Chapter 27 Beau
BEAU
I could sit for only so long.
Whether it was the panic, fear, or some other physical response to the absolute despair I felt, I needed to be up. To be moving.
Time passed. Seconds. Minutes. Had it been hours?
It felt like an eternity.
My pacing came to a halt, and I lifted one hand into my hair while the other came to the back of my neck. If I didn’t get any answers soon, I was sure to go out of my mind.
Just then, the door to the waiting room flung open. Hope surged in my chest, expecting to see a doctor striding in to tell me that my wife and unborn child were fine. That they were going to be okay.
But I had no such luck.
My eyes landed on the concerned, terrified faces of Liam, Layla, Tate, and Ava. I took one look at them and lost it all over again.
“Oh no,” Ava murmured. A moment later, she was at my side, her arms around me, and my body shook harder with my grief.
My hand, that had been curled around my neck, dropped down around her back, seeking anything to ground me to reality, anything to make this better. Layla was by my side a minute later, and for a while, I just allowed myself to hold on to any scrap of comfort I could find.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I knew it had been a while when Layla suggested, “Why don’t we grab a seat, Beau?”
And as she and Ava urged me toward one of the chairs, I noticed that Cooper, Ivy, and Marco had all entered the room.
Layla sat on one side of me, stroking my back as Ava crouched in front of me. Liam’s voice filled the air a moment later. “Have you heard anything?”
It was an effort to lift my head and look at him. “No. Not a word.”
Liam looked haunted, and as my gaze slid through the room to Marco, Ivy, Tate, and finally, Cooper, I realized that the sum of devastation and terror written in their expressions might have accounted for a quarter of what I felt.
“What happened?” Tate asked, not a trace of the bitterness I’d grown accustomed to seeing on his face to be found.
Before I could respond, Wyatt, Malcolm, and Evelyn came bursting into the room. “Where is she? What happened?” Evelyn cried.
Malcolm was holding on to his wife, putting every effort into keeping her remaining upright as he guided her toward a chair.
“Does anybody know anything?” Malcolm asked.
All eyes landed on me.
They were all here. Except for Rhea and Skye, who I presumed stayed home to keep their children asleep and out of the hospital, this entire family showed up at barely four o’clock in the morning for Jules.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I just… She woke up in excruciating pain and knew something wasn’t right.
Her belly was hard, and the pain was unbearable.
” I shook my head, recalling the helplessness in those awful moments when I’d first woken up.
“She walked around the room, shaking, telling me she couldn’t get away from the pain.
It wouldn’t stop. Nothing she did eased it.
And then she was bent over the toilet, vomiting and sweating.
I lifted her in my arms and raced here. I haven’t seen her since they took her just before I called Liam. ”
“Nobody told you what they think is going on?” Cooper asked.
With a slight shake of my head, I answered, “Nobody but Jules.”
“What did she say?” Ivy looked like she was going to be sick herself. It might have only been the hold Marco had on his wife that stopped her from collapsing.
I closed my eyes and remembered the fear in those words as she said them to me. “She thinks she was losing the baby.”
“Oh, God,” Ivy cried, burying her face in her husband’s chest.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my thighs and pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes.
Heavy.
Everything just felt heavy.
At some point, I sensed Ava had moved away, probably to stand with her husband. And Liam must have lowered himself to a chair beside Layla, because I no longer felt her hand resting on my back.
They all had someone.
They all had each other.
And the only one I had was somewhere in this hospital, and I didn’t have a clue what was happening to her.
Long, agonizing minutes passed when the most unexpected thing happened.
Malcolm Westwood placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed before he sat down beside me. I suspected he was just trying to be a decent man in the situation, but he surprised me when he spoke.
“I can remember the day I was standing beside my wife’s hospital bed just over twenty-five years ago.
May 22nd. That was the day Jules was born,” he began.
I twisted my neck to look back at him, but he wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring off into space, clearly recalling the day his daughter was born.
“We knew then that she was going to be our last child. That welcoming her into the world completed this family. And I’ll never forget just how different she was from her siblings from that very first day.
Where the rest of them had been sleeping in their mother’s arms right after they’d been born, Jules wasn’t. ”
He let out a soft chuckle, the only sound in the room as everyone waited to hear the rest of his story. “That little girl was wide awake and taking it all in.”
I smiled at the thought, feeling genuinely comforted by it.
Malcolm continued, “Something told me then that she was going to be the child who did it all differently than I would’ve liked.
But I guess I ignored it for far too long.
From her very first day in the world, Jules marched to the beat of her own drum.
She was always a good kid. She never really got into big trouble.
But she did things her way, despite any outside input.
And it’s always worked out for her. Maybe it’s that rebellious nature that comforts me now.
Because it’s the kind of thing that keeps her fighting, that lights that fire inside her. ”
I closed my eyes for a moment and allowed those words to sink in. So much of what he was saying felt like the woman I knew her to be. Bright, fiery, bold, and determined. But still so sweet, so beautiful, in every way that mattered.
When I opened my eyes again, I found Malcolm looking at me.
“What I guess I’m trying to say, Beau, is that my daughter is a fighter.
She’s the kind of person who isn’t going to give up, no matter what.
So, as grueling as this is to sit and wait and hope for the best, I find comfort in knowing it’s the girl with that bold nature that’s fighting for herself and your baby right now.
She’ll be okay, and she’s going to fight to make sure that baby is, too. ”
I wiped at my eyes, blinking and breathing to rein in the emotions. But I didn’t know why, because I felt compelled to respond and lay my heart bare before this family.
“I know I’m not the man any of you would have chosen for her. Perhaps, rightfully so, considering none of this was in my plan for my life. But I met Jules, and she changed everything for me. I would move mountains for her, just to make her happy.”
I took a moment to breathe, feeling like I had so much to say while being unsure I’d be able to get it all out.
“I didn’t make the best first impression with this family, and unfortunately, I can’t go back to change that.
But even if I could, I don’t think I would.
I did what I did for her, not to hurt any of you.
So, I will say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for taking away the opportunity for all of you to see her on the happiest day of her life.
I’m sorry she didn’t have the wedding you all wanted her to have.
I’m sorry I didn’t give you the opportunity to get to know me before I tied myself to her for the rest of our lives.
I’m far from being a perfect man, but that knowledge doesn’t stop me from trying to be that for her. ”
Pausing again, I looked up and scanned the room. In every face where I’d grown accustomed to seeing a sneer or disgust was something else. Either surprise or contentment or, in some cases, guilt.
“Seeing all of you here, watching the way you’ve stomached being around me over these last few weeks for the sake of her, I can’t deny the love you all have for her.
It’s clear to me that Jules is a huge part of your family.
And I understand how much she means to you.
But she’s all I have. Her and this baby, they’re the only family I’ve got.
So, I need you to understand why I couldn’t walk away from her, why I won’t walk away, and that I need her to be okay.
I need both of them. Because without them… ”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head into my hands, my fear taking hold of me again. I tried to breathe through it, tried to pull myself together, but even surrounded by all these people, I felt so alone, especially at the thought I could lose her.
“You’ve got us.”
My body went rigid, and I lifted my head to meet the gaze of the one man I thought would never speak to me if he could help it.
Wyatt sat in a chair directly across from me, looking ashamed.
“I agree with my father that Jules is a fighter, and I refuse to believe the worst is going to happen to her now. But if that ever did, you have us.” He sat up straighter and cleared his throat.
“I think we all owe you an apology for how we treated you. Maybe we had justifiable reasons to be upset or angry about what happened, but our actions were uncalled for. My actions were inexcusable. You deserved better than that. Jules certainly did.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
So, Cooper took the opportunity to speak his mind. “I feel like I need to thank you, Beau.”
My brows pulled together. “What?”