Wait for Me (26 page)

Mayhem happened around her as men struggled with whoever they fought with in the parking lot. A voice she knew filled the air and Carl’s lurching form moved outside the car fighting someone. She could hear sirens and commotion. Men cursing. Air left her body in a rush when someone pulled the man off her. Carl must have hit the guy and couldn’t get back to her fighting another outside the car.

Rain was pounding the hood of the car and muffled voices filled the air.

Then she heard it and her body shook with a sigh of relief. She might not die. Never had she heard a better sound. Judge’s devil dog bark wrenched the air. Kenya slipped a hand under her sweater beneath her coat tentatively rubbing her child struggling inside her. Praying silently, she blinked back tears. The next voice made her body weep. Jonathan’s.

“Find me woman, now!” Jonathan’s thick baroque swore out and Kenya tried looking out the door as rain tinkled over the roof of her car.

She curved over on her side gasping for a breath. Her throat raw from having her screams choked from her body. Closing fingers over her stomach, she fumbled to a sitting position.

Fear coursed through her at the sight of the men fighting. Street brawling. Jonathan drew back a fist. A yelp rang through the air and the next thing she could make out was Jonathan slamming the man on the hood of a car. She screamed trying to get out of the car. A large form crushed over Jonathan taking him to the ground. Scrapping over the dirt and rocks feet shuffling kicking up the dirt the men fought like a gang of thugs.

“Get the woman,” a voice from the mass of bodies hollered out.

Biting her lip, Kenya struggled to get from the back seat. The cramp moved through her legs up her back. Tears clouded her eyes. The baby.

“Jonathan!!” she screamed frantically clutching her stomach. The dark corner of the parking lot hid the car, she wasn’t certain if he could see the car. She didn’t have time to think as hands yanked her from the seat and she swallowed balling her fists ready to take on the next man. Kenya threw a left hook as dark features came into view. Too late, to stop her fist, her knuckles crashed into Jamie’s face, shooting pain down her arm.

“Fuck!” She winced at Jamie’s curse. Kenya’s heart lurched seeing Jonathan shoving past Jamie. She went willingly into his arms scooping her up from the car seat, the rain pelting her in the face. She looked down at Judge barking around her and Jonathan’s feet. There were too many sounds and faces stumbling through the now heavy rain. Men fighting grunts and curses rang through the night. Blurs of white faceless forms fought wild around her. Touching his face, she came away with something thicker than rain. Bloody he dodged parked cars feet scrapping the gravel. He got the door open and pain shot down from her stomach and down her left leg.

“Oh!!”

“The babe?” She nodded, cringing from the body bending current seizing her body into a ball.

“I’m…oh, Lord, no, no, Jonathan, the baby, I’m losing the baby…”

From those words on, her world moved in slow still shots of black motion. Jonathan’s face transformed into something she’d never seen…a monster. He didn’t bother putting her down. In one smooth move, his hand slipped under his coat to his back pulling out the largest handgun she’d ever seen and all she could think was terminator. Arm outstretched, his hand fitted with the deadly weapon squeezed off four rounds. Men dropped. Men scattered. Shots were returned. Slapping a hand over her mouth suppressing a scream she kept her eyes on Jonathan firing into the night. 

Somehow he’d set her in the car. She heard him giving orders and Carl showed up at the driver’s side along with a second man no older than Carl. The man jumped in the back seat speaking with someone on the phone. A slug hit the trunk of the car and Carl cranked the engine.

“Jonathan, get in the car,” she bit out, arms encircling her stomach.

“Get her around back, Carl. Gill’s going with you notifying the doctor to meet you around back.” 

“Jonathan!”

“Get her out of here. I’ll meet you there,” Jonathan said slapping the hood then waving a hand through the air as if signaling a helicopter. The jeep rumbled over the graveled parking lot, rocks spitting out as Carl tore around to the back. She heard the other man on the phone peeling off orders to someone.

“Och, Kenya. We’ll take care of ye. Get ye to the doc. Jonathan’s got to handle this.”

“Carl,”she grimaced, tears marred her voice. “I’m losing the baby…Jonathan!” Clutching her stomach, Kenya cried out in pain. “Shit!” She slumped as Carl jumped from the car once they reached the back private entrance of the hospital.

A gurney met them at the door. More hands pushed at her body getting her from the seat.

“Please, not my baby…please!” Kenya clawed the seatbelt, pain creasing her body to fold over in agony. Everything went black.

In the hospital, Jonathan curled his hand tight around hers. Blue bed sheets covered her slight form as she lay with tubes in her arms and her face slack with sleep. There is no greater pain than watching your woman struggle to hold on to the life of your child. And his woman’s been fighting without him all this time.

He sat waiting for the doctor to come in and tell him if his world is about to fall apart.

“Cousin.” Jonathan looked up hearing Jamie’s voice. He came into the room slow and quiet, eyes focused on Kenya’s still form in the bed, “Heard anything…the babe…Kenya?”

“The doctor is on his way.” He sat back on his chair and sank into the high back. 

“Judge is with Carl. He’s taking him to the estate.”

“Good. When he saw Kenya at the castle, he wouldn’t leave her side, so I had to bring him to the hospital.” He picked at the clear tube running the length of his wife’s arm, tape pulling at her skin.

“The police are in the lobby, they want a statement from Kenya. Seems someone called after hearing the commotion outside.

“They’ll no bother my wife!” Jamie blinked rapidly.

“Yer—wife?”

“Called in a favor and we had a private ceremony in her apartment in the States. No time to call you. We need to be married before mother and Brian’s marriage contract expires. Kenya and I need to be married.”

“And the babe, I doona want to say this, but if Kenya…”

“I know it’s mine. I planned to marry her regardless.”

“When did yer find out she’s carrying yer bairn?” Jonathan heard the underlying question of paternity before he finished, but he wouldn’t disrespect his woman by answering the question.

“In the States before we came down, she explained why she kept quiet all this time, to protect the bairn from Brian. I get her here, and I nearly lose her to Brian’s thugs.”

The doctor came through the door with a clipboard bringing Jonathan to his feet.

“Doctor,” he laid a hand on Kenya’s stomach. “The bairn—my bairn? Is she…?” The stress of the uncertainty weighed heavy on his face. 

“She’ll be on bed rest for at least two months until the baby is stronger.” Jonathan watched Julia rise and come around the bed to his side as the doctor slid a stool over and sat beside Kenya, slid the sheet and hospital gown away exposing her tiny belly. He hadn’t noticed the tiny bump before. He refocused hearing the sound of the tube releasing blue goo on her naval. He drugged a hand down his face. He caught the doctor’s hand holding a remote against his wife’s stomach.

“What are ye gonna do to,” he trailed off, deciding what to call her as their marriage was still a family secret, “…to Kenya, doctor.” 

“It’s fine, Jonathan,” Julia assured him, standing between he and Jamie. “Just watch,” she said, pointing at the screen.

The doctor’s eyes twinkled. “Ye doona want to hear your child’s heartbeat, Mr. Blakemore?”

He shot a look at Kenya’s sleeping form and in that moment Jamie appeared at his elbow. “Aye,” he said. Together they stood like two little boys waiting for pie, quiet and still. They looked up as Julia pointed to the screen with the fuzzy blobs of browns moving in pulses.

“Watch,” she said.

The first sound hit the air and all the pieces of his world slid together.

Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop…

“Is it supposed to sound like a helicopter, Doctor?” Jamie asked, moving the IV pole to brush a kiss over Kenya’s forehead.

“Aye, it is. I see our patient has loved ones to help her through this touchy time.”

“She does,” Jonathan mumbled possessively, his mouth on the back of her hand. Under a weak smile letting his shoulders drop he continued, “She and the wee bairn are loved.”

“That’s your child, Jonathan,” Julia said, pointing to the screen as the doctor caught the printout easing from the box.

He touched Jamie’s hand on his shoulder as Sophie walked into the room.

“What’s this? Yer listening to me grandchild and no one came to get me!”

“Doctor, is it safe to do that again?”

“Aye,” and did the same as before with the goo. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

“Aye, a strong heartbeat,” Sophie said, wrapping her arms around both men. “It’ll be strong like its mother.”

“Aye, there,” the doctor started pointing to the screen. “There is the spine…the small line of dots trailing up to the white oval…the bairn’s skull. This tiny muscle pumping is your child’s heart, Mr. Blakemore.” Reaching down Jonathan closed his fingers around Kenya’s hand threading them together. It didn’t matter she slept. It only mattered that she loved him. The doctor continued, “Then down here, are the bones of the toes and,” he removed the wand and the picture faded from the screen. “Doona want to spoil the surprise. The wee one’s legs are stretched wide open.”

“Then it better not be a girl, with her legs open for the world to see her private matters,” Jonathan warned brows shoved down tight. 

As smiled crossed the faces around him, relief rushed through Jonathan he closed his eyes to the unfamiliar sensation of tears for this miracle his warrior woman was giving him. This made it all solid and real. He would be a father. Dipping down he kissed Kenya’s warm stomach as the doctor wiped away the goo with a paper towel tossing it in the trash.

“How can she sleep through that?” Jamie asked his attention examining over Kenya’s sleeping form.

“She’s a strong woman. But a babe will shut her down when it needs rest,” the doctor said, hanging Kenya’s clipboard on the hook beside the door. “When she wakes get her to drink some water. I want to take her off the saline drip.”

“So both are fine?” Jonathan had to be certain. He held up both hands. “She went through hell out there…and they are me soul, me life, Doctor.” They were more than his soul they became the reason he breathed.

Visions of Kenya lying doubled over in the back seat of the car filled his mind. What he did to those four men wasn’t enough to sate his anger.

“Ms. Claiborne and the babe have strong heartbeats and vital signs. But I doona want to chance either’s health with more stress. She will need to stay here in Ireland and rest. Nae getting on a plane. She’ll lose the bairn for certain.”

That knowledge locked up his heart. “Then she stays.”

“Then I doona see any problems carrying to term. I’ll drop back in the morning. Yer nurses are outside the room if Ms. Claiborne needs anything.”

“Doc…” Jamie said and Jonathan didn’t care for the suspicious lift to his brow. “How far along is she…pregnant?”

Jumping to his feet, Jonathan set his stare on his cousin. “Questioning Kenya’s faithfulness cousin is a deadly game.”

“Cousin, I like your Kenya, close to loving the stubborn woman, but ye have to be certain. She left you twice. I’m being the voice of reason.”

Julia shot to her feet and Jonathan’d almost forgot she sat on the other side of the bed holding Kenya’s hand. “My girl has done nothing except protect this child all this time. How dare you question her?” She turned and her attention on Jamie. “Kenya hasn’t been unfaithful to Jonathan or his child. It broke her heart to leave him, so don’t you dare question the baby’s paternity.”

Jamie stalked the room hooking a hand around Julia’s waist and held her to his body. “Aye, if I had more time I’d drag ye into an empty room and teach ye not to argue with me, Julia.”

“You have ten seconds to take your hands off me,” she forced chin lifted high in the air. Jonathan stared at his cousin. What had he missed?

“Julia, before the two of ye kill one another, can ye get Kenya’s parents? She had just called her mother and I don’t know what all they know, but she’d want them here. Doona tell them of the marriage or the bairn if they don’t know.” He shifted to Jamie. “Have my driver pick them up and get them on a plane out here.”

“I’m taking orders from ye now, cousin?” Jamie questioned with a slight irritation to his voice. Jamie’s hands dropped from Julia.

“Jonathan, give me your drivers number. I’ll call.”

Jamie closed a hand over Julia’s back ushering her from the room after grabbing her things. “We’ll call cousin. Stay with yer woman.”

“Thank you,” Kenya’s weak voice hit the air. Jonathan shot a look down on his wife. Lowering to the bed he eased in beside her waist leaning in to kiss her mouth. She lifted a hand to stroke his face and he caressed her fingers on his jaw. “The baby?”

“Shh…no moving.” He halted more conversation from her. “The bairn’s strong just like its mother.”

She closed a hand over her stomach. “I never saw them coming. I turned around, speaking with my mother and they were just there.”

“Relax, you need to drink something.” Picking up the pink water pitcher he poured a cup of water dropping in a straw from the table. Holding the plastic to Kenya’s lips he smoothed her hair back as she sipped the cool drink. “Doctor says you’re dehydrated.”

She sighed after allowing the plastic straw to slip from her mouth. “My throat’s on fire. I screamed a lot while fighting in the car with those men,” she observed, rubbing a hand over her throat. “I guess I’m a bit thirsty. Thank you. You’re sure the baby’s okay?”

Touching her chin he drank in the woman before him, safe with his child growing within her supple body and kissed her mouth. “Doctor says you’re on two months bed rest. You will nae be going back to the states until the babe is stronger. Nae arguing with me, Kenya.”