Chapter 129

The steady blip of a far away machine and the secure clasp of a man’s hand were the first things she became aware of as she fought her way out of the wispy nothingness. Tightening her fingers around his, she tried to open her eyes. It felt like there was ten pound sand bags holding them shut.

“Tessa?”

She tightened her grip again and managed a nod.

“Oh thank God,” she heard Jon say. Immediately she felt her heart rate increase and the distant beep get closer, the annoying blips coming faster now. She tried her eyelids again, licking her lips against the aching dryness. “It’s okay, baby, you’re all right.”

She was all right? What was wrong with her? And why did his voice sound so funny? “Jon?”

“Yeah, Tessa, it’s me.”

She felt the brush of his lips at her sandpaper mouth. Her hand reached out finding stubble lining his hollowed out cheeks. She followed the planes of his face, tracing his lips with her fingers, then the fuzzy line of his chin. She took a deep breath and received only a blast of air up her nose for her trouble. As if it were a slap, her eyes popped open and she met his bloodshot eyes. “Jon?” she could feel the hysteria bubbling. Nothing felt right, nothing felt like it should. She tried to move and pain blinded her. She tried to pinpoint what hurt, but it was everywhere.

“Shh…please, don’t move, Baby.” She heard the odd bit of vulnerability in his voice and a thickness she didn’t recognize. Her eyes sought out his, but he was too busy smoothing his fingers over her sheet, his palm resting lightly over her midsection.

Her fingers closed over his and the heart of the pain started there. Sucking in a deep breath, she forced herself to calm. Answers didn’t follow hysteria, only more questions. Letting the flow of oxygen fill her head with clarity she wasn’t sure she wanted, she laced her fingers with his. “What happened?”

She watched his eyes flicker away, then close as he brought her hands up to his mouth. “You had us all very worried,” he said instead of answering her question. Before she could ask another question he reached over for a cup and a straw and put it in front of her mouth. “You must be thirsty.”

She frowned, but accepted the cup since she was pretty sure her throat and tongue had been replaced with sawdust and tacks. She took a few deep draws off the straw as he leaned away a little depressing the call button next to her thigh. She pushed the cup away, lifting her free hand to his face again. He smiled at her, but there wasn’t an ounce of joy in his eyes, only relief mixed with something else. Something…sad? She opened her mouth to ask the question again, but this time his lips were on hers.

Nothing intrusive and nothing any different than the countless other times he’d kissed her…at least on the surface. She sighed and accepted the gesture, knowing he needed the connection as much as she did. The kiss was gentle, chaste even…but it was Jon and not him all at once.

“Our patient is finally awake, huh?” said a bustling nurse. “Okay, Mr. Bon Jovi, you’re going to have to leave for a second while we do—“

“Please…” she whispered hoarsely. “I want him to stay.”

Jon smiled. “Of course I’ll stay, I’ll just move over there so she can do her thing.”

Tessa nodded her head, watching him pace. The nervous flick of trembling fingers into his already knotted hair moved her closer to the hysteria that seemed to hover around her, but the detached blankness to his eyes had her downright terrified. The nurse lifted her hand, flipping it for a pulse and jamming a thermometer contraption into her ear. After a moment she checked the reading and made a non-descript sound then went to the machine blipping, frowning at the series of skips. She made a few notes into a portable tablet PC she’d placed next to her. Impatience sizzled along her nerve endings. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The nurse looked down at her, then at the chart, then back. “I’ve paged the doctor and she’ll be down to talk to you shortly. Why don’t you just lie back and rest until—“

“I have a feeling I’ve been resting enough,” Tessa interrupted. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

She watched the nurse’s face go blank, only compassion bleeding through her kind blue eyes. “The doctor wants to speak to you herself. She’ll be right down, Ms. Donovan.”

Frustration circled the hysteria, feeding the fear until a few tears leaked free. “Why won’t anyone talk to me?”

Jon was at her side, smiling stiffly to the nurse. “I’ve got her,” he murmured. Watching him expectantly, she growled when he only sat. His beautiful lips were pinched and tightly pressed together.

“Nothing can be as bad as what I’m conjuring up in my head, Jon! Stop it! Just tell me,” she begged. “Am I dying?”

“God no!” Jon’s face went white and his grip on her fingers crushed bone. When she flinched he eased back. “God, no,” he whispered and pressed the flat of her palm against his cheek. “I’ve just been so worried.” His bloodshot eyes met hers and again that sadness seemed so deep, so ominous.

She turned a little toward him, grimacing through the pain as her belly felt like it was slicing her into two. His fingertips curled along the crest of her cheek as tears leaked free again. “What happened?”

“I—“

“Ahh, Ms. Donovan, you’re finally awake.”

Tessa looked up to see a slim, rather unremarkable woman walk through the door of her room. A professional air seemed to permeate the room as she flipped open a chart. At least she didn’t have the gall to smile at her. She glanced back down at Jon to see him staring at her bed again, blinking furiously as he blew out a long breath.

“Someone better tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I’m Dr. Esser,” she said patiently. Turning to Jon she gave him a tight smile. “Mr. Bon Jovi why don’t you—“

“If one more person tries to kick him out of my room I’m going to throw a hissy fit that would make a soap opera actress proud.”

Sighing, the doctor shook her head. “Look Ms. Donovan—“

“Tessa, just Tessa. Please, just spit it out. I’m absolutely freaking out here. I don’t want a list of hows and whys. Just give me the goods before I crack apart here.”

The doctor hugged the slim silver clipboard to her chest, her tired eyes steady as her chin lifted. “You had an ectopic pregnancy that resulted in a miscarriage,” she said matter of factly.

“Wha—What?” she stammered. She slid her hand over her belly as pain rippled beneath her fingers. “A baby?” She locked eyes with Jon’s as he gently covered her hand.

“I’m so sorry.” His eyes filled as his lower lip trembled ever so slightly just before he cleared his throat. He leaned into her, his lips pressing along her cheek then her temple as his forehead rested against the side of hers. She heard his sniffle distantly as her world stopped.

“I couldn’t be,” she whispered. “I just had my per—“

“The period could have been spotting, and from what I could gather from Mr. Bon Jovi it sounds like the beginnings of the miscarriage were masked as ill effects from something you ate.

“But…” the impossibility of it tore through her. They’d been careful, they’d been—

Flashes of nights where impatience and the closeness they sought had overridden common sense. Nights where passion had gotten the better of them and something as annoying as birth control had slipped away in a fog of lust. She’d made an appointment with her gynecologist for a checkup and promptly forgotten about it during the Christmas rush.

The doctor moved in closer, her fingers curling around the edges of the silver chart once more. “I can come back so we can talk about what your options are—“

“There’s options?” She cradled the stark emptiness that spread across her midsection. Where a baby could have been growing, a baby she’d never even imagined wanting. “There’s no option here.” She felt Jon flinch beside her.

“Unfortunately there were complications we’ll need to discuss.”

“Complications?” she asked dully. Could there be anything worse than this? That something she didn’t even think she’d wanted, could hurt this badly. That something that could have been just hers and Jon’s could be taken away.

She felt Jon wrap his fingers around her hand, but couldn’t bring herself to squeeze back. “Because of the extensive bleeding we had to make several transfusions before we could even evaluate the problem, then because of the age of the fetus—“

“Baby,” Tessa said brokenly. “It was a baby.” Her eyes met the doctor’s with a dryness she wasn’t sure she could even withstand. Where were the tears? Why couldn’t she cry for her baby? “How old was my baby?”

“Tessa,” Jon said softly. “Please, don’t.”

“No, tell me. I need to know.” She slid her hand away from Jon’s.

Dr. Esser dropped her hands to her sides. “We figure around ten weeks.”

Tessa nodded. “Why didn’t I know? How could I not know?” She looked at Jon for the first time, seeing the tears swimming there in his lovely blue eyes. Those eyes that were usually smiling her way, now bruised and flooding with pain. Hers were dry. So dry that she couldn’t even bring herself to blink because of the ache.

“The first trimester is different for every woman. And from what I know about the retail season…if it’s anything like the hospital, then the craziness may have masked any pregnancy symptoms you would have had. You may have been blessed with an easy pregnancy.”

“Right, so easy that I didn’t even know until—“

“Tessa,” his voice was husky with emotion as he pulled her in, but she just leaned against him. She couldn’t even bring herself to hold him back, even as she felt the first tear fall against her skin.

“We had to take an ovary and your fallopian tube was torn with the ectopic pregnancy. The fetus—“

“Ba—“

“Baby,” the doctor agreed. “The baby attached itself to your fallopian tube instead of her uterus. But because the baby was so far along when the tube burst it caused a lot more damage. You were found unconscious, so we have no idea how long you were in distress.”

The information hammered at her. All she could hear was the taking. Taking her ovary, taking her tube, taking her…

Taking her baby.