“Call 911,” Nick directed, though to whom, Brooke didn’t know. She couldn’t open her eyes. All she could think about was her baby.
Nick rested a hand on her back. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Just stay still. Help is on its way.”
She nodded as the pain in her uterus squeezed again, and she felt as though she might be sick. She wanted to know if she was bleeding or if her water had broken, but she was in too much agony to check. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Nick. “I meant to tell you . . .”
“Hey,” Nick said. “It’s okay. I thought you might be, but I didn’t want to be the asshole who asks and gets punched in the face for being wrong.” He paused. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Brooke finally managed to crack open her eyes, only to see a circle of employees and customers with concerned looks on their faces. But she didn’t have time to be embarrassed, with only a few words running through her head: Please, God. Let my baby be okay.
The paramedics came ten minutes later, pushing all the other people away. Before Brooke knew it, they had lifted her onto the gurney and she was wheeled out of the building and slid into the back of an ambulance. They checked her vitals, and she told them how far along she was. “I think I might be bleeding,” she said, unable to fight back her tears. “Or my water broke. I’m not sure.”
“Okay,” the medic who had stayed in the back with her said. She was a blond woman who looked to be in her late twenties. “I’m going to check on that, then. Is that all right?”
Brooke’s jaw and bottom lip quivered, but she bobbed her head. The medic lifted the blanket they’d placed over her in the restaurant and gently pushed Brooke’s thighs apart. When she returned her brown eyes to Brooke’s, they were unreadable. “There’s some blood,” the medic said.
“Oh, god!” Brooke cried out, rolling her head to one side, unable to look at the medic a moment longer. She was losing this baby . . . just like she’d lost everyone else. Her tears came in earnest then, and painful, heavy sobs took her over. The ache in her uterus hadn’t gone away.
The medic placed a reassuring hand on Brooke’s arm. “Hold on now. That could mean any number of things. Let’s get you to the ER and the doctors will figure out exactly what’s going on. No matter what, they’ll take care of you, I promise. They’ll do everything they can.”
Brooke was crying too hard to respond. The medic held Brooke’s hand as she spoke over a radio to the ER, describing Brooke’s symptoms. When they wheeled her through the automatic sliding glass doors, Brooke was rushed into an exam room, where the medics left her and two nurses took over.
“I’m Gemma,” the older one with silver hair said. “And this is Mark.” She gestured to the short, stocky bald man in blue scrubs who was setting up an IV. “We’ll be taking care of you today. I understand that you’re pregnant?”
“Twenty-three weeks,” Brooke said, trying to ignore the biting ache in her gut. “Am I going to lose it?” Her voice shook, and she pressed a hand across her mouth to keep the sobs from taking back over.
“I don’t know,” Gemma said. “We have to run some blood tests and do an ultrasound before we know for sure what’s going on.”
“We’ll get you started on fluids and check for a fetal heartbeat,” Mark said. “The obstetrician is on her way.”
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” Gemma asked. “The baby’s father?”
Brooke dropped her hand back to her abdomen and considered what would happen if she asked the nurse to contact Ryan. So far, he’d done as she’d asked and stayed away, and she didn’t want to call him now and make him think she’d changed her mind about accepting his help.
“He’s not involved,” Brooke said, rubbing her hand over the pain in her belly. Her hip joints ached like nothing she’d ever felt before.
“Anyone else?” Mark said. “Your mother, maybe, or a friend?”
“No,” Brooke said, her eyes filling again. She realized that the one person she wanted to be there was Natalie. She knew her sister would hold her hand; she would push her hair back from her face and tell her everything was going to be okay.
“All right,” Gemma said, and several minutes later, the door swung open and to Brooke’s surprise, Natalie rushed into the room.
“Your manager called me. You listed me as your emergency contact on your application,” she said, answering the question she likely saw on Brooke’s face. Natalie’s cheeks were red and she was breathing fast. “I came right away.”
“And you are?” Mark asked, poising his fingers over the keyboard attached to the computer next to the bed.
“She’s my sister,” Brooke said, and then Natalie stepped over and grabbed her hand, the two of them waiting for the doctor to come.
? ? ?
“There we go,” Dr. Patel said as she pushed the ultrasound wand along Brooke’s belly and the familiar, comforting whoosh, whoosh of the baby’s heartbeat filled the room.