"The baby wasn't harmed, Caleb," she soothed, brow furrowing.
Shaking his head, he murmured, "Not the baby. You. You have to know that I would've always chosen you, if given the choice."
Maddie's lips parted when she digested what he was saying. She looked at her hand, clasped in his own, and then met his eyes again.
His chest tightened and he took a deep breath, needing to tell her.
Everything.
"In the waiting room … I-I realized that I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy." The words hung in the air, heavy yet beautiful. "I realized that I was punishing you for my own insecurities and that it was never a question of what I felt for you, even though that's what I led you to believe."
"Caleb … " she whispered.
"I can never be whole for you, Maddie," he admitted, licking his dry lips. "Not with everything that happened in the past."
"I don't need you to be whole, Caleb," she said. "I just want you to be there. With me."
This woman was a marvel. She gave him more than he deserved.
"When you told me that you loved me," he started, "I said that love means nothing and that I didn't care." How could I have been so callous, so cold? he wondered, squeezing his eyes shut briefly in remorse, before he sought her eyes, needing that connection. "What I should've told you was that love is a word, Maddie, and what I feel for you goes beyond a simple word."
Her breath hitched and she stilled, like she was afraid to move and shatter the moment, and he smiled.
"There's really no word for what I feel for you, but I suppose the word 'love' will have to do, although it pales in comparison," he murmured. "Maddie, I love you. You … you were right. I was just too afraid to admit it, but I'm not anymore. And I want to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for too many things that I will spend the rest of my life making up to you, if you'll give me another chance."
It was, perhaps, the most unromantic declaration of love in the history of mankind, with her, fresh out of surgery, and him, running on an hour of sleep, and them, in a fucking hospital of all things, but he couldn't wait another minute without her knowing.
"And I know that I don't deserve another chance. I-I didn't even deserve the second chance, but I won't give up. And you know how single minded and relentless I can be," he warned. His pulse accelerated in excitement when he saw a familiar twinkle enter her eyes. "I'll use our baby girl to make you take me back if I have to." Maddie snorted out a laugh and he'd never heard a sweeter sound. "I'll hold your love for me over your head too."
"Oh? You will?" she asked, quirking a brow.
He sobered. "If I still have it, that is."
The teasing smile on her face faded as well but the soft look in her eyes didn't vanish. She let go of his hand and brought her fingertips to his face, tracing his brow, the hard line of his nose, his lips that he knew she loved to kiss.
"You've had my love since you sat with me that day in the courtyard, Caleb. My stubborn heart knows who it wants … and it's always been you," she confessed. "It always will be."
His breath hitched that time. Then he was leaning over the bed, his lips finding hers, and he felt, rather than saw, her smile.
"I want to make this work, Caleb," she whispered, afterwards.
"We will, princess," he told her.
FORTY-SEVEN
"Don't open them yet," Caleb murmured into her ear and Maddie couldn't keep the grin off her face even if she tried.
"The suspense is killing me," she informed him.
He chuckled. "You'll live."
Keeping her eyes closed, she reached out her arms and touched the cool wood of the door, the door of the guest bedroom, she assumed. Caleb said he had a surprise for her when she first moved back in over a week ago, once she was released from the hospital, but he refused to show her until her week of bed rest was up. Caleb took the doctor's orders very, very seriously, but he'd stayed with her during that time, even taking the week off work to be at her side. Bed rest wasn't so bad after all, especially when a girl had a gorgeous hunk playing nurse and keeping her happy with cuddling and generous foot rubs.
It was hard to be her sometimes.
Mostly, Maddie had the urge to pinch herself. Mostly, she thought that being this happy couldn't be possible. She was waiting to wake up from a wonderful dream.
Every day that passed when she didn't wake up, however, gave her more confidence. She began to accept that yes, she could be this happy. She accepted that she made Caleb happy and there was no greater feeling in the entire world.
Well, except for being loved by him, of course. The knowledge that she loved him with everything she had and that love was returned, that Caleb embraced it, was indescribable.