Falling into You (Falling #1)(74)

“Colt, what happened?” Rachel’s voice from far away.

I won’t let go of her, can’t. She’s unconscious. Still bleeding on me.

A hand shakes my shoulder, brings me to reality. “Colton, what happened? Why is she bleeding?” Jim, harsh and demanding and angry.

“Miscarriage—” It’s all I can manage.

“Mis—she was pregnant? With your baby?” He’s even angrier now.

“I didn’t…didn’t know. She didn’t tell me. She ran. Came here…” I look down at her lovely, slack face. “Please, Nell. Wake up. Wake up.”

She doesn’t wake up. Her head lolls to one side, her hand falls free and swings. She’s barely breathing…or not at all.

Blue-gloved hands take her from me, gently but firmly. I try to fight them, but other hands pull me away. Rougher, harder hands, too many hands keeping me from her. I turn. Dad. Jim, Mom, Rachel. All pulling me away. Yelling at me, but there’s no sound. Just a roaring in my ears. A uniformed body steps into view, a young guy from EMS.

His eyes are brown and hard, but compassionate. Sound returns. “…Gonna be okay, Colton. She’s lost a lot of blood, but you got her help in time. I need you calm or I’ll have to have you detained and you won’t do Nell any good like that.”

I’m panting. I meet his eyes. Hope swells in my chest. “She’s not dead? She’ll be okay?”

“She’s alive, yes. Unconscious, but alive.”

“So much blood…” I stumble backward, fall to my ass on a couch, hit the edge and tumble to the floor as if drunk.

“She’s hemorrhaging pretty bad, but the doctors will be able to stop it, I’m sure.”

I don’t hear anything else. I’m back in time, back in a hospital in Harlem and a doctor is explaining something to me, but I don’t hear him either, since I tuned out after the words lost the baby. I’m back on the cold tile of the hospital waiting room, sobbing. India…dead. She never told me. Or she didn’t know she was pregnant. Either way, she’s gone, and so is the baby I never even knew about.

Hands move me, push me, pull me. Peel my sopping shirt off, wipe my torso with a hot, damp towel. I let them. I’m in so many places. Torn, mixed, shredded, broken.

Another baby I never got to know or hold, gone. I would have been there. But I never go the chance. No one asks me what I want. Just assumes because I’m a thug who can’t read that I wouldn’t want a baby.

Not fair, though. India didn’t get a chance either. Maybe she would have told me. Let me be a father. We talked about kids, India and I. She wanted them. I kept quiet and let her talk, didn’t tell her what I thought. Didn’t tell her I would have loved the child and let him be whoever he wanted to be, even if he couldn’t read. It’s all I wanted, all my life, and never got.

And now it’s been taken from me again.

Sudden rage burns through me, white hot, blasting and beyond powerful.

It’s not fucking fair.

I’m not me, suddenly. I’m an observer watching as someone who looks like me heaves to his feet, picks up the nearest object—a heavy, thickly-padded leather armchair—and heaves it through the sliding door. Glass shatters, scatters, the frame cracks.

Familiar yet foreign hands touch my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Colton.” My father’s voice, murmuring low in my ear. “Just calm down.”

But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know jack-shit about my life or anything I went through. I shove him away and stalk out the front door. My rental has been moved, and I climb behind the wheel. Jim Hawthorne slides in next to me.

“Sure you should be driving, son?” His voice is carefully neutral.

“I’m fine. And I’m not your fucking son.” I’m not fine, but it doesn’t matter.

I force myself to drive halfway normally to the hospital. Before I can get out of the car, though, Jim puts his hand on my forearm.

“Wait a sec, Colt.”

I know what this is about. “Not the time, Jim.”

“It is the time.” His fingers tighten on my arm, and I’m close to ripping his hand off, but don’t. He’s not afraid of me, but he should be. “She’s my daughter. My only child.”

I hang my head, drawing deep on my tapped-out reserves of calm. “I love her, Jim. I swear to you on my fucking soul, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have let her go anywhere alone if I’d known. She…she ran. She was scared.”

“How could you put her in that position after what she went through?” He’s hurt too, scared and angry.

I get it.

“We were getting through it. Together. Things between us just happened, and I’m not gonna fucking explain shit to you right now, or ever. She’s an adult, she made her choice. We’re good for each other.” I force my eyes to his, and damn it if his eyes don’t look so much like hers it hurts. “I’ll take care of her. Now and always.”

He doesn’t answer, just sits and stares at me, eyes boring into me. I see the father in him, but I also see the shrewd businessman, the piercing, searching eyes of a man used to judging character quickly and accurately.

“She may be an adult, but she’s still my baby. My little girl.” His voice goes deep and low and threatening. “You better take care of her. She’s been through enough. Now this? You goddamn better take care of her. Or I swear to god I’ll kill you.”