Nobody's Dream (29 page)

“You, too, Sir.”

Karla winced and shifted her gaze to the doctor. Was she in pain?

“Here’s the one who was hiding from us all this time. Let me see—oh, another girl!”

Two girls. What did he know about girls?

Aw, who cared?
Un-fucking-believable!
He’d just become the daddy to two little girls. Wetness dampened his mask, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass who saw him crying. This one had hair as black as the first, but he wasn’t sure if that was because she was wet.

Unlike the first, she didn’t make a sound. “Is she…okay?” Didn’t doctors hold babies up and whack them on the butt anymore to clear their lungs or whatever?

Adam held his breath, waiting for the doctor to finish clamping and cutting the cord.

“Sometimes the smaller babies aren’t as vocal, but she’s moving her arms and legs. We’ll check her out right away, but I think she’s just not ready to test out her lungs yet.”

He turned to Karla, who had tears streaming from her eyes as well, as she tried to catch a glimpse of the babies before they were placed on the tables near their isolettes. She bit her lower lip and gazed up at him. Her eyelashes spiked together from her tears. “I hope I can give you a son, too.”

What was the matter with her? She glanced away. “Now hear this, Kitten. I don’t care if the next one’s another girl. I won’t hear any mention of regrets. You’ve just given me two beautiful daughters and they both appear to be healthy. That’s all that matters. Hell, I like girls.”

Even if I don’t understand a fucking thing about them.

Wasting no time, the doctor went to work again. Soon the third Montague baby was lifted above Karla’s belly. Adam grinned. He didn’t need to hear the announcement. This one was all boy.

Adam’s vision blurred, blinding him until he blinked his eyes clear.

I have another son
.
A second chance
.

At Karla’s sob, he grabbed her shoulder tightly, avoiding her arm with the IV line. She held on as they half-consoled and half-congratulated each other.

A boy? And this one was crying as loud as the first.

Doc Palmer turned to him. “Adam, since he’s the last one, would you like to cut this cord? I didn’t want to delay in the delivery of the others, but don’t want to deprive you of the experience you had wanted.”

There wasn’t much he could do in here to be a part of this birthing experience—not the way Karla was—but he wasn’t sure he could do this. When the nurse held a drape over Karla’s incision, some of his concerns drifted away. He stood and walked toward the doctor and his son—his
son
.

Don’t fuck this up, Marine.

Adam took a deep breath, and the doctor handed him a pair of surgical scissors like the ones Marc used in Fallujah. He willed his hand to stop shaking as he took them between his finger and thumb. She placed two clamps on the cord and pointed to where he should cut between them. The cord still seemed to be beating to Karla’s heartbeat. He swayed on his feet, and the room grew fuzzy. A strong odor brought him back, stinging his nose and eyes.

“Sit.”

Adam followed the nurse’s command and plopped onto the stool she indicated before he keeled over and embarrassed himself. He stared blankly at the cord.

“Don’t worry,” said the nurse holding the smelling-salts capsule under his nose. “You wouldn’t be the first one to pass out in the delivery room.”

I’m not going to fucking pass out.

Doc Palmer pointed to the cord again. “Cut right here, Adam.”

He stood once more and closed the scissors around the inch-thick cord. Surprisingly, it felt like cutting through thick nylon rope. After three attempts he made it completely through, separating their baby—their
son
—from Karla’s body.

I’m his daddy.

Mine.

Okay, he’d gladly share him with Karla.

Another nurse whisked the crying boy away to a table several feet away, and Adam zoned out for a moment watching the activity going on with his three babies until Karla asked, “Is he okay? Did you see him?”

Fuck, he’d been so focused on the cord he hadn’t really looked at the baby. He glanced over at the boy but could barely see his tiny feet now. He started to speak, but couldn’t get the words out. He cleared his throat as he met her gaze. Adam had no clue what a perfect newborn baby looked like, but said, “He’s perfect, Kitten.”

One of the babies let out an indignant wail that curled his toes. Soon another chimed in, and his attention turned once more to the babies. The nurses and pediatricians evaluated the three—weighing, measuring, and checking whatever else they did. The middle baby continued to sleep through all the excitement, but did complain a second or two when her foot was stuck with a needle for one of their tests. Good. Nothing ranked higher than the sound of a newborn baby’s cry.

New life.

The other two hadn’t let up much. Eyes open, they didn’t seem to miss a thing.

All three babies had Karla’s black hair—and lots of it. He didn’t have to see them cleaned up to know his girls would be as beautiful as their mother, his son handsome and strong.

Holy fuck
.

How could he and Karla handle three babies? They were outnumbered. All his tactical plans just flew out the window. Hell, everything he’d learned from the baby books had barely prepared him for two. Now there were three of them.

Adam shook off this feeling of pure terror—and it could be described as nothing else. Somehow, they would manage this, too. Together they could do anything they set their minds, hearts, and bodies to do.

He returned to Karla and leaned over, kissing her cheek through his mask, not wanting any germs to touch his babies. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I know that’s a fucking lame thing to say at a time like this, but I don’t have the words…”

He stroked her face, and they huddled together in the afterglow.

“Here’s your firstborn. Have a quick peek before we head to the NICU.”

Adam moved to let the nurse place the baby, wearing a yellow knit hat and wrapped tightly in a blanket, near Karla’s face. A fresh stream of tears blurred his vision. He blinked, not wanting to miss a thing. The baby opened her gray-blue eyes and stared at Karla as if communicating on some level he couldn’t be a part of. Even though the baby books said a newborn’s eyesight was limited to blurry shapes and shadows, his daughter seemed so aware of everything. Pride swelled his chest. No big surprise their baby would be above average in her early skill sets. Smart and beautiful, like her mommy.

Mine.

Karla’s hand reached out to stroke the baby’s cheek. “Hi, precious.”

All too quickly, they had to say their temporary goodbyes. Next, their sleeping beauty was brought over only to be whisked away even faster. He hoped her lungs were okay. Lastly, their son paid them a quick visit.

“Aren’t they beautiful, Adam?” Karla asked after their boy had gone to join his sisters.

He still couldn’t believe he had a baby boy and two daughters. He’d once teased Karla that they’d have six babies, and he’d love and care for any baby Karla delivered, even if there were a dozen. But right now, three was the perfect number.

A new spate of tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, Adam, I feel like a piece of us is missing.”

He cleared his throat. “I know, hon. Me, too.”

Doc Palmer finished stitching up the incision and turned to them. “You’ll be able to see them again anytime, Adam. And, Karla, I just want you to lie flat for a while. The nurse will be checking frequently for the next couple of hours to make sure everything is okay. We’ll move you to your room soon. With the weight of the first and third babies, I anticipate they will join you there by this evening.”

A nurse handed the doctor a slip of paper. She smiled. “For triplets, you have amazingly big babies, Karla. The first girl was five pounds even, the next four-ten, and the boy is five-two.” She rattled off the lengths. Each was nineteen inches, give or take.

Three healthy, perfect babies as far as he was concerned.

Thank you, God.

Chapter Eight

A
dam let Karla doze while being transferred to their new room and just followed along. They had asked for a family room so the babies could be with them. When they entered their home away from home, he was surprised to find a full-sized bed dominating the room.

“Here we are!” The nurse helped Karla from the smaller bed into the large one.

Fuck
. Was he going to be able to stay awake if he joined her in there? What if he couldn’t and hurt Karla while she slept? The night terror he’d suffered not a month ago—probably triggered by something during the interrogation scene from hell with Marc—had left him worried about whether he could keep the past at bay when he let his guard down.

Karla slept off the anesthesia the rest of the night, interrupted almost every hour by someone needing to check on something or press on her belly some. Man, that had to hurt. Not wanting to disturb her much-needed sleep, he used the time to catch up on texts. Jenny and Carl were in flight and should be here in a few hours. He answered Megan’s text from last night and let her know the news. Since their mom knew, he might as well let her in on it, but those were the only four who had been informed about multiples of any number. Maybe he was crazy to keep it quiet, but if, God forbid, the unthinkable happened and he lost another baby, it might be easier if he didn’t have everyone around him blaming him for the loss of another. Not that he had done anything remotely close to causing any of these babies any distress.

Anyway, sounded like Wilson had things under control with Megan.

One less person to worry about today.

When he received a text that several members of his chosen family were assembled in the waiting room at about zero-eight-thirty, he went out to let everyone know about the C-section and that she was sleeping. Without spoiling the news Karla wanted to share about the triplets, he accepted their back slaps and hugs before asking them to come back later to visit.

Marc and Angelina looked dead on their feet anyway, but at least they were holding hands and smiling at each other again.

Cassie steered clear of him, as usual, but asked him to give Karla a hug for her. He walked over to her anyway and reached into his pocket to retrieve his keys. Taking one off the ring, he handed it to her. “This is the key to our new house. I don’t want you running back and forth if you don’t have to. Anytime you need to, just bunk down there. We have lots of room, although the guest rooms aren’t completely set up yet. But I’ll be sleeping here with Karla for a few days, so feel free to take the master bedroom.”

Her hand shook when she reached out to take the key. What the fuck did she expect him to do to her?

“Thank you.” She put the key into her purse. “I don’t mind going back and forth now. I have to take care of my alpacas. But I’ll make arrangements for someone to help there when Kitty comes home.”

“Damián can give you the address to the house so you can GPS it.”

“No need. I remember how to get there from your wedding.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” He was surprised he’d even thought about how far she’d come to be here today.

Adam said his goodbyes to them. Before returning to Karla’s room, he checked on the babies in the NICU. Sleeping, all three of them. He was told two of them would be taken to the room in a couple of hours unless any complications arose. The other baby had no serious health problems, just needed to be on oxygen and watched more closely to be sure she could regulate her body temperature and a few other things they were measuring.

When he reentered their room, Karla opened her eyes and smiled groggily. They must have really doped her up on some powerful drugs. Good thing because he didn’t want her feeling any pain. He wondered how long it would take her incision to heal. He didn’t want to think how big it was if they could pull three good-sized babies from her.

She patted the mattress of the bed.

“You sure? I don’t want to hurt you jostling around on the mattress.”