Lisa Childs - Watching Over Her

And he was glad; it wasn’t anywhere near Maggie now. Maybe she could escape. Instead, she gasped in fear for him.

And her gasp drew Tammy’s rage back to her. She whirled the gun in Maggie’s direction. “But we wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for her. Mark just couldn’t stay away from poor, sweet Maggie. She caused his death—just like she caused Andy’s.”

“That’s bull.” Blaine called her on her craziness. “I killed Mark—not Maggie. I pulled the trigger. Not Maggie.”

She swung the gun back to him, and her eyes were wild with rage and grief. “It was your fault!”

“I shot him, but the vest should have protected him,” Blaine said. “But he wasn’t wearing his vest. He was wearing yours .”

Tears began to streak down the woman’s face as her own guilt overwhelmed her. She knew why her husband had died. But she couldn’t accept her own part in his death. It was easier for her to blame him and Maggie.

She sniffled back her tears. And as she tried to clear her vision, he edged closer yet. “No...” she cried in protest of her guilt more than his nearness. “He shouldn’t have died...”

He was counting on her not noticing how close he was to her. But she wasn’t looking at him anymore; she had swung the gun back toward Maggie.

“Mark killed an innocent man,” Maggie said in defense of Blaine shooting him. Of course she would defend him as she did everyone. “Why? Why would you two resort to stealing and killing?”

“Mark and I needed that money,” Tammy said, desperately trying to justify their crimes. “We needed it to start our family.”

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars?” Blaine scoffed. He wanted to irritate her, wanted her to shoot at him instead of Maggie. He wore a vest. Maggie was completely unprotected.

“I—I couldn’t get pregnant. I need—needed—fertility treatments. Or in vitro. All that’s so expensive, and Mark lost his job.” Now she wasn’t just pointing the gun at Maggie but at her belly, and jealousy twisted the woman’s face into a mask nearly as grotesque as the zombie one. “But this one—she easily gets pregnant.”

Maggie held her hands over her belly, trying to protect her unborn baby. But her hands would prove no protection from a bullet.

“You don’t want to hurt the baby,” Blaine said, as horror gripped him. Maggie’s baby was a part of her, and because he loved Maggie, he loved her baby, too. He couldn’t lose either of them.

“She doesn’t deserve that baby,” Tammy said. “She never wanted it. She never wanted Andy. She didn’t love him like I loved Mark. It’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” Blaine commiserated.

But the woman didn’t hear or see him anymore. It didn’t matter that he was the one who’d fired the shot that had killed Mark. She hated Maggie more—she hated that the woman had what Tammy had wanted most. A baby...

And she intended to take that baby from Maggie before she took her life. He had to protect them. So Blaine did two things—he kicked the coffee table into the woman’s legs and he grabbed for the gun.

But it went off. And a scream rang out. Maggie’s scream.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Pain ripped through Maggie; she felt as if she were being torn in two. She patted her belly, but she felt no stickiness from blood, just an incredible tightness. She hadn’t been shot. She’d gone into labor.

Blaine dropped to the ground beside her. “Where are you hit?”

She shook her head. “No...”

His hands replaced hers on her belly, and his green eyes widened. “You’re in labor?”

“It’s too soon,” she said, as tears of pain and fear streamed down her face. “It’s too soon. You have to stop it. I can’t have the baby now.”

Or Tammy Doremire would get her wish. Maggie wouldn’t have the baby the woman didn’t think she deserved. Maybe she was right.

Maggie probably didn’t deserve her baby. But she wanted him. With all her heart she wanted him.

“We’re going to get you to the hospital,” Blaine said. “We’re going to get you help.” But his hand shook as he dialed 911, and his voice shook as he demanded an ambulance.

He was worried, too. Somehow Maggie found that reassuring, as if it proved he cared. If not about her, at least he cared about her baby. He showed he cared when he climbed into the ambulance with her and let Truman take Tammy Doremire into custody.

He took Maggie’s hand, clasping it in both of his. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he promised. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Thank you,” she managed between pants for breath. “Thank you.”

His forehead furrowed and he asked, “For what?”

“You saved my life again,” she said. And she hoped that he had saved the baby’s, too.

But when they got to the hospital, it was too late. The doctors couldn’t stop the labor. Her little boy was coming. “It’s too early...”

“He’ll be fine,” Blaine assured her. “He’s tough—like his mama.”

Was she tough? Maggie had never felt as helpless and weak as she did at that moment. She couldn’t stop her labor; she couldn’t stop him from coming.

“Push,” a nurse told her.

“I can’t...” She shouldn’t. But the urge was there—the urge to push him out. A contraction gripped her, tearing her apart again. There had been no time for them to administer an epidural. No time for them to ease her pain. She didn’t care, though. She cared only about her baby. “It’s too soon...”

“We’ll take care of him,” the doctor promised. “Push...”

Blaine touched her chin, tipping up her face so that she met his gaze. “You need to do this, Maggie. You’ve taken care of him as long as you could. Let the doctors take care of him now.”

So she pushed, and her baby boy entered the world with a weak cry of protest.

“He’s crying—that’s good,” Blaine assured her. “He’s going to be okay.”

But the doctors whisked him away, working on him. Were his lungs okay? Were they developed enough? Maggie had so many questions. But she didn’t want to distract the doctors from her son, so she didn’t ask any of them.

Blaine stroked his fingers along her cheek. “He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’s tough—just like you are.”

Even though he’d repeated his assurance, Maggie couldn’t accept it. She didn’t feel tough. She felt shattered. Devastated. And Blaine must have seen that she was about to fall apart because he pulled her into his arms. And he held her. He held her together.

And not just then but over the next few days. He stayed with her at the hospital, making sure that she and the baby were all right. Maggie fell so far in love with him that she knew she would never get over him.

She didn’t want to get over him. She wanted to be with him always. She wanted to be his wife—wanted her son to be his son, too.

The doctors already thought he was the little boy’s father. They called him Dad, and Blaine never corrected them. But it wasn’t his name on little Drew’s birth certificate—it was Andy’s as the father. He deserved that honor. He deserved to be with his son.

Andy was gone. Maggie had accepted that, but she wanted to honor him by giving his son his name. Blaine was with Maggie when the nurse brought in the baby from the neonatal unit. “He’s breathing on his own, Mom,” she said. “No more machines. He can stay in here with you.”

“He’s so tiny,” Blaine said with wonder as he stared down at the sleeping infant.

“Drew’s going to be a big boy,” the nurse assured them. “He’s doing very well for a preemie.” She handed the baby to Maggie before leaving the room.

Her heart swelled with love as he automatically snuggled against her, as if he recognized her even though she hadn’t carried him as long as she was supposed to.