Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set (105 page)

Chapter 31

The rest of her pregnancy was uneventful.  She went into labor on a Wednesday morning, minutes after Nick had walked out the door to go to work and Charlie got on the bus to go to school.  She had hoped she’d have the baby on the weekend, or at least after he’d gotten home from work.  He’d already hired and fired three people at the shop, and the two men that he was working with now didn’t tend to be the most reliable.

She decided to wait to call him, because she’d been in labor with Charlie for what had seemed like forever.  Two hours later, her contractions were only minutes apart and she decided it was time to call Nick.  A contraction hit her hard when Nick picked up the phone.  She had to take a breath before she could answer his hello.  It was two weeks before her due date, but this was no false alarm. 

“Hi,” she said when she could finally talk.

“You okay babe?”

“I’m in labor.”

“Oh.  Shit.  I might have to close down the shop.  Jer didn’t show up today.  Damn.  Um do you want me to meet you at the hospital or can you wait until I get home?  Or do you need to call an ambulance?”

“I think I can drive.”

“Are you sure babe?”

“Yeah.  Just get there as soon as you can okay?”

“I’m on my way babe.  I love you.  Don’t worry about Charlie.  I’ll call my mom and ask her to pick him up after school.  He can stay there until you and the baby are ready to come home.”

“Thank you.  I love you too.”

She wasn’t sure how smart it was to drive herself to the hospital, but there was no one else to take her.  Nick’s Dad was at work, and his Mom was at work as well.  She didn’t know much of anyone else in town either.

She got her bag out of the closet, and headed out to the car.  Luckily, the drive to the hospital was short.  She’d had another contraction, but Nick had texted her that he was on the way.  He’d had to close the shop but he didn’t care.

She was still in an examination room when Nick showed up.  He looked excited and scared to death at the same time.  It took another six hours until the baby was born, but everything went well.  Shae Catrell Janise Allison was born at 4:34 p.m.  She weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces and was twenty inches long.

She was so beautiful that Ami cried the first time they placed her daughter in her arms.

She didn’t think Nick would ever stop taking pictures.

Chapter 32

It happened the first time Nick left the hospital.  They were releasing her later that day.  Though they’d packed three different outfits in the overnight bag that she brought to the hospital, she’d managed to forget to bring a blanket.

She’d tried to get Nick to buy one at the hospital gift shop, but he insisted that they were going to bring their daughter home in the blanket that his mother had knitted.

She woke up and realized that her daughter wasn’t in the bassinet beside her bed.  She figured that one of the nurses had taken that baby for another test, but then she noticed a white piece of paper lying in the bassinet.  Her heart beat crept up a notch and she got out of bed.

The paper had her name on it.

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.  Her hand was shaking as she picked up the paper and opened it.  It was an address and a phone number.  A motel room and Gabe’s cell phone number.

The note told Ami that he had “their” daughter, and wouldn’t give her back until she talked to him.

Her pulse was racing and she felt like her heart was beating out of her chest.  Gabe had taken her daughter, right under the noses of the hospital staff.  What the fuck she thought.  She needed to call Nick.

She needed to call the police.  She was going to kill Gabe.  The phone beside her bed rang.  She reached out and snatched it up.  “Hello.”

“Hello my love.”

“What the fuck did you do with my daughter?”

“She’s fine.  She’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, and she’s not yours.”

“She has my eyes.”

“A lot of babies are born with blue eyes dip shit.  Give me my kid back.”

“Come and get her.” Then he hung up.

Without thinking, she got dressed.  She knew that Nick could be back any time; she knew that she should call him; she knew that she should notify the authorities.  But part of her was so pissed off that the hospital had let him walk out with her child, that she didn’t trust the police to get her daughter back safely.

She had her car keys and was out the door before the thought had really processed in her head.  No one stopped her; the nurses didn’t glance her way.  She thought that she might have passed Nick’s car on the way out of the lot, but she was in another world.  She had to get her child back.

The hotel where Gabe had taken Shae was only five minutes away, but it felt like the longest five minutes of her life.  His car was parked clear as day in the parking lot.  Or her car that still had license plates that read “only you”.  She almost changed her mind about not calling the police, but the sound of her child’s cry caused her to instead cross to the door of the motel room.

As if sensing her, trusting that she hadn’t called the police, he called out “It’s open.”

She pushed open the door.  Gabe was rocking her daughter, looking like a doting father.  She shut the door and said “Give me my baby.”

“We need to talk Ami.”

“The hell we do.  Give me my daughter, and we’ll forget this ever happened.  I promise you Gabe, if you give her to me right now, I will make up a story for Nick.  No one will ever have to know.”

“I love you Ami.”

Part of her wanted to run across the room and tear her child from Gabe’s arms.  But every maternal instinct was screaming in her head that she needed to be careful.  Her child’s life was in Gabe’s hands.

The way he was looking at Shae didn’t make her think that he’d hurt her, but Ami wasn’t going to take that chance.  Gabe was looking at Shae with longing.  As if he knew that she wasn’t his, but couldn’t live with that fact.

He looked like he’d lost more weight.  He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.  Gabe who used to brag to her about how much money he had, looked so down and out and broken that she thought that if you didn’t know better, you might mistake him for a homeless person.

“Gabe.”

He looked up at her.  There was such blind hope in his eyes that she couldn’t stand it.

This was her fault she thought.  She’d broken him.  She had turned a cocky bar owner into a broken down shell of a man who was so desperate that he had kidnapped her newborn baby from the hospital.

She was a terrible, terrible person.

“I am so sorry Gabe.  You will never know how sorry I am.  I never should have used you.  It was wrong.  Believe me Gabe, I would take it back if I could.  I was selfish, I didn’t think about your feelings.”

“I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you Ami.  I want to give you the world.  I still could if you’d let me.”

“Gabe, I can’t.”

He laid Shae aside in the portable bassinet beside the bed.   Then he pulled out a gun.  “I swear I’ll shoot myself if you don’t leave with me Ami.”

Ami’s heart started to pound in her chest.  She took a step towards the bassinet but he shook his head.  “No.  Stay where you are.  Tell me that you love me Ami.”

“I don’t love you Gabe.  I’m sorry.”

Gabe sighed.  “Fuck me one last time for old times’ sake?”

Ami almost laughed, though the situation was hardly laughable.  “I just had a child Gabe.  I don’t think that it would be very pleasurable for either of us.”

He took a step towards her, the gun still in his hand.  “Leslie loves to have sex when she’s on her period.  She says the sensation is like no other.”

Ami took a step towards the bassinet.  “I’m sure it’s not, but this is a little different.  You don’t love me Gabe.  You know you don’t.”

Gabe reached out and touched her face with the hand that wasn’t holding the gun.  “I do love you.  I thought that you were the one.  Finally the one after all these years of searching for a woman that would really love me.”

“I love Nick.  I’ve always loved Nick.  I’m really sorry Gabe, but I’m sure you’ll find a woman that loves you.  There’s someone out there for everyone.  Divorce Leslie and maybe you’ll find her.  Go home.  Your kids need you.”

Gabe snorted.  “There’s already a woman there to take my place.  Now my children have two mothers and no father.  Some seem to think that they’re better off that way.”

“Gabe, put the gun down and get out of here.  I swear on my life that I won’t say anything to anyone.”  She kissed his cheek.  “Please.  Just go.”

Gabe sighed.  “It’s not to be is it?   How could we make such beautiful love and not have that type of connection?   Stella loves me, but she’ll never leave Ethan.  I begged her.  I pleaded with her over and over again, but she still tells me no.  I’d do anything for her.  Why do the women that I love always have to belong to another man Ami?   It’s simply not fair.”

Ami was curious as to whom Stella was, but she thought she heard a siren in the distance.  “Get out of here Gabe.  Now.  They’re coming for you.  You’ll be arrested.  Get rid of that damned truck with the personalized plates.  Call Stella and tell her how much she means to you.  I’m sure she’ll come around.”

Gabe smiled.  “Do you really think so?”

Ami gave him a smile that she didn’t feel.  “Yes.  Go.  I’ll make up some story for Nick and the cops.”

“We could have been so good together Ami.”  He kissed her, and then took one last look at Shae.  “She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”  The sirens were getting closer.  “Go.  Now.  I owe you this much.”

“Thank you Ami.”

Gabe took off out of the room, almost at a run.  She heard the truck start and hoped that he got away. 

She crossed to the bassinet and picked Shae up.  She cradled her daughter to her chest.  “Oh baby.  That was a close one.  How in the hell are we going to explain this to Daddy?”

There was a knock on the door of the room several minutes later.   She realized that she’d left the note in the bassinet. 

She opened the door.  An officer was standing on the other side with a worried looking Nick standing behind him.

“Ma’am are you okay?   Do you have your baby?”

Ami nodded and gave the officer a bright smile.  “We’re fine.  I had a little misunderstanding with an old lover of mine.”

Nick gave her a look.  She kissed Shae on the forehead and then handed their daughter to him. 

“Ami are you sure you’re okay?   It was him wasn’t it?   Gabe took our daughter.”

Ami nodded, trying to seem nonchalant.  “Yes.  He was under the impression that Shae was his child.  But we cleared all of that up.  I’m sorry to worry you.”

“Ma’am your child was removed from the hospital by someone with no right to do so.”

“Well, that may be true, but it seems to me that the fault lies with the hospital’s security.”  She gave the officer a bright smile, wishing that he’d go away.

The cop sighed.  “True.  Where is this man now?   Do you know what he’s driving?   Do you have a description of the vehicle?”

“I have no idea what he was driving.” 

Nick was giving her a hard look.  She was suddenly afraid that she was going to lose the man that she loved for making such a choice.

“What is his last name?   Can you give me a physical description?”

“Look officer, there’s no problem here.  Shae and I are both fine.  We were going to be released from the hospital shortly anyway.  I’m more than willing to take her back to the doctor for a checkup, but it seems pretty clear that no harm came to anyone.  If you want to push this, my husband and I will consult a lawyer and file charges against the hospital for endangering our child.”  She gave him a tight smile.

“But you seem to believe that your child was never in danger.”

“Regardless, the hospital had a responsibility to care for my child when she was out of my sight.  If you’d prefer, I can go to the press with the story.  I’m sure the hospital won’t want that kind of publicity.”

“You’ll still need to fill out a report.  The rest you can discuss with the hospital.”

Amis shrugged.  “Fine.  I’m rather exhausted officer.  I just gave birth and we have another child to care for.  Charlie is with his grandparents, but I’m sure he’s looking forward to seeing his little sister.”

“Your husband can take the baby to the doctor while you come down to the station to fill out a report.”

Nick shook his head.  “I’m staying with her.  Shae does appear to be unharmed.  We’ll meet you at the station.”

“I’ll meet you there in half an hour.  I need to speak with the manager of the motel.”

Ami hid a sigh.  “Of course.  Thank you sir.”

He handed Nick a card.  “Just ask for me at the desk.”

Nick nodded.  He handed Shae to Ami and followed her to her car.  “We need to talk.”

“I’ll explain everything later.  I promise.  I love you Nick.”

“I love you too Ami.  I just wish more and more that you’d never gotten mixed up with Gabe.”

“He’s gone.  For good this time.”

“Uh huh.  I’ll see you at the station.  I’ll call the hospital and let them know that we found Shae.  That place was crawling with all kinds of cops and officials.”

“I’m sure it was.  We should sue them.  It would serve them right.”  Then she shook her head.  “No.  I want this all to go away so that we can get on with our lives.”

“Yeah.”  Nick sighed.  “Do you want me to take Shae or are you okay to take her?”

“I’m fine babe.  I promise.  Gabe didn’t touch me.”

“I thought that I was going to lose both of you for a while there.  Charlie and I wouldn’t have done very well without you.”

“I’ll never leave you unless you want me to Nick.  As long as I have a choice at least.  Let’s get out of here.”

Nick took one last look at her and then went to his car.  She tucked Shae into her car seat and then buckled the straps.  She kissed her daughter’s forehead.  “Maybe Daddy will forgive Mommy yet.  Huh baby girl?   What do you think?”

Shae’s eyes remained closed.  Ami nodded to herself.  “No comment huh.  Yeah, probably better to leave it unsaid for now.  And yeah, sometimes Mommy thinks that she’s a little loopy too.”

Ami let out a harsh laugh as she got behind the wheel of her car.  Nick waited until she’d buckled her seatbelt and started the car before he pulled out of the lot.  The ride to the station was short.  She still had no idea how she was going to fill out a police report and hoped that the people from the motel weren’t being too helpful either.  She hoped Gabe was as far away as possible.

They had to wait forever in the lobby of the police station.  Shae woke up hungry.  Ami felt a little self-conscious breast feeding her in public even with a blanket over her shoulder, but Nick refused to let her out of his sight to go to the bathroom where she’d have more privacy. 

She handed the baby to Nick after she’d finished feeding her.  He gently lowered her back into her car seat.  He kissed Ami and said “I’d say let’s talk about this now, but I don’t think it’s the time or the place.  You look exhausted babe.”

Ami sighed.  “I am exhausted.”

“You want to let him get away with this don’t you?”

“Nick, I played with his emotions.  I led him on when you were the one I always wanted.  I was wrong to do that.”

Nick shook his head.  “That’s not an excuse for him to kidnap our daughter.”