Chapter 31
31
DUNCAN
“ G et to the hospital. Faster.” I held Miranda in my lap and stroked her hair back from her face. “Come on, Miranda. Wake up.” Her shallow breaths were the only thing keeping me sane as Patrick peeled around a corner and wrenched the car to a stop outside the emergency room doors.
Charlie almost tore the SUVs door off the hinges opening it for me. He held out his arms, prepared to take Miranda. I scowled dark enough to send him back a step and dropped onto the hot pavement. I’d kicked off my skates the second we left the rink, none of us bothering to put on shoes in our hurry to get Miranda to the hospital.
An amublance screamed past us, heading out onto the main road and turning right.
“We should’ve called the ambulance.” Charlie trotted beside me, jumping ahead to make the automatic doors open so I didn’t have to slow down.
“Would have taken them as long to get to us as it did to drive.” I tightened my grip. No way I’d have been able to let her go in an ambulance by herself. We’d spent enough time on our knees in the rink trying to rouse her. “We all know how to wake someone when they fall.” It hadn’t worked on Miranda. Why?
The smell assaulted me, the cold astringent mixed with urine and god knew what else. “We need help.” I carried Miranda to the front desk and glared at the woman sitting calm and patient with a phone to her ear. She held up a finger, and I legit growled in her face. “I don’t have a fucking minute.” Turning away, I marched to the doors separating the waiting room from the rest of the hospital and kicked the shit out of them. The heavy thuds brought a rush of staff, along with a few security guards, running from all sides.
“He’s worried.” Charlie tried to help by stepping in front of me and holding up both hands. “We were ice skating. She fell and hit her head. We can’t get her to wake up. Her name is Miranda Lake.”
Three security guards in blue uniforms surrounded us. “Put her down.” The tallest, beefiest of them pointed at a wheelchair. “Put her right there and back away.”
Fuck me. I’d done it again. I’d let my anger and concern take over and turn me into the beast everyone saw on the ice. I took a breath and held it. “I’m sorry.” My voice shook as I lowered Miranda to the chair. Her head slumped to the side, and I placed a hand on her cheek to keep her steady. “Please help her.”
“We’ll take it from here.” A woman in pale blue scrubs and wearing a white doctor coat nodded once at the security men. “It’s fine.”
They eyed me, their expressions dubious.
“I’ll behave. Promise.” I mimed crossing my heart and kissed my fingertips. “Swear to God.”
Postures relaxed and the mad scramble to contain me returned to the general rushing rhythm of a busy hospital.
Two nurses in plain green scrubs rushed to Miranda. One took hold of the wheelchair handles, and the other supported her head.
“Any medical history we should know about?” The doctor shot the question over her shoulder.
We all shook our heads, remaining mute. We knew almost nothing about Miranda. I knew I loved her and I’d go after anyone who harmed her. What was I supposed to do with the knowledge that I was the reason she’d gotten hurt?
“I could strangle you.” Patrick sawed his teeth back and forth. He almost tried to grab me but dropped his hand with a swift look around at all the people still watching us. “Sit the fuck down and stop acting like the sky is going to fall on us.”
“She’s hurt.” That was as far as I made it before the emotions I’d been holding back roared up and sent me crashing against the wall. I’d let her get hurt. I fought to keep control, but all I saw was her hitting the ice and going still. I felt her smooth skin beneath my hands when I tried to wake her and the slight weight of her in my arms. “She’s been asleep too long.”
“She’ll be fine.” Charlie bit the words in short succession, snapping them between clenched teeth. “We are not going to even consider anything else. You hear me?” He did touch me. Charlie, after years of never letting anything force him to lose his cool, fell apart before my eyes. He fisted his hand and knocked it into my chest, right into my sternum. Three hard knocks, one for each word grinding between his teeth. “She’ll. Be. Fine.”
I managed a nod meant in thanks, but it came out so stiff and unyielding that I grimaced and ducked my head. We waited in the stinking room alongside a handful of others. Gray plastic chairs lined the walls all the way around the room, but I had no desire to sit. I crossed and uncrossed my arms, rocked on my heels, and stared unseeing at the TV playing an old basketball game.
Patrick and Charlie lined up on either side of me, blocking me in. Probably hoping they’d be able to grab me if I took off.
“Did anyone call Austin?” Charlie frowned at his phone. “We should call him, right?”
“What about paperwork? Insurance?” I gripped the sides of my head. “I know her birthday, but that’s it.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Patrick’s low down calmed me.
The locked door I’d kicked earlier opened and the doctor walked our way. A pinch of concern wrinkled her brow, but she walked right up to all three of us and stopped. “Which of you is the father?”
“Father?” Charlie mouthed the word like he’d never heard it before.
What did she mean ‘father’?
“Miranda’s father is deceased.” Patrick took the initiate and filled in the open question.
The doctor–I managed a look at the name stitched on her coat–Doctor Matthews, grinned a tiny bit and dropped her hands into the white coat’s enormous pockets. “Not her father.”
Not her father? Wait. “What are you…” It hit with the power of a thousand lightning strikes to my sternum. Miranda was pregnant. And she didn’t tell us. Who was the father? My gaze skimmed each of the men beside me. We’d all slept with her before she returned to New York, so unless she slept with someone there, the baby belonged to one of us. Holy fucking shit.
I read Patrick’s expression in a single glance. One of us had to claim responsibility. Only then would they open the door and let us see Miranda. “I am. I’m the father.” I shot Charlie an apologetic look when my announcement cut him off. I might be a father. I’d never considered it before, but hearing the words come out of my mouth settled some deep longing I’d never put a name to.
“Well, you can come back and see her.” Doctor Matthews pointed at me. “Just you for now.”
“Please.” Patrick turned on the charm that had driven women wild through the years. “We’ll be super quiet. You won’t even know we’re around. She’s a good friend, and we were all with her when she fell. We need to see her.”
“Him first.” Doctor Matthews turned her back on Patrick. “He’ll come get you once I clear her for more visitors.”
“Don’t call Austin yet.” I gripped Charlie’s arm in passing, digging my fingers into his skin. “He’ll worry himself sick and we’ll all lose our chance to talk to Miranda.” It was a cold, selfish move, and I doubted Charlie would agree, but he slid his phone into his pocket and shook off my hand. I followed the forty-something doctor toward the doors, waiting as patiently as I could while she pressed a button that gained our admittance. The smell grew stronger, almost pungent, and I resorted to shallow breaths until I adjusted.
Rooms stretched down either side of the hallway, the doors closed as nurses rushed up and down the white on white hallway. Why did hospitals use so much white? The sterility of the color didn’t take away from the pain or lessen the fear.
“Here.” Doctor Matthews stopped at a door on the left, the gold numbers announcing it as room 108. “I’m almost finished. Then you can bring in your friends.” She wore a knowing look I chose to ignore.
Bare, white walls. A single gray striped curtain pulled aside to reveal a small, concrete fountain behind a darkened window. A second door showed a small bathroom. I took note of the surroundings in two seconds before the main object of my focus came into view when Doctor Matthews pulled back a blue and gray curtain hung from a series of hooks on a track in the ceiling. Miranda lay nestled on the bed beneath a heap of blankets.
“Her body temperature was a little low. That’s why I used so many blankets.” Rounding the bed, the doctor stopped beside a machine and pointed at the screen. “Probably doesn’t help much to see just a still image, but I thought you both might like a printout to take with you.”
There it was again, that thrill of discovering I might be a father. I’d spent years chasing the game, thinking of nothing but winning and making a name for myself. With one sentence, my entire being shifted into something else, something just as protective, but instead of worrying about a puck and a stick, I had a child to consider. Potentially.
I wished to be the father, especially of Miranda’s children.
“Go on.” Doctor Matthews pushed my shoulder, her laughter lilting and light. “Bring your friends in here. She should wake soon, and I’m sure she’ll want to see all of you.”
I ran all the way to the door, out into the waiting room, and grabbed their collars.
Patrick wrenched away in an instant.
“Come on. You can see her.” I released Charlie too, attempting to reel in my instincts and stop manhandling people the way I handled my problems. “The doctor thinks she’ll wake up soon.”
We made it back to the room in record time. Patrick stalled out at the door, and Charlie slammed into his back, sending Patrick stumbling forward. I pushed them both, adding my considerable strength to the problem. So much for not manhandling them. I’d learn someday, but not right this instant.
“All right.” Doctor Matthews still wore that smile that said she saw through all of us. “As I said before, the babies are fine. Miranda is fine. We’ll worry about everything else once she wakes up.”
“Everything else?” I asked.
“She’ll need to complete a concussion test once she’s awake. I expect she’ll have a headache. We’ll treat that with some analgesics that are safe for the babies.” She tapped the gray and black screen.
I blinked dumbly as the words settled. “Babies?”
Her mouth rounded, the smile falling away. “You didn’t know she’s having twins?”
“No.” A pulse of pride almost took me out.
“Well.” She cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable with the turn of events. “Congratulations.”
“Twins.” I couldn’t stop smiling. I wanted to because it wasn’t fair of me to smile while Miranda lay there sleeping in her stark white bed with her pale face peeking out and causing all sorts of devastation to my heart. “That’s great news.”
“They’re both healthy?” Charlie crept closer to the screen. “Any chance you can do one of those 3D ultrasounds so we can really see them?”
“Sorry, not today.” Doctor Matthews patted his arm on her way out. “Keep the noise down. She might be confused when she wakes. Press this button and a nurse will perform the concussion test.” She showed Patrick the button and left the room.
The three of us stared, our gazes bouncing from the screen to Miranda, and then to each other.
The sheets rustled. Miranda’s foot twitched beneath the covers and a low groan parted her lips.