24. Delphine
— ? —
Delphine
The hospital room was quiet except for the steady beep of the fetal monitor.
I lay on the narrow bed with my hand pressed against my stomach, watching the doctor study the ultrasound screen.
Heath stood beside me, his fingers laced through mine, his grip so tight it almost hurt.
Neither of us was breathing. The last twelve hours had been the worst of my life, and now everything came down to this moment, this screen, this doctor’s face as she searched for signs of life.
“There we go,” the doctor said finally, pointing at a small flickering shape on the monitor. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat. Strong and steady, exactly where it should be.”
The sound filled the room. That rapid flutter I had heard twice before, that impossible rhythm that meant our child was still alive, still growing, still safe despite everything that had happened. The most beautiful sound in the world.
I burst into tears.
Heath made a sound beside me, half-laugh and half-sob, and his forehead dropped to rest against our joined hands.
His shoulders were shaking. I realized he was crying too, this strong, controlled man who had held himself together through the break-in and the stabbing and the hours of not knowing if I was alive or dead.
Now, finally, he was letting himself feel it all.
“The drug they used was a mild sedative,” the doctor continued, her voice gentle and reassuring.
“It’s called sevoflurane. It’s actually used in some medical procedures, including during pregnancy in certain circumstances.
At this dosage and this stage of development, we don’t expect any lasting effects on the fetus. ”
“You’re sure?” Heath’s voice was rough, scraped raw with emotion.
“I’m sure. We’ll want to do a follow up scan in a few weeks just to be absolutely certain, but right now, everything looks perfectly normal. Your baby is healthy, Mrs. Fairchild.”
“Thank you.” I could barely get the words out through my tears. “Thank you so much.”
The doctor smiled and patted my hand. “You should rest. Both of you. You’ve been through a significant trauma, and your bodies need time to recover.
” She turned to Heath with a more pointed look.
“And you, Mr. Fairchild, should get those stitches looked at properly. The emergency room did good work, but you’ll want to keep the wound clean and change the dressing regularly. ”
“I will.”
“I mean it. Infection is a real risk with that kind of injury. Don’t be a hero.”
Heath nodded, though I suspected he would have agreed to anything at that moment. The relief in his face was so profound it made my chest ache.
The doctor left us alone to finish the discharge paperwork, and for longer than was comfortable we just sat there in silence, holding hands, letting the reality of what we had survived sink in.
“I don’t want to go back to Fairhaven,” I said quietly.
Heath nodded. “Neither do I. The crime scene tape is probably still up. And even when they take it down...” He shook his head. “I don’t think I can sleep in that bedroom again. Not after finding it empty.”
“Where will we go?”
“I’ll find us a hotel. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere private.” He reached out and brushed the hair back from my temple, his touch unbearably gentle. “Somewhere we can just be together without anyone watching. Without any memories of what happened.”
“That sounds perfect.”
***
An hour later, we were in the penthouse suite of a small boutique hotel on the edge of town.
It was the kind of place that valued discretion above all else, the kind of place where old money came to escape the prying eyes of Newport society.
The staff had not blinked at our disheveled appearance, had not asked questions about the blood on Heath’s shirt or the rope burns on my wrists.
They had simply handed us the key, offered to send up anything we needed, and disappeared.
The suite was beautiful in a quiet, understated way.
Cream colored walls with subtle texture.
Soft lighting from lamps with silk shades.
A bed that looked big enough to drown in, covered in crisp white linens.
French doors opened onto a small balcony that overlooked the harbor, where sailboats rocked gently in the fading evening light.
“You should shower,” Heath said, setting down the small bag of toiletries and essentials we had picked up on the way. “Wash off...” He trailed off, not wanting to say the words.
“Everything,” I finished for him. “I want to wash off everything.”
“I can wait out here. Give you privacy.”
I looked at him, at this man who had nearly died trying to protect me, who had torn apart a police station trying to find me, whose hands were still shaking with the aftermath of fear and fury and relief.
“Only if you come with me,” I said.
He hesitated. “Del...”
“I need you.” The words came out raw, honest, stripped of any pretense.
“I need to feel you. I need to know you’re really here, that this is really happening, that we’re both actually okay.
I spent hours in that boathouse thinking I might never see you again.
Thinking our baby might never know their father.
I need...” My voice cracked. “I need you close to me, Heath. Please.”
He crossed the room in two steps and cupped my face in his hands. His eyes searched mine, hunting for permission, maybe. Or for reassurance that I meant what I was saying, that I wasn’t just running on adrenaline and fear.
“I’m here,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere. Not ever again.”
“Then prove it.”
The bathroom was marble and glass, bigger than the bedroom in the first apartment I had lived in after college. I turned on the shower and watched the steam start to rise, filling the room with warmth and moisture that immediately began to ease the tension in my muscles.
When I turned back, Heath was peeling off his ruined shirt, and I saw his face twist with pain as the fabric pulled away from his wounded side.
I gasped.
The bandage covered most of his ribcage, white gauze held in place with medical tape that was already starting to curl at the edges.
Through the gauze I could see the angry red of fresh stitches, a line of them at least four inches long, and the bruising that was already blooming purple and black across his skin, spreading out from the wound in ugly mottled patterns.
“Oh God.” I moved closer, my hand hovering over the bandage without quite touching it. “Heath. Oh God.”
“It looks worse than it is.”
“That man stabbed you. He actually stabbed you.”
“It was a small knife. More of a puncture than a slash.”
“That’s not making me feel better.”
“I’m okay, Del. I promise. The doctor said it didn’t hit anything vital.”
“But it could have.” I was crying again, fresh tears sliding down my cheeks. “If he had aimed a little higher, a little deeper. If you had turned at the wrong moment. You could have bled out on our living room floor while I was unconscious in the back of someone’s car.”
“But I didn’t.”
“But you could have!”
He caught my hands and brought them to his lips, pressing a kiss to each palm, then to my wrists where the rope burns were already scabbing over.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice low and fierce.
“I would do it again. A thousand times. A million times. If someone breaks into our home, I’m going to fight them.
If someone threatens you or our baby, I’m going to put myself between you and the danger.
That’s not negotiable. You don’t get to talk me out of it. ”
“I’m not trying to talk you out of anything. I’m just...” I took a shaky breath. “I’m scared. I’m so scared of losing you.”
“You’re not going to lose me.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “We’ve made it through everything else. We can make it through this too.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“Now,” he said, his voice softening, “let me look after you both.”
He undressed me slowly, carefully, his hands gentle on my skin.
It was his shirt. That was the thing neither of us had said in the car, or in the hospital, or in the elevator up to the room.
I had been wearing my husband’s dress shirt since four o’clock that morning, the one I had grabbed off our bedroom floor when the glass broke, and it had been through a boathouse and a pier and the back of an ambulance, and the sleeve was hanging out of it and there was blood on the collar and it was not mine.
He worked the buttons one at a time. What was left of them. His hands were shaking so badly it took him almost a minute, and I stood there and let him, and neither of us said a word.
He folded it. That undid me more than anything else in that entire night. He took that ruined shirt off my body and he folded it, carefully, like it was going back in a drawer, and set it on the counter.
I wanted every trace of that place washed off me. Not the shirt. Everything else.
When I was finally bare before him, he just looked at me for a moment, his eyes tracing the lines of my body with an expression that was equal parts reverence and grief.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “So beautiful.”
“I’m covered in bruises.”
“I don’t care.” He pulled me close, pressing his lips to my forehead. “You’re alive. You’re here. Our baby is safe. That’s all that matters.”
We stepped into the shower together, the hot water cascading over our skin.
It was almost too hot, but I welcomed the burn of it washing away the grime and fear of the past twelve hours.
Heath stood behind me, his body warm against my back, his hands running through my hair as he helped me wash out the tangles.
The water turned gray as it swirled down the drain, carrying away the dirt and the traces of the sedative and everything else that reminded me of that terrible boathouse.
Neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to. The touch of skin against skin said everything that words could not.