Chapter Twenty-Nine
His knuckles were already swelling.
Harvey shut down the pain in his hand as Dr. Cassidy Duffy took up position on one side of Drennan lying across the hospital bed.
He hadn’t known who else to call. Somehow it’d taken less than fifteen minutes for the doc to reach them in Hurricane, and he was never more grateful to see a physician than he was right then.
He’d almost been too late.
Harvey closed his eyes as he fisted the top blanket on Drennan’s bed.
The pressure had released some, but he could still see her, that lifeless thing he’d found in the freezer.
Unmoving. Unresponsive. Drennan’s skin had taken on a blue tint, her lips darker and her skin ice-cold.
A section of her hair had broken straight off.
He wasn’t sure how long she’d been trapped, but the drop in temperature had obviously taken a toll.
But she’d survived. He didn’t know how. Anyone else would’ve given up, but she’d always been a fighter.
He locked down that sense of loss creeping into the edges of his mind as the pain in his knee flared to life.
He’d pushed himself harder than he had in months, maybe years, these past couple of days, but he’d never regret a single moment.
The monitor off to the side of her bed picked up every change in Drennan’s heart rate.
Strong and consistent compared to the first few minutes she’d been admitted to the clinic’s emergency department.
He soothed his thumb over the top of her foot, over and over until she’d realized where she’d been taken and that she was safe.
Now she couldn’t seem to detach herself, her foot following his retreat when he thought she might need space.
Like she couldn’t stand the thought of not touching him.
He felt the same, and he was prepared to stand by her all night if that was what she needed.
“Vitals are looking good. Your body temperature is almost back to normal.” Dr. Duffy shone a penlight over Drennan’s face, maneuvering it back and forth. “You’ll live. Any pain?”
“Just on my neck.” Drennan’s voice sounded as though it’d been scraped over glass. A row of stitches lined a laceration along the side of her throat, black against her still too-pale skin. The son of a bitch who’d attacked her had taken a scalpel to her neck.
But she’d gotten him in the end. Well, her and the bone saw.
Superintendent Shelton had been aimlessly cutting into the dark-haired woman Harvey had pulled from the Emerald Pools when he’d arrived. Trying to take her baby, the only proof that’d he gotten Ellender Garza pregnant.
Both Ranger Simpson and Dr. Yarrow had chosen that exact moment to make their appearances and stop the superintendent from dying.
The bastard was currently under arrest three cots down with a few new liters of blood and two law enforcement babysitters.
Murder in the first degree and the attempted murder of a state official.
As for Ellender Garza and her baby, Shelton had been cutting into her lower intestine rather than her uterus according to Dr. Yarrow.
Police and law enforcement rangers had all the evidence they needed to connect the superintendent to Ellender Garza’s death through DNA and motive.
Drennan’s foot pressed into his hand, and Harvey snapped his gaze back to her.
Intense green eyes locked on him as Dr. Duffy rolled back on her stool.
He squeezed her foot, digging his thumb into the bottom to let her know he was still here.
He wasn’t going anywhere. She’d been through hell in more ways than one.
Had to fight for her life alone against a man twice her size armed with a blade.
She was lucky she hadn’t sustained more serious injuries, and Harvey would thank a God he didn’t believe in every day for that.
“I’m going to have her kept for observation overnight, and I want to get another ultrasound for the baby, considering the last twenty-four hours.
” Dr. Duffy turned her attention to him.
“She needs rest and another round of fluids, but I think she’ll be all right as long as she takes it easy. Can I assume you’re staying with her?”
Harvey cleared his throat, not entirely sure if Drennan wanted him after their last conversation, but he nodded. “Yeah. I’m staying.”
“Okay.” The doctor shoved to stand. “I’ll be back around to check on her in the morning.”
“Thanks, Doc.” He didn’t just mean tonight. “For sticking with her all this time. Looking out for her.”
A small smile transformed the overworked trauma physician as she patted Drennan’s leg. “That’s what friends are for. Call me if you need me.”
Despite the chaos around the emergency room, silence pressed in on him as Drennan leveled that beautiful gaze on him.
And, hell, he’d come so close to losing her.
As much as he hated seeing her in this bed—again—he’d take this over never seeing her again.
“You need water or something to eat? The cafeteria is just downstairs.”
“No. Thank you.” She clasped a hand on the stitches in her neck as she worked herself higher in the bed. “You don’t have to stay. I’m sure there is literally anywhere else you want to be rather than here.”
“I’m exactly where I want to be, Drennan.” He moved to the head of the bed to help her with the pillow at her back. “And that’s with you.”
She didn’t have an answer for that, but he could feel the hesitation to believe him in the silence that followed. She had no reason to believe him, and he didn’t blame her. The things he’d said… “I lied to you.”
“About wanting to stay?” Her eyebrows furrowed in the middle, right at the bridge of her nose, and it was so damn adorable the way she looked at him. Would their baby have the same look in a couple years? His chest tightened at the thought, but…he wanted to find out. “You can—”
“No. In the doctor’s office. After your ultrasound.
” Harvey reached into his back pocket, pulling the roll of sonograms free.
He smoothed the creases from all three pictures, trying to make up for the added damage they’d suffered during his fight with Superintendent Shelton.
“I know you. I think you’ve let me see the real you more than you’ve ever let anyone before, and I took that trust and killed it. ”
She sucked in a sharp breath as she studied the sonograms in his hand, as though she didn’t dare to move, wanting to see what he did next.
Walking on eggshells. And, hell, he’d spent his entire life doing just that, and to see her have to react the same way…
Harvey closed his eyes. He never wanted her to fear him.
“All those things I said about you getting pregnant on purpose and using your mother’s manipulation to get what you want, they were lies, Drennan.
” He handed her the sonogram images, a part of him hopeful there would be more that he could keep for himself, but for now, he had to let them go.
“I don’t believe for a second you would ever treat another human being the way you were treated since your dad died, and I’m sorry.
You were right. I was being a coward. The way I acted?
It was what my father used to do to my mother, and I never wanted to be that man. Ever.”
She took the sonograms, running her fingers over the outline of their baby. “Then why did you say them?”
“Because I was scared.” His pulse thudded hard in his throat.
He grabbed for a corner of her pillow, strangling it beneath his hand as vulnerability stripped him bare.
“I’ve spent a good part of my life detached and numb, but the second I set eyes on you in that bar, I knew you were going to mess up my life plan to die alone. ”
She looked at him then, and the entire world threatened to rip out from underneath his feet.
She didn’t look at him with anger or the same detachment he’d spoken of.
He knew she was the kind of woman who could turn off her emotions and keep them off and that would be it.
She’d already proven that by leaving her abuser behind and floundering for a new punching bag.
Instead, Drennan looked at him with an openness he didn’t deserve.
“Since meeting you, I’ve felt things I haven’t in a long time.
I’ve wanted things I’ve never wanted for myself before.
A future. And seeing the baby on the ultrasound…
I realized I was more broken than I wanted to admit, and just because you understood my pain doesn’t mean my behavior was acceptable.
” His voice became gravelly as he tried to hold back.
“But you saw all those pieces and somehow found a way to bring them back together. You didn’t see the scars I’ve been using to keep people away.
You just saw me. You made me feel seen, and for the first time in my life, I felt good enough for a brilliant, beautiful woman like you.
Someone who I could spend the rest of my life with. ”
Tears glimmered in her eyes. Drennan swiped at her face. “Harvey—”
“I want you to keep messing up that life plan, Drennan.” Harvey slid his free hand across her middle, right where their baby was growing.
“You and this baby. I love you. I’m ridiculously in love with you.
Please forgive me. Please give me another chance to prove I can be there for you.
” He cleared his throat. “That I can be a good father.”
That brilliant smile that’d always made his heart stop flashed wide. Drennan slid her hand over his, over her nonexistent baby bump. “Does that mean you’re going to be there for all my future ob-gyn appointments?”
“Every appointment. Every time you have to throw up. Late-night grocery store runs for food cravings. Massaging your feet when they get swollen and sore.” Harvey leaned down, his mouth hovering over hers.
“Babyproofing the entire house. Lamaze classes. Learning about breastfeeding. I want to be there for the birthday parties and the Christmases and Thanksgivings. I want the graduations and weddings and proms. I want it all.”
Her breath shuddered through her, and the monitor tracking her heart rate ticked higher. Drennan dropped her gaze to his mouth and back, and a searing heat lightninged through him. “And if I wanted you to be more than a supportive father?”
Hell. This woman was going to break him in an all new way, and Harvey had the sense he’d enjoy every second of it. “More?”
“More.” She nodded, her bottom lip brushing against his. “Because I’m in love with you, too. I think I fell in love with you the night we met. But I’ve spent my whole life dreaming of family that loves me, Harvey, and I’m not willing to settle for scraps anymore. Can you give me that?”
“For the rest of my life.” Nothing could’ve stopped him from kissing her then.
Harvey crushed his mouth to hers, careful of her injuries and the fact she’d been through so much in the past few days.
Her mouth parted at his insistence, and he drank her in.
“I told you before, Dr. Hawes. You’re mine. Forever.”
She smiled against his mouth, slipping an arm around his neck to pull him onto the bed with her. “Forever, Ranger Knight.”