Be My Hero (Forbidden Men #3)(56)

I didn't want her to die. I didn't want that little baby who'd kicked my hand through her belly to die. I wanted to look into her eyes again and let her fix me up with another Mohawk. I just wanted more time with her.

Glancing up at the worried Madonna, I sent her a respectful nod. "Thanks," I said, and slipped out of the chapel. It wasn't until I was walking by the closed gift shop and saw the stuffed pig Skylar had been holding in my glimpse that I really calmed down. It was like a sign, telling me she was going to be okay. She still had a pig waiting for her love.

My cell phone rang as I headed back toward the waiting room.

With a sigh, I answered, "Tristy, I can't talk right now."

"He won't stop crying," she shouted, totally frantic. "I don't know what to do."

Torn between needing to stay and find out what had happened to Eva and needing to help Tristy and Fighter, I gnashed my teeth. I could hear him wailing through the phone.

"Did you check his diaper?"

"I just f*cking changed it."

With a sigh, I ran my hand over my hair. "And you fed him?"

She growled at me. "Yes! I'm not a f*cking moron."

A bit my tongue to keep from responding to that. "Tris, I can't come home right now. Someone got hurt; I'm at the hospital. Why don't you actually trying taking him out of his swing and holding him."

She called me a dirty name but stopped talking for a moment because, as I suspect, he'd been in his swing and she was finally pulling him out. His screams almost immediately tempered.

"Isn't it crazy how well that works," I murmured into the phone, my voice acidic.

"You don't have to be a dick about it," she grumbled before adding, "He's still kind of fussy."

"Okay, fine. Put the phone to his ear."

"What?"

"Let him hear my voice."

"That's stupid."

"Will you just shut up and try it? It’s soothed him before."

"Fine." A second later, I heard heavy breathing and a scuffle against the speaker before he cooed. I smiled. "Hey, kiddo. I hear you're giving your mom a hard time. Think you could try calming down for her until I can get home? I swear, I'll rock you in the chair twice as long as I usually do when I get back."

"Fuck, it's actually working," I heard Tristy's voice in the background. "Keep talking."

So I started singing to him. Halfway through "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down, I saw Noel rush around the corner. When he spotted me, he started waving wildly.

They must've gotten word on Eva and the baby.

"I gotta go," I said, cutting into my own song.

"It's okay," Tris said. "He's fallen asleep."

"Good." I hung up on her and sprinted around the corner to follow Noel.

" . . . and there was significant enough trauma to the uterus to cause a placental abruption," a doctor was telling Reese and Mason, who must've showed up while I was trying not to freak the hell out. He wrapped his arms around Reese and pulled her close as the doctor kept talking.

I had no clue what a placental abruption was, but it didn't sound good. Instantly nauseous, I slumped back onto the bench I'd sat on before to rest my elbows on my knees and bury my face into my hands.

I'd promised her the baby would be okay. I'd described Skylar to her and given her my word of honor, but—

"We had to do an emergency cesarean section. The good news was the placenta was low in the uterus when it abrupted. That's why there was so much external blood loss, but it cut down on the internal bleeding and everything was successful when the baby was delivered."

I lifted my face in surprise just as Reese yelped, "You mean, the baby's alive?"

With a slow nod, the doctor confirmed it. "She's up in NICU, but you'll have to consult her pediatrician for the infant's update."

Reese slumped down next to me, tears glistening in her eyes. "Oh, God. Oh, thank God." Then she blurted out a happy laugh. "They both made it. They both—wait. They both made it? Right? Eva's okay, too?"

The air in my lungs stalled when the doctor hesitated. I gulped and wanted to vomit all over the floor. No, this couldn't be happening. I'd just met her. After all this time of waiting for her, I meet her two times and she dies? No. No way in hell.

"A case of shock affected her kidney," the doctor finally admitted. "She's showing signs of diffuse cortical necrosis, so we've put her on dialysis. But her status is holding steady."

Again, no clue what any of that meant. All I really heard was steady, and to me, that said still alive.

Alive was good. It was frigging amazing. Tink was alive.

Reese hugged herself, and her voice shook as she asked, "Can we see her? Either of them?"

"I'm sure you can look at the baby through the window in the maternity ward, but I'll have to send a nurse out when the mother is stable enough for visitors."

We all nodded in understanding, and the doctor left. Noel took off not long after that, having heard all the important stuff. But I wasn't going anywhere until I got an eyeful of both girls. I needed visual proof they were okay.

I followed Reese and Mason up to the maternity ward and then to a window, where they opened the blinds to let us see Skylar.