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But he looks down at me, alert and on edge. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m bleeding,” I say tearfully.
THE NEXT HALF hour goes by in a blur.
“Get the car,” Remington instructs Pete as he carries me out of the arena.
The word “Riptide!” still rings in the background when we go outside, into the fresh Vegas air, and to the parking lot of the warehouse hosting the Underground tonight. He tucks me into the back of the Escalade, and Pete gets behind the wheel, punching at the GPS buttons to pull up the nearest hospital. I hear myself speak almost frantically, “I’m not losing it. I won’t lose your baby. ”
Remington doesn’t hear me. He’s talking to Pete in a hushed voice as he holds me to his chest, telling him to “turn right—into the emergency” and I continue talking, in my most determined voice. “I won’t lose it. You want this baby, I want this baby, I eat right, I exercise, you eat right, you exercise. ”
He carries me into the hospital and stalks over to the counter to demand attention, and when they bring a wheelchair, he speaks to the nurse behind it, “Tell me where to take her. ”
I can hear his heart beating under my ear, and I’ve never heard it pump so furiously before. Poom poom poom.
He carries me into a room, sets me down on the bed, and holds my hand a little too tightly while two nurses and one doctor check me and Pete waits outside the room. Thank god because my legs are spread and I’m terribly uncomfortable having Remy see me like this. But he’s looking at our hands, intertwined, as if he’s very uncomfortable by this too, until the doctor eases back and slips off his gloves, and tells him, “Your wife is in the early stages of a miscarriage. ”
While my brain tries to make sense of what I’m hearing, I roll to my side, curl my hand around my stomach in the fetal position, and shake my head, saying nothing, just shaking my head because . . . no.
Just . . . no.
I’m a healthy young woman. Healthy young women don’t just lose babies.
The doctor ushers Remington aside and speaks to him in low tones, and I lift my head to look at his face. It is the face of my dreams, and I swear I will never forget his fierce expression as he tells the doctor, in a hushed voice, “It’s impossible. ”
The doctor continues speaking, and Remington shakes his head, his jaw tight. He looks suddenly younger and more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him. God, he looks as disheartened as I imagine he looked the day they told him he’d been kicked out of pro boxing and he would never box professionally again.
He drags a hand down his face and drops it to his side, and the train of panic running inside my head is gaining such speed, I stretch my arm out of the bed and hear myself speak in a voice choking with fear. “What’s he saying? What is he saying?”
Remington leaves the doctor in midsentence and comes over to my side, instantly taking both my hands in his big, callused ones. I can’t even put into words how I feel at the contact, but a rush of calming chemicals run through me and my eyes drift shut as I desperately savor the feel of my small hand inside his bigger one. There’s no cramping. Nothing. Not even fear. Just Remington’s dry hands on mine, and his steady strength, seeping into me. He bends down and starts kissing my knuckles, and I sigh softly, angling my head to his with a drunken smile.
I don’t find out why he doesn’t smile back at me. Or why he looks so completely run-down. Until he takes me back to the hotel and calls two more doctors.
EIGHT
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS
There’s no song for this. Or maybe there is, but we just don’t feel like music.
All that is audible between us comes from the soft hum of the plane engines out the windows. Remy refused Pete or Riley to come along on this flight, and the guys were concerned he might go speedy when they’re not around. But nothing could move him this morning. He wanted me alone with him. He carried me downstairs to the car. Then to the plane. God, I want him to carry me as an accessory as long as he doesn’t take me back home. But he is taking me home. To Seattle. Where I will stay, and he will go.
All three doctors say I can’t travel. All three of them say I’ll miscarry for sure if I don’t get rest.
Bed rest.
And a progesterone cream.
That’s what they tell us I need.
They don’t know that what I need is my blue-eyed devil, and the thought of being separated for two months, until I’m past the first trimester and out of the danger zone, makes me want to weep.
Now Remy is sprawled in his usual seat, his head flung back as he stares at the ceiling of the plane, absently stroking my hair.
He looks about as miserable as I feel. I can still hear him, sternly telling both the doctors he summoned to the hotel room—when they prescribed “no travel” and “bed rest” for me—“That’s impossible. I need her with me. She goes where I go. ”
And when the third doctor said that he was sorry and left, I remember begging pathetically, “You can’t seriously be thinking of sending me back? Right? Remington, I’ll lie down. I won’t fucking move. This is your son. He’s going to hang in there! He will. I don’t see how being sent away will stress me any less. I don’t want to go home. I’ll stay in bed all day, just don’t take me back!”
He looked so frustrated, ready to tear something in half with his bare hands as he told Pete, “Get the plane ready. ” And then he turned to me, and looked at me with blue eyes that lost all their sparkle. He didn’t even have time to explain because I started crying.
And here we are now.
Sucking balls.
Forty thousand feet above the ground, flying to Seattle.
I lie across the bench with my head on his lap, my face tipped up as he strokes his fingers through the length of my ponytail, and then into my scalp. He’s been staring at the ceiling for an hour, his chest expanding, slowly, as though each breath is meant to calm him but doesn’t quite succeed.
My heart hurts when I think of how much effort it’s going to take him not to let this fuck with his head. I want to whisper reassurances, but I can’t even seem to speak, I’m so pissed at life for throwing me a curveball again.
Suddenly, he starts kissing me softly, first the top of my ear, then my earlobe, then the center nook, his hot breath sending shivers through me as he part breathes, part growls out words that seem to be wrenched from out of him. My eyes burn and I’m sure I’ve got a dagger sticking out of my chest as he tells me, “I’m going to miss you . . . I’m going to need you to be good . . . take care of yourself . . . I need you . . . ”
My throat feels so swollen I can only nod as I watch him reach into his jeans and pull out a platinum credit card.
“Use it,” he whispers.
I suppose Melanie would die if a man gave her a credit card, but I don’t want to go on a shopping spree or something. I don’t want . . . anything but my life. I want our baby to be all right. I want us to be together. I want my new life, on tour, with him.
“Brooke,” he warns, and I feel him tuck the card into my palm. “I want to see charges. Daily,” he warns. He looks down at me with half a grin, his black hair standing up more than usual, his scruff even darker this morning because he didn’t shave, and how can you love someone so much that it burns through you? I love the way his sooty lashes frame his blue eyes, and the exact slant of his eyebrows. I love his hard forehead, cheekbones, and jaw, and how his mouth manages to look both plump and soft, but firm and strong.
Raising my arm, I drag the tips of my fingers along the square line of his jaw. “When I came back, I promised myself I’d never leave you. ”
“I promised myself I’d never let you go. What else do you expect me to do?” His eyes are dark and tortured, and I know he didn’t sleep.
He paced all night, curling and uncurling his fingers as he asked me if I felt any pain. Yeah, I did. I felt little stabs in my heart, and said, no cramping. He returned to bed to ga
ther me close, kissing me like he wanted to devour me. I remember every movement of his tongue on mine. The temperature of his breath on my face. And how many times he tore his lips away, kissed my forehead, and disappeared into the bathroom.
Because we’re not allowed to make love either.
So our last night together, we spent kissing. And the several times he took a cold shower, I spent crying into my pillow.
Now he brushes loose strands of hair behind my forehead, his eyes holding mine. “We’re going to be all right, little firecracker,” he whispers to me. He runs his gaze down my body and spreads his hand open on my stomach. The proprietary gesture makes my heart burn with love. “We’ve got this. ” He rubs me softly through my cotton shirt, looking down at me with tender blue eyes. “Don’t we?”
“Of course we do,” I say, with a sudden surge of determination. “It’s just two months, right?”
He tweaks my nose. “Right. ”
“And it’s not like we can’t communicate in other ways. ”
“Exactly right. ”
Sitting up, I rest my forehead on his shoulder, and he slides his hand around my waist as I massage his muscle. “Let your body rest. Ice yourself after your workouts. Warm up properly. ”
He buries his face in my neck and pulls me closer, and I hear us both scenting each other with the deepest breaths possible. His hand clenches on my hip bone, and suddenly he licks my neck, his voice guttural when he rumbles in my ear, “I can’t let anything happen to you, Brooke. I can’t. I had to bring you back. ”
“I know, Remy, I know. ” I run my fingers through the back of his head because he sounds so tormented. “We’re going to be all right, all three of us. ”
“That’s the point of all this. ”
“And like you say, we’ve got this. We really do. ”
“Damn right we do. ”
“You’ll be back before we even have time to feel sad or miss each other too much. ”
“That’s right. I’ll be training and you’ll be resting. ”
“Yeah. ”
When we fall silent, we stay close and embracing for a long time, and I can almost hear the minutes ticking by, like little bitches intent on ruining my life. Remington scents me again, as if he wants to get enough of my scent to last him two months, and almost frantically, I do the same, inhale his scent and close my eyes, feeling his shoulder muscle under my fingers, so strong and solid, as I start to massage him lightly again. “I left some arnica oils in your suitcase. If you have any muscle soreness or any pain. ”
“Are you still seeing blood?” he asks quietly, and when I nod, he brings me to his lap, where I cuddle closer and press my temple into his jaw.
“Every time a cramp starts, I feel like it’s going to come out of me. ”
He strokes his hand down my back and presses his lips to my forehead. “I know it’ll kill you not to run. Stay off your feet for me. ”
“Not as much as it would kill me to lose our baby,” I whisper.
I’ve run my whole life. But right now, I’m scared even of walking, for dread of having the cramps return and finding red in my panties. I swear if I can’t hold the man I love’s baby in me, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I can’t—I refuse to—lose this baby.