Unexpected Fate (35 page)

I push down my despair and follow behind my girl’s father, praying with every fiber in my being that we get that good news.

When Izzy came crashing through the emergency room doors with Melissa, Dee, and Sway hot on her heels, we were still waiting for word from the doctor. Shortly after they arrived, my sisters and brothers rushed in. Lyn and Lila rushed to my side and wrapped their arms around me. My brothers, never the ones to wear their emotions on their sleeves, went to Mom’s side but looked at me with unmasked sympathy.

It didn’t take long before we had overtaken the emergency room and were taken to a private room. Maddox and Cooper showed up with their families in tow. Beck came in next, and after checking on Lee, he grabbed his wife and has held them both in his arms since. Megan was the last one to show, explaining that she got here as quickly as she could find a sitter for Molly.

Chance walked into the room last, and there wasn’t an eye that didn’t land on him. I untangled my body from the girls and walked over to him, grabbing his shoulder and pulling his body in toward mine, hugging him tight.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps. “I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t even see him,” His voice breaks, and I hold him as he loses it.

“Don’t. He got the jump on you, Chance. You can’t blame yourself for a crazy fuck getting the jump on you.”

“It was my job to keep her safe, Cohen. My fucking job.”

“No, it was my job. A job that, when she pulls through from this, I will never, not once, take a break from,” I vow.

I can tell he doesn’t believe me. His guilt and worry are getting the best of him. I shake my head, and after watching him walk over to the chairs on the other side of the room—away from everyone else, who’s huddled together—I walk back over to where Lyn and Lila are sobbing softly to each other and take them in my arms.

And wait.

“Reid family?”

My eyes snap up from the floor, and I rush from my post against the wall.

“Yeah. That’s me. Well, us. That’s us.”

“And you are?” the doctor asks.

“Her husband,” I hear and look over my shoulder to see Axel stand next to me. “And I’m her father. How is my daughter?”

The doctor looks between Axel and me before he moves his eyes to the clipboard in his hands.

“Sir, your wife lost a good bit of blood, but we were able to replenish that quickly and she was very lucky that her wounds weren’t deeper than they were. The blade missed two major arteries by a hair. She went into labor in transit, and after delivery, our major concern was blood loss and the wound that she had gotten to her side. I can’t stress enough just how lucky your wife is.”

“She’s okay?” I question.

The doctor looks between us again, and for the first time, I notice the noise around us as the family realizes that she’s alive and going to be fine.

“The baby?” Axel asks.

And just like that, the room is silenced.

“Ah . . .” He looks down at his notes. “You’ll have to excuse me. I was in charge of your wife, and after delivery, she became my sole patient.” He moves a few things before pausing to read some notes. “It says here that the baby is in the NICU at the moment being monitored, but for a thirty-two-week baby, his vitals are strong.”

“His?” I choke out.

“Yes, his. Congratulations. You have a son.”

And then I pass out.

I OPEN MY EYES AND jerk when my last memories hit my like a tsunami.

Mark. The knife. The lamp. And my will to live—to fight.

“She’s waking up, honey.”

I move my head and look at my mom, who is standing on the left side of my bed. My daddy is standing right behind her with his arms wrapped tight around her, their eyes red and swollen. I move my eyes around the room and see Nate, his eyes dripping with tears. I give him a weak smile, and he turns his face from mine as he struggles to take control of his emotions.

I continue my rotation until I look down at the weight pressing against my hip. The dark-brown hair buzzed on the side and overgrown on the top. The strong shoulders heaving with emotion. And I feel his tears wetting my hand he’s holding against his parted lips.

My heart breaks for the pain he’s in, and I know there isn’t anything I can do to ease it until he works out on his own whatever is running through his mind. I squeeze him, anxious to see those dark-brown eyes. I need him to see that I’m okay—I need to see that
he’s
okay.

“Cohen—” I rasp and clear my throat. “Baby,” I beg, feeling my own tears roll down my cheeks.

His shoulders start to heave when my voice hits his ears. I watch helplessly as the man I love falls apart. I look over to my parents and pray for answers, but I watch as my mom’s own tears cascade down her porcelain skin. My dad has his head bowed and his forehead resting against her shoulder, his body hunched in a way I know can’t be comfortable. I hear the door click and look over to see that Nate has left the room.

Without getting any help, I move my attention back to Cohen and try again. “Baby, please look at me. I need your eyes.”

He struggles to control his emotions, and I watch with my eyes filling with tears as he lifts his head and I get a good look at my handsome man.

His chocolate eyes are filled with pain, and through the red-rimmed swelling around them, his tears continue to fall. His lips are dry from what I’m guessing is the sobbing I felt against my skin.

I reach up and run my fingers across his cheek. “It’s you and me against the world, Cohen. Never goodbye, remember?”

He closes his eyes at my words and gives me a nod. I watch as he struggles again, but he wins against his pain, and when he opens his eyes again, I see
my
Cohen looking back at me.

“Just see you soon,” he sighs.

“Every time I close my eyes.”

He smiles. It’s slightly wobbly, but it’s a smile nonetheless, and I return it.

“We have a son,” he says in reverence.

“He’s okay?” I study his face for clues, and when the little sadness that was left in his eyes vanishes and he hits me with the full force of his smile, my heart bursts.

“He’s perfect.”

“Perfect,” I cry. “Tell me more,” I beg.

“He’s big considering he was preterm. Just under five pounds, but he’s a fighter, Dani-girl. They have him in NICU being monitored, but when I spoke to the nurse, she said she could see him coming home in a month at the most. He looks like me,” he adds with his smile growing. “With your lips.”

I soak it in, the fact that we have a son. Cohen and my baby together. Our little fighter.

Seems fitting that a love we’ve both been fighting to withstand, overcome, and, in the end, fight for would produce a little miracle that was a fighter in his own right.

“Our little fighter,” I say, repeating the words I just thought.

He nods, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

“I thought I lost you,” he says after studying my face for the longest time.

“Never, baby. Never.”

“I thought I lost you, and that was one of the most terrifying experiences I have ever felt. I won’t spend another second without you being mine. I mean it, Dani. When we get you and our boy home, I’ll drag you right to the courthouse, but you will be mine.”

I reach out, wrap my hand around the back of his neck, and pull him towards me. “When you learn how to ask me, then we’ll talk.”

His eyes flash, and his leans down to give me a deep kiss. I hear a growl from my side and smile against his lips.

“Hush, Axel.”

I feel Cohen laughing softly against my mouth, and I join him only seconds after.

Four Weeks Later

“Cohen!” I yell up the stairs. “We don’t need the diaper bag. Come on please. I need to get him home.”

I smile when he comes bounding down the stairs and scoops me up in his arms, twirling me in a circle before placing me back on my feet.

“Our boy is coming home today!” he bellows through the room, the sound bouncing off each wall and echoing through our house.

“Stop acting crazy and take me to our son,” I beg with a smile on my face.

For four long weeks—a solid month of going back and forth—we’ve been spending every second we had between the house and the hospital. With the help of our mothers, his sisters, and Megan, our house was fully decorated and the baby’s nursery fully stocked before I even left the hospital. They kept me for four days to monitor my injuries as well as my recovery from my C-section, and since my emotions were so crazy when I got home, I cried for hours as I walked from room to room before finally settling in the nursery glider.

It was hard to come home without our baby, and I suffered from a bit of postpartum depression, so things amplified after that. I needed my son home and there just wasn’t anything that would make that feeling better.

Cohen was my rock through it all. He held me when I needed to cry and then again when I needed to scream. He talked me through every second of pain I felt over the events that had happened and taught me that it wasn’t right to feel guilt over a second of it.

Easier said than done. Because some crazy man had fixated on me, and I’d entertained that by thinking he was a friend. We’d almost lost our son—and Cohen had almost lost us both.

I know it’s irrational, that guilt, but it’s part of the healing process. Or so I’m told by my therapist. But it’s a feeling I’m not alone in carrying. Nate had a hard time coping after the attack. He felt guilt worse than mine because he hadn’t been in the room. Lee was dealing with similar issues, but he was able to rationalize his pain and focus on the positive—that he was able to save me. They have both joined me for more than a few of my therapy sessions, and I know they’ve been helping us all heal. Cohen is there for everyone. We’ve talked about how he felt and how he’s coping with it all. I wasn’t surprised in the least that he was still feeling a deep fear about losing me.

He’s been working on his issues with letting me out of his sight. It took my father’s sitting him down for him to finally come to terms with the fact that what had happened was a horrible, traumatic experience, and that, if we can’t focus on moving forward and healing, then it will just drag us down until we’re smothered in memories.