19. Tess #2
Camden stayed beside her.
His shirt still carried the marina on it. Grease stained the cotton near one shoulder, and sweat had darkened the fabric along his chest after hours beside the bed. His hair had lost whatever shape it held when they left Heron Point, but his hand remained wrapped around hers.
“Shift your hip toward me, Tess,” one of the nurses said. “That’s it. Use the rail if you need it.”
Tess tried.
The movement lasted only until another wave of pressure rolled through her, making even the slightest shift agonizing. Her fingers slipped against Camden’s palm before she caught him again.
“Here,” he said. “Take my hand.”
“I already have it.”
“You nearly took my fingers with it.”
“Then stop having breakable fingers.”
He offered a faint smile, but he did not laugh. “Noted.”
Another nurse reached across the foot of the bed, and Tess shut her eyes against the lights.
I am so tired.
It wasn’t a complaint. It was just a fact.
There was no reserve left to bargain with. The hours had stripped everything down to the next instruction, the next movement, the next stretch of time she had to get through before somebody told her what came after it.
“Tess.”
She opened her eyes at the sound of Camden’s voice.
He had moved closer to the rail.
“What?”
“Do you want my hand, or do you want the rail?”
She glanced down. Her fingers were still around his.
“You.”
His thumb brushed across the back of her hand. “Then you’ve got me.”
The next contraction fractured her focus on the room.
The monitor lights blurred. A rush of scrubs crossed her vision. Her forearm pressed against the rail when she turned toward Camden, and his grip adjusted to meet hers without pulling her anywhere she had not chosen to go.
“Stay right there,” Tess said.
“I’m not moving.”
She looked at his face because everything else demanded too much attention.
Once, she had waited through an anniversary dinner while his phone stayed silent.
Once, she had sat in a clinic room without him because the machine around his career had always found a way to become more urgent than she was.
There was no machine here.
No handler stood behind him with a schedule. No father waited at the door to tell him what mattered more. Camden had been beside the bed through every hour she could still remember, and nobody had needed to order him to stay.
The pressure eased enough for her to loosen her grip.
“Water?” he asked.
“No.”
“Pillow?”
“No.”
“Do you want me closer?”
“Yes.”
He leaned over the bedrail until his shoulder came within reach. Tess caught the front of his shirt and kept him there.
“That’s close enough.”
“Okay.”
The delivery doctor stepped back into view.
“Tess, look at me.”
She turned her attention away from Camden.
“You’re at the finish line. When the next contraction comes, I need you to give me everything you have.”
Tess stared at the doctor.
The sentence should have helped.
Instead, she reached inward for another reserve of strength.
There was nothing there.
She looked back at Camden.
“I can’t.”
His hand tightened around hers.
“I have nothing left.” Her voice broke around the words. “Camden, I’m empty. I can’t do another one.”
He leaned over the rail until his face was the only thing she could see.
No polished answer came.
No easy promise that it would not hurt.
His forehead touched hers.
“Don’t look away.”
Tess shut her eyes anyway.
“Tess.”
She opened them.
“There you are.”
“I said I can’t.”
“I know what you said.”
Another wave began to gather, slow enough at first that she had a second to brace herself before the pain consumed her focus.
Camden stayed close.
“You do not have to solve anything after this,” he said. “You do not have to think about the next hour. Just stay here with me.”
Tess gripped his hand again.
His eyes did not leave hers.
“You have enough fight left to cross this line,” he said. “And I am never letting go of you again.”
The next contraction hit before Tess could answer.
His hand stayed locked around hers as the doctor moved into position at the end of the bed. The room blurred at the edges, but Camden hadn’t moved an inch, staying close enough that she could keep her attention on him instead of the activity gathering around her.
“This is the one, Tess,” the doctor said. “When I tell you, push.”
Tess tightened her grip on Camden.
He leaned closer. “One job. Stay with me.”
The pressure built until it drowned out every other demand.
“Now,” the doctor said.
Tess bore down with everything she had left.
The rail pressed against her arm. Camden’s fingers shifted inside hers, giving her room when her grip changed, but he never pulled away. A nurse said something from the other side of the bed, and the doctor answered, but to Tess, the conversation was just white noise.
Finish it.
Tess pushed again.
Her eyes squeezed shut.
“Tess.” Camden’s voice cut through everything else. “Look at me.”
She opened them.
His forehead hovered close to hers. Sweat had flattened his hair against his temple, and a faded streak of boat grease still marked one side of his shirt from the life they had left only hours ago.
“You’re right there,” he said. “Stay with me.”
The doctor gave another instruction.
Tess bore down.
For one endless stretch, nothing existed except the demand to keep going. The mattress shifted under her. She felt her grip slide in Camden’s, caught his fingers again, and held on.
Then the pressure changed.
A cry split through the room.
Tess stopped moving.
The sound came again, thin and furious and unmistakably alive.
Her grip on Camden loosened.
“Oh my God.”
Camden made a broken sound beside her.
The doctor leaned into her line of sight. “You’ve got a healthy baby girl.”
A girl.
Tess stared toward the foot of the bed, trying to believe that the furious, tiny cry actually belonged to her daughter.
Our daughter.
Camden bent over her hand and pressed his mouth against her knuckles before turning back toward the nurses tending to their daughter. Tears were already sliding down his face.
He did not wipe them away.
One of the nurses stepped into view with a small, squirming bundle in her hands.
“We’re bringing her straight to you.”
Tess released Camden.
She reached up before the nurse even finished lowering the baby onto her chest.
The moment she held her, the rest of the room ceased to matter.
Damp warmth settled against Tess’s skin. The baby wriggled beneath the nurse’s hand, one tiny arm moving free before the nurse adjusted the cloth around her. Her cry softened into irritated noises while Tess smoothed a palm across her back and held her close.
“She’s here,” Tess whispered.
Camden stood frozen beside the rail.
Tess looked up at him.
He tried to speak, but no sound came out.
“Come here.”
That was enough.
He released the rail and moved around it, careful of the nurse still adjusting the baby. He touched Tess’s shoulder, then slid his arm behind her as he leaned over the bed.
He pressed his mouth against her temple.
“You made it through,” he said.
His voice cracked.
Tess looked down again.
The baby’s face was scrunched in outrage, her skin still flushed from birth. One miniature hand worked its way free of the cloth and opened against Tess’s chest, fingers stretching and curling as though she already had an opinion about being contained.
Camden stared at that hand.
“God,” he whispered. “She’s beautiful.”
Tears dropped into Tess’s hair.
The sight of them would have been impossible once.
Camden Ford had spent years smiling for cameras, trained to project whatever image kept the machine moving. Now his stained shirt stuck to him, his hair was wrecked, and he wasn’t trying to guard his expression.
Tess shifted the baby higher against her chest.
Camden leaned in beside her, one arm curving behind Tess. His other hand hovered near the baby, holding back until Tess gave him room.
“Here,” she said.
His fingertip brushed the baby’s knuckles.
The tiny fingers closed around it.
Camden stopped moving.
Tess watched his face change.
No cameras captured it. No audience waited for a quote. There was only the hospital room, the child against her skin, and the man beside her staring at a hand no bigger than two of his fingers.
Camden pressed another kiss to Tess’s temple.
“She’s perfect,” he said.