Chapter 37 #2
“I know you can do this,” Gray began as he gathered the materials to make a new bandage, “you’ve been doing it yourself all week.
” Setting everything in front of me, he turned so he was facing me and set the full force of his stare on me.
“But if you remember, as soon as I was released back to the team, you refused to let anyone bandage me but you.”
I swallowed thickly at the memory and argued the same defense I’d given him all those years ago, when he’d taken multiple bullets for me, one of which he still bore the scar from, “You would’ve gotten it infected.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Then it’s a good thing I had you,” he muttered, giving me a version of the response he had back then. Letting his mouth slip into a smirk and teasing me with one of those dimples, his stare briefly, meaningfully darted to my neck. “You’re gonna get it infected.”
No, I wasn’t.
I also needed to continue doing this myself because I needed to prove that I was fine. I needed to prove I could.
But I found myself nodding as I tossed his words back at him, “Then it’s a good thing I have you.”
His next smile was slow and bright and did wholly unfair things to me, considering I doubted there was anything I could do to wreak the same havoc on his heart. “Good answer, wife.”
“Don’t get used to getting your way,” I murmured in a too light voice that didn’t hold my usual warning and betrayed the wings fluttering in my stomach.
He swept his mouth across mine in a brush so soft, so swift, it had me sucking in a breath. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” But just as I started leaning closer and melting at the unexpected things Hudson Gray did, he added, “Really, who knew you blushed?”
My eyes rolled as I looked away, waiting for him to put the new medical cloth and tape over the multitude of wounds on my neck, some of which had been stitched up. And, yes, they’d absolutely made Lainey’s nausea worse over the past week.
I really didn’t envy her pregnancy.
But, at the same time, at least she knew.
“She’s fine,” Gray whispered as he gently pressed medical tape along one of the edges of the cloth, forcing my stare to his.
Without looking away from what he was doing, he said, “You look worried and you’re touching your stomach.
” Mint eyes shifted my way before lowering to my neck. “She’s fine, Mallory.”
I’d dropped my hands as soon as he’d pointed out what I was doing, but at his last, gentle vow, I voiced the fear I’d been worrying over since Gray had held me in my kitchen, looking at me like he’d known he would lose me—lose us both.
“And what if she’s not? What if this happened because I didn’t want her? ”
Gray curled his free hand around the back of my neck and pulled me close, wrapping me up in his strength and that comforting, woodsy scent.
Once his forehead was lowered to mine, he took slow, measured breaths before saying, “You did nothing—I need you to know that. Even if something happens between now and the end of the pregnancy, I need you to know that you did nothing wrong.” When I didn’t respond, his grip momentarily tightened gently, pleadingly, like he could make me believe him with his touch alone.
“But for now, know that our baby is okay. She’s fine.
Just because your pregnancy isn’t like Lainey’s doesn’t mean there’s something wrong. ”
I lowered my chin in something of a nod, but I knew from the next faint grip on the back of my neck, careful not to pull too tight, that Gray didn’t buy the acknowledgment.
Still, he released me and returned to the new bandage, his voice a gentle tease when he asked, “So, you think we’re having a girl too?”
I pinched his side, since it was all I was allowed to get away with, for now, and relished in the laugh that rumbled from him.
“I don’t,” I claimed. “It just slipped out because you keep saying ‘she’ and ‘her.’”
A doubtful hum rose in his throat as he set the tape onto the vanity behind him. “How’s your back?”
“Fine,” I said automatically, the same response I’d been giving since I’d fully woken in the hospital.
Gray’s eyes searched mine, trying to find the lie, but even though I didn’t feel like me—even though I got winded and exhausted from doing the smallest things—I really felt fine. Better than I would’ve expected to.
“What were you and Briggs talking about?” I asked when Gray finally released me from his stare and turned to put everything away.
The way he stilled before resuming putting the supplies in the dark cupboard had me doing the same, because I knew in that brief falter that he didn’t want me to know.
“Figuring out next steps,” he finally admitted, voice rough and hesitant.
“Next steps,” I echoed, drawing out the words, “for the Wreckers? For the new family and the club?”
Gray’s heavy exhale was confirmation enough. But he didn’t say anything as he straightened to his full height.
“Without the rest of the team?”
“We were talking about Rush, and it led to that, Peach,” Gray explained as he twisted to lean back against the counter. “We weren’t trying to make plans without everyone else.”
“But you didn’t want me to know what you were talking about,” I assumed, and knew I’d assumed correctly when his jaw twitched. “Why?”
“Mallory—”
“No,” I snapped and shoved a hand against his chest, ignoring the pull at my back from the rough movement.
“I know exactly what you’re about to say, and I would never do this to you.
” His lips parted to explain, but I continued before he could.
“I told you, this is my job. Don’t keep me from my job. ”
“That was before—”
“No,” I repeated through clenched teeth. “You got shot, and I waited anxiously until you were back by my side. I didn’t try to tell Briggs that you should be taken off the team or kept from missions. So, don’t let what happened to me change things. Don’t stop me from working.”
“Mallory, you died,” he ground out, gesturing to me like he could make me understand the gravity of that.
“I don’t care,” I shouted as he continued.
“I held you while you died. After they brought you back, I laid beside you while you slowly slipped away from me.”
“And I’m fine now,” I yelled because no one seemed to understand that.
“You’re also pregnant,” he shot back just as fiercely before drawing in a quick breath and dragging his hands through his hair.
When he spoke again, his voice was calm and pleading.
“I know I can’t stop you from working. As much as I want to lock you away somewhere, I know you’ll find a way to end up in the thick of it because that’s where you want to be, so it’s easier to just let you be there from the beginning.
But I’m begging you to just stop and think about what you’ll be doing and who you’ll be endangering. ”
I swallowed thickly, my hands clenched into tight fists at my sides when every part of me was aching to reach for my flat stomach.
For the baby that had distracted me to the point of failing in my mission and letting someone slip up behind me.
Some part of me acknowledged, with how much I worried over her—it—now, I might easily find myself in the same position. But there was a much larger part that couldn’t stand to be kept away from the jobs I’d been training for my entire life.
His head bobbed subtly, as if he could see the internal battle I was fighting.
“I won’t keep you from working,” he said as if he was carefully choosing his words, “but I will keep you from certain parts of it, and I will ask you to remember that it isn’t just you walking into these situations anymore. ”
“And after?” I asked, voice strained. At the questioning tilt of his head, I clarified, “After . . . this.” I waved my hand over my stomach and forced my hand back to my side when I nearly reached for it.
“Will you still keep me from certain parts of it? Will it be me who has to sacrifice the dangerous parts of the job because we have a child?”
Affection and amusement swirled in his eyes as he studied the warning and challenge in my own.
“I’ve always known who you were, Mallory.
I’ve never thought you were the kind of woman who could be kept at home, and I wouldn’t dream of trying to.
” He reached out, crossing the small space between us, to brush his knuckles across my stomach.
“I’m just asking that, while you’re carrying our child, you’ll be careful.
And that you try to understand why, after losing you, I want to keep you from the danger. ”
Drawing in a breath that wasn’t nearly as steady as I wanted it to be, I turned for the door and mumbled, “I’ll consider it,” and knew from the grateful sound he breathed out, he knew I would do more than that.
Grasping my hips in his large hands, he pressed a quick but firm kiss to the back of my head as I opened the bathroom door—
And came to an abrupt stop when we found Briggs standing in the hall, arms folded across his chest, looking more irritated than usual—but that was probably because of Rush—and glaring at the two of us.
“You forget how quickly y’all start yelling,” he ground out before focusing on Gray. “Thatch and Evans figured out there’s some sort of plan to start working again if you’re trying to keep Monroe from it. They’re waiting to be informed.”
He left without another word, but it was clear he expected us to follow him.
Still, I slowed as I let Gray slip around me and ease his hand into mine. “How am I going to feel about this plan?” I asked under my breath, already sure I knew the answer, given the way he’d faltered earlier and had more-or-less admitted that he hadn’t wanted me to know.
Gray’s face did that irritatingly attractive thing where one half of it scrunched up as he thought of the best way to respond. If I hadn’t already known I wasn’t going to like the plan before, his expression then would’ve told me all I needed to.
“Let’s just say I’m glad you can’t punch me,” he finally muttered and gripped my hand tighter when I started drawing mine away, as if I intended to do exactly that before knowing the plan—regardless of the doctor’s orders.
His mouth twitched into one of those wicked smirks as he looked at me.
“It isn’t a set plan, Peach. Just an idea we had. ”
“And I vote no.”
A laugh burst from him. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“I don’t need to,” I said easily. “You’ve already let me know in so many ways that I’m going to hate it, so no.”
Using our joined hands, he lightly brushed along my stomach in a way I was increasingly becoming addicted to, even though I absolutely knew he was trying to use what he was doing, and the baby, to sway my vote. “Wait until you hear it, then tell me no.”