Emma didn’t relax until she heard the familiar sounds of a medical center. Sure, hospitals didn’t have as much howling or squawking, but there was enough that she could let herself linger in the curve of Kellan’s arm. He answered all of the police officer’s questions. Some of what he said was lies, some was real, all of it was easy to forget when the doctor waved Kellan aside and started the impersonal process of making sure she wasn’t going to die.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Kellan seemed to grow two sizes, taking up more space than his body was actually capable of. “Why?”
The doctor looked completely unimpressed. “Because you are bleeding on my floor. Go get yourself seen to.”
Kellan had the good sense to look sheepish. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
The doctor blinked at him owlishly until he left the room. The whisper of an air conditioning unit pumping into the room made Emma lay back against the crinkle of medical paper that protected the bed and made for easy clean up. It felt so good to lie down.
“I have to ask,” the doctor said once the door was closed, “did your husband do this to you?”
Emma blinked twice before she understood exactly what the doctor was asking. “Oh, no. No. I mean, Kellan and I might yell at once another, but not this.”
“I’m going to assume that the cock-n-bull story he just gave to the nice police officer in the emergency room was fake.”
“Doctor-patient confidentiality?” Emma asked.
“As far as it will stretch.”
Emma sat up again, her muscles screamed in protest. She settled into a position and held as still as possible. She looked into the doctor’s dark eyes, took a deep breath, and told her everything from the night that she was attacked in her dorm room until the moment that she stepped into the emergency room. She knew doctor-patient privilege would only cover some of the crimes, but she needed to talk.
“Well,” she said after the story ended. “That’s what happened.”
“I don’t know if I should believe you or toss you in a nut house.”
Emma shrugged a shoulder. “At the end of the day, doc, it’s entirely up to you. You could go out there and get that cop. Federal crimes aren’t covered by privilege.”
“Do you plan on making a habit of killing a would-be rapist?”
“I really, really hope not. All I want to do is go to college, open a practice, and have a simple life.”
The doctor motioned towards the door Kellan had left through. “You think you are going to get that when you are walking around with that?”
Emma didn’t just answer. She thought about it. There was a chance that being with Kellan another night like this might happen. Actually, odds were definitely on it. Even so, Emma couldn’t bring herself to walk away, not after he rescued her, not after he admitted to loving her.
“Doc, I have loved that boy since I was sixteen years old. I can’t help that. I can, however, make the best life with him that I can.”
The doctor eyed her again and then sighed. “All right, if the officer asks, I will just tell him you stuck to your husband’s story. That aside, how are you feeling?”
“I have a concussion. It started off mild but the accident exacerbated the problem.”
Her cool dark fingers investigated the bump. “Exacerbated, huh? You said you were going to open a practice? Are you a doctor?”
“Vet, or I will be when I finish school.”
“How long do you have?” the woman asked. She looked more concerned than interested.
“Just a semester. I might take this one off. My dad just died, and I just got married, and then all of this.”
“Mm-hmm. Might be a good idea. You never know how much stress can affect your studies.” She picked up a clipboard and settled it professionally against her arm. “All right, let’s go over the basics. Open and say ah.”
Emma did all of it. She got her heart listened to, got her ears checked, her eyes looked over. It felt good to just be able to do what she was told, to sit back and let someone else act. She had done too much action tonight.
“What was the date of your last menstrual cycle?”
Emma told her, then added, “But the pregnancy test came back negative.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to confirm that. You are going to need some medication for all your bumps and bruises. I don’t want to give you anything that could potentially hurt you.”
Emma found herself frowning. “I hate to say this, but with everything that happened to me tonight there is no chance that a baby would stick around.”
The doctor shrugged and patted her shoulder. “Better safe than not.”
It was, Emma decided, a good thing that the doctor had taken that test. At the end of the day all she could prescribe was a few tablets of Tylenol.
“What?” Kellan asked, having returned to the room after his hip had been stitched up. “What do you mean Tylenol?”
The doctor took a deep breath and shared a look with Emma. Without another word she stepped out. Emma reached for Kellan’s hand. There were a million ways she might have been able to tell him what was going on. Poetic statements and flowery phrases that might have worked with a different kind of man, but none of them were for Kellan.
“I’m pregnant,” she said softly. “I’m going to have a baby. If you want to, we are going to have a baby.”
He stared at her with open-mouthed disbelief. “What? How?”
She raised her brow at him. “I was pretty sure you understood the mechanics of the whole thing.”
He took his hand out of hers and walked in a little circle. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. Emma, I love you, I meant it when I said it and I mean it now, but I would be a terrible father.”
“Why?” she asked as gently as she could. “What makes you so sure?”
“My father—”
She cut him off because she didn’t want to hear it again. “Your father was his own person. He was a terrible person but he wasn’t you. My father was a biker, a high school dropout, a criminal, a killer, and a thief. Of all of those things, I’m only one of them.”
He opened and closed his mouth several times. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Get over yourself,” she said flatly. On a different day she might have held her arms out to him and let him cry, but it had been too long a night with too many emotions for her to hold his hand through this particular one. “Because you are going to be a dad.”
He flopped down into a seat and held his head in his hands. He was shaking and she could see it. She made a small sound. Apparently she would have to do some handholding anyway. She held her fingers out to him and motioned him over.
“Kellan, I love you. I love you so very much. You are stubborn, and difficult, and arrogant, and you manage people the way other people manage money. But you think very little of yourself where it matters most. You rushed in to rescue me, to do the thing that needed to be done even though you didn’t know what might happen to you. If that’s not fatherhood material, I don’t know what is.”
“What if I mess up?”
She gave his fingers a squeeze. “Then I’ll be there to set it all right.”
“I don’t know if I am ready.”
She pulled him towards her, and placed her lips gently against his. “You’ll be ready.”
For the first time since she told him the news a flicker of hope and happiness moved across his face. His lips teased up in a tiny grin. “You know, if we weren’t already married, I’d ask you to marry me.”
“Well,” she said, her lips splitting into a truly amused grin, “it’s a good thing we already got that covered.”