“She is in the intensive care unit,” Lucas said as he made quick time to the hospital. “She has swelling in her brain and severe injuries everywhere else. Fallon was a mess when I talked to her, and her parents are freaking out because, well, they—”
“Lucas, what’s wrong?”
“She didn’t wake up yet, man.”
Tate didn’t respond until Lucas pulled into the hospital lot. Then he whispered, “You mean she is still unconscious, like in a coma?”
Lucas didn’t answer. They both jumped out of the truck then, entered the hospital and were directed up to the ICU. When they reached the waiting room, Fallon spotted them first, her hand clutching her throat as tears rushed down her cheeks. Lucas wrapped her up in his arms as Tate turned to William and Nora for answers. But Nora was crying, her head on William’s shoulder.
“We haven’t heard anything else,” William said, “but the swelling hasn’t gone down any.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet,” William said. “They won’t let any of us back in yet.”
Feeling defeated, Tate crumbled into the nearest chair, bracing his head in his hands as tears pooled in his eyes. He needed to see her; he needed to touch her for this to be real. For him to know she was alive and not dead. That her skin was warm and not ice cold like his family’s had been. That she was going to make it. He needed her to make it.
“Tate.”
He looked up at Fallon, standing with the rest of her family, as a man in his early thirties entered the waiting room.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Rivera.” he said to them. “I am Ms. Parker’s doctor here in the ICU. As I told you before, her swelling has not gone down. We are waiting for that to happen before they can do the surgery to fix her ankle and nose. I came out here to tell you all that her tests came back and it appears that she is still pregnant. The Ob/Gyn on call has not come yet to confirm that the baby—”
“Whoa,” Lucas said, interrupting him. “Baby?”
“Audrey’s pregnant?” Tate gasped.
“Yes, Ms. Parker is about six weeks along, from what we can tell right now.”
Tate glanced at William, who was giving him the death eye, and Lucas looked utterly confused, just as he was.
Audrey was pregnant?
I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. But I need you to come home as soon as possible, please.
Tate fell back into his seat, his breathing again out of control as he braced his head on his hands. Was that what she needed to tell him? That they were having a baby? How, though?
“She can’t have kids,” Tate whispered, looking down at the floor through his tears. He felt someone sit down beside him, and when a pair of manicured hands appeared on his biceps, he knew it was Fallon.
Tate crumbled against her. Fallon wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight as he cried through the pain that was ripping him apart. His beautiful, sweet, amazing Audrey was bruised and broken, in a coma, and there was nothing he could do to help. As if that wasn’t already troubling news, she was pregnant with his baby. A baby he might never get to hold because he might lose the woman he loved more than anything in the world. The one who brought light to his darkness, who he knew he was going to marry and love for the rest of his life. They should be celebrating the miracle that was their child, but instead he was in an ICU waiting room, finding out that not only was he going to be a dad, but that the swelling in his love’s brain hadn’t changed.
This was not supposed to be happening. He was supposed to come home, ravish the hell out of Audrey, only to wake up and do it all over again.
Why?