“Don’t worry, little guy. Mommy will wake up soon. When she does, she’ll want to meet you,” he whispered.
Sharp blades of pain speared her abdomen. She cleared her throat and turned her face to the window where Nick stood, holding a baby. Their baby.
“Nick?” She struggled to get the word out. Her throat felt raw and dry.
Nick turned to her. He held a little boy with a mop of dark curls in his arms. The baby, dressed in a green and blue onesie was no bigger than a baby doll. She would have believed that, until he waved his tiny fist in the air. At that moment, her heart yearned to hold him. Nick hurried to her bed. She could hardly lift her arms, but she held them up, wanting to hold their child. Nick leaned down, placing the precious bundle carefully into her arms.
“Ari…” Their gazes met, and she noticed the moisture gathered in his eyes. She tried hard to swallow the lump in her throat. All those months of pain, and this was the result. This tiny child that knew nothing of what his parents had gone through to have him in their lives.
“Kayden?” She asked, looking into her child’s big blue eyes. His tiny fist curled around her finger and held on. She nuzzled the baby’s super soft hair. Happiness broke free in her heart. Finally, the deep dark void she’d had for so long filled with joy. She caressed little Kayden’s dark curls. Her heart clenched with love at his tiny baby sounds.
“Our son,” Nick said quietly. “How do you feel?”
She glanced up from the baby sucking on a clear pacifier almost as big as his face, to her husband. The glassiness made his brown eyes even brighter. “We have our baby. He’s healthy. I’m alive. We’re great.”
She hugged the baby tighter to her chest and watched his eyes start to drift close.
Nick leaned down again and kissed the top of her head. Then he sat down at the chair next to her bed and grabbed her IV hand. “I love you, Ari.”
She swallowed back the knot in her throat. “I love you too, Nick.”
“I don’t think I can go through this again.”
“Oh, Nick—”
He shook his head and cut her off. “You don’t seem to understand how much you mean to me. You’re my life. My everything. If something happened to you, I’d be lost.”
She caressed his bristly jaw and pulled him to her for a kiss. It was soft and over fast, but the emotion delivered overflowed her heart with love. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“Good. I won’t let you.”
She didn’t think she could handle another nine months of what she’d just been through either. Her pregnancy had been difficult to say the least, but the reward was worth the price.
The room door opened. Bella strolled in with a smile. “Look who’s awake. How’s mommy doing today?”
She smiled. “I have some pain, but I feel better than I have in the past months.”
Bella nodded. “I know.” She sat down on a chair across from Nick. “Here’s the thing,” she glanced back and forth between Ari and Nick. “I don’t know what would happen if you tried to have another baby, Ari.”
She frowned. Christ. Bella was way ahead of them. She’d just gotten out of one pregnancy. The last thing she could think of was another.
“So what are you saying?” Nick asked before she could.
“I think you should reconsider any thoughts of trying to conceive again. This was a difficult and dangerous pregnancy. And while each one is different from the last, I don’t know how Ari’s body would react to going through this again.”
“I understand.” She kissed Kayden’s head. “We don’t need to have a biological child to be parents again.”
Nick lifted her hand to his lips and nodded. “That’s right. As long as we’re a family, it doesn’t matter how we get there.”
Nick and Kayden had fallen asleep in Ari and Nick’s bedroom. Ari took that time to clear some of the clutter from their impromptu visit from friends. After two weeks of quietly getting to know their son, Ari was on the mend and little Kayden owned both his parents. Tricia had arranged a gathering for baby Kayden and Ari. Gift bags and baby toys littered their living room. She’d just reached the front of the house when someone knocked. She opened the door to find Grace standing there.
She didn’t know how to handle seeing Grace after their last argument. Bella was sure it had been the cause for her blood pressure to rise to a dangerous level and cause her to go into distress.
“Hello, Grace.”
“Ariana, may I come in?”
She hedged for just a second before stepping back and allowing her to enter. She was still Nick’s mother, and no matter what Nick said, it would hurt him if she and Grace couldn’t find a way to deal with each other.