Читать книгу Protecting Her Royal Baby - Beth Cornelison - Страница 8

Chapter 2

A chill totally incongruous with the warm autumn afternoon slithered through Hunter. The bullet holes could be old. But based on the way Brianna had been driving, the fear that gripped her even after losing her memory, his guess was someone had been shooting at her today. Minutes ago. And whatever danger had sent her speeding down this highway was still out there, still a threat.

“Hunter!”

Her cry pulled his attention back to the open patient bay of the ambulance. Her hand stretched toward him, and fear flashed in her eyes. “Don’t go!”

He set his jaw. He had promised to stay with her, and he was a man of his word. Not only was she frightened and alone, she was in labor. In pain. In danger. Her amnesia made her even more vulnerable to the person trying to hurt her.

He hurried back to the ambulance, but when he tried to climb in, one of the EMTs stopped him. “No passengers.”

Hunter scowled at the medic, in no mood for rules. “She needs me. Can’t you see how scared she is?”

“Sorry. You can meet us at the hospital.” The EMT tried again to push Hunter aside, and he pushed back.

“Meet you? With what? Look at her car!” He waved a hand at the overturned sedan. “Am I supposed to walk?”

The medic twisted his mouth, wavering. “Are you family?”

Hunter opened his mouth and caught the truth before it slipped out. He swallowed hard and silently begged his mother and God to forgive him for the lie that rose to his tongue. “I’m her husband. That’s my baby she’s having!”

The EMT eyed him suspiciously, clearly having picked up on his earlier hesitation.

Going with the story he’d presented, Hunter squared his shoulders. “You said the baby could come any minute. Don’t make me miss the birth of my first child!”

Brianna wailed in pain at that moment, as if to punctuate his plea. The medic relented and stepped out of Hunter’s way.

* * *

Brianna squeezed her eyes shut, gripped the edges of the stretcher and waited out the excruciating contraction. In addition to the wrenching pain in her belly, her head throbbed. She’d hit it on something when the car flipped, Hunter said. But everything prior to blinking Hunter’s face into focus as he peered through the broken window was a frightening blur. A blank canvas, really. How could she have forgotten everything, even her own name?

She tried again to recall where she’d been going, who she was, why she’d been on that road—and got nowhere. Panic fluttered in her chest, speeding her heart rate and her breathing.

The EMTs were at work, taking her vital signs, checking the baby’s heart rate, starting an IV in her arm.

Hunter moved into view, smiling down at her and wrapping her hand in his. “You’re okay, sweetie. Hang on. Deep breaths, remember?”

Remember deep breaths? Heck, she couldn’t remember what she had for breakfast, but she nodded at him just the same. Struggled to slow her breathing. Truth was, when Hunter stroked her hand and smiled at her like that, breathing at all was difficult. The man was gorgeous, even rumpled and sweaty as he was. He had piercing blue eyes, thick black hair that curled against his neck and the sort of strong, rugged face you saw in outdoor-adventure magazines. His sleeveless T-shirt showed off impressive muscles in his arms, but it was his smile that held her attention. His broad, gentle smile had the power to calm and excite her at the same time. Her pulse did a happy jig when he grinned, while a peace filled her, despite her scary circumstances. Hunter’s presence made her feel safe.

Impossible as it seemed, considering she didn’t know him, didn’t know anyone or anything at the moment, Hunter kept her from flying apart. He reassured her and soothed her. His eyes, his smile, spoke softly to her soul. As if—

Another blinding pain ripped through her torso, obliterating the crazy poetic thoughts. “Oooh!”

Again Hunter stroked her hair, patted her hand, coached her through the contraction. “That’s it, Brianna. You’re a champion. Keep breathing.”

She gobbled up the inane words as if they were manna from heaven. Hunter and his encouragement were all she had at that moment, and she clung to his hand, clung to the support he gave her like a lifeline.

“You don’t appear to have any bleeding that would indicate a placental abruption, and the baby’s heart rate is within range.” The EMT beside her started pelting her with questions as he worked. “We need to get some medical history and personal information. Are you allergic to any medications? Latex or iodine?”

“I...” She swallowed hard. The panic swelled again. “I don’t know.”

“She hit her head,” Hunter explained. “She can’t remember anything. Not even her name.”

“Okay,” the EMT said, turning his attention to Hunter. “Do you know if she has allergies?”

Brianna knitted her brow. Why would Hunter know that about her?

“I, uh...don’t...” he stammered. “I’m not sure.”

“Does she have a Do Not Resuscitate order or living will on file?”

Hunter’s gaze flicked to her as if she could answer. Brianna could only stare back at him in confusion.

“Don’t know.”

“Her blood type?”

Hunter shook his head.

“Name of her ob-gyn?”

“Uh...”

The EMT arched an eyebrow. “Kinda important stuff to know about your wife. Your pregnant wife.”

Brianna gasped. Wife? What—

Another pain tightened her belly, and both Hunter and the EMT turned to her. She gripped Hunter’s hand, squeezing hard as the wave of pain racked her. “Hunter!”

“I’m here, hon. You’re okay.” He turned to the EMT, his face stern. “Can’t you give her anything for the pain?”

“Not without knowing her history or allergies. And we have to be careful not to send the baby into distress.”

“I’m...okay,” she lied. “Don’t put the...baby at risk.”

Hunter gave her a worried look and stroked her hair gently.

After finishing his physical checks, the EMT pulled out a clipboard and shot a narrow-eyed glance at Hunter.

“I’m gonna guess here and say you don’t have any of her personal info, either. Address, phone number, insurance or Social Security number?” The EMT flipped up a palm, giving Hunter the opportunity to deny his assertion.

A guilty look crossed Hunter’s face. He licked his lips and blew out a sigh. “No.”

The EMT grunted, tossed the clipboard aside and busied himself taking her blood pressure, checking the progress of the delivery.

Clearly Hunter had lied about his relationship to her in order to stay with her. Knowing that stirred a mix of feelings in her. While she hated that she’d led him to fib, she was grateful for his willingness to stay with her and allay her fears. Brianna tugged on Hunter’s hand, and when he met her eyes, she flashed him a brief grin of appreciation for his efforts. In response, he trapped her hand between his two larger ones and rode in silence, until the ambulance bumped over the curb of the hospital driveway.

The EMT rallied, pushing Hunter aside as the ambulance jerked to a stop and the back doors flew open. Brianna was jostled as her stretcher was rolled out and the legs unfolded for the ride into the hospital. As she was whisked away, Hunter disappeared from her field of vision. A clawing sense of agitation raked through her. “Hunter!”

“Don’t be scared!” she heard him call as the orderlies rolled her into a back hall, taking her away from her anchor, her protector. But she was frightened. Without Hunter, the eerie sense of danger crowded her again. Someone had tried to hurt her. She was sure of it.

And now she was in labor. Her memory gone. A deep sense of loneliness and foreboding closed around her like a smothering cloak.

* * *

Hunter tried to bat away the hands that blocked him from following Brianna into the E.R. “I want to go with her. That’s my wife!” he said, sticking to the lie he’d already committed to. “Come on. She’s scared, and I promised I’d stay with her.”

“You can be with her in a minute,” a woman in scrubs told him, leading him by the arm to an office. “We just need a little information for billing purposes.”

He raked his hair with his fingers and exhaled a frustrated sigh. “Fine. What do you need?”

“Take a seat over there. I just have a form for you to fill out.”

The fear in Brianna’s voice as they took her away echoed in his mind. Poor thing. She had to be terrified. He thought of the EMT’s questions as they rode in from the accident scene. He had no idea what to tell them about Brianna’s medical history or family or billing information.

Crud. He glanced over the form, and his gut rolled. Well, he’d come this far. Might as well lean into it.

Name—Brianna Mansfield. Marital status—married. He gave them his address as hers, his phone number...his name as her spouse and emergency contact. He plowed on, filling out the form, giving the hospital the information they’d expect if he were in fact Brianna’s husband. For just an instant, he imagined that scenario. Coming home at the end of a long day to her warm embrace. Waking up to her pretty face. Having a child with her...

His heart thumped. The medical staff would assume he was the father of Brianna’s baby. He’d told the EMT as much. Though he’d savored his role as uncle to his brother’s kids, had been a father figure to his niece Savannah for the first four years of her life, the thought of being a father still gave him pause.

Of course, he wasn’t the baby’s father. He shook off the tangential thoughts and focused on the papers in front of him. This was all a ruse for Brianna’s sake...until her real family could be found and brought to the hospital. At the bottom of the sheet, he signed and dated the form, then handed the clipboard back to the admissions clerk. “Can I see Brianna now?”

“Sure. This way.”

Hunter wiped his palms on the seat of his running shorts, wishing he didn’t look and smell like a gym rat, and followed the woman to the nurses’ desk.

When a nurse finally breezed past them, Hunter grabbed her arm to catch her attention. “I’m looking for my wife, Brianna. She’s in labor.”

The nurse nodded to him without stopping. “She’s delivering the baby now. Susan, will you show him where to scrub up and find him a sterile gown?”

The admissions clerk opened her mouth to respond, but the nurse hurried off and disappeared into an exam room. By the time the admissions clerk had located the sterile head-to-toe garb and Hunter felt he’d sufficiently washed his arms, hands and face, Brianna was already cradling a red-faced baby and crying tears of joy over her new arrival.

“Better late than never, Dad,” the E.R. doctor said, waving him in. “We’re just finishing up here, but everyone’s doing fine.”

He stepped over to the side of the surgical table where Brianna lay and, behind the sterile mask covering his mouth and nose, he smiled. Realizing she couldn’t see the gesture meant to congratulate and comfort her, he winked, as well. “Sorry to be so long. Hospital business...then they made me put all this stuff on.” He tugged at the sleeve of the sterile gown.

“It’s all right.” She grinned at her baby, then angled her arms to show Hunter. “I have a son. Seven pounds, seven ounces. A healthy baby boy. Thanks to you.”

Hunter gazed at the puffy-faced bundle and felt a tug in his chest. Newborns generally weren’t what he’d call cute. Even his nieces had needed a few days to register on the cute scale for him. But somehow, knowing he’d helped ensure this baby arrived safely, he felt a little connection to Brianna’s son that put the swollen cheeks and pointy head in perspective.

“Hey, little guy. Welcome to the world.” He crooked a finger and ran it along the baby’s chin. “So what are you naming him?”

She shook her head tiredly. “I don’t know. Surely I had a name picked out, but...I don’t remember it. I can’t give him a name until I get my memory back.” She glanced up at him, and her blue eyes were dark with anxiety. “If I get it back.”

He put a hand on her arm and gave her a supportive squeeze. “What have the doctors said about your head injury? Your amnesia?”

“Not much yet. Delivering Little One here was their first priority. But they are setting up for me to get a CT scan now.” She gave her son’s head a kiss and closed her eyes. “This is crazy. I don’t even know if my son’s father is at home waiting for me, worrying. There must be someone. I didn’t get pregnant on my own.”

A funny gnawing filled Hunter’s gut—maybe because he’d been playing the role of her husband, and hearing her talk of someone else having the rightful place in her life felt off. “You’re not wearing a ring.”

She raised her left hand and stared at her naked fingers. “No. But someone meant enough to me nine months ago that I got pregnant. Where is that man? He should know his son has been born.” Her breathing grew shallow and rapid again. Her brow furrowed, and lines of distress crinkled around her eyes. “I’m scared, Hunter. Without any memory, I’m all alone. I have no home. I have no money. I have no identity or history or—”

“Hey.” He cut her off as the desperation in her voice rose. “You have me. I’m gonna help you figure out who you are and where your family is. Okay?”

A tremor shook her, and when she blinked at him, a fat tear broke free of her eyelashes. “Why? You don’t know me.”

“Yeah, well, the hospital thinks I’m your husband.”

“You told them that...for me? So you could stay with me?”

“Yeah.” He caught her tear with his thumb. “I guess I’m a sucker for blue eyes and a damsel in distress.”

The E.R. nurse came back into the room and raised the railing on the other side of her surgical table. “They’re ready for you in radiology. If you’ll give Dad the baby to hold for a moment, a nurse from the nursery will be down in a minute to take him upstairs for more health checks.”

Brianna’s eyes met Hunter’s. “Is that all right?”

His gut pitched. He’d held babies this small when his nieces had been born, but somehow this felt different. He was being entrusted with a child not even twenty minutes old, given the responsibility of a father’s care and protection. He swallowed hard, hesitating.

“It’s okay, Dad,” the nurse said, chuckling. “Baby won’t break.”

Hunter pushed out a cleansing breath and slipped his hands around the tightly wrapped bundle lying against Brianna’s chest. In the process of gathering the baby into his arms, he brushed intimately against her breasts. When her breath caught and her gaze darted to his, heat spread through him and raised a flushed prickling in his cheeks. “Sorry.”

In response, she twitched her lips in a brief, nervous grin as she released the baby to him. He could feel the heavy throb of her heartbeat against the back of his hand as he adjusted his grip on her son. His pulse drummed in his ears as he pulled the tiny life close to his chest and cradled the baby’s head in the crook of his arm.

“Hey, sport,” he crooned to the puffy-faced baby, who wrinkled his face and whimpered pitifully like a puppy. “No, no. Don’t cry. Mom will be right back.” As Brianna was wheeled out for her CT scan, her troubled gaze lingered on him. Hunter gave her a nod and a wink. “I got this. Don’t worry.”

But as soon as Brianna and the nurse disappeared, the baby loosed a plaintive wail. A bubble of panic swelled inside him. A crying baby was usually his cue to pass a baby back to mom or dad. But he was supposed to be playing the dad role for the next few hours. Yikes.

“Shh. Easy, fella.” He gave Brianna’s son a little bounce and patted the baby’s bottom the way he’d seen his brother Grant do with his daughters when they were infants. “You’re okay, dude. I’m gonna help your mom out, and everything’s going to be just fine.”

He paced the small room, trying to comfort the crying baby, wishing the nursery staff would hurry and take the baby upstairs. As he cradled the infant, rocking his arms from side to side, he flashed back on the accident that had brought him here. Brianna racing down the highway, losing control of her car. Bullet holes in the back of her flipped sedan.

A chill rippled through Hunter. Who had fired at Brianna, and why? Was she still in danger, or had she been victim to a random crime? He recalled her fear of someone hurting her when he’d first tried to help her, and uneasiness scraped through him.

No matter how he looked at it, the cards were stacked against Brianna. Amnesia, a new baby...and some unknown threat to her safety. He may have known her for only an hour, but she had no one else. She and her baby needed him, needed his support, his friendship...and his protection.

He gazed down at the new life in his arms. So tiny. So fragile. So...vulnerable.

“Don’t worry, sport. I’m going to take care of you and your mom,” he promised Brianna’s son. “I’ll help her remember who she is, where your dad is. And I will make sure both of you stay safe.”

* * *

“Where the hell are you, man? You’ve been gone for three hours!” Hunter’s older brother Grant said the minute he answered Hunter’s call.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Hunter cut his brother a lot of slack for his sharp tone, and a stab of guilt also poked him for worrying Grant. His brother had been through hell in recent months, having tragically lost his wife in May. Grant was now a single father, raising his two young daughters alone, and didn’t need any extra grief on his plate. Considering the tumult of the spring and the circumstances surrounding Tracy’s death, Hunter should have called sooner so Grant wouldn’t worry.

He’d left for his jog from Grant’s country home after Sunday lunch with the Mansfield clan. He’d been expected back inside an hour to shower and watch the Saints game with their dad. Since Tracy’s death, the family had been spending a lot more time with Grant, helping with the kids and hoping to lift his spirits.

“Sorry about the radio silence.” Hunter could imagine Grant—and their mother—pacing the hardwood floors of Grant’s farmhouse, fretting about him. “I’ve been...distracted. I’m at the hospital with—”

“The hospital!”

Hunter winced. He should have led with a disclaimer. “I’m fine! Really. But I witnessed a car accident, and I rode in the ambulance to the E.R. with the woman whose car flipped.”

“Aw, skunk.” Grant mumbled the kid-safe curse he and his wife had invented when their oldest started repeating everything she heard. “Is the woman okay?”

“She hit her head pretty hard and has no memory of who she is at the moment. That’s why I’m here. She was pretty scared, but she and the baby are okay other than that, I think.”

“She had a baby with her?” Grant’s tone ratcheted up a degree on the worry scale.

Hunter raked his fingers through his sweaty hair. He really needed a shower, but wouldn’t leave the hospital until he knew Brianna was all right. “She was in labor. She just had the baby a few minutes ago.”

“Skunk,” Grant repeated. “No wonder you stayed with her. So...when do you think you’ll get back here?”

“No telling. Go on and eat dinner without me. I may swing by my apartment for a shower later, but I doubt I’ll make it back out to your place today.” He remembered then that his truck was sitting in Grant’s driveway. “Wait, my truck’s out there, and I need it.” He winced, hating to beg a favor from Grant, who had two small kids to deal with. Maybe his parents could bring him a vehicle. “Are Mom and Dad still there? Could one of them bring my truck to the hospital when they head back into town?”

“I think we can work something out between the three of us.” He heard Grant sigh. “So this woman has no idea who she is? There was nothing with her that identified her? A wallet or cell phone or piece of mail?”

“Not that I found with my preliminary search, but I plan to go back out to the car and look again.” Hunter glanced up to see Brianna being wheeled out of the radiology department. “Text me when you get here with my truck, okay? I gotta go.”

“Sure. Love ya, bro.”

“Back atcha.” Hunter tugged a sad grin, wanting to tease his brother about unmanly professions of feelings. But knowing why his brother had started telling him he loved him at the end of phone calls and visits made teasing impossible. The suddenness of Tracy’s death had shaken the whole family. Factor into that the third Mansfield brother, Connor, returning to WitSec with his wife and daughter, and the family had plenty of reasons to be particularly mindful of family bonds. They all hugged more, said frequent “I love yous” and didn’t take their time together for granted.

As the hospital aides rolled Brianna’s stretcher closer, he couldn’t help but wonder about her family. Did she have anyone looking for her? Was someone, even now, pacing the floor and waiting for her to call? A pang of sympathy prodded him and fired a sense of urgency inside him to find out who she was and where she lived.

Her eyes found his as she neared him, and he sent her an encouraging smile. “They took your son upstairs to be checked more thoroughly by the staff pediatrician. And they’re getting a room ready for you on the maternity floor.”

She nodded, then winced, her hand lifting to her temple, where her head had a new bandage.

“Any news from the CT scan?” he asked.

“Not yet.” Her sky-blue eyes clouded with worry. “The doctor is reading it now.”

* * *

“The CT scan and MRI both show what we suspected,” the staff neurologist said, his hands shoved in the pockets of his white lab coat. “You have a significant concussion, which has caused swelling in the brain. That swelling is what has caused the memory loss. I have every reason to believe that as the swelling goes down, you should get most, if not all, of your memory back.”

“Most?” Brianna gaped at the silver-haired doctor, stricken cold by the idea of losing any part of her history to permanent brain damage.

When she’d finished in radiology, Hunter had followed her up to the room where she’d been admitted to the maternity ward. He sat beside her bed now, leaning forward in the chair, eagerly taking in every word the doctor shared about her condition. As any good husband would. Except he wasn’t her husband. Before today, he hadn’t even been an acquaintance. Why was he so willing to help her, to pretend they had a relationship? Was it just so that she didn’t face her amnesia alone?

Hunter frowned. “Do you mean some of her memory loss could be permanent?”

“It is possible. The brain is a tricky and mysterious thing. But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. All indicators are you’ll be good as new in a couple of weeks.”

A couple of weeks? She swallowed the dismay that choked her. Even if two or more weeks without her memory seemed like an eternity, she needed to count her blessings. She had a healthy son, the hope of recovering her past, her identity...and Hunter. She had Hunter to help her through the scariness of amnesia. But how long would he stay? She couldn’t ask him to give up his life, his commitments, in order to babysit her. He’d already gone way above and beyond the call of duty, pretending to be her husband in order to stay beside her, allay her fears, give her moral support. All too soon she’d have to face the void of her unknown life alone. That thought brought back the chill, the prickling sense that someone wanted to hurt her. What had put her on that road where her car flipped today? Who was after her, and why?