Evie's Bombshell - By Amy Andrews Page 0,52

in the corner for a week. His stubbly look was bordering on haggard. His feet were bare.

Finn shook his head as his name was called again and the figure in front of him came into focus. ‘Ava.’

She pushed a takeaway coffee towards him. ‘You specialise in looking like hell, don’t you?’

He gave a half-smile, accepting her offering gratefully. ‘Only for you.’

Ava looked at the cot, seeing more tubes than baby. ‘Big night, I hear.’

Finn nodded. He stood and looked down at his son, who had rapidly improved in just a few hours and was now only on CPAP via the ventilator to lightly support his own breathing rather than the machine doing the breathing for him.

‘This is just the half of it. Evie needed a manual removal of her placenta then part of it was left behind so she had to have a D and C as well. She only got back to her room at six.’ He still felt sick thinking about the fist that had squeezed a handful of his gut when Marco had come to tell him the news personally.

Ava nodded. ‘I know. I’ve just come from there.’

Finn looked up, eager for firsthand news of her. ‘You have? How’s she going?’

‘She’s sleeping. Bella’s with her.’

Finn nodded. He had called Bella a couple of hours ago because he didn’t want Evie to be alone. Lexi had been his first instinct but she was also dealing with a newborn and he figured she needed the sleep more. Bella had popped in briefly to see the baby, taken a picture, then gone to her sister.

‘Evie made me promise not to leave him until she got here.’

Ava smiled. ‘Of course she did. She’s a mum now. And what about you? How are you feeling now he’s here and it’s all a little more real?’

Finn shook his head. ‘More like surreal.’ He looked down at his tiny son, just over one kilo, everything in miniature but all still in perfect working order. His chest rose and fell robustly despite his little bird-like ribcage and his pulse oximeter bleeped away steadily in the background, picking up the strong, sure beating of his heart.

‘I’m scared. Worried. Petrified.’

‘But he’s doing well, yes?’

Finn nodded. ‘But I keep thinking about all the possibilities. Immature lungs. Intracranial haemorrhages. Infection. Jaundice. Cardiac complications. I can’t breathe when I think of all the things that can go wrong.’

‘Well, that’s one of the hazards of knowing just a little too much, I guess. But this little tyke is probably stronger than you think. He’s a tough guy, just like his daddy.’

Finn felt his heart contract and then expand so much it felt like it was filling his chest, the cold bands that had clamped around it the day Isaac had died shattering into a thousand pieces. He gazed at his son. ‘I love him more than I thought it possible to love anything.’

Ava smiled. ‘Of course, you’re a dad now.’

Three hours later Finn was watching his son take his first breaths off the ventilator. He’d done so well the team had extubated him and popped on some high-flow humidified nasal prongs. He’d fussed at first, his little hoarse squawk pinging Finn’s protective strings, but with a couple of sleepy blinks he’d settled and was, once again, getting on with the business of breathing unassisted.

Finn was watching his son through the open cot’s glass side panel when he heard some squeaking behind him and turned around to find Bella pushing her sister into the room in a wheelchair.

‘Evie?’ Finn stood, shocked by her pallor, covering the two steps separating them quickly, sinking to his knees in front of the wheelchair. She had dark rings under her eyes and her lips were dry. ‘Are you okay? I don’t think you should be out of bed.’

‘She shouldn’t be,’ Bella agreed. ‘But she threatened to pull her drip out and make a run for it if I didn’t bring her.’

‘I’m fine,’ Evie dismissed. Nothing else mattered to her right now more than seeing her baby. The little boy who’d been impatient to make his entry into the world.

He’d been the first thing on her mind when she’d woken from her anaesthetic and after letting weariness, exhaustion and well-intentioned people fob her off for the last few hours, she’d made her stand.

‘Push me closer, Bells,’ Evie demanded, bouncing in her seat a little, trying to get a better view. If she’d thought she could walk and not faint, she’d have been by his side already.

Finn stood.