With All My Heart - Emilia Finn Page 0,36
blink once, twice, three times to replace the image of my daddy with that of Bryan.
“Yes.” He pats his pockets. “We’re going to the hospital.”
“No.” I push away from Bry’s arms, only to find myself lying flat out on the floor.
Did I fall? Did he lower me?
He’s going to kill her.
Then he’s going to kill Reilly.
“Momma?”
Snapping back to stark reality, back to real time, back to the now in all its clarity, I sit up like I was never hurt and catch Bobby as he throws his shaking body into my arms.
Bryan reaches out to take my son, to save me from my ‘brute,’ but like a raging bear, I spin and snap at his grabbing hands. “Don’t touch him!”
Bobby screams in my face. He sobs, and fat tears dribble down his face and stop on a wobbling bottom lip.
How much did he see?
How much did he hear?
With renewed rage, I turn to Geo. “I told you not to let this shit hurt my son! I said you can’t let it hurt him!” Standing alone and pushing hands away, I hug my baby to my chest and hold in a sob at the ache in my head. My vision swims and the room tilts, but without assistance, I stumble down the hall, into our room, slam the door, and collapse onto the bed with him in my arms. “Shh, baby.”
“Momma cry.” Bobby’s fat fingers come up to stroke my aching jaw. “Momma sad.”
“Mommy’s okay, baby. I promise.” I stroke his face the same way he strokes mine. She didn’t touch my belly, I’m sure of it. I didn’t fall, because Bryan would never let me fall.
My baby’s okay. Everything’s okay.
“Just gotta sleep it off.”
“You fall down?”
“Mommy stubbed her toe.” I smile, though it’s weak. “Silly Mommy.”
Bobby’s shaky smile matches mine. His long hair hangs in chocolate eyes, and the moisture from his tears sticks strands to his lashes. “Silly Momma.”
Chapter 11
Bryan
War.
My body’s at war.
Follow her.
Avenge her.
Reilly’s V8 roars away down the dark street outside, and the pop-pop-pop of his souped up engine calls for me to follow.
He knows.
He knows if I had my hands on her right now, I’d hurt her.
I don’t hit women… normally. But I’d hit that bitch.
“Bry!” Geo snaps his fingers in my face. “You want me to call an ambulance? What do you want me to do?”
When I don’t answer, he slams his fist against my chest. “Bryan! Wake the fuck up, asshole. You want me to call an ambulance?”
I nod.
I look at the floor and nod.
I do the math in my head, but the hundreds and hundreds of dollars an ambulance will cost – money we don’t have – barely registers in my mind. “Yeah, call an ambulance.”
I jog down the hall as soon as my thoughts realign and crystalize. Opening the bedroom door, I step into the dark room and barely stop myself from choking on failure at the sound of my world crying.
Both of them.
Quiet cries and jerky breath.
Blindly, I climb onto the bed behind Nelly and rest my face in the back of her neck. Gently, I place my arm over her hips and stroke her belly. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
“She scared Bobby.”
“Not scared, Momma.”
She laughs, but it comes out more like a choking sob. “You’re so strong, Bobby. So strong and brave. Go to sleep now, baby. Time for sleep.”
As my eyes adjust to the dark, I watch her soft hand stroke his hair.
“Forgive me, Bert.”
She stops breathing for only half a beat before she resumes. “Forgive you. What for?”
“For not protecting you. For letting her hurt you. You’re my whole life, you and B and the new baby, and I let her hurt all three of you.” I stroke patterns into her belly. “I’m so sorry.”
Finally, so obvious now, that I didn’t even realize she was holding back, Nelly relaxes into my chest and melts against me the way she has every other day of our marriage. “The baby’s okay. She didn’t touch my belly, she just pulled my hair. The kick was an accident.”
None of it was an accident. Ann-Marie Page is a fucking psycho bitch. “Still.” I bring my hand up, but freeze when she hisses at my fingers on her jaw. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Neglecting Bobby’s hair for only a moment, she reaches up and brings my hand to her lips. “It’s just bruised. Nothing I haven’t had before. I’m fine.”
Sirens wail in the air outside. I hear them, because I’m expecting them, but it takes