“I’m so sorry, Mr. Connelly.” Marla’s voice is closer to me now, and I can see her in my peripheral vision, crouching down to comfort me. “She tried to hang on as long as she could. She told us to contact you, and—”
“Stop.” I choke out, on the verge of tears. “Ella’s gone.”
“She is,” Marla says softly. “But Mr. Connelly, the baby’s fine. He’s premature, but you’ve got a remarkably healthy little boy.”
My head snaps up and I stare at her through wide, blurry eyes. “What?”
My confusion must be obvious, because her own eyes narrow. “Your son,” she explains apprehensively. When I don’t say anything, waiting for her to continue, she speaks again. “Ella was almost eight months pregnant. She told us to contact you...the baby’s father.”
My mind is racing, yet it’s somehow stuck, unable to process what she’s saying. “She wasn’t...she didn’t...”
Your son.
If Ella was pregnant, why didn’t she tell me?
If Ella was pregnant, why did she leave me?
Questions catapult through my brain, but the only thing that sticks, the only thing that keeps bubbling back to the surface of my consciousness is one simple phrase.
Your son.
“Can...can I see him?” The question is out before I even realize I’ve said it out loud. But, in that moment, I’ve never wanted anything more.
Marla looks reluctant, and maybe some kind of protocol or repercussion is preventing her from wanting to take me to him. But, despite the war going on in her eyes, the nurse nods her head, rising to her feet and offering out her hand to help me up. “Come with me, Mr. Connelly.”
I let the woman help me stand. At this point, my pride and dignity mean little to me. There are tears stinging my eyes and two realizations that are taking up all the space in my brain.
Ella is dead, and I have a son.
I have a son, and Ella is dead.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next, or how I’m supposed to cope with those two things. But the moment Marla leads me through the heavy steel doors of the nursery, guiding me up to the glass window that separates us from the line of newborns on the other side of it, something happens inside my chest.
The smallest baby I’ve ever seen lays in a covered cot, a blue blanket covering his tiny legs. For a while, I just stand there, taking in the sight of him, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his little chest as he sleeps, eyes closed and face smooth with serenity.
“He’s doing well,” Marla assures me quietly. “He’s premature, but he’s strong. He’s a fighter.”
Of course he is, I think to myself, feeling my chest squeeze again. He’s definitely both of those things. He’s strong, and he’s a fighter. But there’s something else that makes him just as strong and determined to show the world what he’s made of, despite all odds. Something else that I know without a doubt, deep within my soul.
He’s mine.
Chapter One
Ten Months Later...
Megan
There’s something to be said about a car that listens to exactly what you say. I mean, I did specifically say, “C’mon, please just get me to Cardon Springs.”
When I said it, however, I was hoping for a little more than barely making it inside the town limits before my car gave up completely and died a loud, smoky death on the side of the road. I’m not even joking when I say I can see the welcome sign from my vantage point—that’s how literal my car took my request.
Welcome To Cardon Springs! A Little Town With A Big Heart.
How original. I’m hoping that the owner of the automotive repair shop I end up having to take this car to has a really big heart, because it’s the only way I am going to be able to get my car back considering how shallow my pockets are.
Shallow might even be an exaggerati
on. I knew I was going to have to live on a shoestring income when I embarked on my trip to get here. Now, it looks like that shoestring has just snapped completely.