Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
LEWIS
Waking up to an empty bed and my phone ringing only to hear Carianne on the other end, hysterical and crying, telling me Callie had been rushed to the hospital, was the worst moment of my life.
As I’d hurried into clothes, she’d explained two men had invaded the bakery.
Callie had fought them off. One had a gun.
Carianne had knocked him down with her car, which didn’t make sense at all unless the fight moved from the bakery to outside.
Callie had passed out while they were waiting for the police and ambulance.
I called Callie’s parents and my own on my way to the hospital, and Sloane, Walker, and I arrived at the same time.
“Where is she?” Sloane was frantic as we all rushed into the building.
“I don’t know yet.” We hurried over to the reception and our expressions must have been something else because the nurse behind the desk gawked at us for a second before she straightened her shoulders.
A minute or so later (though it felt like fifty), we were on our way to the maternity and neonatal ward, which had me in even more of a fucking panic. What if something had happened to the baby?
It was at that minute I realized how much I wanted our child.
The thought had been a distant reality, a responsibility that scared the shit out of me, but one I’d face.
Somewhere along the way, I’d started to imagine our baby in the real world.
In my arms. Someone to love and protect as much as I loved and wanted to protect Callie. A wee human made up of me and her.
“It’ll be okay.” Sloane squeezed my arm as we made our way to the ward.
I couldn’t speak.
We took a lift to the correct floor and when the doors opened onto a reception area, a familiar blond head popped up from a waiting room chair.
Carianne.
She rushed over to us as we stepped off the lift. “Oh, thank God.”
“Where is she?” I asked quietly, afraid if I spoke any louder, I’d break down.
“She came to before the ambulance arrived, but they wanted to check her and the baby over.” Carianne wrung her hands. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks wan. “They’re checking her now.”
“Have you been checked over?” Sloane cupped Carianne’s cheek. “You look pale.”
Carianne nodded. “I’ve been looked over. I’m still so jittery. The police had a lot of questions and they said they’ll be back.” Her lip trembled. “Do you think I’ll go to jail?”
“Carianne.”
She turned to Walker.
“Tell us everything you know.”
At Walker’s calm command, she explained what Callie had told her when she was conscious in the ambulance—two men had broken into the bakery, looking for something. They hadn’t expected Callie’s defense skills, and she fought them off.
“The police found one of them smashed into your bakery counter,” Carianne told Sloane. “Callie just smashed his head right in there. Really bad arse of her. They took him away in an ambulance too. I don’t know if he’s alive.”
Pride and rage mingled. That Callie had even been in that position …
“Anyway, she got out and ran into the street. I was coming out of the Gloaming. I broke up with my single dad and was feeling sorry for myself, so I’d wasted the whole night looking for a hookup.
” She blanched. “Getting off track. Anyway, I glanced down the street and I thought I was seeing things because there was Callie backing onto the road with her hands up in the air. So, I was about to go to her when I saw this huge bloke with a gun pointed in her face. It was like a scene from a movie. Well, I didn’t think.
” Tears blurred in her eyes. “I just hopped into my car and drove the bloody thing at him. What if I killed him?”
“Carianne.” Walker bent his head to meet her eyes. “You saved my daughter’s life. There is no way I’m letting anyone punish you for that.”
“Really?” Her tears spilled over.
“Really.”
“I second that.” Sloane slid her arm around Carianne’s shoulders. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” She sniffled and then looked at me.
I nodded in gratitude. “Anything you ever need, it’s yours.”
Carianne shook her head. “Callie’s my friend, Lewis. I’ve always kind of hero-worshipped her, you know. I’d never let anyone hurt her if it was in my power to stop it.”
“Thank you.” I gave her a comforting pat on the arm before striding toward the reception area where a nurse worked at a computer. “Hi, I’m looking for my fiancée, Callie Ironside.”
She held up a finger before continuing to type.
I tried not to get agitated.
And just when I was on the cusp of barking at her, the nurse finally stopped typing and looked at me. “Can I help?”
Grinding my teeth, I took a second before I repeated my words.
She nodded and typed at her computer. “She’s with the doctor now. I’ll let you know when you can see her.”
“Is she okay?”
Her expression softened. “I can’t say.”
Fuck.
I reluctantly returned to the waiting area and slumped down into a chair next to Walker, repeating what the nurse said.
A little while later a woman in a blue midwife’s smock appeared. “Callie Ironside’s family?”
We all popped up out of our chairs like we were in a game of Whac-A-Mole.
The midwife approached us. “Callie is asking for Lewis?”
“That’s me.” I was relieved to hear she was still conscious.
“This way.”
I looked at Sloane. She gave me a strained smile. “Tell her I’m here.”
I nodded, squeezing her hand before following the midwife out of reception and through the ward. She led us into a private room and the sight of Callie made my legs fucking tremble.
She was on a bed with her shirt pulled up, while a doctor stood at her side with an ultrasound machine.
“Callie.” I crossed the room, reaching for her. I kissed her before she could say anything. She kissed me back and when I finally let her go, she gave me a tired smile.
“I’m okay. The baby is okay.”
Tears clogged my throat. “Really?”
“Really.” She caressed my face. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
I shook my head, clasping her hand to my cheek. “Not your fault. Your parents are here.”
Callie nodded. “Good.”
“Should we call them in?”
“Well.” Callie looked at the doctor. “I wanted you here because Dr. Andrews checked me over, and all is well, but she kindly offered to share the gender of the baby. And I didn’t want to do it without you.”
Not having expected that, I curled her hand in both of mine, my gaze going from her belly to the ultrasound screen. “Oh. Aye. That would be good.”
Callie smiled, and I marveled at her strength. That after everything she’d gone through tonight, she could still smile.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked.
Dr. Andrews spoke, “Your fiancée is a fighter. Quite literally. I assume because of her extensive martial arts training, her body was able to absorb the shock of the physicality of the fight without endangering the baby.”
“But she passed out.”
“From dehydration.” She nodded to something I hadn’t noticed. A needle in Callie’s other hand, hooked up to a bag of fluids.
Callie grimaced sheepishly. “I was so excited about finding out the gender that I barely ate or drank. I left you a note in case you woke up because I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d do some work at the bakery. Sorry.”
I kissed her free hand. “It’s okay. You’re okay, that’s all that matters. We need to make sure you’re drinking enough from now on, though.”
“Ready then?” Dr. Andrews asked.
My pulse raced as we shared a look and then nodded at the doctor.
Callie jumped a bit at the coldness of the gel, and I felt her fingers bite into me as the doctor passed the probe over her stomach. The baby’s heartbeat immediately sounded, a calm, whooshing noise that made me melt against the bed in relief.
“Lucky for us, Baby is in the perfect position …” Dr. Andrews studied the screen for a second and then she turned to us with a smile. “And Baby is a girl.”
Callie turned to me with a gasp of delight and then promptly burst into tears. I knew her well enough to know they were happy tears. I kissed them from her cheeks, murmuring my love, my chest so full of emotion it was painful. In the best way.
“Happy, mo chridhe?” I whispered against her lips as she pressed her forehead to mine.
“I didn’t think I’d end this night saying so, but aye.” She sobbed through the words. “I’m so happy.” She curled her hand around my nape. “Are you happy?”
“My two best girls are safe and happy so I’m happy.”
She lifted her head to look into my eyes. “Your two best girls. We’re having a girl.”
“We are.”
“Can we get Mum in?” Tears still dripped down her cheeks. “I want to tell Mum.”
“I’ll go get her.” I kissed her lips again, shot the doctor a grateful look, and hurried from the room to fetch Sloane.
I was going to be a father. I was going to have a daughter. That thought went around and around in my head, obliterating all the fear and concern about the attack and what it meant.
For the next ten minutes as Callie shared the news with her parents and Carianne, we let ourselves forget.
However, I watched Callie like a hawk and eventually, her expression fell. “I … I think I know who those men are. I think I know what they’re looking for.”
It was her dad who gruffly asked her to explain.
“Gabriel … my ex … they’re saying his death was suspicious in the French news. That he was working undercover to expose corruption in his police precinct.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Walker asked, clearly irritated she’d kept such alarming information to herself.
“I honestly didn’t think it mattered. I was wrong. Gabriel gave me a necklace when he visited. As a parting gift. Said it was a family heirloom.”
“You’re thinking it’s not?”
She shook her head. “I’m thinking it’s unusually shaped and there might be something inside it. They didn’t find it at the cottage or our house because it’s at yours. In my old bedroom.”
“And no one can get past your dad’s security system.” Sloane shot Walker a grateful but slightly horrified look. “Do you think they tried?”
Walker was already pulling out his phone. “I’m sending a team to the house now. Where did you put the necklace, Callie?”
“It’s in a Converse shoebox under my bed.”
I retook her hand. “What are you thinking is in there?”
My smart fiancée contemplated this. “It’s shaped like a USB stick.”
“A flash drive?” her mum asked.
Callie nodded. “I never would’ve thought anything of it …
but the men kept asking Where is it? And they were French.
In the ambulance on the way here, I thought of Gabriel.
He never once introduced me to his work colleagues.
I think he might have left evidence where he thought it was safe. Where they wouldn’t think to look.”
“But they did know about you …,” I trailed off, fury toward Gabriel brewing. “He put you in danger, Callie.”
“We don’t know that for sure yet.” Sloane soothed a hand over my back.
“I don’t think he would have meant to.” Callie gave me a pleading look. “He wouldn’t have left it with me if he thought the wrong people would come looking for it.”
“Team is going in,” Walker announced after ending his call. “Good thing Harry is with Regan and Thane.”
“Shit.” I shoved my hand into my pocket for my phone. “I better call them to let them know you’re okay.”
“No signal in here.”
I frowned at Walker. “Then how come you just made a call?”
“I can get past signal blockers.”
“Of course you can. Fancy calling my parents for me?”
“On it.”
I looked at Callie only to find her sharing an amused chuckle with her mum.
Despite my fears that Callie might be correct about Gabriel, I let some of the tension drain out of me.
My fiancée and baby girl were safe. Not only that, but I was tying my life to a woman whose strength blew me away.
There would never not be a time I didn’t worry about her.
I loved her too much not to. Yet it did reassure me somewhat to know how strong and brave she was.
She caught me staring. “What’s that look for?”
“Just thinking … what a badass my fiancée is.”
Callie grinned. “I am kind of a badass, aren’t I?” Her eyes flew to Sloane. “I get it from Mum.”
Sloane chuckled and then put her arm around a wearied Carianne. “This one is a badass too.”
Carianne gave an exhausted smile. “Didn’t know I had it in me.”
“Thank goodness you did, my friend.” Callie’s expression was tender and grateful. “I’ll never forget it, Carianne.”
“None of us will.” Sloane pressed a motherly kiss to her temple.
A knock sounded at the door and the midwife appeared … followed by a man and a woman, both wearing suits. “Callie, two detective constables are here to interview you about tonight’s events. Are you able or shall they come back later?”
My stomach churned as I rounded the bed to stand by Callie’s side.
She reached for me, threading her fingers through mine. “I can answer their questions, but only if my family stays.”
And so we did, and I tried not to lose my mind again as I listened to Callie describe her ordeal.
They asked Carianne questions, too, and when they were done, the female DC, DC Bridges announced, “We’ve identified the men.
They’re known by Interpol as expensive thugs for hire.
If you find evidence to what you’re suggesting, you’ll need to turn it over.
Especially as one of the men, Luc Barbier, the man Ms. West hit with her car, died thirty minutes ago from significant head trauma. ”
Carianne let out a whimper, and Sloane hugged her into her side.
“We’re still reviewing all evidence,” DC Bridges stated tonelessly. “So we’re making no arrests tonight, but please don’t leave the country, Ms. West, while the investigation is ongoing.”
“Oh my God.”
“We’ll get any evidence to you as soon as possible.” Walker stared the police officers down. “There’s no one here guilty of anything but self-defense.”
“That’s what we’ll determine,” DC Bridges replied, impressively not intimidated by Walker. “We’ll be in touch.” She held out her card. “Call us if you think of anything that might be helpful in the case.”
Walker took the card with a grunt of disapproval. They’d frightened Carianne after she’d saved Callie’s life. I wished I had the words to reassure Callie’s friend that nothing would ever happen to her now if me or Walker had anything to say about it.
At Callie’s tense expression, I looked her deep in the eyes so she could see that silent promise.
Her shoulders relaxed as she squeezed my hand in gratitude. “I love you,” she mouthed.
“I love you, too.”