Page 16 of Dangerous December (Northern Pines Suspense #8)

“Help is here,” Beth said, gently placing a throw pillow under Janet’s head. “You’re going to be just fine.”

“I’m just glad there aren’t any customers here. If I’d landed on someone...” Janet groaned, her hands protectively laced over her belly, and her eyes closed. “I can’t believe I did this.”

“It could happen to anyone,” Beth soothed. She looked up expectantly when the front door crashed open and two fresh-faced young EMTs rushed in.

“She twisted her ankle.” Beth stood and stepped back out of their way as the two young women knelt at Janet’s side. “She fell over that step stool by the bookshelves. She didn’t want me to call nine-one-one, but I was concerned about the baby.”

The blonde, with “Teresa” embroidered on her shirt pocket, checked Janet’s pulse and flashed a penlight at her pupils while the brunette pulled out a stethoscope. “How far along are you, ma’am?”

“Seven months.” Janet looked up at her with a faint smile. “My teenage boys think I did this at my ‘advanced age’ just to embarrass them.”

The bells over the front door jingled again, and this time Dev burst through the door.

He surveyed the situation, watching the EMTs continue their initial assessment for a moment, then he turned to Beth and gently gripped her upper arms. “I heard those sirens and thought something had happened to you.”

Flustered, she met the intense, searching expression in his eyes and tried to smile in return. “Sorry, but you’re still stuck with me for the next six months.”

He made a sound of frustration deep in his throat. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

The bell over the door rang as more people crowded inside. Frank Ferguson. A few of her regular customers. And, Beth realized with chagrin, her mother.

Maura frowned as she quickly dismissed the woman on the floor and glanced between Beth and Dev. “What’s going on here?”

Beth took a step back to release Dev’s hold on her. “Everything is fine,” she called out to the gathering crowd. “Janet just had a little fall.”

“But you’re all right,” Dev said in a low voice. “Thank God for that.”

“I do thank Him. Every single day.” She turned back to Janet and the EMTs. “Is there anything I can do?”

One of them was talking rapidly into a cell phone. The other one double-checked the air splint they’d just placed on Janet’s left leg, then sat back on her heels. “We’ll be taking Ms. Baker in. She needs to be seen by a physician.”

Beth held a hand at her throat. “Is it serious?”

The EMT shook her head. “That’s confidential, ma’am.”

Janet lifted her head a few inches, her skin pale. “They want to make sure the baby is okay,” she whispered. “My husband is out of town. Would you call my sister and let her know? She can tell the boys.”

“Absolutely. I’ll follow you to the hospital if you want me there.”

“That would be wonderful. If anything happens to this baby...” Janet’s lower lip trembled. She turned toward Teresa. “Please, can she ride in the ambulance with me?”

The EMT hesitated. “Well...there’s room, as long as you’re stable.”

“I’ll follow,” Dev said, resting a hand on Beth’s upper arm once more. “I can wait with you and then give you a ride home.”

Maura drew in a sharp breath. “I could go instead.”

Beth felt the exponential rise of tension sparking between them. “Mom, this could be a long wait, and you said you didn’t sleep well last night. Dev can help me out.”

Maura looked between the two of them, then her gaze locked on Devlin. She gave a reluctant nod.

With rhythmic precision, the EMTs positioned the gurney next to Janet, transferred her, then raised it with a clang. After looping thin, clear oxygen tubing over her head and adjusting the nasal cannulas beneath her nose, they pushed her out the door.

“Gracious,” Frank murmured as he watched the ambulance pull away from the curb. “You just never know.”

Dev nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt at his relief over the fact that it wasn’t Beth lying prone on that gurney. “Janet must be in her early forties, but she looks healthy enough. She’ll probably be home in no time.”

“Maybe.” But the hint of sadness in Frank’s voice belied his words.

“Is she a good friend?”

“No, I just see her at church. Nice gal.”

Dev frowned at Frank’s grim expression. “Then what is it?”

“Just...remembering.” Frank’s shoulders sagged. “I think I’ll finish my walk, if it’s all the same to you. If you see Janet at the hospital, tell her I’ll be praying for her.”

Dev jingled the keys in his pocket as he watched Frank start down the sidewalk with a heavy step, all evidence of his upbeat mood over his new job gone.

At Frank’s age, he’d probably experienced plenty of loss...parents, friends, maybe siblings. Accepting the cycle of life for all its joys and sorrows didn’t make it any easier.

And without a wife, facing the inevitable, inexorable increase in losses as one grew older had to be a lonely business.

Exactly what Dev knew he’d experience himself someday, alone.

Unless he managed to get back into active service again, and some random sniper or chance roadside bomb in the Middle East got to him first.

Dev found Beth in the Trauma Center waiting room, her arms folded across her midsection. As usual, her hair had escaped its tidy knot, and wild, auburn tendrils curled at the side of her face, giving her a look of vulnerability.

A vulnerability brought into sharper focus by Maura’s earlier words of warning still ringing in his ears.

Holding Beth in his arms for that brief moment in the bookstore had reawakened more than just a landslide of memories.

He’d felt the same electricity, the same sense of completion he’d felt with her all those years ago. And how was he going to deal with that now?

Distance.

Beth’s obvious relief was palpable when he walked into the empty waiting room, and he felt a flash of guilt. “Where’s Janet?”

“I got to be with her in the E.R., but now they’re doing some sort of tests. Her sons and her dad got here a few minutes ago and have gone to the cafeteria for some Coke. If you want to leave...”

“No rush.” He settled into a chair across from her “Is she doing okay?”

“She did break her ankle.” Beth bit her lower lip. “I just feel so bad for her. If I hadn’t been there, she could’ve waited a long time for some customer to come in and see her on the floor. And if she’d been up on the bookshelf ladder...” Beth shuddered.

“But that didn’t happen. She’ll probably be out of here in no time flat, and back to work as usual.”

“Not if her dad has anything to say about it. He wants her and the boys to come stay at his place for a while so he can take care of her, because her husband travels for a week at a time.”

“She’s lucky to have family close by.”

Beth looked down at her folded hands. “I’ve been praying there’s nothing more serious going on. The doctors seem to be concerned about the baby’s heart rate. If she loses her baby...” Her voice broke. “Oh, Dev. I’ll feel so responsible. The thought of putting anyone else through that...”

She bowed her head lower, and now her slender shoulders were shaking. Was she crying?

Feeling way out of his element, he started to reach for her, then hesitated. “I don’t know much about all of this. But surely these little critters can handle a few bumps along the way.”

She didn’t answer.

“You ought to see the terrible conditions in the remote areas of the Middle East. No medical care. Poor sanitation. And yet there seem to be babies everywhere.” He scooted his chair a couple of feet closer. “Your friend is receiving the best medical care, so she should be perfectly—”

“I think you’d better stop. This is not an easy topic for me.”

Wisps of flyaway auburn hair hung about her face like a veil, but now he saw the teardrops glistening on her hands, and realization dawned.

They’d married so young, well before any thought of taking on such a grown-up role. As time passed, he’d skirted the topic of having a family whenever it came up.

The image of his demanding, critical father always shouldered its way into his thoughts, filling him with a frightening sense of inadequacy and fear.

What could he possibly know about being a loving father?

Now he remembered the quiet hurt in Beth’s eyes that he’d tried to ignore. The longing way she’d cast glances at the little ones in other women’s arms. Guilt washed through him.

Had he selfishly denied her something she’d wanted more than anything?

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, leaning forward to cover her hands with his.

She froze, then pulled her hands away and slowly raised her tear-filled eyes to meet his. “Why?”

He struggled to find the right words, at a loss for what to say. “I guess a lot of women your age start thinking about families. Thinking it’ll be too late.”

“My age?” Her voice turned to ice. “I’m thirty-two.”

“I suppose it’s hard seeing your friends...well, like Janet. So you need to find the right guy and you can have kids, too.” He floundered, the words tasting sour on his tongue.

The thought of any other man even asking her out hit him like a punch to the solar plexus.

“Right. It’s all easy as can be.” She bit out each word.

He shifted uneasily in his seat, knowing he’d just ended up in a dense minefield without a clue about how he’d gotten there, much less how to escape.

He sighed heavily. “Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Another realization struck with the force of a Mack truck.

“You said the thought of putting anyone else through this upset you. What did you mean by that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He reached for her hands again, but she jerked them away and folded her arms over her stomach. “Tell me.”

She glanced around the empty waiting room and lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “Why do you think you have a right to know anything at all? Where were you, all of our married life? And when did you ever care?”

He flinched. “I was military.”

“There are strong, loving military families, Dev. You used it as an excuse to distance yourself from me. When you demanded a divorce, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. You’d walked out of my life emotionally a long time before.”

A rush of memories crashed through his thoughts. Blood and screams and fellow soldiers dying in his arms. The smell of death, of bodies lying mangled under heaps of concrete.

“What I did, what I had to deal with when I was away, was nothing I could share with you, Beth. Locking that part of my life away took all the energy I had.”

“But—”

“I was no longer the guy you married...nothing like him at all. I’m still not—if you can even begin to understand what I’m trying to say.”

“I understand that you never gave me a chance. You never shared anything at all. Not even your heart.” Her voice broke as she lifted her chin in defiance. “Then you came home over two years ago, at Christmas.”

“I remember.”

“We had a great reunion that lasted all of a day before you walled yourself away all over again. Our planned two weeks together ended when you said you wanted a divorce, packed up, and left.”

He sighed heavily. “I did you a favor, Beth. You’ve always deserved so much better.”

She pushed out of her chair and walked the length of the room, then came back to stand in front of him, her arms still folded over her midsection.

“Did your mother tell you? Knowing her, she probably found out somehow and didn’t waste any time.”

“My... mother? ” He’d been tracking Beth’s anger clearly, but now he stared at her. “What does she have to do with anything?”

Beth glared at him. “You unintentionally left me with the most wonderful Christmas present ever that year. I was pregnant, Dev. Joyously, incredulously pregnant. Nearly delirious with happiness, because I’d thought it would never happen.”

He stared at her in awe, and despite all the misgivings he’d ever had about having children, he now felt something warm and wonderful curl around his heart. Then it sank. “You were? ”

“I was going to let you know, even though I figured you wanted no part of it.” Her eyes filled with tears and sorrow. “But then I started spotting. A lot. The doctor was sure I would miscarry. I somehow made it to six months, though, almost seven.”

He felt as if his heart was tearing into pieces. “I’m so sorry, Beth.”

Her gaze fixed on some faraway point. “I was home one night. Alone, as always. The blood—” Her eyes squeezed tight. “Even after the ambulance arrived, it wouldn’t stop.”

He wanted to take Beth into his arms and console her. To reassure her that there would be other babies in her life someday. But when he moved closer, she stepped back abruptly.

“There’ll be another time in your life. Surely—”

“That’s another easy way out for you,” she said flatly. “Platitudes and empty promises. But no, there won’t be another time. I nearly died in surgery. I lost my little girl. And I’ll probably never be able to have another baby, because of what they had to do to save my life.”

Dev felt sick to his stomach. She’d nearly died—nearly bled to death. And yet he’d already walked out on their marriage, and never knew. “I...I don’t know what to say.”

“Good, because I’m not quite done.” Her sad, quiet smile held no warmth. “I still grieve deeply for my baby. For many months, there wasn’t a day when I didn’t cry over her.”

“Oh, honey—"

“I can’t even begin to describe the crushing sense of loss, or how I felt during the darkest days. And even now.” She blinked away tears. “She’ll always live on in my heart. Always. I pray she’s the first person I see in heaven.”

His heart shattered at her words.

“After our last Christmas together, you never wrote. But two months after she died, I received an envelope in the mail. Not a letter from you, of course. It was your divorce papers.”

Dev flinched. “The lawyers...”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I’m sure they had no idea. They were just following your orders.”

He’d never wanted anything more in his life than a chance to enfold her in his arms. To comfort her...and himself.

But from her stiff posture, he knew she wouldn’t accept it. “I don’t know what to say. How can I make any of this better?”

“You can’t. My Lord and I have worked it out after a lot of prayer. How you handle it is up to you...if you care.”

“Care?”

She lifted a shoulder. “You were always adamant about not wanting to start a family. So where your emotions are in this, I couldn’t guess.”

She started for the door, then turned back.

“For the record, my mom insisted that you had the right to know about what happened. But as far as you’re concerned, the subject is now closed.”