,” I soothed. I grasped the sides of Sadie’s face, tilting it up. And saw how very scared she was, but also the strength and determination of the young woman she was becoming. “You did everything exactly right, Sadie.”

  She nodded, her shoulders sagging a little. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She took a step towards the door. “Can I go then? I don’t want to be here for the bloody bits.”

  I grinned. “There’s a waiting room just outside. I’ll come check on you soon.”

  I was over at Bianca’s side before the door even closed. She was standing, leaning heavily on a raised bed. She breathed slow and even, and when she looked up at me, she seemed to take a moment to register who it was.

  “Where have you been?” she panted. Then her mouth dropped open, and her fingers reached up, hovering over my banged-up head. “What happened?”

  “Sadie didn’t tell you?”

  She shook her head. “No, she—” She fell silent, dropping her head down on folded arms and rocked her hips side to side as a contraction racked her body.

  My heart clenched at the low moan she let out. I couldn’t help but touch her. She had a long, thin black shirt on, and I ran my hands down her spine while she swayed. After some time, she lifted her head and smiled weakly at me.

  “Where’s the nurse?” I asked, ignoring her earlier question about my head. I could explain all that later. All she needed to concentrate on right now was herself.

  “In and out. She should be back soon. She keeps telling me I’m doing great. Sadie was amazing. She’s been rubbing my back.”

  I nodded. And when the next contraction hit, I massaged her lower back until it subsided. For over an hour, we did the same thing. Talking quietly between contractions when Bianca felt up to it. Her moaning and swaying seeming to be the way she felt most comfortable. After a while, though, the contractions grew closer together, and Bianca stopped talking in between.

  A midwife came in an checked her, then announced she was getting the doctor. “The baby’s head is almost ready to crown,” she said to me with a smile and calmly left the room.

  And I stared after her dumbfounded. Why wasn’t anyone rushing around? Why wasn’t there a team of doctors here, ready to catch this baby?

  The midwife returned a moment later with a young female doctor, and the midwife put her hand on Bianca’s shoulder. “Are you comfortable there, Bianca?”

  Bianca nodded once, and the midwife grabbed a stool.

  “Then you go ahead and push whenever you feel the need. I’ll be here to catch the baby.”

  I looked around confused. “Shouldn’t she be on the bed?”

  The midwife smiled gently. “She should be wherever she wants to be. And since she got here, that’s the position she’s favoured. It’s very natural. Lots of women deliver standing up or on their knees.”

  Bianca let out a low, guttural groan, silencing me. Then gazed up at me, her eyes wide with fear. She grasped my fingers tight.

  “Hurts,” she choked out. “Can’t do—”

  Another contraction cut her off, and I squeezed her fingers back.

  “You can,” I said firmly in her ear. “You’re already doing it.”

  Her head turned to me, and our eyes locked for a moment. Then something steeled in hers before her eyelids closed and she gripped my hand harder.

  “Need to push,” she moaned.

  The midwife was saying encouraging things to her, but the words all became a blur as I focussed in on the woman I loved. Her body tensed with each contraction, her low moans piercing my heart. I wished like hell I could take her pain away. Because I would. In a heartbeat.

  “I love you,” I whispered in her ear, holding her tight, while her legs shook.

  And then her head dropped back on her shoulders, relief replacing the pain that had etched lines across her beautiful face. And a long, loud cry pierced the air around us. I stared down in shock at the midwife holding a tiny, pink baby.

  “Bianca, lean back a little. I’m going to put her up on the bed in front of you.”

  “Her?” Bianca choked out the question.

  And then the baby was lying on the bed, between Bianca’s arms, her thick cord still attached to her mother. While I just stared at her in amazement, too frozen to the spot to do or say anything as my heart doubled in size to make room for our daughter. Bianca ran her fingers over the tiny baby’s features as if in awe and then looked over at me with tears streaming down her face.

  “It’s a girl.”

  I had to fight back the lump in my throat before I leant in and kissed her lips so softly. “She’s perfect. And so are you.”

  She let out a sob against my mouth, then leaned her forehead to mine. And that was how we stood, the baby between us, a new beginning I never thought I’d have.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, burying my face in her neck.

  “Would you like to cut the cord?” the midwife interrupted gently. “It’s stopped pulsing, so the baby has everything she needs.”

  I nodded, relishing these little tasks I hadn’t gotten to do with Sadie. The midwife and I helped Bianca and the baby onto the bed, settling our little girl on her mother’s chest and covering them both with a blanket.

  I moved a chair close to them, and for a long time, neither of us said anything. There was nothing to say. Everything was exactly as it was supposed to be.

  44

  Bianca

  A timid knock at the door interrupted the bubble of insta-love I’d been floating in ever since my daughter had been placed in my arms. I almost wanted to tell whoever it was to go away. I wasn’t ready to share her with the world just yet. But when Sadie’s cautious face peered around the door, I gave her a warm smile and beckoned her in. She tiptoed over to the side of my bed and stared at the tiny, blanket-wrapped baby in my arms.

  Riley slung his arm around his eldest daughter. “Sadie. Meet your little sister.” The pure pride in his voice was clear as day.

  Sadie’s eyes widened. “It’s a girl?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Riley squeezed my hand. “Well, we were pretty sure she was a boy. We didn’t actually discuss a girl’s name. So she doesn’t have one yet.”

  Sadie elbowed her dad. “How bummed are you that you’re stuck with another female?” she asked, laughing.

>   But he just kissed the top of my head. “I couldn’t be happier. All the best things in my life are female.”

  Another knock at the door sounded, this one louder, and when Riley called out, a man I didn’t recognise stuck his head around the door. He took two cautious steps into the room, giving me an apologetic nod.

  “Ethan, come in,” Riley called.

  Riley held out a hand to him, and I watched in confusion as Sadie flipped her hair, giving the man a smile that was nothing short of flirtatious. Whoa.

  He grinned back at her, but thankfully, it was the grin of a protective older brother rather than a man who found her attractive. He had to be close to the same age as Riley and me, but I couldn’t blame Sadie for trying her hand at flirting. The man was gorgeous. His leather jacket bore an MC emblem, and I wondered where the hell this biker had come from, what he was doing in my room, and how my boyfriend knew him.

  “B, this is Ethan. He pulled me out of my car wreck and—”

  “What!” I choked. “What car wreck?”

  Ethan looked between Riley and I in amusement, and Riley turned to me sheepishly.

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell you yet. The jeep is a write-off.”

  “Oh my god. The cut on your head! I was so wrapped up in the baby…” I grasped his hand and pulled him close to me so I could examine him. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he assured me. “Thanks to Ethan. He was the first on scene. Patched me up so I could be here with you.”

  Riley was making out it was no big deal, but I was doubtful. How bad was his accident if the entire jeep was scrap metal?

  Riley squeezed my thigh gently through the blankets covering me. “Seriously, B. I’m fine. It was no big deal.”

  “He was lucky,” Ethan confirmed. “But I really need him to get some scans done and make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. I know you’ve only just had a baby, but…”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Sadie said, and when Riley gave me a questioning glance, I nodded.

  “Go. We’re fine. We’ll be here when you get back.”