Nitro and I walk through the sliding hospital doors. When Brooks dropped me off at the front door to the emergency room, he told me he’d be standing by. He wanted an update on Arden as soon as I could give him one.

The first advantage I’ve ever found for being blind? I don’t wait in line. Everyone moves out of my way, and no one makes a fuss that the blind guy stepped in front of them.

I keep walking until I reach the counter, and hope there’s someone there who will fucking listen. Because if I have to tear this whole hospital apart looking for my girl, that’s what I’ll do.

I place shaking hands on the flat surface in front of me. “I need help. Right now.”

A woman’s voice behind the desk sounds concerned. “Are you sick, sir?”

Shaking my head, exasperation rolls across my nerves, amping me up. “I’m looking for someone. Her name is—”

“Flash?”

I turn toward the sound of Brantley’s voice.

“This way.” She sounds as desperate and frantic as I feel.

“Talk to me, Brantley.” The words are spoken through my teeth as we move down a hallway and step into an elevator. “What happened?”

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before she answers. “She’s going to be fine, dammit. She has to be fine. I can’t…” A sob bursts from her, so loud it makes my head snap toward her. “I can’t go through this again, Flash. I can’t lose Arden.”

My hand tightens on Nitro’s harness, and I reach for Brantley with the other hand. The seconds tick by, and I try to be patient with her. I know she’s scared and she’s doing her best to keep it all together, but I need to know exactly how this happened and what’s going on with Arden.

I need to know now.

“Someone ran a red light when she was driving toward the studio. Slammed into the passenger side of her car. Passenger side, not driver’s side. That matters, right? And she had barely taken off from the intersection. The driver who hit her”—Brantley pauses to take a breath, and I think I’m suffocating from the weight of what she’s telling me—“was going about forty. So it could have been worse, but...”  

The breath she releases rattles me down to my fucking bones. “But they had to do surgery; emergency surgery. She has some internal injuries. I’m her emergency contact, so they told me what was going on. But that’s all I know.”

The elevator doors open, and I follow Brantley into a space that smells like a fucking hospital. Too sterile. Too cold.

This isn’t where my Arden belongs. She’s been through enough, and all I want to do is punch something until someone sets this right.

The room Brantley leads me to is for waiting. The one thing I can’t stand doing. Feeling powerless, helpless…it’s torture. Especially when it comes to Arden.

“So you’ve spoken to her doctor? What are they saying? About…about their expectations?”

Ripping off my glasses, my head drops into my hands, my fists digging into my eyes.

Brantley sounds lost. “They couldn’t tell me anything except for her current condition. He said he’d know more after the surgery.”

And so, we wait. Minutes flash by like hours; hours pass like days. I don’t know how much time has passed when Axel shows up.

I stand to greet him when he enters, and somehow keep myself from breaking down as he grabs me in a tight hug. When he releases me, I swallow the sorrow, because that’s not what Arden needs right now.

Axel lets me go and I can hear the quiet words he murmurs to Brantley when he hugs her. “Shhh, don’t even say that. She’s going to be okay. She’s got you and she’s got Flash, and I don’t know two stronger people.”

So we continue to wait. Axel is beside me, and sometimes he asks if I need anything, or he speaks softly to Brantley. I leave once, only to step outside and take Nitro out.

After more time passes, Arden’s parents arrive.

John and Nancy Simmons got in the car and drove up from Florida as soon as they received Brantley’s call. I stand and shake their hands, and Brantley fills them in on Arden’s current condition.

And then we’re all waiting. I turn down any offers of food or drink from Axel and sit with my hands clasped, elbows resting on my thighs. Head down, eyes closed behind my glasses.

Praying.

This woman? She belongs to me. She needs to make it through this, so I can show her exactly what she means to me.

I’m not typically someone who prays. Not even after my own accident. But for this?

For Arden, I pray.

When soft footfalls echo in the hallway and a man’s voice speaks, I leap to my feet.

“Are you Arden Fontaine’s family?”

“Yes,” Nancy answers for all of us. “How is she?”

“She sustained injury to her spleen, which was bleeding and needed to be removed. She also has two broken ribs as a result of the collision.”

Nancy’s gasp, and John’s murmured, “Oh, my God” sends my heartbeat into overdrive. My knees wobble, but I stay focused on the doctor’s words.

She’s alive. Focus on that. She’s alive.

“She came though the surgery, but there’s something you need to know about what happened back there.”

I swallow.

“Arden flatlined while she was on the operating table.” The words drop like bombs on those of us gathered in the waiting room, but I feel each one explode in my chest.

She left me. She left me?

“Jesus,” I breathe, my hands gripping the back of my neck so tightly it hurts. Axel’s hand lands on my shoulder, squeezing tight.

“We honestly didn’t know if we’d be able to bring her back. But now she’s on the other side of it. We were unable to bring her around after the anesthesia, so we have to wait until she wakes up on her own before we know if she’s out of the woods.”

“Are you saying…” I try to keep my voice low and controlled. “Are you telling us that she’s in a coma? Again?”

Brantley’s strangled cry reaches me, and I close my eyes.

“We know her medical history, and I’m sorry to tell you this. But yes, she’s in a coma. However, it might be exactly what her body needs to heal. For both her and the fetus.”

Silence.

Did he just say…

No one speaks, and I feel like I’ve been dunked underwater. Unable to draw breath.

I take a step forward. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

The doctor pauses before replying, like he’s just figured out that none of us knew what he just revealed. “I said that Arden and the baby are getting the rest they need. Her body is working overtime, not only to heal itself, but to support the fetus’s life.” He pauses. “Are you the father?”

Axel thumps my shoulder, letting me know that the doctor is speaking to me.

I swallow thickly. “Yes.”

There’s a smile in the doctor’s voice. “Congratulations. We’ll monitor them closely over the next couple of days. It’s a miracle the fetus came through all of this at all, quite honestly. I’ve never seen anything like it before…but the heartbeat is strong.”

This time, my knees do buckle, sending me down to the floor. The impact of his words have just hit me, and they hit me hard.

Baby. Arden is carrying my baby. Christ.

Axel lands beside me, his arms going around me. “You’re gonna be a father, man. Holy shit, you’re gonna be a father!”

My throat burns as my eyes fill, and all I want to do is go sit by my girl’s bed until she wakes up.

Because she will wake up. There’s no way we aren’t bringing this baby into the world and raising him or her together.

We’re going to have a family. We’re going to have it all.

I know it.

“Can we see her?” Nancy’s tears overflow into her tone, and I glance up as I listen for the doctor’s response.

“Yes. You all can see her, two at a time.”

* * *

I was the last person to go in to see Arden, because I knew that once I was there, I wasn’t leaving. My forehead rests against the soft blanket covering her legs and both my hands are wrapped around one of hers. The steady beeping of the monitors is the only comfort I have that she’s here with me, because she hasn’t moved once in the last twelve hours.

Sitting up, I focus on where I know her head lies. “Come on, sweetheart.” I try not to choke on the lump in my throat; the one that’s been lodged there since I received Brantley’s phone call. “I need you to wake up for me. I need to hear that sexy voice and I need to feel your hand squeezing mine. And then I want to thank you for making me a father.” My voice breaks, and I scrub a hand over my face. “Come back to me, Bunny.”

I reach up to find the hair I know is falling over her forehead, brushing it back. I paint the picture of her I’ve created in my head over the months I’ve known her: long, blond hair and a stunning, delicate face. Green eyes and a sexy, toned figure. Before I went blind, it was all about what looked good to me where women were concerned. When I lost my sight, I figured I’d lose the ability to be attracted to someone.

Then Arden came along and showed me what true attraction means. How you can fall for the inside of a woman before you even touch her on the outside. That you can be drawn to someone like a magnet without having had sex with them first. She changed the game for me, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to lose her now.

I lay my head back down on her leg, blowing out a frustrated breath. Closing my eyes, a sudden thought flies through my head.

Lessons. First, learning how to be the man I was meant to become without my eyesight.

Then, figuring out how to reconcile with the fact that I might be meant to be with a woman who’s just as broken as me.

Now…another example to show me I’m not the one in control. Sometimes, I have to wait.

I fucking hate waiting.

When I open my eyes, it’s obvious I’ve been out for a few hours. My watch tells me that it’s past dawn. I sit up and listen, grabbing my bearings. There’s no one in the room with us; the only sound is the continuous soft beeping of the monitors.

The monitors keeping an eye on my girl and my baby.

A smile tugs at my lips as I reach for Arden’s hand. I breathe a sigh as soon as my fingers are wrapped around her cool ones.

“Time to wake up, Bunny. We need to figure out what we’re going to name this baby.”

The soft pressure of her fingers squeezing my hand makes my heart stutter.

I suck in a breath and hold it. Letting it out slowly, I squeeze her hand softly.

She squeezes back.

“Shit…Bunny? Baby, are you awake?”

She squeezes my hand again, and I jump up from my chair. Running my hands along the back of her bed, I search for the call button the nurse showed me last night, and then press it.

I don’t even bother brushing away the hot tears that drip from my eyes as I dip my head down close to hers. “I’m right here, sweetheart. Right here. I missed you…God, I missed you. Just hold tight, the doctors will be here in a minute.”

She squeezes my hand twice, and I drop my head back and send up another silent prayer.

Thank you.