Chapter 32
Hope
I drop to my knees beside Zane and find his wound, pressing against it.
My fingers are shaking, I’m shaking, but I don’t let up. I don't fall apart. I can do that once an ambulance arrives. “He’s been stabbed,” I manage to get out. “Please help him.”
Ridge tries to move me as the cop with him says something into his radio. Then he introduces himself. “Ma’am, I’m Sheriff Jasper Lane.”
“Mercy’s brother,” Ridge snarls. “But that doesn’t make him someone to trust.”
Zane groans and opens his eyes. “Hey, City Girl. What’s up?”
“Don’t try to pretend this is a vasovagal response,” I snap.
He grins at me, even though he’s pale. “I love you.”
That pulls a sob out of me. “I love you, too, you big dummy.”
"Hope—"
Cash comes through the door next, glaring at the sheriff, who doesn’t try to stop him.
He takes one look at the blood all over my hands and goes to the kitchen, coming back with a couple of clean towels. “Here,” he says. “Let me press with this.”
Reluctantly, I let him take over, hovering next to Zane until the paramedics arrive.
It’s only when they get Zane onto a stretcher that I allow myself to look at the body just past him.
Nobody else seems bothered at all that there’s a dead man on the stairs.
Now that I’ve noticed Derek’s lifeless form, I can’t stop staring at it.
“I’m not leaving without her,” Zane snaps, his voice strained but firm. “Hope, come with me in the ambulance.”
Jasper tries to intervene. “I need to take her statement.”
“Then do it fucking fast,” Zane says. “Or follow us to the hospital.”
Jasper nods. “I can do that.” He glances at Ridge and Cash. “I’m sending out another car to secure the crime scene. Don’t fucking touch anything.”
Ridge holds up his hands. “Wouldn’t think of it.”
Cash shrugs. “I wasn’t even here, so you can’t pin this one on me.”
I think those are jokes. I think they have jokes right now. My God.
In the ambulance, I start to hyperventilate. “I need to go to Bellamy.”
Zane shakes his head, nodding to the paramedics. “She’s going into shock. This is why she’s in the ambulance with me.” And then to me. “Ridge will take care of Bellamy. She’s with Luna, and Luna’s not letting her go. Right now, you need to come with me.”
And then I start crying.
At the hospital, Zane gets stitches, and some imaging to make sure he doesn’t have any internal bleeding.
Once he’s cleared, everything pivots to me.
Jasper wants to take a statement.
Dr. Tailfeathers won’t let him, although she’s not exactly sure why. She’s exchanging silent looks with Zane over my head, holding off the cop.
Finally, she holds up her hands and snaps for everyone to get out.
“That means you,” Zane growls to the cop.
“I can’t leave you together to get your stories straight,” Jasper snarls back.
“Both of you, get the hell out of this room,” the doctor says. “Argue about this in the hallway.”
After she closes the door behind them, she sits on a little rolling chair and comes closer to me. “So this is the second traumatic thing that’s happened to you in a week,” she says softly. “That’s a lot.”
“He was my ex,” I whisper. “And he was abusive.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
I nod and start crying again.
“We can take as long as you need in here.”
“I’m…” I swallow hard. “I think I’m pregnant. I mean, I’m pretty sure… I don’t know if it’s still… But I…”
“Why don’t we check?”
I clench my fists together. Thinking of people in town, thinking of how to contain this part of the story. Thinking so hard it makes my head hurt. “I don’t want anyone to know.”
“I understand. It doesn’t feel medically relevant to the moment, does it?” She takes a deep breath. “How about you give the sheriff your statement, and then we’ll do an ultrasound? If you don’t know yet if you’re pregnant, then there’s nothing to mention to him.”
I must nod again, because she opens the door.
“Five minutes,” she says to the sheriff. “Then I need to treat her for shock.” She takes Zane with her.
Jasper’s questions are straightforward.
I answer them honestly, but I don’t offer any extra details.
I make it exceptionally clear how violent Derek was when he was rampaging through the house, before Zane came to rescue me.
I don’t tell him about the pregnancy.
And then it’s over.
When the doctor returns, she has a portable ultrasound unit with her.
Zane hovers in the doorway.
“Come here,” I whisper, gesturing for him.
I need to hold his hand.
“Yeah?” He gives me a crooked, hopeful smile.
I heard what he said to Derek.
I’m the only man they’ll call Daddy.
I know how much he is going to love our children, and he thinks this baby is already his, but I also know how common miscarriages are.
If the stress of all of this has made me lose this baby, we’re going to need each other.
He settles beside me, a bruised and bloody mess of a cowboy. My cowboy. And he holds my hand so carefully, so gently, as the doctor readies my stomach for the ultrasound and starts to look for the pregnancy I think I’ve been carrying for weeks.
But what if I was wrong?
There are other reasons to have missed my period.
Other reasons to feel nauseous.
Other—
On the screen, my uterus comes into view, and there’s an obvious fetus.
And a tiny, fast heartbeat.
“Oh my God,” I breathe.
“Look at that,” Zane says, his voice full of awe. “What a tiny little guy, eh? Hi fella. Wow.”
“Looking good. I’d guess you’re around ten or eleven weeks, does that sound right to you?”
I nod, overcome with complicated but happy emotions.
“Then I think you should come into my office in a couple of weeks for a proper prenatal check-up, don’t you think?” She smiles at me. “You’re okay, Hope. Your baby is all right, too.”
She leaves us alone after that, and Zane comes around to hug me.
We both smell like sharp, acrid adrenaline.
But we both smell alive, and that’s all that matters.
“I can’t believe how much you bled,” I whisper. “All over the upstairs floor. And the stairs. And the landing.”
He waves it off. “I’ve wanted to refinish the floors anyway.”
"That's not funny."
"It's a little funny."
"It's not—“ My voice breaks, and I catch it, wrestle it back under control. "He could have killed you."
"He didn’t, though. And he’s gone now.” Zane takes my face in his hands. “He’s gone, and you’ll never have to worry about him ever again. And if you don’t want to go back to the house, we’ll burn it to the ground and start over again.”
I shake my head. "He said nobody was coming for me, but I knew you were. I knew I just had to stay alive until you got here."
"I will always find you."
“I don’t want to burn the house to the ground. It’s where you saved me.”
“The way you swung that belt, you had a big hand in saving yourself, City Girl.” He kisses my knuckles. “Now…I think we’re going to have to crowd into Ridge’s cabin for a sleepover for a day or two, but do you want to go home?”
Nothing has ever sounded better.