Chapter 36
It was slight. So, so slight.
But I’d been replaying this sound so much throughout these hours that the change in it might as well have been announced over the hospital’s PA system.
Ten beats faster.
I watched as the nurse continued monitoring the baby, waiting to see if the heart rate would fall back to what it’d been since I’d first come in. But it was still steadily beating at the new pace when she finished a minute later.
“Improvement is improvement,” she repeated with a soft smile.
All I could offer her was a jerky nod and a weak smile as I pushed to my feet and climbed back onto the bed, beside my best friend—my wife.
Never faltering in my movements, even when the nurse said, “Your next nurse won’t be as lenient as me when she finds you there.
If a doctor comes in . . .” She let the words trail off.
The look I cast her way said enough.
I still didn’t care.
“Had a feeling,” she mumbled to herself as she went about putting everything up and charting Mallory’s numbers. As she started for the door, she called out the same parting as every other time she’d left, “Press that button if you need me.”
She hadn’t even reached the handle before Evans shoved into the room, nearly barreling her over. After taking the briefest second to make sure she was okay, he stalked past her.
“Excuse me, sir—”
“I’m staying,” Evans said over the nurse as he grabbed for the chair the nurse had pushed out of the way.
“Sir,” the nurse began again, turning and looking between him and me.
“He’s fine,” I assured her, even as I gave Evans a warning look that he ignored.
The nurse looked like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to attempt to kick Evans out, or if she was tired of putting up with us. With a frustrated glare directed at me, as if she was putting all of this on me, she turned and left.
My attention drifted to where Evans was sitting in the chair Thatch had occupied not long before, looking angrier and more agitated than Briggs usually did. “That’s one way to handle the staff here,” I mumbled.
“Thatch updated me on Monroe’s vitals,” Evans said, ignoring me.
I waited to see if he would add anything. When he didn’t, I informed him, “The baby’s heart rate went up too.”
He gave a firm nod. “Good.”
“You don’t look like any of that’s good.”
His bouncing knee abruptly halted as his dark eyes snapped to me, looking so much like Briggs in that moment, it was eerie.
“It is, and yet, nothing about any of this is good. Also”—he gripped at his chest—“I didn’t serve with y’all.
I wasn’t on all those missions, killing terrorists and watching my friends die.
So, everything that’s happened in the past year?
Seeing Monroe like this? It’s hard. And what does it say about me that I didn’t feel a thing when I carried out my end of it? ”
“Nothing,” I told him honestly. “You were doing what was necessary to keep people safe—alive. Killing people weighs heavily on you, and you’ll feel that weight later.
But there’s a difference between slaughtering innocent people and taking out people who are intent on harming or killing you or the people around you. ”
Evans didn’t respond, just let his stare drift back to Mallory.
“It took this,” he muttered, his chest pitching and eyelids briefly shutting in twisted amusement.
“I’ve done everything to keep Wren from herself all these months, because Briggs demanded it, and she’s done everything to get around me.
” Aggravation poured from him as he rubbed at his jaw.
“Sneaking out and making me drag her back from whatever mistake she was trying to make that night.
“Even when I explained what was going on with this situation—even when I told her why she needed to stay near me—she slipped away, the way she always does,” he continued in thinly-veiled aggravation.
“Nearly making me miss that Davis and another guy were already hiding in her apartment, because I was so frustrated with her for once again refusing to listen to me. She watched me kill two men, and still thought I was exaggerating.”
With a subtle lift of his chin toward Mallory, he added, “But after we got the call about Monroe? Wren’s been still.
Has barely moved from her chair in the waiting room.
” His jaw clenched. “I told her the threat, and she ignored it. Laughed it off. Argued with me even when she saw the proof of it. It took this to get her to understand, and Briggs still wants me to watch that infuriating girl.”
I’d never understood why Briggs assigned Evans to Wren Pearson, and as selfish as it might be, I really felt like all of this was the least of my concerns.
But I still said, “If Briggs told you to watch Wren, he had a good reason. They made him a SEAL-team leader at a young age for a reason, and I’ve never known him to make a bad call. ”
Evans grunted in response before we fell into a silence that was thick with worries and doubts and all the thoughts Evans was practically shouting at me.
“I keep wondering,” he began minutes later, “are we any better than my dad, if we’re working with those ARCK people?”
“That’s different.”
“How?” His dark stare shifted back to me. “These ARCK guys are apparently more dangerous than the Wreckers, and they’re only on our side because we’ve been working with them.”
“It’s different because your dad was helping the Wreckers with dark, evil things, Evans,” I said bluntly, but not unkindly. “What we do? What ARCK helps us do? It’s saving people.”
“It’s still working with the mafia,” he muttered as he looked toward the door, as if looking for an escape.
If my mind hadn’t been so weighed down with a million other things that all led back to the woman beside me, I might’ve noticed the way that didn’t seem to bother him.
I might’ve noticed how he seemed to be thinking over that in a way that was worrying.
But, again, I was too focused on Mallory and the cuff that was taking her blood pressure.
I tried not to let disappointment build and spread through my veins when there wasn’t any change. I tried to remind myself that all her vitals had gone up while I’d slept, and at least they were holding steady. But I wanted more.
“I haven’t been with all of you that long, I know.
But I’ve watched you and Monroe for the last year.
I’ve watched the way she’s practically ignored you since Aruba,” Evans said as he pushed from the chair and grabbed the back of it to drag it to the corner.
Once he’d released it, he turned to me and let out a slow breath.
“So you know, that girl was looking at you like she’d just been given the world when y’all got married. ”
The scattered remains of my heart clenched and threatened to knit back together at his view of Monroe that night.
Because I’d thought the same . . .
His head bobbed a few times before he roughed a hand through his hair.
“Earlier, you said you still don’t remember anything from that night, so I wanted you to know that.
” He held the same hand out toward us before letting it fall.
“Y’all had been drinking, yeah. But whatever led to y’all eloping, and that excitement from her, had nothing to do with the alcohol.
I remember thinking Monroe looked like she was finally getting what she’d been waiting for. ”
I tried to clear my throat when it swelled with emotion, but ended up just nodding in gratitude instead.
Evans left the room calmer than how he’d entered it, and, thankfully, no one was waiting to take his place.
Drawing in a slow breath, I held it in my strained lungs before releasing it and pressing a kiss to Mallory’s temple.
Dropping my forehead to the same place, I let my eyelids shut, welcoming that flood of memories, and tried to focus on the positives.
Tried to hear the increased heart rate of our baby in my mind.
Tried to think of anything other than the fact that Mallory—
“You’ve always said if anyone got to shoot me, it was you.” Each word was slow, rough, labored, and so soft, they were nearly inaudible. But they were enough to stop my heart for long seconds before it took off in a dead sprint. “Never said anything about someone stabbing me.”
A stunned laugh bled from me as I studied her beautiful face, eagerly taking her in as if I might be dreaming or hallucinating, because I’d been wanting this. I’d been begging her to wake up. I’d been pleading with God, offering my life, so long as they got to keep theirs.
But there were those blue eyes, shot through with streaks of red as her heavy eyelids struggled to stay open. I wasn’t sure when I’d moved, only that I was suddenly sitting beside her to better see her, that call button in my hand that I’d been waiting to push for hours.
“You’re right,” I whispered as I gently curled my hand around her cheek, not caring about the tears building in my eyes, “I didn’t. And I’m not at all surprised that you would use this—the most terrifying experience of my life—to shove that in my face.”
The corners of her mouth briefly twitched as a hum sounded in her throat, causing her to grimace.
Leaning closer to press my forehead to hers, I breathed, “I lost you,” letting her hear the gravity of my agony and grief in those words. Letting her understand exactly what happened in those moments before the medics had brought her back. “I didn’t think I was ever getting you back.”
Her head moved ever so slightly against mine before she spoke. Her strained voice even more stressed than before. “And the—I can’t. Gray, tell me if . . . just tell me.”
“Our baby?”
A hollow, mournful sound left her, as if she’d woken up preparing for the worst and couldn’t handle the thought of hearing the confirmation.
“A fighter like her mom,” I hurried to assure her. “She’s as okay as you are.”
Those eyes met mine for long seconds before squeezing shut as a pained sob wrenched from her, the sound obviously fueled by much more than just her relief. “Wait, we’re . . . it’s a girl?”
I slanted my head against hers before leaning back just enough to look over my shoulder when the door opened to the nurse, already asking, “Everything okay in—” Excitement lit her face when I pushed from the bed, giving her a clear view of Mallory.
“Good morning, Mrs. Monroe, and welcome back. Let me just look over some things here, and then I’ll call for the doctor. Are you in any pain?”
Mallory continued watching me, waiting for my response, even as she forced out a tense “No,” for the nurse.
“She is,” I gently argued, already knowing Mallory would never admit to anyone that she was in pain. Regardless, I was sure even the nurse had heard the pain in her voice.
“We’ll see what we can do about that,” the nurse assured us both as she hurried around the room.
Once I was sure she wasn’t going to force me away from the bed, I sat beside Mallory again and leaned close, keeping my voice low when I finally answered, “I don’t know, but she has to be with the way she’s fighting.
Besides, there’s no way y’all made it through this, only for you to be forced to deal with two of me. ”
The corner of Mallory’s mouth briefly lifted in response to the smirk I sent her, but her weakened state dragged it and her eyelids back down as I continued. “After this? I’m definitely going to be sparring against a mini Mallory for the rest of my life, and I can’t wait.”
A whisper of amusement left her, her eyebrows rising like she was trying so hard to keep her eyes open. And once she could, once she was out of those woods, I’d show her the pictures of our little fighter.
Dipping closer, I brushed my mouth across hers. “Rest, Peach. Just keep waking up for me.”
Another hum, this one even softer.
Just as I started leaning away, she whispered a word—a name—I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard her say. At least, not in that way.
“Hudson.”
Mallory had yelled my full name in frustration. She’d introduced me to people, albeit rarely. But she’d never just called me by my first name before.
I stilled as my stare shot back to where she was lying, her face scrunching with discomfort before smoothing out. “Right here, Peach,” I promised her, since her eyes were still closed.
Her head moved in the smallest, almost imperceptible nods for a moment before she seemed to fall asleep again. When I reached out to brush my fingers across her cheek, she breathed, “We got everything.”
My fingers stilled on her cool skin as I tried to process the words I didn’t understand and wasn’t sure I heard correctly.
“Still don’t want a wedding,” she added, even softer than before, the words slow and drawn out, before her breathing evened out.
It took a good thirty seconds of me sitting there, fingertips still frozen against her cheek, before a smile broke across my face. Leaning forward, gratitude pulsed through me as I pressed my mouth to her forehead when I realized what she was saying.
What she was referring to.
Our conversation from yesterday morning on her cloud of a couch.
From her talks about not wanting a wedding or to wear a dress, to worrying I’d resent her if we never had kids, to her being so sure I wouldn’t get the life I deserved if our marriage lasted, and me arguing with every confidence that I would get everything, so long as I had her.
And now, unexpectedly, we had more. Mallory wanted more.
She was right . . .
“We got everything,” I agreed before promising her, “And, no wedding. Besides . . .” The corners of my mouth slowly curled up as I once again welcomed that flood of memories.
“I remember getting down on one knee, and not getting hit by you. I remember getting to marry you.” I brushed my mouth across her forehead. “I remember everything.”