Chapter 10 Bella
BELLA
The first pain came while Bella was plating tiny dumplings onto a platter with curls of carrot and green onion.
It was a gentle pain, not too different from the fluttering kicks she’d started to feel now and then, but she still paused.
After a moment, the pain passed, and Bella finished her plating and moved on to a salad she’d been working on.
The next pain came as she was finishing the dressing, and this time, it bent her over like a jackknife with its intensity.
“Not now, baby,” she muttered softly. All the pregnancy books she’d read had told her that some pain was normal, but this didn’t feel like a little pain. It squeezed tight around her abdomen like a steel band slowly tightening.
“Not now,” she repeated, a hint of pleading in her tone.
“What was that?” one of her servers, Callie, asked. The young woman was standing in the doorway, waiting for the salad to be ready so that she could take it out to the diners.
“Nothing.” Bella managed a smile. “Just a twinge.”
“Maybe you should take it easy,” Callie said.
Bella let out a slow breath. “I appreciate that, but this wedding can’t go wrong.
You know that. Tabi Sloan is an influencer with more than twenty thousand followers, and the groom is a Trailblazer.
And the family-style meal they’ve requested has twenty different dishes, of which I’ve only finished twelve. ”
“Yeah, but, like, you’re pretty pregnant,” Callie said. Bella swallowed her annoyance. The young woman was just trying to help.
“I realize that. Please take the salad out.”
Callie took the bowl and left, and Bella turned back to her work.
She still had a long way to go — she was only halfway through the dinner, which was followed by a selection of three desserts.
Tabi had told Bella she wanted a relaxed, homey dinner, but her requirements were high.
She’d had more than three tastings with plenty of feedback each time, and she wanted huge variety between dishes.
Worse, Bella was cooking in the venue’s kitchen — the kitchen of a barn.
It was equipped well-enough, but drafty, and while Bella had prepared many of the dishes in advance, there were a few things that needed to be hot.
Already, she was balancing twenty things at once, and she couldn’t afford to rest for even a second.
She definitely couldn’t afford to be having mysterious pains.
Bella pulled the rolls out of the oven and brushed them with the final layer of herby garlic butter.
The aroma was mouthwatering, and Bella remembered she hadn’t eaten much that day.
Or — wait… she hadn’t eaten at all yet. She’d been too busy working and too anxious about this wedding.
She needed to eat as soon as this was over. And then sleep for about a year.
She quickly plated the garlic rolls and was reaching for the crab puffs when another pain tore through her abdomen. She doubled over, letting out a soft moan, as one hand gripped the countertop with white knuckles.
“Okay, that’s it.” Suddenly, Bella felt Callie’s hand on her shoulder. “Something’s wrong, and you’re going to the hospital.”
“I will,” Bella agreed. Something certainly felt wrong.
“But I have to finish the food first. I have to. This wedding can’t fall apart!
My business would never survive a scathing review from Tabi Sloan.
" She could already imagine what the influencer would say — she’d been plenty rude in the past, even though her online persona was sweet and friendly.
"Listen to me." Callie grabbed Bella’s shoulders and met her eyes. “I get that you’re worried about your business, but you need to be worried about yourself and your baby right now.”
Bella froze. Callie was right. She had to take care of her baby, even if it meant Tabi Sloan blacklisted her.
“Okay. Okay.” Bella nodded. “You’re right.”
“I’ll drive.” Callie held out her arm. “Come on.”
“Just a minute.” Bella grabbed a pot of pasta off the stove and turned everything off, then flagged down one of the other servers.
“Anu, serve as much of the food as you can,” she instructed.
“A lot of things are ready and just need to be taken out, and the things I wasn’t able to finish…
just leave them. I’ll be back as soon as possible. ”
“You got it,” Anu said.
“Oh, and the dessert is ready — there’s a pie on the counter, an ice-cream dessert in the fridge, and an assortment of cookies over there. They’re serving the desserts themselves, like the rest of the food, so don’t worry about plating. Just take them out like this.”
“I will,” Anu said. Her brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Bella’s hands formed fists as another pain rose up.
“It’s time to go now,” Callie said gently.
Bella let Callie lead her out of the kitchen.
The guests were seated at long wooden tables decorated with wax candles and wildflowers in glass jars.
The first half of the dishes were already out, and their plates were full of food.
They looked up in surprise as Bella came out of the kitchen, but Callie just smiled brightly at them and hurried Bella out the double doors at the front of the barn.
Another pain gripped Bella as they walked, but they still made it out into the slight rain.
As they were about to reach the car, though, someone called after them.
“Hey!”
It was the bride, resplendent in a white lacy dress with a long veil on her short blond hair. She was glaring.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to go to the hospital,” Bella explained. “I’m so sorry. Most of the food is already served, and the servers know where the dessert is — it’s ready — but a few dishes will be missing.”
“Are you dying?” Tabi asked, crossing her arms.
“I don’t think so, but I am pregnant, and—”
“I paid for a full family-style meal with multiple dishes,” Tabi said. “If I don’t get all those dishes, what am I paying for?”
“I’m sorry,” Bella repeated, but her anger was starting to build. “I wouldn’t leave if it weren’t an emergency.”
“You could at least have had other chefs to help you!” Tabi snapped. She looked much less lovely and bridelike when she was glaring like this. “You’re completely irresponsible. If you’re pregnant, you should have prepared for this kind of thing.”
Another pain gripped Bella, bending her double, and Callie pulled open the door of the car.
“Time to go, Boss.”
“I’m sorry,” Bella said again. “The other servers know where all the prepared food is, and only a few dishes are missing.”
“And who’s going to clean up?” Tabi asked. “Me?”
“I’m sure it won’t be you. I’ll sort it out,” Bella promised as Callie ushered her into the car and closed the door behind her. A moment later, they were pulling out along the gravel drive. Tabi still stood in front of the barn behind them, glaring with crossed arms as they drove away.
“What a bridezilla,” Callie muttered. “And what kind of a name is Tabi?” Bella rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “This is going to ruin my business. Tabi is going to ruin my business. But I don’t even care right now — I just want my baby to be okay. Thanks for getting me out of there.”
“Anytime. You really don’t have to, like, do everything on your own.”
Bella glanced at Callie, who was looking straight ahead. “Thanks.” She felt instantly bad for all the times she’d been abrupt with Callie, who was always just trying to help.
The wedding venue was on the outskirts of Portland, so it was a drive to the hospital. The pain kept coming now and then as they got closer, but it was less frequent, which gave Bella hope. It was only when Callie pulled into the parking lot that she realized which hospital they’d come to.
“Hold on.” She sat up. “Let’s go to a different hospital.”
“Come on,” Callie said. “You just told me you were worried about the baby. We’re already here. Let’s just go in.”
“I really…” Bella’s heart was racing, but she nodded. She had to put the baby first. “Yeah. Okay.”
Hopefully, Luke wouldn’t even be working today. But still, the last place Bella wanted to be while pregnant with a baby he didn’t know about was Willamette Hospital. He probably had friends here, and even if he wasn’t here himself…
But no. There was no way his friends knew about her. As long as she didn’t see Luke himself, everything would be fine.
They crossed the parking lot and went through the double doors into the ER.
“You don’t have to stay,” Bella said quietly to Callie as they approached the check-in desk. “I’m fine on my own.”
“No, no, I’ll stay,” Callie said stubbornly. Bella paused and put her hand on Callie’s shoulder.
“Really. I’ll be okay. It would be a lot of weight off my shoulders if you could go back to the venue and make sure all the food that can be served is served.”
“Are you sure?” Callie hesitated, bouncing slightly on her toes and looking around the waiting room. “I don’t want to leave you on your own.”
“I promise, I’ll be fine.” In truth, Bella couldn’t stop scanning the waiting room and the ER on the other side for signs of Luke. It would be easier to deal with all of this if she didn’t have to explain why — and she was used to doing things on her own.
“Okay.” Callie patted her shoulder. “Good luck, Boss. Call me or, like, text, if you need anything, okay?”
“I will,” Bella promised, and Callie left.
Taking a deep breath of the antiseptic-smelling air, Bella approached the check-in desk.
The man at the counter handed her a form to fill in, and she found a free seat next to a family with a young baby.
Bella tried to focus on entering her name, birth date, health history, and insurance information, but she couldn’t stop looking at the tiny baby beside her.
He was maybe a few months old, with round, soft cheeks, big brown eyes, and a blue onesie covered in a paw-print pattern.
He was smiling gummily up at his mother.
It was hard for Bella to look away. She’d been excited about her pregnancy, especially about the whisper-soft kicks, but it had never felt truly real until this moment.
In a few months, she was going to have one of those.
On her own.
In that moment, Bella’s future felt like it was spiraling out of control.
She was excited about the baby, but she had no idea how she was going to manage her catering business as a new mother.
She’d had mental images of cooking with a baby in a carrier on her chest, but that might not work the way she wanted it to. What was she going to do?
“Ms. Nolan?” a nurse called. “We’re ready for you.”
Bella stood, hurriedly filling in the last few boxes as she crossed to the nurse.
“Come right this way,” the nurse said, leading Bella through another set of doors into the main ER.
It was larger than Bella had expected, with eight beds along one wall and four along the other, as well as doors into other, smaller rooms. A few beds were partitioned off with curtains, but in a few, patients were talking with their families, reading, or receiving treatment from medical staff.
Bella took all this in within a moment — and then she saw him.
At the far end of the room, a man was sewing up a cut on the forehead of an older woman.
His back was to her, but Bella would have recognized him anywhere, even without seeing his face.
Luke. Her breath caught in her throat. Has he seen me? What will he think if he does?
As if he’d read her mind from across the room, Luke gently pressed something to the woman’s forehead and turned towards Bella.
His gray eyes met hers, and something flickered there.
Was he happy to see her? Angry? Confused?
Indifferent? Then his gaze dropped. She watched him notice the swell of her pregnant stomach beneath her apron, and she watched his eyes lift to hers again.
“You can just have a seat right here,” the nurse who’d been escorting Bella said, gesturing to an empty bed.
“Thank you,” Bella said automatically, though she didn’t take her eyes off Luke for even a second. Part of her was worried he’d disappear if she let him out of her sight. Then he turned away, and her heart sank. She sat on the edge of the bed, as the nurse had directed, and bit her lip.
Maybe Luke was just going to ignore her. Maybe that was the best thing that could happen — because then Bella wouldn’t have to explain why she hadn’t told him she was carrying his baby.
Looks like you’ve gotten yourself into another mess, silly girl, her mother’s sharp voice cut in. Bella suppressed the memory. Her mother wasn’t here right now. No one was here, actually.
As usual, Bella was all alone. She’d sent Callie away, who wanted to help, and hadn’t even told Stacy about the pregnancy. And now she had to face a medical concern, and the baby’s father, alone.