by J. M. Madden
Duncan tipped his head at him.
“And the same for you, Doc,” Aiden continued. “I know we met in a rough situation, but I appreciated the way you treated me afterward.”
Alex didn’t say anything, just nodded while she rubbed her hand over Duncan’s.
Aiden stood and walked toward him. He held out his hand and John took it, clasping it strongly. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other. Maybe when all these things kind of simmer down I can come back and see my nephews.”
John smiled fully for the first time. “Your nieces you mean? I know my luck. It will be girls.”
Aiden shook his head. “You’d better be picking out boy names.”
He headed for the door.
“Hey,” John called.
His brother turned back with a brow lifted. “Yeah?”
“What’s your name, little brother?”
Aiden gave him just a quirk of lips. “James. James Rogers. That was the name she told the priest when she dropped me off at a church a few months after she left you. I think you used to call me Jaime.”
John felt the shock of recognition go through him. His name had been Jaime. And their mother had been a useless piece of crap, like he’d always expected. He nodded and held out his hand again.
Jaime took his hand in his own, and there was a shock of connection. John tried to discount it as an electrical snap, but it seemed so much more. Jaime’s smile broadened and he winked, then let himself through the door.
John watched him go, feeling surprisingly bereft. Yes, he was still pissed and worried for Shannon and the babies, but underneath it all was the feeling that he’d finally found family. Now that family was leaving again, perhaps never to come back.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Duncan hated feeling like he was running a group therapy session, though he understood the need for it. It had been hard to settle down after Aiden, or Jaime, had left. Conjecture had run rampant and they’d talked about the situation for a solid hour after he’d left. When Shannon stopped by they’d had to recount everything again. She’d wiped away tears as she heard about his history.
“It sounds like he’s been through a lot. If he’s been willing to live on the streets just to watch over you, that’s really something, John. And he knew you worked with the vets at Harmony House. That’s why he’s been spotted there. LeBoutin obviously had a homeless cover as well. What better way to blend in than to be invisible?”
She was completely right.
All of the rest of the pieces began to fall together. The truck Jaime had been driving the day Shannon had been attacked was indeed the same vehicle that had been parked at the K-Mart parking lot for months. It was the same truck he’d driven when Shannon had been run off the road, but the surveillance footage from the construction company clearly showed an aggressor vehicle. Dark in color, fairly recent make. But they never saw the driver of that vehicle, or the license plate.
It was the same with the hospital footage. When they looked at the scene with the image of John’s truck in the center, it was very visible that a shot had been fired from off-frame and struck the man pancaking himself over John, but the shooter was never spotted.
That was a hard scene for Duncan to watch, because it was a pivotal point in his life. On the other side of the truck he could see the horror on Zeke’s face when he realized what he’d accidentally done, and the fear on Alex’s face as she screamed for help. Then her rapid-fire orders to get him care.
Now… three days later… Alex was still here by his side. Even as he cursed and growled and fought, she stayed with him. Even when his family was called in, she fought to stay by his side, or close by. She’d gone home a couple of times to get changed and shower, but she had always returned the next time he woke. When Fisk had come in to talk to him about his plans after release, she’d very firmly advised them all she would be taking care of him at home. His mother had seemed taken aback and a little put out by Alex’s vehemence, but she hadn’t said a word. Duncan could have argued as well, but he had seen the militant look in Alex’s eyes.
He’d never had anyone be that strongly in his corner before, so it was a little shocking. But honestly, he loved it too. There was no hesitation in her demeanor as the physical therapist showed her the exercises to do at home, and the cautions of home life.
On the fifth day, he was released and Duncan walked from the car to his front door under his own power.
Duncan hated to admit when anyone other than him was right, but he had to concede Fisk had done a great job. His leg moved like it hadn’t in over ten years, since he’d been injured during the war. Yes, there was a large amount of pain, but compared to how it had been before, it was a mere drop in the bucket. He took the pain prescription with him, but he began weaning himself off the pills almost immediately.
For the first two weeks he used his cane, but then one day he picked it up and realized he didn’t really need it.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t think I really need this. I pick it up out of habit. The first week it was handy, but I don’t think I have to have it anymore.”
She grinned at him. “Well, look at you, old man. The years are just rolling back.”
He laughed with her and stepped close for a hug. As always, she met him eagerly, with clear eyes. The entire time she’d been here he’d worried that taking care of him would try their relationship too much, but instead it had only made them stronger.
He had learned to trust in her, and she had learned to be patient with him when he got frustrated. Now that he knew his mobility had completely changed, he wanted to do more than he was allowed, and she’d had to learn to rein him in, as well. The staples around his incision were taken out after fourteen days, and the lack of tugging and pulling from them had excited him even more.
Though housebound for now, the physical therapist came a couple of times a week, and even he was excited by Duncan’s progress. When the therapist left, he continued to do the same exercises, until Alex cautioned him to slow down.
There was a lot of laying on the couch watching TV, or reading, or working on the computer. By the third week of doing nothing, Duncan demanded work, and Alex thought it was a good idea. “You might as well,” she said. “You’re on the phone running things for the most part anyway.”
He grinned at her and kissed her on her curled lips. “I love you, Alex. Thank you for understanding.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his neck. “I love you too, you sexy man.”
Though he felt like he could make love to her, she was very firm in her ‘no’.
“We’re not going to risk a setback just so that you can get your rocks off. I’ll help you with that later.” She’d grinned and winked at him, then walked away.
Leaving him aching.
Duncan had worried that having her literally at his side twenty-four hours a day would make them tired of each other, but the most amazing thing happened. The more he learned about her, the more he wanted to know. He already knew they were very compatible physically, but the situation they were in now forced them to get to know each other on an emotional and intellectual level, and they had needed that in their relationship.
Yes, he looked forward to the sex, but more because he admired the woman she’d become because of the things that had shaped her life.
Zeke and Ember had just come over for a visit, along with their son Drew. Duncan had showed him his scar and gained all sorts of cool-points, because that was the way Drew thought. Zeke, the most important male in his life was covered in scars, so if Duncan had them, too, he must be cool as well.
Sound reasoning to a six-year old.
As they sat on the couch after the little family had left, Duncan had told her, “If we have a child, I hope it’s a little boy like Drew. He’s an awesome kid.”
Alex stilled in his arms. “Do you really mean that?” she asked softly.
“Yes,
I do,” he admitted. “I want a couple of kids with you. Maybe not together like Shannon and John are doing. I’d like one at a time. We need to start slowly.”
She lifted her head and there were tears filling her eyes. “I need to tell you something, Duncan.”
Oh, shit. He didn’t like that expression on her face. She was struggling with something heavy and he suddenly worried that she had changed her mind. “What’s wrong, babe? Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”
She looked out the window, as if to gather her courage, then turned back to him. “I was pregnant when I left here after we broke up. I didn’t know until I got the flu a little while later, but didn’t feel better after it was gone. I went into the doctor and he told me I was pregnant. But I lost the baby a few days later, after they took out my IUD.”
Duncan blinked, assimilating the information she’d just laid on him. They’d made a child together. But it hadn’t survived. And she’d been alone, dealing with everything without him to help her.
She was crying softly now, wiping the tears away with a tissue she’d grabbed from the coffee-table. His own eyes burned, and his chest ached. Reaching out, he pulled her tight against him again. “I’m so sorry, Alex. That had to have been terrible for you to deal with alone.”
She let him hold her for a long time. Eventually, she leaned back and her tears had begun to fade. “You’re not mad at me for not telling you?”
He shook his head, horrified. “How can I be? That was traumatic for you and you needed to tell me in your own time.”
She nodded, looking relieved.
“Was that why you were so sad when you came back to see Shannon?”
She nodded, tucking hair behind her ears. “Yes. It had only happened a few days before I flew out here.”
“Oh, honey.” Duncan cupped her neck in his hand and tugged her to look at him. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help you.”
He understood why she’d just wanted to lay with him that night, and the exhaustion he’d seen in her eyes. She’d gone through hell alone and walked out on the other side.
“I had to come out and check on Shannon. I needed good news. Then it all went to hell in a different way.”
She laughed, and he laughed with her. Then he kissed her, his mouth gentle on hers.
“Yes, it did, but we’ll all be stronger for it, I promise you.”
She nodded. “I know. If I’m a little cautious on the baby thing, maybe you can understand why now.”
He smiled at her. “I understand completely. I love you, Alex, more than I ever could have hoped. I had kind of reached the point where I didn’t expect this kind of relationship in my life, but I don’t think I will be able to let you go now. So you’d better put on your seatbelt and strap in, because I want you to marry me.”
She barked out a laugh and rocked back to look at him. “Are you serious?”
He nodded, and though it had been spur of the moment, the rightness of it settled into his bones like it was supposed to be there. “I am, absolutely and completely. I didn’t plan on asking you here and now, but there it is. So, what do you think? Can you put up with a grumpy old man who doesn’t need a cane any more?”
She laughed and leaned in to wrap her arms around his neck. “Yes, I definitely think I can do that. I love you, Duncan. I’ve loved you for so long and I would be thrilled to marry you. And we’ll have kids, too. Later on down the road.”
They kissed to seal the words to their hearts, and it was the most amazing feeling Duncan had ever experienced. Yes, there was still a haunting sense of loss because of the miscarriage, but he knew they would overcome that.
Epilogue
July…
Shannon lifted her shirt away from her sweaty skin, leaning over the air conditioning vent. It was hotter than hell in this house. “Why isn’t the air working right?”
John looked up from his tablet. “The air is working fine,” he laughed. “Your body is just overheated. Quit doing laundry and sit down. I told you I would do it.”
“I know,” she sighed. “I just feel like I’m running out of time.”
Moving to the couch she used the arm to help lower herself down, all five hundred pounds of her. She didn’t actually weigh that much, it just felt like it. “I’m so ready to have these kids.”
John laughed. “Don’t say that. It’ll happen today.”
As if in answer to his thoughts, a funny little muscle spasm crawled across the breadth of her belly and she gasped. Wow. She’d had Braxton contractions before, but never like that.
John was looking at her like she’d grown a second head. “Don’t you dare,” he told her firmly.
A second spasm gripped her stomach in a vise and didn’t let go. By the time Shannon could focus her eyes again, John had rolled to her side and was holding her hand. He waited with her, rubbing her hand patiently, but there was white showing around the dark irises of his eyes. John was always a laid back guy, so to see him spooked shocked her.
“I think,” she said finally, “that we should get ready to go. Put Carmela in the garage where it’s cool and throw some toys out for her. Stock up the cat food. My case is by the door.”
John lunged into action, the wheels of his chair squealing on the hardwood floors as he did everything. Shannon pulled her cell phone from her bra and checked the time. When the next contraction came, she had a better—more terrifying—idea of where they stood. “John, I need to get to the hospital. We’ll call the doctor on the way.”
Within a couple of minutes they were packed in the truck and on the road. Shannon breathed through the pain and pressed a number on speed-dial. Willow’s calm voice answered on the first ring. “Yes?”
“We’re on the way to the hospital. How fast is too fast for contractions?”
Willow gasped in excitement. “If they just started, they should be several minutes apart. I headed to the hospital when mine were about four minutes apart. They get closer together the closer to delivery.”
“The last two were two minutes forty-five seconds apart.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “Shannon, I love you. You need to get your ass to the hospital or John is going to deliver those babies on the side of the road.”
She groaned, then cried out as she sank into another round of pain. When she resurfaced, Willow was counting with her as she panted. “Shannon, are you almost there? Where are you?”
“We’re a few blocks away,” she gasped out, trying to refill her lungs and remember the training from Lamaze class.
“Okay, you get in there and tell them your last contraction was two and a half minutes ago. I’ll call your doctor and tell him, okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Willow.”
“No problem, babe. Go have a couple of beautiful Palmer babies. I know it’s pain now but you can’t imagine the joy on the other side.”
Shannon dropped the phone to the center console and rolled her head to look at her husband. “You need to drive, Willow says, or you’re delivering the babies.”
John glanced at her, horrified. “Fuck that!”
She laughed weakly as he drove as fast as he could to the hospital.
When they arrived, there were people waiting for them at the emergency room door. Within minutes she was whisked upstairs, undressed and strapped with double monitors. The sound of two little heartbeats raced through the room.
Shannon lost track of everything but the pain as the hour wore on. A nurse practitioner she didn’t know checked her dilation, then seemed a little surprised when she reported, “Four centimeters.”
Oh, god, that meant the babies were coming. There had still some hope that this could be a false labor, but that just evaporated. And as if that weren’t enough, another doctor came in to give her an epidural, which pinched more than the contractions. After that the pain began to ease off and she could actually breathe again.
When Dr. Wehrum came in an hour later to check her, he immediately gowne
d up and brought in support.
“These babies are in perfect position, Shannon. You need to get ready to push.”
John was also gowned up and sat as close to her as he could get in the chair. They lowered the bed a little so that he could be closer and see her as the babies made their way into the world.
With a mighty squall, Wyatt Patrick Palmer arrived at four ten that afternoon, and his little brother Caden James arrived much more quietly at four eleven.
There was much bustling in the room as the babies were cleaned, weighed and checked. It took a while for the twins to be declared perfectly fine.
Shannon cried as she held Wyatt, the bigger of the babies at five and a half pounds. Not bad considering he was a month early. Little Caden came in at five pounds four ounces. Both were healthy and pink and everything she could have imagined them being. Both also had startling amounts of thick, dark hair, thanks to papa.
Exhausted, she looked to her husband. There was wonder, fear, and incredible joy in his dark eyes as he looked down at Caden. One hand spanned the little infant’s back. He looked so tiny.
“Aren’t they amazing?” she sighed.
When John looked at her a tear rolled down his cheek. “I can’t breathe right now with the love I feel for you and our family. You are the best part of me, and you’ve given me bounties of joy beyond any measure.”
They cried together and explored together, counting toes and eyelashes, measuring feet against thumbs. It was such a surreal time. In the midst of all that John snapped as many pictures on his phone as he could manage, and texted them out to friends and family. As soon as they were moved from the birthing room to the regular room, the visitors started arriving.
Willow arrived first, as Shannon had suspected, and there were her tears as well as she cooed over the babies. “Oh, my gosh. They’re so perfect! Look at them together.”
