Chapter 8 Kick
KICK
Before I could tell Isabel about the phone call I’d just taken, the doctor who’d seen her in the triage area walked into the room.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Tired, but otherwise, okay. The pain is gone,” Isabel answered.
“I’ve reviewed your ultrasound, and the good news is your baby looks healthy. The heartbeat is strong, and the measurements are appropriate for your dates.”
“Then, why was there bleeding?” I asked.
“It’s called a threatened miscarriage. It’s more common than people realize, especially in the first trimester.” She turned to Isabel. “Have you been under significant stress lately?”
A laugh almost escaped me. Stress? Running from her father. Hiding a pregnancy. Starting a new job. Then me showing up and refusing to leave?
“A little,” she said so softly I could barely hear her.
“And physical exertion? Your chart says you work in the vineyard?”
“I just started. I’ve been doing pruning, mostly.”
The doctor nodded. “That needs to stop. At least for now. I’m putting you on modified bed rest for at least two weeks. That means no strenuous activity, no lifting anything heavy, no being on your feet for extended periods. Light walking around your home is fine, but that’s it.”
“But my job—”
“You can request time off from a job, but growing a human being is nonnegotiable.” She was firm but not unkind. “Is there someone who can stay with you? You shouldn’t be alone, especially for the next few days while we monitor the situation.”
Before she could answer, I did. “I’ll be with her.”
She turned to look at me, and I held her gaze steadily, daring her to argue.
I breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t.
“Good.” The doctor made a note in her chart. “I want you to follow up with your OB within the week.”
Isabel’s brow furrowed, and she worried the inside of her cheek. “I, um, just moved here…”
“Not a problem. We can give you a referral. In the meantime, watch for heavy bleeding—soaking through a pad in an hour—severe cramping, or fever. Any of those, you come straight back to the ER.”
“Okay,” she and I responded at the same time.
“Given how positive the ultrasound looked, I’ll let you go home in an hour as long as you promise to rest, hydrate, and try to minimize stress.
” She almost smiled at that last one, as if she knew how impossible it sounded.
“Your baby is a fighter. Give them the best chance by taking care of yourself.”
When she left, the silence returned.
“You said there’s something we need to talk about?”
Given the doctor’s warning about stress, I hated to bring it up, but she had to know. I stroked the back of her hand. “It’s about your insurance.”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t have any, do I?”
“None that the admissions people could verify. But I don’t want you to worry. There’s an easy solution, whether short- or long-term.”
“I won’t go home. I can’t.”
“I support that one hundred percent.”
She studied me. “What did you do?”
I probably shouldn’t have smiled, but I did. “Nothing big. I looked over at the clock. They said the chaplain can be here in about an hour.”
“The what?” she shrieked and yanked her hand from mine.
I chuckled. “I’m kidding.” I reached for her hand again, relieved when she didn’t resist my taking it. “I signed on as the responsible party.”
“Kick, I can’t let you do that.”
“Isabel?” I kissed the back of her hand again. It was as though I couldn’t stop myself. “The baby is mine, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“That means I am the responsible party.” I winked, hoping she’d smile, and she did.
“My job comes with benefits. I don’t know how long it takes, though.” She groaned. “I have to tell Thomas, which means I might not have a job much longer anyway.”
I didn’t know Thomas Whitmore personally, but I doubted very much that he’d fire Isabel because she was pregnant.
The discharge paperwork took forever, which gave me time to arrange for a ride back to Whitmore.
Press lived in Napa Valley with his wife, Luisa.
The two ran his family’s vineyard estate, Barrett Family Vintners.
Given the hospital was less than a ten-mile drive, he was waiting at the entrance by the time I wheeled Isabel out the front door.
When she spotted him, she looked up at me. “Does he know?” She gasped.
“He does not. No one will until you and I agree to tell them. Okay?”
“Thank you.”
I stopped, rounded the wheelchair, and put one hand on each of its arms. “Isabel, you may not believe me right now, but I intend to prove to you that you can trust me. Your welfare and that of our baby are the most important thing to me.”
“Thanks,” she repeated just as Press exited his SUV and came around to open the passenger door.
Other than his greeting both of us, the conversation on the drive to Whitmore was minimal. Mostly small talk and absolutely nothing about why Isabel was in the hospital. Exactly as I’d anticipated.
The cottage was dark when we arrived. I helped Isabel inside, flipping on lights as we went.
“When’s the last time you ate?” I asked.
“Breakfast? Maybe?”
“That’s what I thought.” I steered her toward the sofa. “Sit. I’ll make something.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Isabel,” I said gently. “Let me do this. Please.”
When she sat, I covered her with a blanket that spread across the back, then lit a fire.
Once in the small kitchen, I opened cabinets, looking for a pan, cracked the eggs I found in the refrigerator into a bowl, then cut a few slices of bread that I put in the toaster. For tonight, the meal would suffice. Tomorrow, I’d go shopping to get more of what I knew she liked to eat.
I carried two plates of scrambled eggs and toast over to her and sat down too.
She ate quickly, and when she was finished, I could see the exhaustion hit her like a wall.
“Time to get you into bed,” I said, helping her up.
“That way,” she said, pointing to the left. “The guest room’s the other way, and there are clean sheets in the closet.”
I didn’t argue or push for more. Had she suggested I leave, it would’ve been another story. “We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow,” I said, trying to help her get settled without being intrusive.
“There are sweats and a T-shirt in that drawer,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pointing.
I got them out and helped her put them on when she looked at me like she expected me to.
“Tomorrow, I have to tell Thomas.”
“Understood. Let me know how I can help.”
Rather than make a move toward the bathroom, she grabbed the blankets and crawled under them.
“Okay if I sit here for a few minutes?” I asked, motioning to a chair near the window.
She nodded, and I watched as she rested her hand on her stomach.
“Any pain?” I asked.
“No. I just like to”—her voice trailed off—“talk to her sometimes.”
“Her?”
She shrugged. “For now.”
Rather than taking a seat, I knelt beside the bed. “Mind if I do?”
Her eyes met mine, then she reached for my hand and rested it on her stomach.
“Hey, baby,” I whispered. “I’m your papa. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
I heard Isabel sniffle and reached up to brush away a tear.
“I’m glad you’re okay too, Mama.”
Her smile was genuine and warmed my heart, then her expression changed.
“I found out on Christmas,” she began. “Three hours after my father delivered an ultimatum, saying if I embarrassed him again, caused a scandal, he was finished with me. That was the only time he spoke to me all day.”
“Jesus, Isabel. I’m so sorry. I wish you would’ve felt like you could talk to me.”
“What was I supposed to do? Say, ‘surprise, remember that one night, well, now, we’re having a baby’?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”
“I don’t want you to feel obligated.”
“I feel a lot of things, but obligated isn’t one of them.”
“No?” She turned to face me. “You showed up at Whitmore because my father was worried. You refused to leave because you feel guilty. And now, you’re claiming to be the father and promising to take care of me because that’s what a good man does, right? The honorable thing?”
Rather than stay on my knees, I stood, walked around the bed, and lay beside her. I eased my arm under her shoulders and drew her to me.
“I’m going to say this once, and I need you to hear me.
I didn’t come here because of Baron. I came because, when he told me you never arrived in Italy, I was terrified something had happened to you.
I didn’t sleep or eat because the thought of you—” I stopped and took a breath.
“I’m not here out of obligation. I’m here because there’s nowhere else I want to be. ”
“Would you have wanted to know?” she asked. “If I’d told you about the baby the day you took me to the airport, would you have wanted to be part of this?”
“Yes. I can say that with no hesitation. Not just because of the baby. I spent every minute of that drive trying to figure out how to get you to let me back into your life. That had nothing to do with a baby. It was about you, Isabel. Just you.”
Isabel’s head was on my shoulder when I woke.
I lay in the unfamiliar bed, not moving for several seconds, breathing in the faint scent of her shampoo, and feeling the rise and fall of her chest against my side.
I was going to be a father—the thought should’ve terrified me. I’d seen my brothers wrestle with the weight of it when their time came. But lying here, with the woman carrying my child curled against me, I felt something I hadn’t expected.
Certainty.
Whatever else I did with my life—whether I made wine or didn’t, whether I stayed in Paso Robles or built something new somewhere else—I would be a good father. I knew it the way I knew my own name. The way I knew the difference between a vine that needed water and one that needed time.
And Isabel…
I looked down at her face, softened by sleep. The sharp edges she showed the world were gone. She looked younger. Vulnerable in a way she’d never let herself be while awake.