Tiny Dancer(Divine Creek Ranch 13)(124)
“Hello, ma’am. I’m Eric. We’re taking you to the hospital here in Morehead. We’ll be there in another two or three minutes. Not far.” He asked her a lot of questions, which she tried to keep straight and answer correctly—not easy with her muddled state of mind.
She reached out for Ben. “How is…” Her lips had a hard time forming the name. “Codee?”
Ben came into focus on her other side and his handsome, relieved face was a fine sight. “He’s fine, sugar. He’s in the ambulance behind us.”
“Drugged him…Shot him?” If Tyler had shot Cody, she’d never get over it.
“He drugged him. Knocked him out cold.”
Camilla frowned. “Poor baby. What ’bout Tyler? That dickweed.”
She heard Ben chuckle. “Sheriff has him in custody. He drugged both of you. Apparently he wanted money and the key to a safe-deposit box.”
“Oh, yeah,” she replied with wry amusement that came out sounding drunk. “Dat key is looong gone.”
“So is his freedom. We all heard everything he said.”
Panic filled her, and two pairs of hands held her down as she tried to sit up, their faces going in and out of focus. “The baby?”
“That’s the first thing we’ll check when we get in the emergency room, ma’am. I don’t have a fetal heart rate monitor on this ambulance. We’re pulling in right now, and they have it ready for you.”
The ambulance lurched to a stop, and the back doors opened immediately. She closed her eyes and groaned at the movement, which made her nausea return as they pulled her stretcher from the ambulance.
Her reflexes were still slow as the emergency medical staff pulled her stretcher into a treatment room and they removed her coat. She gasped when the cold air hit her chest.
“Sorry, sugar,” Ben called out, evidently noticing her reaction. “I had to cut the laces on your corset.”
They covered her up with a sheet.
Damn that Tyler!
She gestured with her hands, trying to demonstrate what Tyler had done before her rubbery arms went limp at her sides again. “He yanked on them getting me up in the truck. Hurt me.”
Ben appeared by her head, and he stroked her forehead. “I’m just glad you’re all right.” A lovely sound filled the room, and the doctor smiled. “Both heartbeats sound fine. You’ll want to follow up with your doctor, though.”
Everything narrowed to the pinpoint of eye contact between her and Ben. His dark brown eyes were all she could see right then. The only other sound that registered was her pulse pounding in her ears.
“You mean my heart and the baby’s?” Am I dreaming this?
“No, I’m picking up two fetal heart tones. Is that news to you?” he asked with a gentle smile. She nodded, in shock, and he grinned. “You’ll want to check in with your doctor and have a thorough ultrasound done. But I’m definitely hearing two. Any twins in your family?”
“My mom was a fraternal twin.” All she knew about her was that she’d died in a car accident when Camilla was a baby. “There may have been others, I don’t really know. She never talked about her family much.”
“Well, congratulations, Mom and Dad. Regarding the morphine you were injected with, we need to draw some blood for lab work. Judging by your vitals and your responses, you were given the equivalent of moderate sedation for a medical procedure like a root canal or setting a bone fracture. We’ll put you on oxygen and fluids, and monitor your vitals. Because you’re pregnant, we’d like to keep you overnight, but I think you’ll be just fine. You’re lucky whoever did this to you erred on the side of caution.”
“How is the man who came in the same time I did? Is he okay?”
Ben quietly said, “I’ll go see how he’s doing. Do you want me to send Quinten in? He’s probably in the waiting room worried sick.”
“Yes, please.”
Ben kissed her forehead and paused to whisper in her ear, “Congratulations, sugar. You want to tell him about the twins or should I?”
“Can I?”
“Sure. I’ll send him in.”
A nurse cleaned up the stinging scrapes on her knees from when Tyler had dragged then dropped her on the asphalt. She helped Camilla to sit up and removed the remains of her beautiful leather corset, and Camilla chuckled with mild amusement. Her corset and costume-wearing days might be over, but she’d sure gone out with a bang.
She awakened when they brought a wheelchair into her emergency room cubicle. Quinten smiled at her and she realized that she must’ve fallen asleep right after the nurse had left the room earlier.