The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(72)

“They’re going to transport him to St. Pete, to the NICU at All Children’s. They’ve already dispatched an ambulance. It’s en route, ETA less than thirty minutes at this point.”

“Transport?”

“Shh, listen to me, Nate.” He tried to focus through his growing fear. “That’s good, because it means they don’t feel he’s critical enough to air flight, and they’re waiting for All Children’s to send one of their special ambulances instead of sending him out in a regular ambulance. This is good. He’s stable, but he needs critical care for now because he’s a preemie.”

He nodded.

“You’re going to go with him, okay? We’ll stay here with her. I promise.”

“Why can’t I stay with Eva?”

“Because your son needs you, and you’re the only one right now who can authorize treatment. We can stay with Eva.”

“Don’t leave her, Til,” he whispered. “Swear to me.”

“I swear, I’ll stay with her. Until Leo and Jesse and Wade get here and I know she’s stable. Then I’m coming up to St. Pete to be with you. Okay?”

He slowly nodded. Some damn Dom he was. Here was his son, and he could barely even think.

The nurse monitoring the baby reached out and touched his arm. “Dad? Do you have a name picked out yet?” she asked. “I need to fill out his paperwork.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. We hadn’t decided yet. We didn’t even know if we were having a boy or a girl.”

“Okay. I’m going to list him as Baby Boy Crawford for now.”

“Cooke-Morrow-Crawford,” he said, feeling both silly and comforted as he said it.

“Is that his whole name?”

“His last names,” Nate said. “Hyphenated together. Baby Boy Cooke-Morrow-Crawford,” he said, spelling it out. “We have a very large…family.”





Tilly found out that they’d stabilized Eva, but they were still trying to stop the bleeding. She’d needed several units of blood already and because of her fragile condition they weren’t going to let anyone into the OR with her.

Tilly spoke with the nurse who was monitoring his son and was able to talk them into letting her stay there in the prep area, as long as she promised not to get in the way or go into the OR.

When the ambulance crew arrived from All Children’s, they transferred “Baby Boy” into one of their incubator beds, swapped all his monitor leads over to their monitors, and his oxygen tube, and quickly shuttled them both out through the ambulance bay.

Nate barely had time to catch a glimpse through the windows of Leo and Jesse, with Laurel in Leo’s arms, standing in the ER and surrounded by at least twenty of their friends, including Cherise, before the ambulance doors swung shut and they were on their way.

Seat-belted into one of the jump seats, Nate laid his head back against the wall and cried.

He felt the medic nudge his hand and realized it was a package of tissues.

“Thanks.”

The man offered him a smile. “It’s all right. We’ll take good care of him. His vitals are good, and his weight’s good, too. I’ve seen preemies far younger and smaller than him make it.”

“I wish you could give me those kinds of odds about his mom,” he hoarsely said.





If Nate had to tell someone where he was to save his life, he couldn’t. Between the ambulance ride, and then the twisting and turning and moving and doors and corridors—he knew he was somewhere in St. Pete, but beyond that, he was lost.

And some time close to two in the morning, he finally ended up parked by a nurse in a nearly empty waiting room just outside the NICU, a cup of bloody awful coffee in one hand, and in the other hand, where his wrist now bore two different medical bracelets from two different hospitals linking him to his wife and newborn son, a nearly dead cell phone.

And he didn’t have a charger.

The NICU nurse supervisor had called down to Sarasota for him and confirmed Eva was still listed in critical condition, but they couldn’t tell her anything beyond that, or if she was even out of surgery and in recovery yet.

And until he got a charge on his phone, Nate didn’t dare call anyone.

He sat there for nearly two hours and was about to send a text to Leo when a nurse came for him.

At least she wore a smile. “Mr. Crawford?”

He stood.

“Follow me, Dad.”

He did, nearly stumbling as he got up.

She turned. “Are you all right?”

“Just very…exhausted.”

“I’m sorry.” She led him into an anteroom and explained scrub-in procedures, got him gowned, capped, masked, and led him back to his son’s bed.

A female doctor in scrubs stood there going over his chart. They had something taped over the baby’s eyes, but his color looked better, and they’d cleaned him up even more than before.

“What’s wrong with his eyes?” he asked the doctor.

“Oh, it’s just to protect them because of the lights,” she said, pointing up. “Bilirubin lights.” She launched into a litany of information that washed right over his skull and into the ether. “Do you have any questions?” she asked when she finished.