Anything but Mine (20 page)

What if Autry died too? What if he lost her?

Suddenly, his legs refused to hold him anymore and he slid to the floor, a harsh sob raking its way out of his throat.

“Stan.” Tick’s voice and strong hands lifting him to his feet. “Come on. Let’s get out of the hallway.”

His legs weak and trembling, Stanton let Tick half-lead, half-carry him to the deserted waiting area.

“I came over to check on Autry and Jay told me I might find you up here.” Tick’s tone was reserved.

“I had a daughter, Tick.” Stanton dragged a hand down his face. “She was
real
. I held her and watched her move. And she’s just…gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She’s just…gone.” He buried his face in his hands, tears dampening his palms. Another sob tore at his chest, shuddering through him. Tick clamped a warm hand on his shoulder and they sat in a silence broken only by Stanton’s rough weeping.

Long minutes later, Stanton scrubbed at his gritty face. A sigh heaved through him. “I can’t do this, Tick. I don’t have it in me.”

“Yes, you can. You have to. It’ll hurt like hell, but you’ll do it for Autry.”

Something about the grim, raw proclamation penetrated the mind-numbing grief. Stanton dropped his palms and blinked the blurry film of tears away. Tick leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands between his knees, turning his wide platinum wedding band in a slow circle.

“You don’t forget and it never quite goes away, but you get through it because she needs you, because as hard as it is for you, somehow it’s even worse for her.”

They weren’t only talking about Claire and him and Autry and they weren’t only talking about Falconetti’s recent miscarriage either. He’d known Tick too long not to pick up on that.

Tick continued rotating his ring about his finger. “When Cait called you while I was undercover in Mississippi, you remember that?”

“Yeah.” That had only been a little over a year ago; Stanton could still feel how pissed off he’d been that Falconetti seemed ready and willing to jeopardize Tick’s safety by trying to contact him. But what did this have to do with anything and why was Tick bringing it up now?

“She was pregnant, nearly five months along, and she wanted me to know.” Tick cleared his throat, a harsh jagged sound. “A few days after that, this obsessive bastard who worked for her grandfather tried to kill her. He did kill our baby and the fertility issues we’re having come from that attack.”

Stanton closed his eyes, sure now what that edge he’d been picking up on in Tick’s voice really was.

“If I’d known,” Tick continued, in a rough near-whisper, “I realize I wouldn’t have been there to stop it happening, the attack or her losing the baby. I mean, I couldn’t have just hopped the next plane, but afterward…afterward, I’d have known and she wouldn’t have been able to keep it from me as long as she did. I’d have been there when she needed me most, wouldn’t have let her push me away like I did.”

Stanton rested his forehead on his clenched fists, elbows digging into his knees.

“I don’t know how Autry will react to this,” Tick said. “I never would have thought Cait would shut me out like she did this time around and I guess that means we still have some growing together to do. But I know one thing. Losing a baby like this can make or break a relationship. And as bad as it hurts, you have to get up, dust yourself off and get back in the game. Autry’s going to need that from you.”

Autry woke to a blanket of numbness. She blinked, trying to clear her fuzzy vision and bring the room into focus.

Hospital. She was in a hospital room. Her gaze traced up the IV tubing leading from her right hand to the half-full bag hanging over the bed. She looked further.

Stanton slept in the chair by the bed, his head tilted at an unnatural angle, arms folded over his chest. His face was ravaged. Why did he look so sad?

Something had happened, something was wrong, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

Thinking was too hard, with her brain drugged and fuzzy. Darkness rose at the edges of her mind, and she let it suck her under.

The next time she opened her eyes, daylight filtered in at the window. Stanton still dozed in the chair and she experimented with movement. Her limbs worked, but beneath the painkillers, she still hurt. She frowned. What had happened?

She cast about in her memory for the last thing she remembered…

Standing in front of the jury.

Beau Ingler jumping to his feet to scream at her, at Schaefer.

Jason Harding moving back to escort him from the courtroom.

Her father, his gavel pounding, ringing in the room.

And nothing.

She moaned, frustrated, and Stanton jerked awake. He leapt from the chair.

“Autry? Sweetheart?” He leaned over her, his face haggard, eyes dull.

She moistened her dry lips. “What happened?”

He touched her cheek, his fingers gentle. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow. “There was an explosion at the courthouse.”

An explosion? She shook her head, scalp stinging with the movement. What was he talking about?

His lashes fell and his mouth tightened. “You were trapped for several hours. When we found you…you’d gone into labor.”

The words hit her like stones. Her baby. She moved, explored her abdomen, found it oddly flat and soft. Pain screamed across her skin with the contact.

She looked at Stanton, remembering as if from a dream the infinite sadness of his face, even in sleep, and she knew.

“No.” The word slipped from her lips on a moan and she shook her head, closing her eyes to the pain on his face. If she didn’t see it, then it couldn’t be true. “Oh, no.”

A sob broke free on a keening wail that hurt her ears.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.” Stanton cupped her face, his voice near.

Sobbing, she opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling. “Lord, please, no. No, no, no…”

A nurse appeared. “Sheriff Reed, you have to leave now.”

“Wait, let me stay with her—”

A burning coursed through Autry’s veins and then…

Blessed darkness.

Autry stared at the seascape hanging on the wall. If she didn’t think about it, if she just avoided the truth, the pain stayed at bay for longer periods of time. Until her hand brushed her stomach or her mind wandered from the painting and she remembered.

Her baby was dead.

The knowledge cut through her and she drew in a shaky breath, focusing on the painting once more.

Stanton was gone. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the nurse had shuffled him out before sedating her, but from the angle of sunlight brightening the room, it had to have been hours. Anger boiled in her. How dare the sun come out like that? Didn’t it know her daughter had died?

She fisted the covers, her body aching. She welcomed that pain, as it drew her attention from the agony that left her heart shrunken and icy.

On the television, images flickered without sound. The local news, with almost constant footage of the courthouse disaster. A ticker ran headlines and informed her the death toll neared eighty.

Did they include her baby in that number?

The door whispered open and one of the nurses bustled in to check her IV and vitals. The gray-haired woman smiled down at her. “Your mother is outside to see you. And your sister too.”

Surprise shivered through Autry. Madeline? Here?

The nurse smiled again. “I’ll send them in now.”

The first glimpse of her mother shocked her. Her normally neat silver bun skewed, her mama pleated the wrinkled hem of her blouse between her fingers. She stared at Autry, her mouth working, and the tears spilled over. “Oh, Autry. Oh, my baby.”

She enveloped Autry in a smothering hug, the IV line tugging slightly, and over her mama’s shoulder, Autry met Madeline’s cold gaze. Her sister glanced away, her movements tense and edgy, arms crossed over her chest in her “I really need a smoke” stance. Autry swallowed a sigh. Same old Maddie.

Her mama pulled back, wiping her face. “All my babies together again. I just wish…” Her voice broke, but she smiled, the expression forced. “Madeline, come hug your sister’s neck.”

Madeline rolled her eyes, but moved forward obediently. She leaned down to wrap a cursory hug around Autry’s shoulders. “Hey, Autry.”

“Hey, Maddie.” Autry made herself smile as Madeline tugged free. “I’m glad you’re here, but you didn’t have to come all this way.”

Madeline glanced over her shoulder at their mother, whose eyes welled with tears again. “I felt like I was needed.” Her gaze tracked Autry’s IV line. “Dr. Mackey says you’ll be here a week at least. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Worse? Than losing her baby? “Where’s the baby? I want to see her.”

Her mother laid a hand on hers. “Now, Autry, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Autry squeezed her eyes closed. “I need to.”

“That’s not going to help you forget—”

“Forget? Mama, I’m not ever going to forget.” Autry struggled to sit up, pain shooting up her leg, cramping across her abdomen. Stitches, from surgery to repair her bleeding spleen. “Please. Find out where she is. I need to hold her, just once.”

Madeline shook her hair away from her face. “Calm down. I’ll see what I can do.”

Her heart pounding as if she’d run miles, Autry subsided against the pillows. Lord, she wished Daddy were here. He’d smoothed over her mother’s prickliness when Miranda had first learned of the pregnancy, when she’d worried about what all her friends would say about her pregnant, unmarried daughter, and surely he’d understand her need to see her baby.

The memory flitted through her mind again, her father’s voice booming for order, his gavel banging on polished wood. She stilled and lifted her gaze to her mother’s. “Where’s Daddy?”

A spasm twisted her mother’s face. “Oh, Autry.”

“Mama?” To her horror, her voice cracked. “Have they found him? Is he all right? Tell me he’s not still in the rubble.”

“No, baby, he’s not.” Her mama patted her hand, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks again. “Honey, your daddy’s dead.”

“He can’t be.” The words spilled from Autry’s lips and she shrank from her mother. “It’s a mistake. He can’t be dead.”

“He is, darling. He is.” Her mother leaned forward and embraced her, nails scratching against the too-sensitive skin of her back, even through the hospital gown. Autry stared at the wall over her shoulder. This couldn’t be. God wouldn’t be so cruel, taking both her baby and her father. No. It wasn’t happening. If it was happening, she’d be shaking with the same sobs as her mother. But inside, she simply felt cold, numb.

So it couldn’t be true.

The door opened and Madeline entered, accompanied by a nurse pushing a small plastic bassinette containing a tiny bundle of blankets. With a muffled sob, her mother pulled away and wiped her cheeks.

Autry watched as Madeline lifted the bundle and carried it to the bed. Like watching a movie. She shook her head. Her emotions had fled her body and she stood on the outside of everything, a mere observer. She welcomed the sensation, the lack of pain.

“Here she is,” Madeline murmured and placed the tiny body in her arms.

Eyes closed, the baby resembled a miniature wax doll. There was no warmth, almost no weight to her, and holding her seemed like just another part of the movie. Autry brushed the corner of the blanket away. Ten fingers. She touched them and found them cold.

“She has Stanton’s hair.” Her voice sounded cold, matter-of-fact to her own ears, and she looked up in time to catch concern flicker in Madeline’s lifeless eyes. “We were going to call her Claire, after Grandma Holton.”

Madeline watched her. “Daddy would have liked that.”

Autry shrugged and dropped her own gaze back to the minuscule narrow face nestled in the blanket. “He said he was looking forward to having another grandchild.”

“He was always a dreamer,” her mother said, patting her knee. “An idealist. I always used to think that’s where you got it from.”

Her father’s idealism had driven her mama crazy. Look what her own idealism had done. She sighed, wondering why even the self-recriminations didn’t hurt. “Have you seen Stanton?”

“Reed?” Madeline’s voice sharpened. “He’s over at the courthouse.”

Autry nodded, not looking up, fingers stroking the dark hair atop her daughter’s head. Of course. Now there was no baby, he didn’t need to be here. She could understand that.

Her mama squeezed her knee. “Sometimes these things work out for the best, Autry. You’ll see. There’ll be other babies, at the right time, after you’re married.”

Married? Other babies? After this, Autry didn’t think so.

“Mama?” Madeline stepped forward, lifted the baby from Autry’s slack hold and handed her to the nurse. “You didn’t eat anything this morning. Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria? I’ll be right there.”

“All right.” Her mother leaned forward to hug Autry again. Autry raised her arms to return the embrace, her heart a cold, dead thing in her chest. “I love you, baby.”

“You too, Mama.”