Mac somehow managed to start a war and finish it all at the same time. There is no weighing the size of the balls this woman carries. Let’s just say they’re really bloody heavy.
Two paramedics come around the corner as I step outside with my unconscious rescuer. They’re jogging toward us, wheeling a stretcher along the cracked pavement. I take a relieved breath and stop, swaying on my feet. They reach us and I lower Mac onto the makeshift bed with infinite care, hesitant to let go of her completely. I withdraw my arms but rather than let go completely, I take her hand in mine.
“She has a gunshot wound to the right upper thigh,” I rasp, “and a head injury. She … She …” I choke, unable to get any more out. She has a wrenched shoulder. And she’s lost a lot of blood. She also has a big heart, but she killed a man in there. And now she has a mark on her soul that mirrors mine. She took that. For me. So fix that too, I want to tell them, but my mouth won’t form the words. Take that away so she doesn’t have to live with it the way I do.
“Romero.”
Kelly is standing beside me, his clothes and hands steeped in dried blood. “Your woman …” he nods at Mac. One of the paramedics is checking her injuries and vitals, the other is prepping her for transport. “She’s having your baby, mate.”
The ground dips beneath my feet. “She’s what?”
Kelly’s hand grips my shoulder and squeezes. The action keeps me upright while his words reverberate around in my head. “She’s pregnant. The paramedics will need to know.”
“How do you know?”
“Last night at the end of the party you took off thinking she was doing something with me when she wasn’t. I was just some big douche who came on to her not realising what the two of you had. Later that night I found her in the bathroom, sick. I held her hair back while she puked in the toilet. The test was on the bathroom counter, and I saw it. I asked her and she told me it was yours. And that’s when she found out you were leaving and came here. For you.”
I stare down at Mac. She came here because I abandoned her the first time she fell pregnant with my baby. History was repeating itself and in typical Mac fashion, she was having none of it. She chose to fight for me. She chose to fight. For me.
“I didn’t know,” I mumble, trying to process Kelly’s revelation. My heart aches with shame for leaving, yet hope unfurls in my chest amidst the pain because I’m going to be a father. Because Mac knew I was leaving and risked her life to stop me. She made a choice, and she chose us.
My eyes prickle and hot tears spill down, mixing with the blood and sweat and dirt. After everything we’ve been through, we’ve been given a second chance to do this. To get it right. To have a family.
I grasp the wrist of the female paramedic as they begin wheeling her away. She halts. Impatient.
“My girl is pregnant. You need to take care of them both,” I plead, my tone urgent. My entire world is bleeding out on that stretcher right now and panic is burning inside me. I feel it rising, hotter than fire. Overtaking me. “Please.”
MAC
My eyes blink open and the glare from the open window hits. I quickly shut them and turn my head on the pillow of my hospital bed. My body hurts but my heart is in agony.
“Mitch?” I ask, my eyes still closed and my voice rusty from disuse.
Someone will answer. In the seventy-two hours since I’ve been in hospital, there’s always been at least one person by my bedside. Jake has barely left at all. I wish they would all go. Him too. I need … I don’t know what I need. Space to reflect on what I did? Time? A rewind so I can go back and change the past? How far would I go back if I could do that? A few days? A year? Two? Or would I go back to the very start, before I met Jake?
Someone answers, but I’m so lost in thought I don’t hear it. “What?”
My hand is squeezed. “He’s still in a coma.”
The voice comes from Jared, but further away. He’s not the one holding my hand. I nod to indicate I heard. The gentle motion causes my head to throb, and I wince. My eldest brother hasn’t woken. The loss of blood and a stroke brought on by the injury put his body in distress. And if he knows, deep down inside his soul that Gabriella is gone, I fear he’ll never wake. “I want to see him.”
Now. Not so I can beg for forgiveness. Asking for that is too much. I just want to apologise while he’s still alive. I need him to hear me say I’m sorry.
“No.” That was Jake, his refusal spoken in a firm tone. He’s close. Right by my bed. My hand is squeezed again and his voice gentles. “You’re not well enough.”
“I want to see him,” I repeat, stubborn.
“Mac—”
“Don’t.” My eyes flare open, hardening on Jake. Half his face is red and purple, the skin tender and swollen. There’s a stitched cut above his brow and a split lip he keeps busting open. It’s bleeding again. His eye socket didn’t require surgery but it’s bandaged and the doctors are keeping a close watch on it. I know this because Evie told me. When I asked Jake he simply said he was ‘fine.’
“Maybe later in the week,” he says softly.
I close my eyes again and turn my head away. I hate looking at him. There’s too much kindness. Too much empathy and compassion. Too much goddamn heart.
I don’t deserve any of it.
“Please go away,” I whisper.
“I can’t do that,” Jake replies. He untangles his hand from mine. The action gives me relief. I don’t want to be soothed. Except it shifts further down; his warm palm comes to rest on my belly and spreads love through the warmth of his touch. Our baby is in there and she’s thriving. Yes it’s a girl, which is not an official verdict because I’m only fourteen weeks along, but I just know. It’s mother’s instinct.
“Of course she’s thriving,” my dad had muttered in his big old gruff voice when I told him. “She’s a Valentine.”
Can you believe it? My dad was taking credit for my little girl’s kickass determination to survive. Bullshit. Her grit is all me and Jake. “She’s a Romero,” I retorted stubbornly.
Dad paled but he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah. She’s that too.”
To say my parents were thrilled with the baby announcement (inadvertently finding out thanks to my mouthy doctor who thought everyone knew) was to say the earth is round. If Mum had been a gymnast, she would have done a few celebratory backward tumbles with an added somersault for extra effect. Instead, her eyes turned glassy and her hands clutched mine.
“My baby is having a baby,” she blubbered while Dad rubbed her back and made gruff, soothing noises to both of us.
“Mum,” I muttered, embarrassed at the emotional display and warmed by it at the same time. The best part about my mother is that she would have reacted the same way when I was seventeen.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.
“For what?” she asked.
“For running away.”
Mum shook her head and looked to Dad. They shared a glance that spoke a thousand words, but only to each other. Then she turned to me. “It was a long time ago. And we weren’t fair. We—”