Don't Let Go

by Marliss Melton

  “Call 9-1-1 from the office phone. Hurry. I need an ambulance.”

  “Oh, shit,” he breathed, his voice an octave higher. “There’s blood!”

  Too much blood, thought Jillian, keeping that fear to herself. The baby was her biggest concern.

  Twenty minutes later, Graham stood in the driveway clutching his little sister as they watched the ambulance tear away, red lights flashing. The sudden quiet was almost eerie. He could feel Agatha’s wet face through the fabric of his T-shirt. “Is Mama going to die?” she whispered.

  The words sent a tremor of denial through him. “No!” God wouldn’t be that hateful. Or would He? Graham hadn’t exactly been a model son lately. He’d known his mom was working too hard, and he hadn’t lifted a finger to help, preferring to nurse his grief and sulk over his mother’s burgeoning romance with another man.

  None of that seemed to matter now, not with his mother’s ashen face so fresh in his memory.

  Maybe she would die. The paramedics had rushed her gurney into the ambulance, shouting, “She’s hemorrhaging. Call ahead for a blood infusion and an ultrasound!”

  “What about my children?” Graham had heard her cry, as they went to close the doors.

  “They can’t ride in the ambulance, ma’am. It’s against regs. Have their father bring them.”

  “My father’s dead!” Graham had snarled up at them.

  “I’m sorry, kid. Call a neighbor or something.”

  “Call Rafael, Graham,” Jillian had suggested just before the doors clanged shut, leaving brother and sister by themselves.

  They’d been alone before. But never like this.

  Graham trembled. He would call Cameron’s mom. Maybe she could take them to the hospital.

  “Come on inside, Agatha,” he murmured, keeping an arm around her as he urged her into their quiet home.

  He left her on the couch to call Cameron’s, but no one answered the phone there. Aunt Jordan was in Venezuela. Who else could he call?

  Hearing Agatha’s sniffles, he went to soothe her, to think. The same thing had happened the night their father had died. He remembered comforting Agatha, feeling dazed and confused, wondering how everything could have changed in an instant.

  What if he never saw his mother alive again?

  Fear propelled him off the couch and back into the kitchen. He dialed the number off the business card pegged to the cork board.

  “Jillian,” answered the agent with warmth in his raspy voice.

  Graham clasped the phone tighter. “No,” he said. “This is Graham. My mother said to call you.”

  Hesitation. “What’s wrong, Graham?”

  Graham was embarrassed to hear his voice break. “An ambulance came and took Mom away,” he choked out. “They said she was hem—hemorrhaging,” he added, recalling the word. “But they wouldn’t let us go with her.”

  The agent whispered something that sounded like a foreign curseword. “I’ll be right there,” he said, hanging up.

  Lucy prowled the aircraft carrier till she found a satellite connection in a small cubicle off the mess hall. She placed a call to Headquarters informing them of her whereabouts and braced herself for a verbal reprimand.

  “We know,” said Gordon Banks, her immediate supervisor.

  “You know?” Lucy repeated, surprised. “What, did you slip a microchip into me at some point?”

  “No, no. The SEAL we sent in to retrieve you is one of ours.”

  A finger of awareness raked Lucy’s spine. “Which one,” she asked, though intuition had already supplied an answer.

  “Lieutenant Atwater.”

  So, James Augustus Atwater wasn’t just a SEAL—a fact that was astonishing in itself. He’d also been trained by the CIA, just like her.

  “We’re glad you’re okay, Lucy. We want to see you just as soon as you can come in,” Gordon instructed.

  “Of course.” She would be debriefed, chastised for ignoring orders. Hopefully the information she’d downloaded in the warehouse—proof that the Shia Liberation Party had funneled weapons to the Populists—would do more than salvage her career. It might even see her promoted.

  Solomon stirred and stretched and rammed his elbow into the steel wall that hemmed in one side of his bunk. He kicked off the standard-issue wool blanket and swung out of his bed, careful not to smack his head on the low overhead.

  Jordan! The fact that she was here, on this carrier, safe and sound in the company of Miguel, was so deeply satisfying that he’d shed tears of joy into his pillow when he’d collapsed into his bunk last night. Her emotional state, on the other hand, had prompted disturbing dreams.

  He jammed his feet into the boots beside his bed and clomped into the bathroom that adjoined the chief’s berthing area, wanting to get to her as quickly as possible.

  His bedraggled reflection prompted him to shave, shower, and brush his teeth. With a torn bit of toilet paper fluttering on the end of his chin, he grabbed a fresh jacket and hurried to sick bay.

  The balding commander started guiltily as Solomon stepped through the portal. “Senior Chief,” he greeted him, with little enthusiasm.

  “How’s she doing, sir?” Solomon asked, crossing to Jordan’s open door. He drew up short to find the room empty and clean, the bed remade. “Where is she?” he demanded, whirling. “Where’s Miguel?”

  “The, uh, the embassy workers were all transported back to the States via chopper. Miss Bliss and the boy went with them.”

  Solomon’s blood pressure soared. “And no one thought to inform me of this?” he growled, incredulous.

  “She asked that you be left alone, to . . . to rest,” the doctor stammered.

  “And what about the boy’s adoption papers?” he inquired, through his teeth.

  “Your corpsman got them out of his locker for her.”

  Solomon had to glance down at the man’s insignia to remind himself that Commander Sperry was a high-ranking officer. It wouldn’t behoove his career to rearrange his face. He turned and stalked out of the room, not bothering with a parting salute.

  Special Agent Valentino’s Lexus had leather seats and an excellent sound system. Too bad the music coming out of it was stuff that only old people listened to. It gave Graham goose bumps. He drove really fast, though, ninety miles an hour, which would have been really cool under different circumstances.

  Graham had told him exactly what had happened, what the paramedics had said about a blood infusion. The agent’s swarthy skin looked kind of yellow in the late-afternoon sunlight. Tiny beads of sweat shone on his temple by his hairline.

  And Graham realized, with mixed guilt and fright, that the agent was just as scared as he and Agatha were.

  “We’re here to see Jillian Sanders,” said Rafe to the hospital receptionist. “She was brought by ambulance half an hour ago.”

  The woman conferred with her computer and informed them that Jillian was up in Labor and Delivery. She called upstairs. “I’m sending up Jillian Sanders’s family,” she relayed.

  Rafe glanced at Graham, expecting the boy to correct the woman’s assumptions, but Graham kept his mouth shut.

  No sooner did they step out of the elevator than they were greeted by a stocky, grim-faced nurse who bustled them into L&D. “You can come on back, Mr. Sanders. Your wife’s undergoing an emergency C-section, so the children will have to remain out here. We have a television and games for them.”

  Again, Rafe met Graham’s gray eyes. “Is she going to be okay?” asked the teen, still holding his sister’s hand.

  “Her condition is critical,” retorted the nurse, with the barest suggestion of empathy.

  Graham grabbed Rafe’s sleeve. “Don’t let her die,” he commanded, his eyes bright with tears he held in check.

  “No,” said Rafe, stricken by a terribly familiar sense of helplessness. He wanted to hug both children and offer reassurances, but the nurse was hustling him through a secure doorway and down a sterile hall.

  “I want y
ou to wash from your hands to your elbows,” she directed, admitting him into a cubicle with a sink, “and put on these scrubs. Then step through that door, there.”

  His stomach was twisted into knots by the time he edged through the other door, wearing a blue cap and matching paper outfit, even booties. His gaze flew to the figure draped in cloth and lying under glaring lights. Jillian’s long blond hair had been stuffed under a cap like his, with one long tendril escaping.

  Rafe approached her, averting his gaze from the great quantity of paper sheet around her lower half. He didn’t know what to expect or whether he was even welcome. She appeared to be sleeping. But when the doctor called out a greeting, “Mr. Sanders, come on in. Pull up a stool,” Jillian’s eyes snapped open and she turned her head, her startled look turning into a smile of wan relief.

  “Rafael,” she breathed, lifting a hand to him.

  He sank onto the stool, relieved that the partition blocked his view of the incision they were carving into her belly. But Jillian’s face, so devoid of color, struck fear deep into his heart. He kissed her knuckles, battling the sudden urge to weep.

  “Did you bring the children?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m surprised they let you—”

  “Shhh,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to her ear. “They’ll make me leave. Unless that’s what you want.”

  She shook her head, then closed her eyes, dragging in a deep breath. “It’s so hard to breathe.”

  “Baby’s almost out,” announced the doctor, glancing up at the monitors. He sent a pointed look at the nurse. “Her BP’s low. We need to move faster.”

  Despite his matter-of-fact tone, Rafe caught the message: Jillian’s blood pressure was dropping.

  “Here we go. And it’s a baby girl,” announced the doctor. He pulled a pink, wet ball out of Jillian’s midsection and presented it briefly to Rafe and Jillian. The tiny wrinkled face inspired amazement.

  “Did you see her?” Rafe exclaimed, as they whisked the baby aside to examine her.

  “She’s not crying,” Jillian observed on a faint but worried note. “Why isn’t she crying?”

  Not a soul answered. Rafe looked over at the crew working on the baby.

  “Oh, God,” Jillian moaned. Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. The machine monitoring her vitals gave a sudden, ominous chirp. “It’s my fault.”

  The doctor glanced over at it, then went back to work. “We need to cauterize this. She’s bleeding too much.” He tried to be discreet in speaking to his assistant, but Rafe heard the words clearly. Chilled to the marrow, he looked at Jillian to see whether she’d also heard, but she appeared to have fainted.

  “Jillian!” he cried, patting her cheek, lightly. Nothing. “She’s unconscious, Doctor,” he announced.

  “That’s not unusual, Mr. Sanders. She’s lost a lot of blood,” the doctor answered. His movements remained confidently urgent, his manner brusque.

  The sights, the smells, ignited deeply buried images, sending a tremor through Rafe. Memories of a similar nightmare flashed through his mind. His wife had lain like this, blood draining steadily out of her, only she’d been shot in the gut by mobsters. His baby, Emanuel, was still in her arms, shot in the head. Tito and Serena lay on the couch, with Tito on top, their blood intermingling.

  “Please!” he rasped, startling both himself and the doctor. “Don’t let her die!”

  “Easy, Mr. Sanders,” soothed the doctor. “We’re gaining the upper hand.”

  But Rafe hadn’t really been talking to him. Folding Jillian’s cold hand between his own, he bowed over the fragile bond between them and prayed as he’d never prayed before. He prayed to a God who he believed had stopped hearing his prayers long ago. He prayed until everything and everyone in the room faded away, until reality was just his fervent prayers of whispered desperation over their clasped hands.

  It was the baby’s loud cry that brought Rafael’s head up. The sound of it, so hearty and healthy, gave him something he’d lost long ago—hope.

  “How’s she doing?” he asked, taking comfort from Jillian’s steady breathing.

  “The bleeding has slowed, Mr. Sanders,” the doctor replied. “Your wife’s going to be just fine.”

  Rafe wilted with relief, tears spiking his lower lashes. My wife, he thought, amazed that the title felt so right, so natural. It was as if God had planned for this woman to be in his life all along.

  Her lashes fluttered. “Wake up, beautiful,” he whispered, tucking the escaped tendril of hair behind her ear.

  The jowly nurse who’d originally greeted him now beamed with accomplishment. “There’s a little girl who wants to see you,” she crooned, depositing the swaddled baby in Rafe’s arms. “You hold her, Dad. Mom’s still a little shaky.”

  He took the baby, terrified by how small she was. “Dio mio,” he breathed. Gray-blue eyes peered out of an itty-bitty round face. Downy, golden hair topped her head. “She’s an angel,” he murmured in utter amazement. None of his brood had ever been so tiny.

  “An angel,” Jillian repeated. “Maybe that’s her name.” They met each other’s eyes and smiled in mutual agreement.

  Rafe’s eyes watered with tears of joy. “Yes,” he whispered. Perhaps God had shown him favor, after all.

  “Angel Grace Sanders,” Jordan marveled, gazing down at the baby in her left arm, “you are one lucky baby.” Having heard her story of survival, it seemed a miracle to find Jillian and her baby both doing so well.

  “Well, enough about us, Jordan. Tell me all about your trip and the adoption process. Is everything official?”

  “Almost,” said Jordan, glancing at Miguel, who sat on her right knee, staring at the baby. “I couldn’t get Miguel’s dossier signed by Immigration in Venezuela, but my lawyer’s working on a waiver.”

  “Has he spoken yet?” Jillian asked, fixing Miguel with a look of concern.

  “No, not yet,” Jordan admitted. She watched with amazement as he bent forward and placed a gentle kiss on the baby’s cheek. “Good boy! Did you see that, Jillie? That’s the first voluntary act he’s made since our return!”

  “Maybe he likes babies,” her sister suggested.

  “Agatha has been trying to get him to play with her baby dolls,” Jordan admitted.

  “I’m so glad you came home,” Jillian exclaimed with feeling. “I had nightmares—” She waved a hand, signifying they were too horrific to put into words. “And I can tell just by looking at you that it was every bit as bad as I thought it was.”

  Emotion clogged Jordan’s throat.

  “What happened?” Jillian pressed.

  With her gaze on Miguel’s profile, Jordan recapped her harrowing adventure, finishing it off with Solomon’s heroic rescue of Miguel.

  Jillian gaped in disbelief. “He’s in love with you,” she decided. “Either that or he’s crazy.”

  Jordan’s stomach clenched. “Not in love,” she replied, recalling Solomon’s fervent assertion that love was an illusion. True, he was generous with his endearments. He’d called her sweetheart more than once, but she was certain he’d assume the worst if he learned that she was pregnant. “He’s just a man with a powerful conscience and a good heart,” she added, forcing those words through an aching throat.

  “But you love him,” Jillian guessed, pushing herself higher on her pillows, her gaze astute.

  Jordan drew a painful breath and kept her gaze averted.

  “Oh, my God, you do. Jordan, I’m so happy for you! Is he back yet?” Jillian persisted. “Have you talked to him?”

  “No and no,” Jordan answered on a dampening note.

  But he’d called her, every day for the past week, from locations he couldn’t disclose, demanding to know why she’d jumped ship. Was she okay? Why wasn’t she answering her cell phone? The worry in his voice was giving her a guilt complex.

  Jillian’s pleasure dimmed as she contemplated her. “Honey, what’s wrong? Please tell me you’re not running fr
om this guy because you think you’ll get hurt again. I’ve told you, not all men are like Doug.”

  Jordan sighed. “Look, I didn’t come here to talk about my love life. I came to visit you and the baby and see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m doing great, considering. It’s you I’m worried about,” Jillian insisted.

  “Don’t,” said Jordan, managing a smile. “I’ll be fine.” Once she figured out what to tell Solomon, how to keep him from thinking she’d intended to trap him all along. Then there was preparing her heart for the inevitable heartbreak of losing the tiny life in her womb.

  “Well,” Jillian conceded, “I’m glad you’re home, little sister. And thank you for watching Graham and Agatha while I’m stuck in the hospital. It didn’t feel right to put that off on Rafe.”

  “My pleasure,” Jordan reassured her. The fact was she had nowhere else to go with her condo rented out. Nor could she return to Solomon’s houseboat the way things stood between them. “I’m going to take Miguel to see Silas while Graham and Agatha are still at grief camp,” she announced, glancing at the clock on the wall. “I’d better get going,” she added, putting Miguel on his feet to hand back the baby. “She’s just precious,” she added, placing the tiny bundle in Jillian’s arms. What were the odds that the fetus in her womb would also defy the odds?

  Jillian regarded her closely. “Jordan, you know you can talk to me anytime,” she offered perceptively.

  “I know.” It was all Jordan could do not to spill her secret, but she’d put Jillian through enough worry as it was. “Come on, Miguelito,” she called, holding her hand out. “Let’s go play with Silas.”

  Play was perhaps too strong a word. Miguel’s virtual unresponsiveness had Jordan scrambling to find him the best children’s psychologist, one who specialized in trauma. Seeing him kiss the baby was the most promising sign yet.

  As they crossed the baking-hot parking lot, Jordan turned her cell phone back on, hoping that the psychologist—the one she really wanted for Miguel—had called back to say there was a cancellation. The phone chimed to indicate that she had voice mail. With it tucked under one ear, she unlocked the door and let the hot air out.