Chapter Thirty Five
SOPHIE
I’m going to wear a hole in Abbie’s dad’s carpet if I’m not careful.
When we learned everything Detective Peterson had to tell us about Carter’s dad, I had been nervous. I reached out to Abbie’s dad, Michael, since he was the one who had been working with the detective since Julian Davis died.
He assured me that Detective Peterson is a good man, as well as an exceptional detective, and if anyone could get Carter through this unscathed, it’s him.
“Soph, everything will be fine,” Abbie says gently from her place on the couch, her chocolate brown eyes watching me intently. Her brown, shoulder length hair is pulled back, and she looks as almost as tense as I feel as she picks at a thread in her leggings. “Carter’s a big boy, and the police are there in case anything crazy happens.”
The words do little to comfort me because the reality is Carter, the love of my life and father of my unborn child, is in a potentially dangerous situation, and I’m helpless to do anything about it. My elbow clips the large wooden cabinet that holds a million different mugs when I pass by, the sound of the ceramic cups jostling on the glass shelves setting my nerves even more on edge.
“I know.” I sigh, wringing my hands as I continue my path back and forth across the living room, opting to pass between the overstuffed chairs so I don’t bruise my elbow again. “I still don’t like it though.” I wrap my arms around my stomach and take a big breath, trying to calm down by inhaling Carter’s scent. Wearing his T-shirt and hoodie today was a comfort I couldn’t deny myself.
“Detective Peterson will make sure he’s safe,” Michael says, sitting next to his daughter. His hair grew in gray when we were in teens, but it’s a full head of it. He’s in a polo and jeans, looking calm and collected as I internally lose my shit. “This is an opportunity to get him out of all of our lives for good. Carter is the only one he might confess to.”
They aren’t telling me things I don’t already know. It doesn’t make it any easier. “I’ll just feel better when I hear from him.” The thought of anything happening to Carter makes my insides feel like they’re going to fall out of my chest.
I wish I had told my parents what was going on, but they don’t return from their cruise until tomorrow morning and nobody else knows about tonight except Jake and Tom, who’s at home with Jordan.
“The detective said he’d call me with an update as soon as everything gets wrapped up.” Michael’s voice is calming, his experience raising Abbie as a single dad evident in the way he speaks evenly, never insinuating that I’m overreacting. Only a man who raised a teenage girl single handedly could achieve that, especially considering the level of hormonal mess I’m at right now.
My phone ringing jolts me out of my thoughts. “Hello?” I don’t recognize the number, but put it on speaker in case it’s the detective calling.
“Yes, hello, is this Sophie Hartwell?” The voice is chipper, like the customer service voice I use when I answer the phone at the flower shop.
“It is…” I answer cautiously. I swear, if this is someone trying to sell me something when I’m waiting to hear from Carter?—
“My name is Jackie, I’m a nurse here at Ivy Glen General Hospital. I’m calling on behalf of Carter Williams. He was just brought in?—”
Suddenly, my heart is pounding so hard in my chest, the nurse’s voice is drowned out by the sound of my blood rushing in my ears.
The hospital. I need to get to him.
My phone drops out of my hand and I rush out of the door, Abbie’s voice calling after me.
Is he dying? Did his dad attack him? Or did things turn violent and he got caught in the crossfire? I try to tamp down the irrational anger rising in my chest. They assured me that he would be safe. He’s obviously not safe if he had to go to the damn hospital.
I can’t breathe. Why can’t I fucking breathe?
My heart pounds harder as I yank on the door to my car. Why won’t this thing open? Despite logic telling me that if the first three times I tried to open it didn’t work, it’s probably locked, my hand continues to pull on the handle, desperate to get into the goddamn car so I can get to Carter.
He’s probably wondering where I am?—
“Sophie!” Abbie’s voice cuts through my frantic thoughts as her hand lands on my shoulder. I shudder, gasping in a breath and letting my forehead fall to the glass of the window.
“The car won’t open!” I hardly recognize the voice that comes out of me.
“Sophie, babe, look at me.” Abbie’s hands grasp both my shoulders and turn me around. “None of that,” she tsks, taking her thumbs and swiping them across my cheeks. Have I been crying? “Take a deep breath,” she orders, and I struggle to follow her directions.
“I… can’t!” I gasp out, holding onto her forearms for support.
“You can, and you will.” Abbie says firmly. “This stress isn’t good for the baby, Soph. Take a deep breath.”
The baby. Think of the baby.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.
“That’s it,” she murmurs, rubbing circles on my shoulders with her thumb. “Deep breaths.”
I take one, then two more, and feel my heart rate slowing down. My eyes open, and I’m met with Abbie’s concerned gaze. “Now you’re crying.” I point out, and she releases me, wiping under her eyes.
“I’ll drive,” she says, grabbing her car keys from her back pocket.
Swallowing, I nod, and move to Abbie’s car as she gets into the driver’s side. The drive to the hospital is tense, and I spend most of it concentrating on taking deep, measured breaths. Just like that, I’m back in the car on the way to the hospital when Sarah and Tom had their accident. Will this turn out the same way? Am I walking into a room where the love of my life is dying? Or worse… already dead?
As soon as we pull into the visitor lot of the hospital my panic spikes. Carter is here, in this building, and he could be dying. I fly out of the car a second before Abbie even puts the car in park. The automatic doors slide open for me and I’m greeted by the flickering fluorescent lights of the ER waiting room.
There’s a nurse station straight ahead and I charge towards it. “Excuse me,” I gasp out, catching my breath from running. “I’m here to see Carter Williams. I don’t know if he’s in trauma or what, but a nurse called me?—”
“Ah, Miss Hartwell.” The nurse smiles kindly. “That was me. I can take you to his room now.”
“Thank you,” I nod, following after her as she walks down the hallway. Fluorescent lights illuminate the stark white hallways as we pass by another nurse’s station where a few of them are gathered around a computer. How can everything be so calm when my heart is pounding so hard I’m surprised it’s not making an imprint in my chest?
“Here we are,” she says, opening the door and walking in first. “Mr. Williams, you have a visitor.” She steps aside, and my steps falter when I’m met with…
Carter, looking completely fine. His phone is in his hand, and he hits a button and lays it on the bed when he sees me, a genuine lighting up his face.
“Angel! I’ve been trying to call you, but your phone just keeps ringing.” There’s a nurse on his other side, wrapping his arm in bandages. “I got a little bullet graze, but they stitched me up and I’ll be good as new soon enough. They already said they can discharge me tonight.”
I’m rushing him and throwing my arms around his neck, quiet sobs wracking my body.
“Oof!” He lets out a grunt, wrapping one arm around me.
“Careful,” the nurse, who just finished wrapping his arm, chides.
Her words do nothing to loosen my grasp on him. He scared the shit out of me. I can already feel my sobs turn into gasping breaths again.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Soph. It’s okay, I’m okay,” he murmurs into my hair. My breathing doesn’t slow though. I could have lost him. I just got him back, and he could have been ripped from my life, leaving me to raise our child by myself.
Black spots cloud my vision, and my head feels light. “I feel like I’m going to… faint…” I manage to choke out, my hands fisting his shirt.
“Shit, Soph, okay, breathe,” he says in my ear as he hauls me into his lap and starts speaking to the nurse. “She thinks she might pass out. She’s pregnant, and I can’t imagine this is good for the baby. Is there anything we can do to make sure everything is okay?”
I don’t catch the response but I feel him nod as he continues to rub circles on my back with his good arm. “I’m okay, Angel, I just got a couple of stitches.”
“What happened?” I manage to get out between gasping breaths.
A slight kiss against my hair settles me slightly. Carter tells me everything his dad said. How Carter made him think he wanted in on his scheme and got him to confess. How the shooting happened and how they hauled his dad off to prison. The steady timbre of his voice combined with his touch on my back have me settling, my breathing evening out as I listen to him talk. I’m not sure how long we lay there together, but I’m almost completely calm when Carter gets to the part where his dad outed Oscar Davis.
I sit up with a jolt. “Wait, Oscar was the one helping him this time? Shit, I knew something wasn’t right with him.” Thinking back on it, I’m not one bit surprised. He always acted like a nice enough guy, but there had been some sort of… ick underneath it all. Like he was trying too hard to be nice.
“Yep. Before Detective Peterson shut the door to the ambulance, he told me that he’d be paying dear old Oscar a visit.” Carter sighs wistfully. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in handcuffs right now.”
Before I can answer, a voice calls out from the direction of the door.
“Ms. Hartwell, would you mind taking a seat in this bed?” I turn and look as the nurse who wrapped Carter’s arm pushes a second hospital bed into the room. Behind her, someone else is wheeling in what looks to be an ultrasound machine.
I guess being a hotshot hockey star in a small-town hospital has its perks.
Nodding shakily, I stand, and situate myself in the bed they’ve placed next to Carter. The nurse secures and then inflates a blood pressure cuff around my arm so hard it almost hurts, and then releases the pressure. “One-seventeen over seventy five,” she says, “which is in the normal range. Our attending OB-GYN, will take a look at the baby and make sure everything is okay.”
With that, a kind looking older lady with glasses perched on her nose and graying hair enters the room. “I’m Doctor Roberts. It’s nice to meet you Sophie. How many weeks are you?” she asks, situating the machine closer to my bed.
“My first OB appointment is in a couple of days, but if my math is right, I should be about eight weeks.” My voice is stronger now, my panic having subsided with Carter’s help. “You’re actually the doctor I have my appointment with.”
She nods, smiling. “If you’ve already filled out your paperwork online, I don’t see why we can’t just do this portion of the appointment now. We can try the external ultrasound first then, and see if we can get a view of the fetus.”
“Thank you.” I swallow, and settle back into the bed as she raises it to a half-sitting position and moves my shirt up, pulling out a bottle of gel. A small gasp leaves me at the coldness of it hitting my bare stomach. Feeling Carter grasping my hand, I notice he’s gotten up from his bed, and is staring lovingly at me as the doctor puts the wand to my lower stomach.
She moves the wand over my belly, spreading the gel around. I gnaw on my bottom lip, and Carter gives my hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Hmmm…” Doctor Roberts' eyes are on the screen in front of her. “Perhaps we should try the transvaginal—” Her words are cut off by the sudden sound of whooshing. “Ah. There we go.” She smiles, holding the wand in place and using her other hand to turn the screen towards us.
My heart leaps into my throat and Carter’s breath catches. The picture is fuzzy, but the shape of a head attached to a little body is evident. I can’t believe it. We’re having a baby. I’ve known for weeks, but to be able to see what they look like as they grow inside of me brings a whole new level of understanding.
It’s real. This is all real.
“Is that…” Carter chokes out, tears welling in his eyes.
“Your baby,” the doctor says proudly, before moving the mouse around, clicking it a couple of times. “And you were right about the timeline. Baby is measuring at about ten weeks.”
“Oh my god,” I choke out, my eyes fixed on the tiny body on the screen. “How big is it?”
“A common comparison used at this stage is that of a kumquat.” The doctor smiles, “Or, about this big,” she holds her fingers about two inches apart, “if you’re like me and have never actually held a kumquat.”
A shocked laugh leaves me. A baby. We’re really having a baby. Carter’s laugh joins mine as he leans over, capturing my lips in a fierce kiss. “We’re having a baby,” he whispers against my lips before pulling back and giving me the most blindly handsome smile I have ever seen on him. Hmm, if we weren’t having a baby, that smile would certainly make me want to keep trying.
The doctor clicks a couple more times, then there’s a whirring sound at the bottom of the machine followed by a ripping. “Here are a couple of pictures for you two.” She hands them over, then wipes my belly off and helps me adjust my shirt. “I’ll leave you two alone for a moment.”
Doctor Roberts and the nurse who took my blood pressure head out the door, the latter wheeling out the second bed and making a note to get me some paperwork to fill out before I leave. Carter and I settle into his hospital bed, me between his legs and resting my head on his chest, staring at the ultrasound pictures. His hands come around to cup my belly. “I…” The words choke in my throat as tears fill my eyes. “I can’t believe it. We’re having a baby. ”
“I know how you feel,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of my head. “I wonder how many weeks until they’re the size of a hockey puck.”
I laugh. “Why is that?”
He shrugs, a small smile on his face. “Then we can refer to the baby as ‘Little Biscuit’”
“What do you think, hm?” I look down at my belly, rubbing my hand over the spot where the ultrasound wand was minutes ago. “Do you want to be Little Biscuit?” Turning my head, I place a gentle kiss on Carter's lips. “I think we can call them that now.”
“Alright, Little Biscuit.” Carter says, moving one of his hands over mine. “Mommy and Daddy already love you so much. We’ll always take care of you, no matter what.” There’s an emotion in his words I can’t quite place, but part of me realizes it’s his promise to Little Biscuit to be nothing like his father.
Taking his hand, he grips my chin, tilting my head towards him. His lips capture mine, slowly and full of love as a contented sigh leaves me.“That goes for you too, Angel. Nothing in this world will ever separate us again, I promise.”
His words settle over me in a reassurance I didn’t know I needed, and I can feel the truth of them. His dad is gone, and we won’t need to live our lives looking over our shoulders. Nothing can stand between us and a future of love and happiness. We’ve been through so much already, I know we can face down anything as long as we’re together.