Redemption 03 - Return Read online

  “I…don’t know.” Reagan curled into a ball and tried to breathe through the pain. If this was a contraction, shouldn’t the pain be easing? Instead the searing burning near her pelvic bone was getting worse. She squinted at her mother and shook her head. “I can’t…stand it.”

  Before her mother could answer, one of the other women tugged on her arm and whispered something. Reagan couldn’t hear much over the pain screaming within her, but she caught a few words: bleeding…emergency…ambulance. The entire group of women sprang into action.

  Someone found the kitchen telephone and called for help, while two of the women ran from the room and returned with a stack of linens. Reagan’s mother took a towel and laid it beneath her head; another one she pressed hard between Reagan’s legs at the place where she’d felt the warm liquid.

  Nausea suffocated her, and dark spots flashed before her eyes. What was wrong? Why wasn’t the pain going away? “God, help me!” Reagan’s words were weak. She couldn’t have said them louder or with any more strength if she’d wanted to. Her energy was fading with every beat of her heart, and her next words were uttered without sound, in the most desperate part of her soul. God…help. Don’t let anything happen to my baby.

  The pain was terrible, and Reagan forced herself to think back. She’d attended childbirth classes with her mother, searched the Internet, and read everything she could find about having a baby. But nothing in all the literature she’d scoured had ever mentioned pain like this. And if she was bleeding…something must be terribly wrong, something that could mean trouble for her and her unborn son.

  The black spots were coming together, making it hard to see, and the noises around her began to fade. “Mom…” Her voice was scratchy and low, too weak to do more than express the panic that had a grip on her throat.

  Her mother squeezed her hand and leaned over her. Reagan could feel her presence, but she couldn’t see her, could barely hear her. “Pray, Reagan. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She wanted to nod, wanted to believe that somehow, yes, everything would be fine. But the pain was beyond bearable, and she began to fall into a soft, fuzzy hole with no sides and nothing to grab on to. No way out. Everything in her cried to let go, to give in and let herself fall, and finally she couldn’t fight the feeling. She closed her eyes and almost at the same time the pain eased.

  Somewhere in the distance she heard sirens, but then, this was New York City. Manhattan. Sirens were always sounding somewhere. They couldn’t be for her because she was only taking a nap, lying on her bed in the midst of a most unusual sleep. And she must’ve been dreaming, because the voices surrounding her were not clear-cut but muted, blurred together, not quite understandable. Sounds that sometimes accompanied dreams.

  Reagan heard her mother speaking, but the words didn’t quite make sense. Something about too much blood, and losing the baby or losing Reagan. The panic in her mom’s voice was so real Reagan decided maybe she should wake up, brush off the dream, and let her mother know that everything was okay.

  But no matter how hard she tried, Reagan couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t even open her eyes. She frowned. Maybe she wasn’t dreaming; maybe she was in trouble. She wanted to pray but her mouth wouldn’t work, and she couldn’t remember the right words.

  Quieter. Darker. More distant.

  Reagan felt herself slipping further away from the sirens and voices and people gathered around her. The last thought she had was of Luke. He’d been her everything. The one she’d known she would marry. But somehow it had all gone wrong, and now she’d never see him again, never hold his hand or look into his eyes and tell him they had a son.

  Worst of all she would never get to apologize for taking what had been so wonderful and somehow destroying it for both of them.

  Landon Blake was at the station supper table when the call came in.

  Pregnant woman hemorrhaging, one engine company, one paramedic team needed to an apartment complex east of Fifth Avenue. Another station was closer to the location, but those units were at a fire near one of the theaters. The call was a common one. Get to the scene, aid paramedics in the assessment and transport of the patient, and make the report.

  Landon slipped into his turnouts and shouted across the station at his partner, Doug Phillips. Doug drove on-calls when the captain didn’t come. “Make time, will ya, Phillips. We’re ten blocks away, easy.”

  Five of them rode the engine to the call, and little conversation took place as they sped toward the apartment. Minutes later they burst through the door and were greeted by a group of middle-aged women, each of them pale-faced and frantic. According to radio reports, the ambulance was at least a full minute behind.

  Most firefighters were trained as EMTs, emergency medical technicians, and on this call Landon’s partner would get the nod. He was a medic, capable of handling any rescue.

  “Where’s the ambulance? Are you with the ambulance?” A heavyset woman in a red sweater stepped forward. “She needs a doctor.”

  “An ambulance is on the way.” Landon was first in the line of firefighters who had entered the apartment. “Take us to the victim.”

  “This way.” The woman led them into the kitchen. More women were gathered there, squatted on the floor in a circle around a young blonde woman lying in a pool of blood.

  Landon made a quick assessment. First, the woman was very pregnant and very young, not much older than a teenager. And second, she’d already lost too much blood. He directed the women away from the girl, clearing enough room for them to work.

  At the same time, another woman stood and faced them. She was crying and her teeth chattered as she spoke. “I’m her mother.” Her words ran fast together. “She’s…she’s three weeks from her due date. Her stomach hurt today, but we didn’t think it was anything, and then she was making tea and she collapsed here on the floor and started bleeding, and…”

  Landon’s partner took his position near the victim’s side and felt her pulse. “Weak and thready.” His words were too low for most of the people in the room to hear. But the urgency there was undeniable. “Possible ruptured uterus. We need to stop the blood.”

  A pile of towels lay nearby, two of which were already soaked red. Landon grabbed a clean one and pressed it between the woman’s legs. It was then that he focused on her face, and the shock hit him dead center and almost knocked him back.

  The victim looked like Reagan Decker, Luke Baxter’s girlfriend. The girl who had ridden the bus to Manhattan with Landon in the hours after the terrorist attacks. He narrowed his eyes. It couldn’t be her, could it? For one thing, Reagan wouldn’t be pregnant. Landon tried to remember what Ashley had said about her brother. He was struggling…hadn’t talked to Reagan, and something about his moving in with some wacky girl from school. Luke hadn’t talked to Reagan once since she moved back to New York.

  Then maybe it wasn’t her; maybe it was a different tall blonde, one who looked like Reagan. He was about to ask her mother when his partner looked over his shoulder. “What’s the victim’s name, ma’am?”

  The girl’s mother was shaking harder now, looking like she might pass out. “Reagan. Reagan Decker. She’s…she’s twenty years old.”

  “Is there a husband, someone who should be called?”

  “No.” The answer was quick—too quick. “There’s no one.”

  Landon pushed the towel harder against Reagan, and his stomach lurched. The dates were coming together. If she was almost nine months pregnant, then she got pregnant before September 11. Either that or immediately afterward, and Landon doubted that was possible. Which meant that maybe—just maybe—the baby Reagan was carrying was Luke’s.

  And Luke knew nothing about it.

  Before Landon could give the matter another moment’s thought, paramedics burst into the room and took over. An immediate determination was made that Reagan was critical, perhaps fatally so. She’d lost too much blood, and despite their efforts she was still bleeding.

&nb
sp; Landon stepped back and watched them lift her limp, pregnant body onto the stretcher and carry her from the apartment. Her mother stayed close behind, her voice tight and pinched as she rambled on about Reagan’s stomachache. “Because she had nothing wrong with her yesterday, and if something had been wrong yesterday, we would’ve taken her in right away. I mean, even with the blood this whole thing is strange because the doctor saw her a few days ago and told her she wasn’t dilated at all and…she’s going to be okay, right? I mean you can save the baby, right? Because…”

  The group headed into the hall, leaving the firefighters, half a dozen women, and the terrible silence that always came in the wake of an emergency. Landon helped his partner pack up their equipment while the others from their engine company interviewed the women about what led up to Reagan’s collapse. Any information would be included in the final report.

  Landon walked through the next five minutes without registering any of what was being said. His mind was on Reagan—and the fact that unless God breathed a miracle into her, odds were against her surviving. The baby had almost no chance at all. And what about Luke? If he was indeed the baby’s father, didn’t he have a right to know what was happening?

  Mrs. Decker’s words came back to him: “No…there’s no one.” If Luke was the father, Reagan clearly hadn’t intended to tell him.

  When they were back in the engine, Landon’s partner elbowed him as they pulled away. “You haven’t said a word since we got here.”

  Landon swallowed and met his partner’s gaze head-on. “I know the girl, Phillips. She’s—” he stared out the window—“she’s a friend from back in Bloomington.”

  His partner hesitated. “How good a friend?”

  “Very good.” Landon sucked in a slow breath and found Phillips’s eyes.

  “What about the baby?” Phillips’s mouth hung open.

  “I didn’t know until today.”

  “So…”

  “So…she’s gotta make it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE REST OF LANDON’S shift passed in a blur of prayer and wild thoughts, and it was all he could do to keep from calling Ashley. If Reagan didn’t want the Baxters to know, he could hardly break the news to them. Especially now, in the middle of an emergency. But what if the baby died? What if Reagan did?

  He finished work at midnight, took a cab to Mt. Sinai, and there he got word about Reagan’s condition. A woman at the front desk explained that she’d been upgraded from critical to stable. She’d delivered the baby, and she was in the maternity ward under close watch.

  Landon exhaled for what felt like the first time all evening. He took the elevator to the right floor and found Reagan’s mother staring through the glass at a roomful of babies. When he came up beside her he cleared his throat and nodded. “I heard she’s doing better.”

  Mrs. Decker looked at him, her eyes swollen and red. “Yes, they stopped the bleeding. And the baby’s…the baby’s fine. A little boy.”

  “I’m so glad.” Landon breathed a silent prayer of gratitude.

  “You…you’re one of the firefighters, right?”

  “Yes. Landon Blake.” He held out his hand and shook hers. “I just got off work.”

  “That was very nice of you to come down.” She sniffed and pulled a wadded-up Kleenex from her purse. “It’s a miracle, Mr. Blake. The doctors said we should’ve lost both of them, and that—” Her voice broke and she hung her head again.

  Landon didn’t know what to say, so he put his hand on her shoulder and waited.

  “We couldn’t take another loss. Reagan’s father…” She held her breath until her emotions were under control. “We lost him September eleventh.”

  “I know.”

  His answer caused her to look up. “You do?”

  “Mrs. Decker, I know the Baxter family. I’m a, well, a special friend of Ashley Baxter, Luke’s sister.” He hesitated and sank his hands in the pockets of his pants. “I moved here to work with FDNY after the terrorist attacks. Reagan and I were on the same bus.”

  “Then—” her face lost a shade of color—“then you know about the baby?”

  Landon shifted his position and ran his tongue over his lower lip. It was none of his business. “No, ma’am. Not until today.”

  Reagan’s mother looked into the nursery. When she met Landon’s gaze again, desperation looked at him from her eyes. “Don’t tell him, please. Reagan doesn’t want him to know.” She smoothed her hand over the wrinkles in her sweater, and her eyes pleaded with him. “It would only complicate things.”

  Landon wasn’t sure what to say. The information was too new for him to sort through. That the baby was Luke’s was obvious. But how could Reagan and her mother think it was better to leave Luke out of the picture? It was his child, and Landon was certain he didn’t know. If he did, he hadn’t told any of the Baxters, because if one of them knew, they all did. And Ashley hadn’t said a word about it.

  If Luke knew about the baby, he wouldn’t be living with some girl he met at school. He’d be here—with Reagan. So why hadn’t she told him?

  Reagan’s mother was waiting for an answer, and Landon could do nothing but give a polite nod. “Of course. That decision belongs to you and Reagan, not me.”

  Relief washed over Mrs. Decker’s face. “I know it’s…unconventional. But she tried to call him, and, well…Reagan has her reasons.” She looked back at the nursery. “Thank you for respecting that.”

  Landon followed her gaze. He coughed twice and cleared his throat. “Which one is he?”

  The woman pointed to a blue-capped infant near the window, red-faced and screaming mad. “He’s a fighter. Reagan named him Thomas Luke.”

  “He looks perfect.”

  “Yes.” The word came out part laugh, part sob. Mrs. Decker put her fingers against her mouth and shook her head. “Almost six pounds and completely healthy.”

  The baby lay beneath the incubator’s warm lights, but he was breathing on his own. It was a scene Landon hadn’t expected to see. After Reagan’s blood loss it was truly a miracle either of them were breathing at all. He looked from the baby to Reagan’s mother again. “Reagan’s okay?”

  “She had a partially ruptured uterus.” Tears swam in her eyes again. “The rip was too jagged. They…they couldn’t save it.”

  Landon had enough medical training, enough experience in emergencies to understand, and the knowledge kicked him in the gut and left him sick to his stomach. The doctors had performed an emergency hysterectomy. Reagan would never have another baby.

  Reagan’s mother dabbed at the wetness on her cheeks and sniffed hard. “She doesn’t know yet. The doctor’s going to tell her tomorrow, unless—” she looked at Landon—“do you think you could tell her?”

  Landon wanted to look over his shoulder to see whom the woman was talking to. Certainly not him. He hadn’t talked to Reagan in eight months! How could he tell her the worst news of her life? He coughed again, and the reality became suddenly clear. In the past nine months Reagan had been dealt one blow after another.

  Obviously she and Luke went against their convictions about saving sex for marriage. And, given the dates, September 11 and the death of Reagan’s father came right after that. She probably no sooner got back in New York City than she realized she was pregnant. She’d gone through the entire ordeal without ever telling Luke. If her mother was right, if she’d tried to call him, then she knew how he’d changed. That he had chucked his faith and was living with some girl he’d met at school.

  Now this. Landon thought about the damage to Reagan’s body, and a long breath eased from his throat.

  No wonder Mrs. Decker wanted her to hear the news from him. The poor woman trembling before him probably couldn’t handle sharing one more bit of tragedy. With Reagan’s father dead, the other option was for a doctor—a stranger—to tell her what had happened to her body.

  He shifted his gaze from Mrs. Decker to the baby in the incubator. How had everything betwee
n Luke and Reagan gotten so twisted? She must feel so alone, lying in a room down the hall with no husband, no support, no words of comfort or congratulations to mark the birth of her firstborn child.

  The only child she would ever bear.

  Landon looked at Reagan’s mother. “Is she awake?”

  Her mother gave a dainty sniffle. “Off and on.”

  “Tell you what…” Landon gritted his teeth for a moment. “Let her get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll tell her in the morning.”

  Mrs. Decker hesitated, and for a moment Landon thought she might reach out and hug him. Instead she clutched her purse more tightly to her waist, her smile falling far short of her eyes. “Thank you. I…I couldn’t bear to do it.”

  “I know.” Landon put his hand on the woman’s shoulder again. “What room is she in? I’ll say hi before I go.”

  The woman told him, and Landon found it easily. A person didn’t need to work FDNY long to become familiar with the layout at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. He took slow, quiet steps as he made his way to the side of her bed. A light moan came from her, and Landon clenched his teeth. He couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger. His anger at Luke for not trying harder, not flying to New York and forcing her to deal with the tragedies that had nailed them. Or his compassion for Reagan, so young and beautiful and heartbroken.

  That probably was how Ashley felt when she came back from Paris.

  “Reagan…” He took her hand in his and leaned over the bed. “It’s Landon Blake.”

  She rolled her head a few inches in each direction before her eyes opened. For a while she said nothing, only squinted at him. Then another moan sounded from her throat, and she squeezed his hand.

  “You’re okay, Reagan. The baby’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  She seemed to realize who he was and what was happening. Her eyes grew wider and she made three desperate, pitiful shakes of her head. “Don’t…tell him.”