by Lori Ryan
She squeezed her eyes shut. What have I done?
Chapter 28
Chad waited for Jennie to turn off the water in the shower before knocking on the door.
“Jennie,” he said through the door. “Dinner—chicken or beef?”
“Cheese danish,” came her reply.
“Uh, no. Chicken, then. Stir-fry chicken with veggies or grilled chicken and salad?”
She opened the door, letting out a cloud of steam with her. Chad looked down at her, hair wet, bathrobe around her tiny frame, and her hands fisted on her hips as if she were ready to take him on.
She smelled of that light flowery scent he was pretty sure was lilacs, but also seemed innately Jennie. Her body still glistened with beads of water and he had to fight the urge to lean down and lick at the droplets.
His body’s response to her was involuntary and unwelcome, but it was there just the same. There was no stopping it.
He only hoped he could ignore it and that she didn’t notice. He knew, if she asked, he would probably give her anything she wanted.
Except cheese danish for dinner.
“Pudding, then. I’ll have pudding,” Jennie said.
She brushed past him and either didn’t see his eye roll or chose to ignore it.
“Jennie, you can’t just eat shit like that. You need more nutrients in you.”
Chad could tell she wasn’t eating nearly enough to feed both herself and the baby. As much as he didn’t want to be angry with her, his frustration was wearing on him. He wanted to strap her to a chair and force-feed her something more than pudding, but he forced his expression into a neutral mask.
“I puke up more nutrients. I can keep pudding and pastries down. If I eat anything else I throw it up. My doctor said not to worry about it for now. The nausea should stop in a couple of weeks. Then I can eat all the fruits and veggies and lean protein you want to shove in me. But for right now, she said to eat whatever I can keep down. I can keep down pudding and pastries. So, you choose. Either one is fine with me.”
Her grin was cheeky, but Chad didn’t want to give in, no matter how cute she looked when she argued with him. He hated that she was so sick at times and he was beginning to wonder if this was normal.
There were times when she was retching on what he knew had to be an empty stomach and he wondered if the baby could be harmed from that. It couldn’t be good for the baby. He read his way through most of the book on pregnancy and realized nausea was pretty standard but he’d feel even better if she saw a doctor.
“Hey, Jen. We could be here awhile. Maybe we need to find a doctor in this area to see you. Aren’t you supposed to go in for regular visits now?” he asked.
She stopped pulling clothes out of her dresser and looked at him.
“My next visit isn’t for a couple more weeks. I don’t have to go in very often right now, but as things progress, I’ll have to go more regularly.” She stopped and furrowed her brow. “Wouldn’t we need to give them my real name and show ID if we go to someone here, though?”
Chad shook his head. “No. A walk-in clinic would only check ID if we were using insurance. We’ll pay cash.”
Jennie nodded. “Okay. We’ll go soon,” she said and went back into the bathroom to get dressed.
“I’ll go start the pudding,” he said wryly as he left the room.
He was sure she was losing weight instead of gaining. Chad shoved down the irritation, knowing it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t keep healthy food down. His urge to fix things, to make everything all better for her, was overwhelming. Because, it seemed, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t fix this for Jennie. He couldn’t take care of her and the baby if he couldn’t even figure out how to get her to keep food down. And that knowledge ate at him.
The sharp metallic smell of blood and the cruel odor of twisted, burned flesh invaded Chad’s nose, bringing him back to consciousness with a start. Chopper blades sounded overhead, letting him know his men would get to safety. An extraction team would get them out.
The pressure and pain in Chad’s chest penetrated the cloud in his head. He struggled for a full breath of air, but none came. He couldn’t fill his lungs.
Chad turned his head to a medic crouched by his side—the man’s shirt was covered in blood. The medic spoke to Chad, but the noise of the helicopter drowned out the sound. His lips moved, but nothing came out. The needle he was pushing into Chad’s chest drew all of his attention as the pain came alive.
He turned his head away from the pain, but immediately wished he hadn’t. Jennie lay beside him, her body limp and lifeless, her eyes open but no longer seeing. Chad struggled to get up, but his body was frozen. He couldn’t move to help her. He cried out to her, but she didn’t move.
He was panicked and weak with fear as he realized Jennie’s body was covered in blood, a gaping hole in her stomach where his baby, their baby should be.
“Jennie!”
He struggled to move, then turned to yell at the medic to help her, but the man just kept talking calmly to Chad as if nothing was wrong. As though he couldn’t see that Jennie needed him. That she needed to be saved.
“Jennie!” He called to her again and again, but she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t turn to him. She didn’t move at all.
“Chad! Chad!” Jennie’s voice sounded miles away and it wasn’t coming from her body beside him. Something was wrong. Her voice came at him through a thick fog, as if she were trying to draw him back to her from somewhere far away.
He opened his eyes with a start, heart pounding against his ribs. Jennie stood at the foot of his cot, as though she knew better than to get too close while he was having a nightmare, but wanting to be near.
He was drenched in sweat, his thin T-shirt stuck to his chest as his pulse raced. He wiped a hand down his face, trying to erase his mind’s image of Jennie covered in blood, their baby gone.
He focused on the willowy cotton gown she wore and the way tendrils of her hair fell over her breasts.
He reached out his hand, wanting to feel her, to know she was real and alive and whole, that she was still with him. She crawled onto the cot and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close.
He held tightly to her, knowing he shouldn’t but not willing to let her go. He breathed in her scent and listened to the murmured words of comfort she whispered in his ear for what seemed like hours.
When he woke later, his arms were empty. Chad sat up and looked at the light pouring in the windows of the cabin, falling on the floor of the living room.
Morning.
He sat on the edge of the cot and wondered how much he had dreamt and how much was real. He wasn’t sure if Jennie had come to him after his nightmare or if he’d just wanted her to be there so much, he’d conjured her up.
He held a hand out in front of him, not surprised to see that it shook. Seeing Jennie in his dream, her body so still and lifeless, had shaken him more than any of the horrors he’d seen in war.
He rose and went to the door of Jennie’s room to make sure she was okay. She lay sleeping, more beautiful than he remembered. Her hair fanned out on the pillow and her arms wrapped around Zeke. She looked so small and frail. Not like the Jennie he was used to seeing.
He began to wonder how her tiny body was going to manage to carry a baby that could someday be his size, but he turned away and forced the worry from his mind. He needed to get a handle on his paranoia. He wouldn’t make it through the pregnancy if he kept this up.
Chad walked to the kitchen and began searching through drawers and cupboards. He would bet they’d have a good old-fashioned phone book around the cabin somewhere. He needed to find a walk-in clinic to get Jennie checked out. He had to know she and the baby were okay.
Three hours later, they walked into the small medical clinic two towns over from where the cabin was located. If they were holed up there much longer, Chad would find a doctor he was sure they could trust with Jennie’s real name and medical history. For right now,
he wanted someone who wouldn’t check the fake IDs he carried in his pocket, or at least wouldn’t push too hard if they thought they were fake. He wanted to be sure Jennie and the baby were okay.
He would pay cash, giving them no reason to even ask for ID, much less question it. The clinic probably often saw people who lied about their names for one reason or another. He didn’t much care if they did pick up on their fake names.
In fact, he didn’t care if they thought he was her drug dealer or her pimp, as long as they made sure Jennie was okay. He’d been watching her lose weight. The few times he’d gotten her to eat anything other than pudding or pastries, he ended up holding her hair for her while she threw it up. Then he’d watch her try to smile and joke about how she felt, faking her good spirits when he could tell she was getting more and more drained.
He didn’t understand how her body could handle a croissant but not chicken or pasta. And, he hated that he couldn’t fix it for her. He should be taking better care of them, he told himself.
After filling out forms and answering a few questions, they sat side by side in ragged chairs in the clinic’s waiting room. Chad reached over and laced his fingers through hers. She stared straight ahead but she did squeeze his hand back. He knew this had to suck for her.
Going to some walk-in clinic instead of to the doctor she knew and trusted. And being in a strange cabin out in the woods when she felt so sick and tired all the time, instead of being in her own bed. Being pregnant with his baby when she probably wished with all her heart it was Kyle’s baby.
A door opened on the far side of the room and a woman in scrubs held the door open.
“Nancy?”
Chad had to squeeze Jennie’s hand to get her to respond to the fake name. She stood and crossed to the door, but paused when she got there, turning back to him.
“Come with me?”
He felt his heart kick into high gear and he wondered for a second if he’d heard her right. Maybe he’d imagined it? He couldn’t believe she asked him to be with her for the exam. Chad had planned to ask if he could be there for one of her ultrasounds down the road, but he never thought she’d want him to come in with her this time.
He rose and went through the door with Jennie, taking her hand in his again. The nurse stopped off at a bathroom and asked Jennie to leave a urine sample. He saw the flush in her cheeks and wondered if she was sorry she had brought him back there.
When she emerged from the bathroom, they were shown to a small room. They didn’t ask Jennie to undress so he wasn’t sure whether she would be given a full exam or not.
An older woman walked in the room and introduced herself as Dr. Breckman. She listened as Jennie filled her in on how far along she was, her exhaustion and nausea and inability to eat anything other than pudding and pastries.
“Well, let’s take a listen to the baby and make sure things sound good, then we can talk about getting more food in you,” Dr. Breckman said with a kind smile.
The woman didn’t seem overly concerned, which made Chad alternate between feeling relieved and wondering if he should shake the woman and yell until her level of concern matched his.
The doctor pulled out a small handheld machine and helped Jennie lay back on the exam table. She lifted Jennie’s shirt and tucked the top of Jennie’s jeans under a bit to get to her lower abdomen. She squirted clear gel on her stomach. This is when it dawned on Chad that the doctor had said they’d be listening to the baby’s heartbeat.
He was going to hear his baby’s heartbeat for the first time. He felt his own heartbeat kick into high gear with anticipation. Somehow, the baby had seemed almost theoretical before. Now, it was about to be very real.
“Have you lost weight this trimester?” The doctor asked as she began to skim a T-shaped wand over Jennie’s stomach. The machine made noise but nothing that sounded like a heartbeat. Just a sort of echoey white noise.
The doctor looked unconcerned but Chad was holding his breath. He leaned forward, listening intently, but hearing nothing close to a heartbeat. He was suddenly more afraid than ever that something was wrong.
Please, no. Please don’t let anything be wrong.
“A few pounds,” said Jennie. “I’ve been throwing up so much.”
As she and the doctor talked, Chad wondered how they could remain so calm. He clenched his hands into fists and fought the rising panic as his heart slammed around in his chest.
Where is the heartbeat? They should have heard it by now, right?
In reality, he had no idea if the doctor should have been able to find the heartbeat more quickly or not. And, not knowing, not being in control of things, left him feeling more frightened than he was comfortable with. How would he make it through six more months of this?
“That’s all right. Many women either don’t gain any weight or even lose a few pounds in the first trimester. As long as it doesn’t keep up, it’s okay. We’ll want to see you start to gain a little as you get into your second trimester.”
Chad sat upright as he heard the quick flutters of a heartbeat. It sounded too fast. It made him think of a bird not a baby.
Is it supposed to sound that fast?
He eyed the doctor as his mind flipped through the pages of the book he’d been reading, but he couldn’t remember reading anything about the baby’s heart rate.
He caught Jennie’s eyes and she smiled at him, making him melt. For a split second, he was able to pretend that she loved him as much as he loved her. That she wanted this baby to be his. That she was happy to be sharing this moment with him.
The doctor’s voice cut in. “There’s your baby,” she smiled at them.
“Is the heartbeat too fast? That sounds really fast,” he said.
“No, not at all. That’s exactly what we want to hear.”
All too soon, the doctor pulled away the machine and wiped Jennie’s stomach, then helped her sit up on the table.
“All right. I’m going to give you a prescription for some anti-nausea meds. You still might not feel very hungry for a lot of foods. Dad,” said Dr. Breckman, turning to Chad, “try foods that are similar in texture to what she’s been keeping down. See if she can handle scrambled eggs, yogurt, maybe something like banana bread or pumpkin bread instead of pastries. Some pregnant women find they can stomach those little pouches of pureed baby food. They have mixtures of fruits and veggies and a pregnant woman can suck down one of those every few hours instead of eating a big meal. That can be one of the best ways for an expecting mom to get nutrients right now.”
Chad was typing the list on his phone. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he’d just crossed the line into crazed-father mode instead of his typical calm but he didn’t give a rat’s ass. He’d get more food into Jen if it killed him.
After they left the doctor’s office, he pulled into the grocery store lot and left Jennie waiting in the truck. She looked worn out even from their short trip to the doctor. He dropped the prescription at the pharmacy desk and went to collect the list of foods the doctor had suggested. When he got back to the truck, he got one of those are-you-freaking-kidding-me looks from Jennie as she surveyed the six bags of groceries he piled on the back seat.
“Wow,” Jennie said. “Just, wow.”
He grinned at her. So, he might have overdone the groceries a bit. They probably wouldn’t go through three cartons of eggs and six flavors of yogurt and forty little single-serve packets of baby food very quickly.
She laughed at him and shook her head but he didn’t care. He’d heard his baby’s heartbeat today. It was the most incredible feeling in the world and he damn well wasn’t going to let his baby be underfed.
Chapter 29
The baby food packets ended up being the saving grace for Jennie. She could stomach those more easily than anything else. Chad had to eat all three-dozen eggs by himself, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was much happier since the doctor’s visit.
And that happiness grounded her in some way.
She could eat baby food and pudding and yogurt with no issues. As long as she didn’t get too close to any of the food Chad was eating, she was fine. Sometimes, if she smelled his food, she’d still turn green, but even so, the worst of it seemed to be over.
As she entered her eleventh week of pregnancy, she was finally excited about the idea of a baby growing inside her. The idea that she would have this little tiny infant to hold in her arms soon.
Now if only all of the other stuff would go away. The threat from Rick Bandon. The stress of having to get up on a stand and testify against dangerous men who might hurt her or her child. The never-ending desire that thrummed through her body whenever she looked at Chad. Whenever he spoke. Whenever he was close enough for her to smell or to reach out and touch.
Which of course, she couldn’t ever do again. Jennie fell asleep in the chair thinking about the feel of Chad’s taut muscles under her fingers. The memory of his body above hers. The pleasure he’d brought that chased away her memories of Kyle—if only temporarily.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed when her eyes fluttered open. In front of her, down by the edge of the water, she could see Chad. He stripped off his shirt as he did after every morning run. She was instantly warm all over, and a small buzz of electricity raced through her veins at the sight of his defined and tanned muscles.
Jennie felt her breath hitch, then come in short pants. Her chest rose and lowered quickly as she watched him walk into the lake to cool off. If only she could cool her response to him as easily. Instead, she waited restlessly while he swam. Then the warmth that had been running through her body pooled between her legs as he walked out of the water, dripping.
