Chapter 25

I never said I’d die without coffee. I said other people would.

-Ellen to Jessie

Jessie

I arrived at the hospital over an hour after Margot had and marched up to the maternity floor in time to overhear two nurses speaking in hushed whispers at the nurses’ station.

“They’re going to have the NICU team on hand. Not only is the baby over eight weeks early, but they suspect that the baby will be addicted to drugs—heroin.”

“Wasn’t she in a psych ward at Clemens?”

Clemens was the private facility that was detaining Margot and was also a highly-sought after program.

“They believe someone was supplying her with the drugs while she was there. They tested her blood and found it.”

I walked past the two women toward where I heard the cursing. It wasn’t hard to find her. She was screaming so loudly and angrily that the entire maternity ward could probably hear her.

I rounded the corner and strode into the room that she was in just in time to see her throw a cup of ice chips across the room.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed.

I barely dodged the ice in time so I wasn’t wearing it.

“Margot,” I said. “Please behave and allow these people to do their jobs.”

“Get out,” she screeched.

I looked up at the ceiling.

“The baby is yours, and you’re supposed to protect me. Why won’t you help me?” Margot hissed.

Was this woman stuck in the past or something? That baby wasn’t mine. I hadn’t allowed my cock anywhere near that woman in seventeen years. Since the first and only night I’d been stupid enough to get it anywhere near her.

I opened my mouth to deny her accusations when she went fuckin’ crazy. Again.

She ripped the IV out of her arm and started to stand up, but again, a nurse was there to thwart her.

“Get off me!” Margot screeched.

“She needs to be sedated,” another nurse yelled.

“Can’t sedate her,” the doctor who’d been between Margot’s legs when I came in said. “She’s crowning, and whatever we give her, at this point, will affect the baby.”

My stomach knotted.

Then I left the room.

They had things in hand. There was no reason I needed to be there at all.

But when I came out of the room, it was to find a wall of Dixie Wardens standing there waiting for me.

“How’d you find out about her?” I asked Ghost.

He shrugged. “Contact at Crazy Central called me and told me she tried to kill herself. Took some drugs that weren’t hers, so they were monitoring her, and then she went into labor.”

I winced.

“That’s Margot,” I grunted. “Destructive. She doesn’t give a shit who she harms in the process.”

That was always Margot’s motto. Fuck everyone and everything but her.

She was stupid to get pregnant again. She should’ve had her tubes tied a long damn time ago.

Margot screamed again, something so vulgar and acidic that I couldn’t stand it.

“Let’s go to the waiting room,” I mumbled. “I don’t want to hear that anymore.”

They followed me out, Aaron, Ghost, Fender, Tommy Tom, Truth and Big Papa.

All of my family was there, and I wasn’t alone.

Then why did I feel so alone?

Even seeing Ellen where she was sitting in the waiting room speaking with the other old ladies wasn’t enough to bring me out of this funk.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the innocent life that was just entering this world.

Linc was almost done, but this baby, he or she didn’t even stand a chance.

***

Ellen

I sat in my little corner of the waiting room and watched down the length of hallway.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Why I was still there.

I should go home. Everyone else had.

Jessie had.

I’d even started to leave with him.

I’d gone as far as to get in my car and start to head out behind him, only to come to a stop in the exit of the hospital parking lot, staring blankly at the road in front of me.

After a few long moments, I’d backed up and returned to my previous parking spot.

I’d then returned to the waiting room, and had been waiting here ever since.

I heard the chimes over the overhead speaker signaling a baby being born, and my eyes flicked up just in time to see the double doors at the end of the hall open.

That was when I saw my friend, Aerie, pushing a clear incubator down the hall toward the elevator that was directly to the left of where I was sitting.

Aerie had seen me when I’d arrived, and we’d exchanged greetings only long enough to know that she was there to watch over the premature baby—Margot’s premature baby.

I stood up and stared, eyes fixated on the baby I could see inside, and what I saw made my heart literally drop.

She was shaking. Shaking so hard that her body looked like one giant pulse of anger.

And oh God, was she tiny.

“Aerie?” I whispered licking my lips. “Is that…”

I left the last words hanging, but she knew what I was asking.

“Yes, this is your husband’s daughter.”

I closed my eyes, not correcting her misconception, and then reopened them with a new determination.

“My fiancé,” I lied. “He had to go for a breather. But if you don’t mind, I’d love to come. To make sure she’s not alone.”

Aerie’s smile was soft.

It always had been though.

Aerie had been my first ever customer, when I moved back to Mooresville, and we’d hit it off almost immediately.

I’d made a good friend in her, and I never once saw her when she wasn’t smiling.

Right now, though, I could tell she was just as heartbroken over the poor child’s condition and suffering as I was.

“Of course,” Aerie said. “But you’ll have to gown up. And we’ll have to get you a badge.”

I followed along and got on to the elevator that would take us to what I later learned was the NICU.

The entire floor was dedicated to those that were sickest in the hospital. Only a small portion of the floor was designated for the NICU, though.

“We had to supplement her oxygen in the delivery room. We were able to stabilize her on a nasal cannula for now,” Aerie said the moment the doors swished open. “And her Apgar was really low.”

I knew what that was, and it wasn’t a good thing.

“How are her oxygen sats now?” I asked.

My eyes went to the monitors that were sticking to the small girl’s frail body, and my heart stuttered.

“Better now that we’re controlling the oxygen flow,” she answered as she tapped buttons into a wall panel.

I followed her in and she directed me to a sanitation station.

“Go there, wash your hands, and get your gown on,” she ordered. “I’ll send someone for you.”

I nodded and did as directed, waiting at the glass that overlooked the large room once I was finished.

Everything I saw inside made my heart race.

There were four babies inside right now, and every one of them was tiny. All except one, which was the size of a small car.

Not really a car, but he was huge. So huge, in fact, that I wondered why the hell he was in there.

“The baby was born with a hole in his heart,” a quiet voice said from beside me.

I looked up to find a woman dressed in hot pink scrubs staring at me with curiosity.

“That’s terrible,” I murmured. “Why is he alone?”

A sadness overtook the woman for a few short seconds, and then she shook herself out of it.

“The mother put him up for adoption. It was planned well before they knew he was sick, so it’s not because he was sick that they did. Though, the parents that did adopt him are on their way here all the way from the UK. They’re supposed to arrive within the next two days.”

A smile flashed across my lips.

“That’s good news. I hate seeing him all alone.”

She nodded, watching me carefully.

“I don’t usually let non-parents in here, but Aerie said your husband is the baby’s father, correct?”

I felt like shit for lying to her, but nodded anyway.

I couldn’t leave that baby here all by herself. My gut was telling me not to leave her.

“Yes,” I told the first of many lies to this woman. “He’s the baby’s father. The mother…she’s not so good.”

The nurse snorted.

“I figured that out the moment Aerie wheeled that baby in here shaking like a tiny little leaf in the middle of a thunderstorm.”

I turned my attention back to where Aerie had wheeled the bed.

They’d transferred her to an open bed with lights above it. There were half a dozen machines surrounding the small girl, and there wasn’t a single piece of the girl’s skin that wasn’t now flushed an angry red.

“I don’t know much about medical issues, but I’d love to sit here, offer her anything that might help.”

The woman’s smile was warm.

“My name is Estella.”

She held her hand out to me, and I shook it, feeling slightly guilty that I’d lied.

“Come on in. I’ll give you the rundown.”

***

I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d found me.

He was freakin’ Superman when it came to me.

I felt him come up behind me before I saw him. I’d been there for about an hour, watching and agonizing over the poor child’s screams.

“Why did I know I’d find you here?” he rasped as he looped one strong arm around my waist and pulled me back against him.

I leaned my head slightly to the side to rest it against his bearded chin.

“You know me well,” I told him.

We sat there and watched the baby for a minute. Her cries never abated.

“If she was in that place for as long as she was, wouldn’t you think that she’d be better than she is right now?”

“From what I understand, detoxification takes a while. Days three and four are the worst, and she’s only been in the treatment facility for four days and some change. The baby didn’t have a chance to get it all out of her system.”

I bit my lip, wondering what he’d think of what I had to say next.

I’d done a lot of thinking in the last hour, and I was dead set on doing what I knew I needed to do.

“She’s dealing with something that she didn’t know that she’d have to deal with,” I told him. “So I’m going to give her the love she deserves.”

“Ellen…” Jessie hesitated.

I held up my hand. “I’m doing this, and you can’t stop me.”

Before I could even finish telling him how it was, he wrapped me in his arms so tight that I found it hard to pull in a breath.

“I fucking love you,” he growled. “Sometimes, when I don’t think I can possibly love you any more than I already do, you go and show me that I was wrong and I can. But this baby is going to have a lot of problems.”

I knew that. Boy, did I know that.

“She’s so tiny and in so much pain,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But she’s also so far from okay that it’s not even funny.”

I didn’t reply for a long moment, but when I did, I knew he was listening.

“I want her,” I said. “Want to take care of her so bad it hurts. This baby needs a fighting chance, and we’re going to give it to her.”

“If I do this…” He hesitated. “It would tie me to her for the rest of my life. For the rest of hers. I’m not going to leave her. She’ll always be mine, which will also mean that Margot will have another tie when it comes to me and my life. The restraining order might be in place, but she’s still going to come around.”

I stared at him, his eyes reflecting what he thought of continuing to deal with Margot.

“If you don’t do this, then how will we live with ourselves?” I asked. “She already thinks this is your kid for some reason. You and I both know it isn’t. Linc knows it isn’t. Your club knows it isn’t,” I swallowed. “That’s all that matters at this point.”

Before he could reply to that, the nurse, Estella, joined us.

“You’re the daddy?”

I watched him clear his throat, stare at me with fear in his eyes as he struggled with doing the right thing.

The moment he decided to take that leap, I saw it. I knew that this would no longer be a debate between us.

“Yes,” he answered, nodding solidly. Surely. “I’m her father.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Estella grinned. “Now that you’re here, we have a few questions. We’ve already received the okay to add this lovely woman to the approved visitor’s list by doctor Tommy. Anyone else that you would like approved, you can fill out on this little card,” she tapped the card attached to the bed that the baby was in. “And I’ll check with it. If they’re not on the approved visitor’s list, I’ll give you a call. Your verbal approval will be enough until we can add them to the list. Now, am I to understand that the mother is not approved?”

Jessie grunted. “You got that right.”

Estella frowned. “Okay. I’ll get that added to her chart as well. Another thing we want to go over with you,” she started to point things out. “This is the feeding tube. A lot of times when drug addicted babies are first brought in here, they’re given a feeding tube because they find it hard to eat. We can’t have that on top of all the other struggles they’re experiencing, so we inserted the tube after her bath. From now on, she’ll be fed this way until the doctor believes she’s ready to move on to a bottle. She will also have oxygen on until she is able to maintain her oxygen saturation. Right now, she doesn’t need to have a tube down her throat for breathing, but it can still happen. ” Estelle continued on explaining about the tubes and lines.

And all through this, Jessie still hadn’t looked at the baby.

My stomach knotted at the realization.

“The crying is going to continue, unfortunately, until her system is cleared of the toxins that the mother introduced to her through the placenta,” she continued. “So don’t be alarmed. It’s scary, and she’s in pain, but we’re monitoring her levels, and if anything is needed, we will provide it for her immediately. We want her to be as comfortable as possible.”

I agreed with that assessment. I’d spent the last hour trying to sing to her, but it hadn’t helped the slightest bit.

“Feel free to ask us if you have any questions.”

And with that Estella was gone, leaving me with Jessie, who I might add, was staring blankly at the wheels at the bottom of the baby’s bed.

“Why won’t you look at her?” I asked him quietly.

The words so low that they were barely audible, even to my own ears.

“Because thinking about everything she’s been through while hearing her cries makes me want to go down a floor to where Margot is and kill her with my bare hands. Just wrap my thick fingers around her throat and squeeze the life out of her.”

My belly flipped at the thought.

“Guess it’s good that she’s under guard then, isn’t it?” I grumbled.

That was when he took a deep breath and finally turned his eyes toward the tiny little baby.

The little girl who weighed less than a five-pound sack of potatoes.

Not at the monitors. Not at the stickers and signs attached to her incubator. But at her. At the little girl he’d just agreed to take under his wing for the rest of her life.

And I saw him deflate.

An expression of utter devastation took over his face the moment he first looked at her. He took in how tiny she was, and the way her tiny little body was shaking and gasping as she cried—something that’d been happening the entire time that I’d been in the NICU with her.

His face turned to stone, but his eyes—those were so deeply disturbed by what he saw that I wasn’t sure that it was a good thing.

“From what we were able to receive from the mother’s doctors, she was addicted to heroin, methamphetamines, as well as prescription drugs. Is that correct?”

Poor Estella had no clue what she was disrupting.

“Right,” Jessie cleared his throat. “How long will she cry like this?”

Jessie’s fists were locked tight at his sides as he stared at the screaming baby, barely taking in breaths.

“On average, drug addicted babies, heroin specifically, have about a two-month hospital stay when they’re born this prematurely,” Estella explained. “More or less depending on how she does. This one is a fighter, though.”

“She will be.” Jessie words were a promise.

“You’re welcome to stay for the rest of tonight since she was just born but they’re pretty strict about the nighttime hours here. Visitation hours are quite lenient in the daytime, but they close at eight PM sharp. Doors open at eight AM.”

Jessie nodded.

The baby continued to shake and scream her tiny little lungs out.

And by the time the sun rose, I knew two things for certain.

One, that no-name baby girl just made a connection with a man who would fight to the death for her. Two, I was so in love with that man that I’d do the same for him.