He thought it best not to remind her she'd been snooping around the fence. “I'm sure you do, Mrs. Potts. I just want to know if you've seen Maggie today.”
“Well...” She hesitated, then bit her bottom lip. “Actually, I did see her.”
Nick thought he might scream. Clenching his jaw, he forced a smile. “Recently?” he prodded.
“Maybe an hour ago. Packed up her bags and that boy of hers and left here lickety-split. All those tears and hugs. Made my heart ache just watching them say goodbye.” She petted the tabby's head. “Little Drew used to pet my Scarlett here.”
Packed her bags? Took Drew? Nick gripped the top slat of the fence so hard he heard wood crack. He fought back his panic, knowing if he frightened the
elderly woman, she'd run for her back door and he'd never get any information.
He drew in a slow breath, then asked calmly, “Do you know where Mr. and Mrs. Smith are?”
Concern deepened the wrinkles on Mrs. Potts's face. She inched slowly closer and lowered her voice. “That's what has me so worried. Boyd was in the front yard when Angela yelled at him that Maggie had called and they had to get to the hospital right away. I hope nothing happened to that sweet child and her little boy, but Angela looked so upset.”
The hospital? Maggie and Drew? A knot of hard, cold dread twisted Nick's stomach. Good God, had they gotten in an accident? Were they hurt? He'd seen too many accidents in his business, knew what could happen to bodies caught in buckled steel and smashed windows. Terror, like a living thing, slithered through his blood.
He couldn't remember saying goodbye to Mrs. Potts, couldn't even remember jumping on his motorcycle and starting the engine. The hospital in town wasn't far; he prayed that was the one they were at. There was another hospital in Ridgeville, about forty-five minutes from here, he thought, his mind racing through all the possibilities. She'd wanted to get away from him, so it was possible she'd driven to another town, to another airport where he couldn't find her.
Dammit, dammit
. He forced every terrifying image from his mind, concentrated on simply getting to the hospital. When he roared into the parking lot, several people turned and stared, watched him as he ran into Emergency and cut in front of several people standing in line waiting for care.
“Maggie and Drew Smith, I mean Hamilton, Maggie
and Drew Hamilton,” he yelled at the startled nurse behind the desk. “Were they checked in here?”
The nurse frowned at him, checked her paperwork, then shook her head. “If they came in an ambulance, I wouldn't have the paperwork yet. Go through the double doors into the back Emergency entrance.”
He bolted through the doors and tore into the back Emergency rooms, but there was only one doctor and a nurse with a teenager having his knee stitched. No Maggie, no Drew.
A phone. He had to find a phone and call the next closest hospital. He'd find them, dammit, he'd find them if he had to call every damn hospital in a hundred-mile radius.
His hand was shaking when he found the phone in the central lobby waiting area and lifted the receiver. He was digging for a quarter in his jeans when he spotted a familiar figure half-hidden behind a newspaper.
Mr. Smith. He sat on the edge of a long, blue vinyl couch, reading the paper. Nick slowly replaced the phone receiver.
“Mr. Smith?”
Boyd Smith lowered his paper. He frowned darkly at Nick. “'Bout time you showed up.”
“Maggie, Drew...” Nick could hardly get the words out. “Are they all right?”
“Of course they aren't all right,” Boyd barked and tossed his paper aside.
The lump in Nick's throat swelled and moved into his chest. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough,” Boyd said tightly. “My Maggie, she's a tough little thing, she'll be all right. But Drew, he's just a boy. Kids don't always survive this sort of thing, and if they do, it leaves scars.”
Don't always survive?
Nick's knees gave out on him and he sank onto the couch beside Boyd. He couldn't accept this, that he might lose Drew after he'd just found him. He
wouldn't
accept it.
And what the hell did he care about scars? What did scars matter, as long as he lived?
Maggie. He needed to be with Maggie. God, how he needed her.
“Did you tell my daughter you were going to take my grandson away?”
Nick heard Boyd's question, but it took a moment to sink in. He closed his eyes on a long shuddering breath. Maggie's father had never spoken more than three words in a sentence, and now suddenly he was a regular yammer mouth. “I was angry, Mr. Smith. But this is hardly the time to discuss it.”
“Seems like a good time to me. These things usually take a while. Least, that's how I seem to remember, even if it was twenty-nine years ago.”
Great, Nick thought miserably. The man was not only babbling, he was babbling nonsense. “I'm not following you, Mr. Smith.”
“Babies, Santos. Babies take a long time.”
Babies? What in the world was he talking about? “Excuse me?”
Boyd frowned at him. “What's the matter with you? You're not the one having twins. What are you so pale for?”
Twins. Babies.
Babies.
A light flashed through the thick fog in his brain.
Julianna and Lucas.
They were having their babies. Today. Right now.
There was no accident. Maggie and Drew weren't hurt. They'd come to the hospital with Julianna.
Thank God, thank God, he repeated over and over, let his head fall into his hands as relief poured through him. When he started to laugh, Boyd leaned over and asked gruffly, “You okay, son?”
Nick felt weak and dizzy and so damn wonderful he almost grabbed Maggie's father and kissed him. Almost.
He stood quickly. “Where are they? Maggie and Drew?”
“Drew went with his grandmother to look for cookies in the cafeteria. Maggie was waiting with Julianna until Lucas got here, but he's been here a while now, so I'm not sure where she went to. Hey, you're not supposed to goâ”
Nick pushed through the Keep Out doors and moved down the hallway. He had to find Maggie first, before he saw Drew. He heard the sound of a woman gasping for breath, then yelling at her husband, and hurriedly turned off the corridor. He had no intention of intruding on impending parenthood. He just had to find Maggie. If he waited one more minute, he thought he might explode. When an angry nurse hustled him out of the labor area and through another set of double doors, he started down another corridor.
When he came around the corner, he saw her. Standing in front of glass windows, staring inside. His heart pounded furiously as he moved closer. The nursery, he realized. She was looking at the babies.
His legs nearly folded at the sight of her. Exhaustion lined her pale brow, her shoulders were bowed, as if she carried the weight of the world there. She looked
fragile, broken, like a delicate porcelain doll who'd fallen from her shelf.
He watched her, felt the emotions slam into him; the hurt, the anger. The love.
They had a child. The reality of that, the wonder, was just beginning to sink in. Drew was
his
son. He was a
father.
The thought truly staggered him, humbled him.
Maggie had lied, stolen something precious from him, but was it so impossible to understand why she'd done what she had? He tried to imagine what she'd felt after he'd made love to her and called her another woman's name, tried to imagine what she felt when that damn paternity suit was plastered all over the tabloids. Then he tried to imagine what he would have done. The truth was, he didn't know.
What he did know was that she accepted the responsibility, that she was a loving, caring mother and she'd sacrificed a great deal for her son.
For their son.
She turned, lifted her gaze to his. Panic flashed in her green eyes, then they went empty, cold, and she looked away.
“Maggie.”
Hugging her arms tightly to her, she turned her back to him. He wanted to shake her; he wanted to kiss her. Instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets and moved beside her. They stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes straight ahead. Seconds, minutes passed. A lifetime, it seemed.
The hallway thundered with their silence.
“I was leaving,” she said finally, and the weariness in her voice nearly had him reaching for her. “Taking Drew. I'd packed our bags and was on my way to the
airport when I stopped to say goodbye to Julianna. I found her in the guest bedroom, where she'd been sewing when the labor pains hit hard. She was on the bed, doubled over. She'd tried to call Lucas, but his cell phone was busy. I got her in the car, managed to reach Lucas while we were on our way to the hospital.”
Nick swore softly. “Lucas was with me. She must have tried to call when we were cleaning the grease out of his cell phone.”
Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder at him.
“It's a long story,” he muttered. “How is she now?”
Maggie turned her attention to the nursery again. “They went into the delivery room about twenty minutes ago. She's a little early, but the doctor said the babies are strong and healthy and he wasn't expecting any problems.”
Nick closed his eyes on a sigh of relief. When he opened them again, he looked at the babies on the other side of the window and felt a sense of amazement fill him. One towheaded pink bundle was crying softly, one dark-haired blue bundle was wide-eyed. The other babies, two boys and a girl, were all sleeping peacefully. The sight was enough to make a grown man feel weak in the knees and soft in the gut.
“Did Drew look like that?” Nick asked quietly.
Maggie's shoulders stiffened, then she nodded. “Like that dark-haired baby on the right. His eyes were always wide open, looking, wanting to see everything.”
“Do you have pictures?”
When she turned, there were tears in her eyes. “I have lots of pictures. And videos, too. I'll send them to you.”
He shook his head slowly. “It's not good enough.”
“Nick,” she said softly, her voice quavering, “I understand why you hate me. But I'm begging you, don't take Drew away from me.”
“Drew is my son. He needs a fatherâ” she started to back away from him, so he reached out and grabbed her shoulders “âand a mother.”
She lifted her glistening gaze to his. “What are you saying? Joint custody?”
“Something like that.” Those long, terrifying minutes he'd thought that Maggie and Drew had been hurt, that he might lose them forever, had tightly sealed the decision he'd already made before he'd even driven over to Maggie's house. “I want you to marry me.” -
“Marry you?” she whispered. “You'd marry me, even feeling the way you do about me, just for Drew?”
He laughed softly. “The way I feel about you is every reason to marry you. I love you, Maggie. I'm still mad as the devil, but you were bound to see my temper sooner or later. You'll have to learn to live with that, 'cause you're going to marry me, woman, and nothing, not the past, not the present, is going to stop that. I love you so much it's killing me, and if I'm not wrong, you love me, too.”
Maggie went weak when Nick dragged her against him and covered her mouth with hisâa deep, searing kiss that shot straight to her toes. The room began to spin, and she had to hold tightly to him for fear she would fall.
“You want me to marry you?” She touched his cheek, needed to know that this was real, that he was real, not part of the horrible nightmare she'd been living the past few hours. “Because you love me?”
He grinned at her. “There's probably a doctor
around here we can have check out your hearing if you need it, but first answer me, Maggie. Do you love me?”
She stared at him in astonishment. He didn't know? He really didn't know? She cupped his face in her hands, swallowed back the tears gathering in her throat. “We better get that same doctor to check your eyes, Nick Santos. If you can't see that I love you, that I've loved you since the day you saved me from Roger Gerckee, then you must be blind.”
His brow furrowed at Roger's name. “You mean at Lucas and Julianna's party?”
Laughing softly, she pressed her lips to his. “No, silly. In high school. The day Roger threw my lunch away and you dumped him in the trash can. I told you that you were my hero that day, but that was also the day I fell hopelessly in love with you.”
Amazement widened his eyes, then he narrowed them again. “And in North Carolina, the night we slept together? Were you in love with me, then?”
She nodded. “I was terrified of that assignment, knowing that I'd have to be close to you, talk to you. I knew I'd make an idiot out of myself.” She closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. “And I did. Because I loved you, I wanted you to be the first man I was with as much as I wanted to believe that you knew you were sleeping with me. When I realized the mistake I'd made, I couldn't face you again. Drew was the most wonderful, perfect gift, and though I was certain you'd want nothing to do with us, just having a part of you was more than I could ever have dreamed possible.”