Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,100
attributed the weak tears that flooded her eyes to pain. ‘wish I’d never laid eyes on you, either.’
‘You just threw yourself headlong down a flight of stairs. You could have killed yourself, and what about the baby?’ ‘There was no throwing involved. I just fell over my own feet.’ Clumsy, she was willing to admit to, but not stupid! ‘And it wouldn’t have happened in the first place if you hadn’t been …’ She stopped, wide eyes lifting to his face. ‘Oh, my God, the baby!’ She tried to ease her weight off one hip and winced. The cramping pain that extended like a band around her middle made her gasp. ‘You are hurt!’
She was, but it wasn’t her own safety that Erin was worrying about.
‘Here, let me help you.’
She shook her head. ‘I think I might stay here for a moment.’ Please, please, God, make the baby all right. If anything happened to it she would never forgive herself. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘I think perhaps you should call an ambulance, just as a precaution.’
Even before she had finished speaking he had his phone out and was punching in the emergency number.
‘Ambulance,’ he snapped. ‘The nature of the emergency? My wife has fallen down a flight of stairs. No, she’s conscious and … look, she’s twelve weeks pregnant. Just get here.’ He gave the address before sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘They said just stay still.’
Erin nodded as he pushed the hair back from her brow with cool brown fingers. ‘Pretty much what I planned to do. You know I’m sure everything’s fine.’
‘Of course it is,’ he agreed.
If it wasn’t—his firm jaw tightened as he pushed aside the thought he wouldn’t permit himself to contemplate such a possibility.
‘I’m just being c-cautious.’ Erin strove to hide her terror, but it was a struggle.
‘You want this baby a lot, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ She wanted this baby with a ferocity that she had not imagined she was capable of. She might not be able to have the man, but the baby was hers.
He reached out tentatively towards her stomach and then drew back. ‘Are you still in pain?’
‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘I think I must have caught my side on the bottom step.’
Francesco looked at the sharp edge and cursed under his breath. When he turned back to Erin she was dabbing the tip of her tongue to the beads of sweat along her upper lip. He had no doubt at all she was playing down her symptoms for his benefit.
‘You will make them save my baby, won’t you, Francesco, if I’m out of it for any reason?’
Francesco, pale under his tan, closed his eyes. ‘You won’t be out of it,’ he told her hoarsely.
‘But just in case,’ she persisted.
‘I will do everything that is necessary.’ To keep you safe and well, he added silently.
The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. Francesco watched, feeling increasingly useless as they loaded Erin into the back of the ambulance. Before getting in himself, Francesco babbled a brief explanation to a shocked and concerned Sam and Valentina who had appeared.
The presence at Erin’s side of a paramedic who monitored her condition meant he couldn’t even hold her hand. Once they reached the hospital casualty department the situation got, if anything, more frustrating. She was whisked away immediately, while they expected him to be content with a promise from a harassed-looking doctor that they would tell him as soon as they knew anything.
Francesco was not content.
He was expressing his discontent to an officious and most obstructive person whose name badge identified him as some sort of administrator when a doctor older than the one who had spoken to him earlier approached.
‘Mr Romanelli, is it?’
Francesco took the hand extended to him.
‘James Ross.’
‘What is happening to my wife?’ The conspiracy of silence was driving him crazy. Did these people not appreciate that with no information it was natural to assume the worst? ‘I need to be with her.’
The doctor gave a soothing smile. ‘And you shall be,’ he promised. ‘Come with me—we’ll go somewhere a little more private.’
Wasn’t that what they said in medical dramas before they broke bad news?
Francesco refused tea, refused a seat, and explained that the only thing he was interested in was information concerning his wife’s well-being.
‘Yes, well, I’m afraid that your wife has some internal bleeding.’
He looked understanding as Francesco, deathly pale beneath his naturally vibrant colouring, sank into the chair he had just rejected.