Chapter Twenty Two - Zach
Most men didn’t survive getting their heads nearly blown off. I wasn’t most men.
I once considered myself fortunate for surviving the IED. After waking up in the hospital the second time, I decided I was the luckiest son of a bitch still barely breathing.
The miracles kept on coming. My eyes focused on the chair next to my bed. Shay curled in the cushions, softly sleeping.
I had enough opiates pumping through me to clear out a whole poppy field in Afghanistan, but I trusted my blurry vision.
Shay was the most beautiful woman on the planet. A woman I almost let slip through my fingers. Someone challenging and courageous and so damn vulnerable it hurt my own heart.
She had to be mine. I wasn’t giving her up.
That was a shit-ton to take in while a half dozen tubes pricked me in a variety of uncomfortable locations. I smelled antiseptic. I tasted dry chemicals. I was pretty sure my head cracked open again.
But there she was. Sleeping by my side in a hospital room.
Like she cared.
Like she loved me.
And it only took a brush with death to get her to admit it.
I shifted. I couldn’t remember a damn thing besides getting upset. I yelled at her. I threatened to leave for some bullshit reason. I might have given her my half of the estate.
But she trumped me. Had I not crashed against the ground, her revelation would have laid me out flat.
She was pregnant.
My heart monitor beeped too fast. It woke her. Shay’s gasp warned me, but I didn’t have time to adjust the tubes pouring every type of liquid from me. She collapsed at my side.
I welcomed the soft brush of her lips against mine, the herald to her chastisement.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Zach Harden. You had me pacing for five hours while they knocked out your skull and put it back together.”
“Sorry about that.” The words rasped. I managed a smile instead. “I’ll be more considerate next time.”
“Hell no. There is no next time. This is it, Zach. You’re done. No more scrambling inside your brain, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Glad we have that straight.”
Shay brushed my cheek. If I weren’t so hopped up on pain-killers, I might have felt it. But having her close was just as good.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” I asked.
She smirked, but I saw through it. She took my hand.
“Your head tried to explode,” she said.
“That the technical term?”
“You had an un-ruptured aneurysm. Something that formed after the trauma from your injury. It was…bad.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
I wiggled my toes, fingers, and flexed the most important part of me. All in working condition.
“How am I alive?”
Shay looked damn proud of herself. “I pulled some strings.”
“What kind of strings?”
“I flew in the best neurosurgeon in the country. Private plane even. Got him from Pittsburgh within two hours. He was more than happy to help once I offered my checkbook.”
“Wow.” I snorted. “Look at you. Using that trust fund.”
“I’d have spent every last cent if it kept you…” She looked away. “If it healed you.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to say, but I was glad that fear left her. I squeezed her hand.
“Gretchen?”
“She knows. She was here. She went to her office this morning, but she’s stopping in to check on you. She helped get the neurosurgeon. I dropped her name, said that you were a war vet, and I added an extra zero to his cost estimate. He came running.”
I shifted. The drugs, surgery, and bed held me damn firm, but I extended my arm. Shay helped to place my hand on her belly. She smiled—a hopeful, gentle smile.
So I had to be an ass.
I tugged on the shirt. “You’re wearing my shirt again.”
“Oh, stop it.”
I pressed against her. She was warm, but I couldn’t tell anything else. No bump. No swell. No indication anywhere that she had a little baby inside of her.
I thought we were being careful? Apparently, I was a damn miracle machine. My first injury, a baby even with contraception, and now an aneurysm? I used up my nine lives and created more.
Still, I hated myself for not knowing she was pregnant. I should have hauled ass to get her ice-cream, not pissed around with my own impatience while waiting for her to come to her senses and fucking love me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You never say that.”
“I probably should say it more. Maybe it might have helped.”
Shay swallowed. “I didn’t tell you.”
I didn’t want to take my hand away. How the hell did something so small affect me so much? “Why?”
“I was just…scared.”
“Of what?” I drew my gaze to hers. Those almond eyes were pure elegance.
“Of losing you. Raising a baby alone. That you’d deploy and we’d never see you again.” She rubbed my hand, pressing me harder against her belly. “I was afraid of telling you because I didn’t understand how I felt.”
“Do you understand it now?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t know if it was the brain surgery, pain meds, or the lingering effects of the anesthesia, but Shay went quiet.
“You didn’t tell me you weren’t permitted to re-enlist,” she whispered.
“You didn’t tell me you were pregnant.”
“Yeah, but I already told you why I was afraid.”
“I wasn’t afraid.” The drugs made it hard to lie. “I didn’t want you to think less of me. I didn’t want me to think less of me. I spent my entire life training to serve in the military. Suddenly I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know what to do. What I had left.” She sat too far away from me, but I couldn’t pull her any closer. “Now I know exactly what I have.”
Shay stilled. “What’s that?”
“You. If you let me in.” I managed a grin. “If you let me stay.”
“That’s what you want?”
“Shay, I’m so goddamned in love with you, if I weren’t tethered to this fucking bed, I’d get on my knee and chase you around until you promised to stay with me forever.”
“Forever is a long time.”
“Forever will never be enough time with you.”
“Zach—”
“I don’t know how to prove my love to you,” I said. “I wouldn’t even know how to begin. But you have to know that you are the reason I’m staying. Not because some doctor rejected me or my head scrambled. I love you, Shay. I want a life with you.”
Her eyes welled with tears—terrified but overjoyed. She couldn’t help but touch her belly. I had a feeling we’d be doing a lot of that.
If she let me.
Christ, I hope she’d let me.
“Say it,” I said. “Don’t fight me anymore. Forget our parents’ marriage. Forget the money. Forget the house. Just look at me.”
Shay shook her head. “I can’t forget those things, Zach. They’re what led me to you.”
“Will they keep you from me?”
Her smile warmed me. “No. Not anymore.”
“You’re sure?”
“More certain than I’ve ever been.”
I nestled into my pillows. Shay wasn’t the only one who avoided commitment. I never heard anyone say it to me. I wondered if it’d be just as sweet as I imagined.
“Zach, I’m in love with you.”
Nope. I was wrong. It was far sweeter. Beautiful. Perfect.
Nothing better in the world, and I was attached to a line of morphine.
She leaned in again for a simple kiss, but there was nothing simple about it, not after speaking those words. Not after nearly dying in her arms. Not after learning our passion created the life tucked secret within her belly.
I thought my life fell apart without my job. Instead, I was given a chance for a happiness I didn’t know if I fucking deserved, but I sure as hell wasn’t blowing.
I brushed her hair behind her ear and kissed her again.
“You and me,” I whispered. “We’re gonna start a family. We’re going to love each other. And we’re going to be good to each other. That’s the way it’ll happen.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. The instant I get out of this bed, I’m proving it to you.”
She smiled. “You just had surgery. You need to rest. Really rest.”
“I’ll have plenty of time while I’m taking care of you and the baby.”
“I’m supposed to be the one reassuring you.”
“Me?” I shrugged. It hurt. I reminded myself not to do that again. “I’m still in one piece. Much better than my last stay in the hospital. This recovery will be easy.”
“Why?”
“Because I have you.” I pulled her close again. “I love you.”
Finally the walls came down. No hesitations. No excuses. Just me and her and absolute honesty.
“I love you too.”