The raspy voice penetrated the fog of her brain. But she knew it.
She knew it well.
A dopey smile curved her lips at the brogue that made her have eargasms on a regular basis, but when it hurt to open her eyes, she felt her brow pucker.
Why wasn’t it easy to open her eyes?
The ache in her head and her body made itself known and she wondered how much white wine she’d drunk the night before to feel as shitty as this.
Then, when the memory of what had happened hit home, she tore her eyes open.
When she saw Sawyer, Sean, and Devon looming over Joseph like avenging angels, she released a sharp cry. One loaded with equal parts relief, misery, and grief.
Their attention swerved from the man in the armchair, the man who’d been there all day and night, God bless him, and over to her.
The devastation on their faces floored her. She felt it herself, but it was so perfectly reflected in their features, she felt her own crumple and the tears begin to fall.
She opened her arms and whimpered, “I’m so sorry.”
Sawyer’s eyes flashed as he swooped in. Before she knew what was happening, her IV lines had been shifted around and she was suddenly lying in his lap.
He threaded his arms around her waist and hauled her against him. “God, lass. What do ye have tae be sorry about?” His accent was so thick, she wanted to drown in it.
Maybe that would take this fucking agony in her heart away.
“I-I didn’t keep our baby safe!” The cry was torn from her, and it was a thousand times worse for her having to repress it all day long.
Tin was such a deep sleeper that she didn’t have to worry about him waking up. He’d slept through a gale once; one-hundred and twenty mile-an-hour gusts had whipped through the streets, and he hadn’t made a peep.
After his own traumatic and tearful day, he’d be down for the count, and she was relying on that.
She heard a voice clearing, and behind her, Sean asked, “Who are you?”
She ignored the conversation. It was mean letting Joseph fend for himself after he’d been so kind, but she wasn’t up to anything other than accepting the comfort that Sawyer’s strong arms provided.
“I’m Joseph Santorini,” was her savior’s reply. He sounded calm, totally at ease. If she’d been on the receiving end of those grim looks her men had cast his way, she wasn’t sure if she’d have felt so easy.
Sawyer, especially, looked like a bruiser. And over the years, he hadn’t softened up, if anything, he’d gotten harder. His biceps and thighs were huge.
She squeezed the former as she nuzzled deeper into his embrace. He scented of leather and that scent she’d only ever smelled when they took her deep into the Scottish countryside, heather—she knew because it was his soap, the one she’d bought him for Christmas two years ago, and the one he’d used ever since. He was warm and comforting, and she was safe in his arms even if he was brimming with tension.
She pressed her forehead into his throat and repeated, “I’m sorry.”
“She has no reason to be sorry.” It was Joseph who spoke, and his voice ratcheted up the strain that was already throbbing through Sawyer’s tense form.
She hated that he was upset, hated that they were all upset. And all because she’d been thoughtless, a reckless idiot.
“She fell. There was a big patch of black ice outside one of the stores she was going into. She went down, and…” Joseph’s sigh was heavy enough to echo around the tiny private room. “Her stomach took the brunt of the fall.”
She blinked, because the whole experience was just a blur of pain. What she did know was her baby’s heartbeat hadn’t been there when they’d checked her over. Then, words like ‘placental abruption,’ ‘firm abdomen,’ and worst of all, ‘stillbirth’ floated around her, and the nightmare she’d only just dipped her toes into, became fully formed.
Just like that, her child’s life had been snuffed out. Simply because she’d been stupid and just had to go out even though it was cold as fuck today.
More tears gathered and fell. They burned as they forged a path along her eyeline, and then they drenched Sawyer’s shirt front.
“We should have been with you.”
Devon.
The agony in his voice tore at her heart.
There was a welter of pain in the depths, and that pain spoke to her on such a visceral level, she moved away from Sawyer to turn to Dev.
Opening her arms, she whispered, “It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not okay,” he replied, but his tone was wooden. “It’s the exact opposite of okay, Sascha.”
Stung, but knowing he was right, she buried her face in her hands.
“Thank you for staying with her for so long,” Sean said, the words flying over her head as they’d done all day when Sawyer wrapped his arm around her and tugged her close once more. “If you don’t mind giving us some privacy though?”
“Of course,” Joseph replied, and the sounds of the vinyl seat creaking were loud as he climbed to his feet. “He’s fast asleep,” he continued with a little chuckle. “I’ve never known such a heavy sleeper.”
“Thank God he was,” Sean said, his voice heartfelt. She dropped her hands, knowing she had to thank Joseph, and hating that she’d be doing so with her face tear-stained.
As she did, she watched Joseph pass the limp little boy in his arms over to Sean. Tin settled like he’d been born to be there, which she guessed he had. Nuzzling immediately into him as Sean shook Joseph’s hand and retreated to the armchair, taking up the space the stranger had taken all day and for most of the evening as well.
As he approached the bed, she held out her hands, wincing at the wetness of her tears on them as she whispered, “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for being here for me. For us.” She cut Tin a glance. “You helped us both, so much.” Her smile was wan as she asked, “That bottle of ‘85?”
Joseph tilted his head to the side. “What about it?”
“I think you’ve earned one. Please, leave your card?”
“That’s not necessary,” he protested with a genuine smile. “But, look, I’ll be on my way. I’m just happy I was able to help.”
She smiled at him, trying to control the quiver in her lips, as he waved awkwardly at the four of them before grabbing his coat, which he’d dumped at the foot of the bed, and headed out the door.
For a second, there was nothing but quiet, then Devon, his tone colder than she’d ever heard from him, snarled, “I don’t trust him.”
The coldness hit her hard. “What about him do you have to trust? He didn’t have to stay with me, Devon. But he did. And he was there for me. For us.” She didn’t say ‘when you weren’t’ because it wasn’t their fault they hadn’t been there. It had been hers. Not only for being unable to remember their fucking numbers, but for sneaking out without them. But Joseph had stayed when he could have just left her.
He’d taken being a good Samaritan to a level she’d thought was a thing of the past.
Dev’s mouth firmed into a mutinous line but he didn’t maintain the topic, dropping himself down onto the foot of the bed and pressing his hand to her ankle instead. “How are you?”
“How do you think I am?” She pressed her lips together a second, clenched her eyes shut, then managed to gasp out, “I lost the baby, Dev. I lost—”
But he shook his head. “I didn’t ask about the baby. I asked about you.”
She blinked at him, shut her eyes once more, and turned to burrow into Sawyer again. “Tired. Hurting.” She gnawed at her bottom lip. “Regretful.” Resentful. Guilty.
Ashamed.
She quieted those words before they could escape her lips though. They didn’t need to hear that. Didn’t need to know she’d…
Sascha pulled back from Sawyer’s arms and asked, “When will Andrei and Kurt get here?” She didn’t have a doubt in her mind that they’d have dropped everything to be here for her.
“In three hours.” Sean spoke, but his gaze was trained on Tin. “They’d be here sooner but there were no seats remaining on the earlier flights.”
She nodded, aware that it would have been too much to ask from the fates after such a shitty day.
“What happened, Sascha?” Sawyer asked, his voice a rumble.
“N-Nothing. It was just like Joseph said.” She bit the inside of her cheek, hating that they were going to say, ‘I told you so.’ “I was holding Tin’s hand and he pulled me one way and I intended to go the other. It was just a stupid accident. If that ice hadn’t been there, there’d have been no problem. But it was slippery, and I just…I lost my balance.
“It just hurt. Hurt so badly. Deep inside.” She pressed her hands to her stomach, remembering the pain like it had happened moments before.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone,” Sean whispered, and when he turned to look at her, his eyes were as bleak as winter. He leaned forward and pressed his hand to her thigh.
“It was an accident,” she repeated. “When I fell, Joseph, and this lady, Martha, came to help, but I’d attracted a small crowd. One of them took advantage, stole my purse. I couldn’t remember your numbers. None of them.” She closed her eyes. “Not a single one. It took five hours for me to remember the London house’s.”
She had to bite back the cry as she realized she wouldn’t be worrying about the brain fog that came with pregnancy anymore. Oh Christ, what she’d give to be back in that fog. What she’d give for this to be yesterday, or for it to be tomorrow. For this fucking day to be over.
“Have the police been?”
She nodded. “Joseph dealt with them. Said he didn’t see who took my bag, and that he wasn’t looking at the crowd so he didn’t have a clue who could have taken it either.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry it took me so long to remember. You should have been here.”
Sean whispered, “Stop saying ‘sorry.’” He pressed a gentle kiss to Tin’s head, reminding her of yesterday’s scare on his part. “We’re the ones who should be apologizing.”
When he turned to look at her, she wanted to wince at the guilt in his eyes. Immediately shaking her head at him, she murmured, “No, Sean. No.”
“Yes. Sean’s right,” Sawyer growled. “We should have been with you. Tin’s getting strong. It’s been freezing… the streets were bound to be dangerous. We should have been with you,” he repeated, as though saying it twice would make it hit home harder.
“Do you want me to be angry at you?” she asked quietly.
Devon shifted on the bed. “You should be. I’m angry at me. It’s my fault. Sawyer said you were supposed to go shopping.” He stared at her, and in those blue eyes, she saw a chasm that had never been there before. It wasn’t between him and her, it was between him and the world—and that scared the crap out of her. “We were working.”
They had been. When she’d popped her head around the door, they’d been so busy, and she’d thought nothing of it. She was used to them working all sorts of hours, and it wasn’t like she’d needed her hand held while she shopped for gifts they weren’t interested in.
Except, this time, she had needed her hand holding.
“Will they kick you out? I don’t think I’m supposed to have visitors. They only let Joseph stay because of Tin. Because I needed help and didn’t know who to call on.”
“The police should have come to my mother’s.”
Her voice was small as she murmured, “I could only remember her old address. It was like my brain turned to mush.”
“Oh sweetheart, I’m so very sorry,” he replied, and she heard the remorse in his tone, a deep welter of pain that she hadn’t meant to stir.
Amid the day’s panic had been the terror of not being able to remember any of their details, then, when the doctors had left her, sobbing quietly in her bed after the silence of the birth, and Tin had been returned to her with Joseph holding his hand, she’d remembered the London house’s landline number.
That had felt like a gift from God.
“Hush, lass,” he told her, seeming to sense the ramble that were her thoughts. “Tomorrow’s another day.”
Releasing a trembling breath, and fully aware of the fact that she couldn’t think about any of this without wanting to cry, she nodded and whispered, “I want to sleep. I need this day to be over with.”
“O’ course, lass.” Sawyer helped settle her down, and she was about to ask him to stay, fearful he’d, they’d leave, when he settled behind her and slid a hand over her stomach. The hand he pressed there made her eyes burn with unshed tears. “I-I’m sorry, lass. I wish we’d known the person they’d become, and I’m sorry you had to go through everything that happened today without us at your side.” He pressed his nose into the slight cavern of her throat, and she felt the welcome warmth of his breath brushing her tender skin.
“She, Sawyer. She was a little girl. And she was perfect.” So perfect, Sascha still didn’t know what had happened. How things had gone so wrong.
His breath whooshed out from his lungs, making it sound as though he’d been punched in the gut. “How do you know that?”
She tensed. “She was… I had to deliver her.” Hadn’t he known that?
He went silent, and the rest of the room did too, telling her she had spoken loud enough for Devon and Sean to overhear her whispered words. Sawyer pressed his face to her shoulder, hiding from the world, and then for the second time in as many days, she felt the wet kiss as one of her men cried, and hid his tears from the rest of the world in her nape.
When Jacinta walked through the door, Sascha started crying, and with his mother’s tears too, Sawyer felt like he was drowning.
Sascha wasn’t the kind of woman who cried a lot. If she had PMS, she got angry. She’d rage and seemed to feel no fear at butting heads with any of the men in the house.
She wasn’t weepy. Didn’t even cry at the sappy movies she watched sometimes. But, to see her shed tears now? It made his own heart feel decimated in the face of her grief.
And his shame stemmed from the fact that he shared that grief, he even matched it, but, more than anything was his horror at having left her to shop by herself. At his having been too busy to notice she’d been gone for all those hours without even thinking about where she was.
This wasn’t just anyone. It was Sascha.
Sascha.
The woman who was their fucking world.
He had three responsibilities in his life. Three. And two of them had walked out that door in cold weather. He shouldn’t have even let them drive. Not when he knew the route from his mother and father’s place could be a nightmare in the weather they’d been having.
She should never have gone out at all, and that she had was because he’d been working, because he and Devon had gotten caught up in the files Andrei had sent them about the state of the Veronian economy. And Sawyer loved working with the DIVA program so much, he’d fallen into his tests with zeal.
Sascha had always been strong, but over these last few years, since having Tin and discovering the truth of her heritage and having inherited a fortune, she’d grown even stronger.
She could be like a bull in a china shop.
He knew her. Knew her so well that he could imagine her looking at the weather, peering at the roads, and thinking, “I’ve got this.” Never fearing they’d be slick with ice, or that out in the city, it could be equally as dangerous.
Buchanan Street, where she’d been shopping, was on a damn hill. She knew that. She’d been there countless times before. Everyone knew it was a bit treacherous in the winter. When the ice was out, the ground was like it had been greased up!
Still, she’d gone there because he hadn’t been paying attention.
He watched his mother wrap her arms around Sascha, tears drenching her eyes and curling over her cheeks, as she rocked his woman as though she were a baby.
Tin had clambered toward Hamish, and was settling in his lap now that Sawyer’s father had taken a heavy seat in one of the questionably sanitary armchairs that had acted as their bed throughout the night.
They’d taken turns climbing in behind her, each of them needing to feel her close. When Andrei and Kurt had strode in, grief written all over their faces, fatigue in their eyes, and their desperate need to hold Sascha strumming through their bodies, they’d done so without waking her up by some miracle. With all her men around her, Sascha seemed to be brighter today, but when compared to the darkness that brimmed in her eyes, that brightness was just a drop in the ocean.
He knew she was putting on a brave face for them, and he wanted to tell her it wasn’t necessary, that she should be herself when she was with them, but he knew to tell her that would be cruel.
Because the brave face was for Tin too.
Hell, for him more than any of them.
Tin hadn’t pushed his mother over, but he was an ebullient little boy—all he knew was he’d been holding his mother’s hand, had tugged one way, and she’d come tumbling down.
Was it any wonder he spent most of the time curled up close to Sascha? Except when he wanted to sleep, then he’d climb onto one of their laps and promptly pass out.
“When’s the doctor due in?” Cinta asked. “I want to get you out of this place. I hate damn hospitals.”
“Another half-hour. But she’ll probably have to stay in.” Sean’s voice was weighed down with his own particular misery.
They were all feeling it.
Cinta squeezed Sascha’s arm. “It will be all right, lass. Might not feel like it now, but it will.” His mother licked her lips and murmured, “I lost my first. Stillborn as well.” Her head bobbed as her throat worked. “The pain never leaves, lass, and the memory will always be wi’ ye, but ye move on, and that little mon o’er there will help wi’ that.”
Sascha just nodded, but he could see she didn’t agree, and anyone with eyes could see that too.
Who could blame her?
Time might heal all wounds, but this particular wound wasn’t something they were ever likely to forget.
She’d given birth.
Why hadn’t he realized that?
Why hadn’t he thought about it?
He’d just thought she’d bleed. That’s what happened in the movies, didn’t it? They didn’t give birth, and they didn’t get to look at the baby.
He closed his eyes at the thought. The nurses had already been in, offering the da’ the chance to see the bairn. The nursing staff had looked around, trying to guess which man was the father, and they’d been unable to say, ‘all of them.’
The prospect of that though wasn’t something he felt he could bear. Sascha said she’d taken pictures. But, Sawyer wasn’t sure he could… He cut his thoughts off that track.
Kurt would go with her.
He was the one who was most in touch with his feelings, and he always seemed to understand Sascha. Always seemed to know what she needed. He’d go and do that for her benefit.
Well, either him or Sean.
It wasn’t fair to offload that onto either of his friends but Sawyer knew, point blank, he wouldn’t be able to look at that tiny person and not feel like dying himself.
He sucked in a breath when a knock sounded at the door. More nurses swarmed in, and as they’d done for most of their time here, looked disapprovingly at the cluster of folk as they went about their business.
He had no doubt that John Ashton had told the staff to treat them like VIPs, which meant seeing to Sascha’s needs even when the room contained a crowd.
Devon’s charitable foundation had funded a wing at this particular hospital. Sawyer’s sister had died of ovarian cancer eight years ago, and Devon and Sheila had always been close. It had been his idea to construct the special wing dedicated to cancer treatment, and he’d maintained a close working relationship with the management.
Well, Sawyer had.
Devon never really got close to anyone.
Save for the people in this room, that is.
Everyone was under the impression that it was Devon behind the emails and letters, but it was Sawyer, even if his brother had fronted the large sum of money the wing had necessitated.
Devon moved away from the bed where he’d been leaning and came to stand next to his side at the back wall. Kurt and Andrei had to move away too, but they stayed close, their hands hovering a second before they settled on Sascha’s knee and calf while the nurse took some more blood after doing a basic vitals check.
As they watched, Devon murmured, “I don’t trust that guy.”
Sawyer frowned, the nurse was a woman. “Which guy?”
“Joseph Santorini,” he murmured, saying the name like it was poison-strewn.
“Joseph?” He blinked, and it took a second to remember the name. “Sascha’s right, Devon. He was there for her when we weren’t.” He didn’t want to hammer that home, but he didn’t have a choice if Devon was going to fixate on the man who’d saved Sascha from more grief. “Let’s just be grateful he was here when we couldn’t be.”
“Yes. He was. That’s my fault, I know. But I’m telling you. Something was off about that guy.”
Sawyer cringed. The trouble was, Devon’s instincts were usually right on target where things like this were concerned.
Raising a hand, he dragged it down his nose before he pinched the bridge. “What was it?” Devon had the irritating knack of being able to discern shit about other people that few else could. His brain, as weird and wonderful as it was, saw things most missed. Which meant Sawyer couldn’t dismiss his concerns as being out of hand or irrational.
“I don’t know.”
His impatience levels soaring, Sawyer closed his eyes. “Devon, is now really the best time?”
The other man wriggled his shoulders. “You know I wouldn’t say anything about it if I didn’t feel something was wrong.”
Because he did know that, Sawyer felt like screaming. “You have to narrow it down, Devon.”
“He was lying.”
The simple statement had Sawyer’s brow puckering. “What the hell do you mean?” What did a stranger have to lie about to another stranger?
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean?’” Devon grumbled. “The clue’s in the title, isn’t it?”
Sawyer rubbed his chin. “Yeah. But I want specifics. You can’t just tell me that he was lying and not tell me what he was lying about.”
Devon considered that a second, then he nodded. “He wasn’t working in town. Out on a lunch break,” he clarified.
“What was he doing then?”
Devon huffed, but his already pale face, lined with the grief and the anger he was fighting to control, seemed to whiten even more. Unlike most of them who were struggling with their grief and how to handle Sascha, Devon was raging. Sawyer had never seen it before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. “How the hell do I know?” he snapped. “I just know he was lying about it.”
“So what if he was? What does it matter? We’ll never see the man again, Dev. Look, this isn’t the thing to be focused on. I know what you’re doing. You’re feeling guilty. One of us should have been with her and instead, we were working. But shifting the blame onto a guy who really helped us out when we couldn’t be there for…” His nostrils flared as the words choked him. “I mean, she has five men, Devon. Five. And not one of us were there for her. Fuck.”
Devon’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything, just stared straight ahead, watching as the nurse finished up.
“Look, shifting that blame is natural. But, we messed up. We did. We fucked up and by him being there for our woman, she’s here today. We need to own that, Devon. We need to make sure it never happens again. We need to make sure she’s so fucking safe from now on, that she gets sick of us asking how she’s doing, because I refuse for her to ever be in a situation like this again.”
“What are you two whispering about?”
Sascha’s voice jolted Sawyer from the intense conversation he was having with his best friend. He reared back, hard enough for his shoulders to connect with the wall with a dull thud.
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t, technically, have a conversation about nothing.”
Devon’s statement had Sawyer heaving a sigh. “No? Well, we just did. So miracles truly can happen.”
On the brink of arguing, Sawyer elbowed Devon before he could open his mouth. He knew him well enough to know that Dev wouldn’t bring up the topic in front of his mother; he wouldn’t want to upset her, even though Jacinta had been raised on Breardon estate and had moved to an equally as impoverished estate after she’d wed his father.
If there was one thing his mother wasn’t, it was a weakling.
She was tough as leather and, in her heyday, had the ability to make grown men cry.
No, Jacinta certainly didn’t need coddling, but he never discouraged Devon because his mother thought it was sweet, and she, in return, babied Dev.
If there’d been anyone in need of coddling when Sawyer had first come to know the army brat, it was Devon, and Jacinta had more love than a teenaged Sawyer had known how to handle, so splitting the load between Sheila and Dev had been a relief.
Stepping over to the foot of the bed, he grabbed the rail and squeezed—better that than Devon’s throat. The man could be so fucking obtuse sometimes.
Finding a reason to dislike Joseph, a man who’d helped their woman out when she’d been all alone in the world save for their little boy, was just shitty.
But he knew Devon well enough to know that even though he’d just chided him, reprimanded him for thinking badly of Joseph, it wouldn’t stop there.
Devon could be obsessive. Not just where his work was concerned, and at that particular moment, Sawyer just wasn’t capable of handling that.
For once, he was going to let Devon battle his demons by himself, because Sawyer had more than a dozen of his own beating him into the dust without any help from his best friend’s.