What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(62)

“No, please continue. It’s nice to have company in Guiltyville. When did you realize I was pregnant?”

He tensed again. “Not for a damned long time. You were being fed and given fluids intravenously, and your body was under huge stress as you went from trauma to a desperate bid to repair the damage. The doctors were amazed that, first, you lived, then that you seemed to be...not recovering, exactly, but that your brain seemed to be creating new circuits, going around the damaged areas. The medical team said they’d never seen anything like it. They were so focused on your head, and it never occurred to me it was possible for you to be pregnant. You had told me—”

“—that I couldn’t have a baby. I didn’t think I could. I lost a baby. My husband’s child.” She carefully phrased her next words. “The miscarriage occurred in difficult circumstances.”

“What did your husband do to you?”

So it didn’t matter how careful she was. Max understood that Gregory was at fault. “He pushed me down the stairs.” Kellen said it without flinching or crying for the loss of her baby. Maybe she’d already cried all those tears. “The doctor told me I couldn’t get pregnant again. But he was a small town doctor. He didn’t do any tests, so I guess maybe—”

“He wasn’t right? Obviously not. What did he say about your bruises and burns and broken bones?”

“Nothing to me. If he had the nerve to say anything to Gregory, I imagine he was told to mind his own business.” She thought back. “In fact, that was the last time I saw that doctor.”

Max watched her; just watched her.

“I’m fine now,” she assured him. “I can take care of myself. No one’s ever going to hurt me again.”

Still, Max watched, as if he wanted to burrow into her mind and understand her past and all the moments that had formed her.

She prompted him, “How did you discover I was pregnant with Rae?”

“Oh. That. It took a cleaning lady to say, ‘How come she hasn’t had a period?’”

Kellen began to comprehend that chaos and emotional turmoil Max must have felt. “How many months along...?”

“Almost five months. Rae was tiny. She’d had a traumatic first few months in the womb. Once the cleaning lady said her piece, I saw the baby bump and it was like—how could I have been so blind?” He was angry, at himself, at the world. “I’d spent hours with you, days and weeks, and I hadn’t noticed.”

“How could the doctors have been so blind?”

“There is that.”

The lid rattled on the pan on the stove.

He leaped up to give the pot a stir, then returned to bed. This time, he sat on the edge of the mattress as if he could no longer relax, as if this story required him to be alert. “They did all the tests, ultrasounds, everything, and at five months, Rae was racing to catch up developmentally. She was doing well, and the doctors...they theorized that the pregnancy hormones were so powerful that they were the agents that repaired the damage in your brain.”

“So you knew I was going to wake up?”

“No! No. The monitors detected brain activity but it’s a long way from a few sparks to walking and talking and...you’re a miracle.” Max had a way of looking at her as if she was a miracle, one he loved and appreciated.

He made her take deep breaths, feel the warmth. “What about Rae?”

“It was now a balancing act. We wanted to save Rae—”

“Of course.” Kellen understood that. She was glad of that.

“The medical team wanted to keep her in the womb until she was at least seven months along and had the best chance of survival. Then they would take her by C-section.”

Kellen put her hand on her belly. She had no scar.

“The team kept telling me Rae was normal, and I could see in the ultrasound she was active and... I was hopeful and broken at the same time. Then.” He shook off her hand and walked to the window and looked out.

“Then?”

“They had monitors on you all the time. Monitors all over. I didn’t understand... I mean, maybe they told me, but they told me so many things and I was... They weren’t monitoring you for labor. They didn’t realize you were in labor until my mother was watching the fluctuations in your blood pressure and said, ‘That’s it!’ By that time, they couldn’t do a cesarean. Rae was in the birth canal.” His voice grew thick with emotion. “I thought I was going to lose you both.”

“I’m sorry.” Kellen wasn’t apologizing, but offering her sympathy.

“The doctor didn’t get there in time to catch the baby. Your nurse delivered her. She handed Rae to me in a towel. You can’t comprehend how tiny she was, and she opened her eyes and...” He turned to face Kellen and put his hand on his heart.

Kellen felt tears welling. He had been so alone.

Then, with Rae, he wasn’t.

“The first time I held that baby, we bonded. The months after her birth were... My God. There weren’t enough hours in the day, enough days in the week. Every minute was claimed. I should be with Rae, I should be with you. The court case against my sister’s husband was ongoing. Then he committed suicide and the death made news. After realizing that the city hospital didn’t have the resources to care for a comatose woman, not even to realize she was in labor, I had you moved to a private hospital. You had twenty-four-hour care. You were never alone...except that time when you woke up.”