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Mrs. Decker’s words came back to him:
“No…there’s no one.”
If Luke was the father, Reagan clearly hadn’t intended to tell him.

When they were back in the engine, Landon’s partner elbowed him as they pulled away. “You haven’t said a word since we got here.”

Landon swallowed and met his partner’s gaze head-on. “I know the girl, Phillips. She’s—” he stared out the window—“she’s a friend from back in Bloomington.”

His partner hesitated. “How good a friend?”

“Very good.” Landon sucked in a slow breath and found Phillips’s eyes.

“What about the baby?” Phillips’s mouth hung open.

“I didn’t know until today.”

“So…”

“So…she’s gotta make it.”

T
HE REST OF
L
ANDON’S
shift passed in a blur of prayer and wild thoughts, and it was all he could do to keep from calling Ashley. If Reagan didn’t want the Baxters to know, he could hardly break the news to them. Especially now, in the middle of an emergency. But what if the baby died? What if Reagan did?

He finished work at midnight, took a cab to Mt. Sinai, and there he got word about Reagan’s condition. A woman at the front desk explained that she’d been upgraded from critical to stable. She’d delivered the baby, and she was in the maternity ward under close watch.

Landon exhaled for what felt like the first time all evening. He took the elevator to the right floor and found Reagan’s mother staring through the glass at a roomful of babies. When he came up beside her he cleared his throat and nodded. “I heard she’s doing better.”

Mrs. Decker looked at him, her eyes swollen and red. “Yes, they stopped the bleeding. And the baby’s…the baby’s fine. A little boy.”

“I’m so glad.” Landon breathed a silent prayer of gratitude.

“You…you’re one of the firefighters, right?”

“Yes. Landon Blake.” He held out his hand and shook hers. “I just got off work.”

“That was very nice of you to come down.” She sniffed and pulled a wadded-up Kleenex from her purse. “It’s a miracle, Mr. Blake. The doctors said we should’ve lost both of them, and that—” Her voice broke and she hung her head again.

Landon didn’t know what to say, so he put his hand on her shoulder and waited.

“We couldn’t take another loss. Reagan’s father…” She held her breath until her emotions were under control. “We lost him September eleventh.”

“I know.”

His answer caused her to look up. “You do?”

“Mrs. Decker, I know the Baxter family. I’m a, well, a special friend of Ashley Baxter, Luke’s sister.” He hesitated and sank his hands in the pockets of his pants. “I moved here to work with FDNY after the terrorist attacks. Reagan and I were on the same bus.”

“Then—” her face lost a shade of color—“then you know about the baby?”

Landon shifted his position and ran his tongue over his lower lip. It was none of his business. “No, ma’am. Not until today.”

Reagan’s mother looked into the nursery. When she met Landon’s gaze again, desperation looked at him from her eyes. “Don’t tell him, please. Reagan doesn’t want him to know.” She smoothed her hand over the wrinkles in her sweater, and her eyes pleaded with him. “It would only complicate things.”

Landon wasn’t sure what to say. The information was too new for him to sort through. That the baby was Luke’s was obvious. But how could Reagan and her mother think it was better to leave Luke out of the picture? It
was
his child, and Landon was certain he didn’t know. If he did, he hadn’t told any of the Baxters, because if one of them knew, they all did. And Ashley hadn’t said a word about it.

If Luke knew about the baby, he wouldn’t be living with some girl he met at school. He’d be here—with Reagan. So why hadn’t she told him?

Reagan’s mother was waiting for an answer, and Landon could do nothing but give a polite nod. “Of course. That decision belongs to you and Reagan, not me.”

Relief washed over Mrs. Decker’s face. “I know it’s…unconventional. But she tried to call him, and, well…Reagan has her reasons.” She looked back at the nursery. “Thank you for respecting that.”

Landon followed her gaze. He coughed twice and cleared his throat. “Which one is he?”

The woman pointed to a blue-capped infant near the window, red-faced and screaming mad. “He’s a fighter. Reagan named him Thomas Luke.”

“He looks perfect.”

“Yes.” The word came out part laugh, part sob. Mrs. Decker put her fingers against her mouth and shook her head. “Almost six pounds and completely healthy.”

The baby lay beneath the incubator’s warm lights, but he was breathing on his own. It was a scene Landon hadn’t expected to see. After Reagan’s blood loss it was truly a miracle either of them were breathing at all. He looked from the baby to Reagan’s mother again. “Reagan’s okay?”

“She had a partially ruptured uterus.” Tears swam in her eyes again. “The rip was too jagged. They…they couldn’t save it.”

Landon had enough medical training, enough experience in emergencies to understand, and the knowledge kicked him in the gut and left him sick to his stomach. The doctors had performed an emergency hysterectomy. Reagan would never have another baby.

Reagan’s mother dabbed at the wetness on her cheeks and sniffed hard. “She doesn’t know yet. The doctor’s going to tell her tomorrow, unless—” she looked at Landon—“do you think you could tell her?”

Landon wanted to look over his shoulder to see whom the woman was talking to. Certainly not him. He hadn’t talked to Reagan in eight months! How could he tell her the worst news of her life? He coughed again, and the reality became suddenly clear. In the past nine months Reagan had been dealt one blow after another.

Obviously she and Luke went against their convictions about saving sex for marriage. And, given the dates, September 11 and the death of Reagan’s father came right after that. She probably no sooner got back in New York City than she realized she was pregnant. She’d gone through the entire ordeal without ever telling Luke. If her mother was right, if she’d tried to call him, then she knew how he’d changed. That he had chucked his faith and was living with some girl he’d met at school.

Now this. Landon thought about the damage to Reagan’s body, and a long breath eased from his throat.

No wonder Mrs. Decker wanted her to hear the news from him. The poor woman trembling before him probably couldn’t handle sharing one more bit of tragedy. With Reagan’s father dead, the other option was for a doctor—a stranger—to tell her what had happened to her body.

He shifted his gaze from Mrs. Decker to the baby in the incubator. How had everything between Luke and Reagan gotten so twisted? She must feel so alone, lying in a room down the hall with no husband, no support, no words of comfort or congratulations to mark the birth of her firstborn child.

The only child she would ever bear.

Landon looked at Reagan’s mother. “Is she awake?”

Her mother gave a dainty sniffle. “Off and on.”

“Tell you what…” Landon gritted his teeth for a moment. “Let her get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll tell her in the morning.”

Mrs. Decker hesitated, and for a moment Landon thought she might reach out and hug him. Instead she clutched her purse more tightly to her waist, her smile falling far short of her eyes. “Thank you. I…I couldn’t bear to do it.”

“I know.” Landon put his hand on the woman’s shoulder again. “What room is she in? I’ll say hi before I go.”

The woman told him, and Landon found it easily. A person didn’t need to work FDNY long to become familiar with the layout at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. He took slow, quiet steps as he made his way to the side of her bed. A light moan came from her, and Landon clenched his teeth. He couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger. His anger at Luke for not trying harder, not flying to New York and forcing her to deal with the tragedies that had nailed them. Or his compassion for Reagan, so young and beautiful and heartbroken.

That probably was how Ashley felt when she came back from Paris.

“Reagan…” He took her hand in his and leaned over the bed. “It’s Landon Blake.”

She rolled her head a few inches in each direction before her eyes opened. For a while she said nothing, only squinted at him. Then another moan sounded from her throat, and she squeezed his hand.

“You’re okay, Reagan. The baby’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”

She seemed to realize who he was and what was happening. Her eyes grew wider and she made three desperate, pitiful shakes of her head. “Don’t…tell him.”

“Shhhh. I won’t.” He ran his thumb over her hand, his face two feet from hers and his voice little more than a whisper. “I promise, Reagan. This is your thing.”

Her grip on his hand relaxed and her eyelids grew heavy. She nodded and fell back to sleep. Landon released her fingers. “Sleep well, Reagan. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He didn’t see Reagan’s mother on the way out of the hospital. In fact, he didn’t see much at all. He was too busy wondering about life and how random it could be. When he got outside, he waved for a cab and found a piece of sky between the buildings.

“Why, God…?”

His words blended with the traffic and drifted in the wind. Why September 11? Why Reagan’s father? Why Jalen? Why were Luke and Reagan apart when they should be sharing the joy and pain of what had just happened? And why—when he and Ashley had finally found a connection—hadn’t he called her much lately? For that matter, why had he come back to New York City at all? The fire department didn’t need him as much as Ashley and Cole did.

He still had six months before his year with FDNY was up, and then what? The captain talked about a promotion, but that would never work. Not when he couldn’t go an hour without thinking of Ashley and all that awaited him back in Bloomington.

So why hadn’t he called her?

A cab pulled up, and Landon slipped into the back. He gave the driver directions and slumped against the seat. The reason was the same now as it had been in those months after September 11. By not calling her, he spent less time looking at flight schedules on the Internet, less time wondering how he’d survive another week without her.

Besides, they still had no commitment, no promises or certainties about sharing their future, and that was his fault, wasn’t it? She’d shared everything about her past, and what did he do? Gone back to Manhattan without making his intentions clear. As though somehow that would make their time apart less painful.

They pulled up at a stoplight, and Landon gazed out the window at shops that lined Broadway, barred and locked up for the night. The closest one had a lit sign that read G&G Jewelry.

G&G Jewelry.

The light changed. The cab pulled into the intersection and continued north as Landon was struck by a thought. Life was too short to waste it wondering about timing and distance and proper ways of doing things. Over the next four blocks his mind began to formulate a plan. He would tell Reagan the truth about her condition, and then sometime tomorrow afternoon he would call Ashley and see how quickly she could come to New York.

The next time he saw her he would leave no doubt as to his intentions. Even if the certainty of them would make the next six months unbearable.

R
EAGAN STARED AT
the clock on her hospital-room wall and watched the second hand make its way around, one painfully slow tick at a time.

It was ten-fifteen in the morning, and the nurses said she could hold her baby at noon, after they made sure his temperature was stable. The reports coming in about him were amazing. He’d suffered some stress while Reagan bled, but his little body had lain just the right way against the jagged tear in her uterus, keeping her from bleeding too much and probably saving both their lives.

It was God’s plan of course. He wouldn’t take both her son and her father in the same year. Not when she’d already lost Luke. God knew how much she could take.

A gentle snoring sound came from the corner of the room, and Reagan looked over her shoulder. Her mother had stayed the night and had probably not fallen asleep until a few hours ago. She was sleeping soundly now, stretched out on a small vinyl couch and covered by a thin layer of white hospital blankets.

Reagan pushed herself up in bed, but the pain made her catch her breath. Whatever they’d done to sew her up, the pain was hard and pulsing. She would have to ask the nurse for more medication if she was going to be strong enough to hold Thomas Luke in a couple of hours.

A flash near the door caught her attention, and she saw Landon Blake enter the room. He was dressed in his uniform and held his hat in his hands. Reagan managed a smile, but she felt her heart skip a beat. How had Landon known she was here? And if he knew about her baby, then had he already told Luke? She silently ordered her questions to wait their turn.

“Hi.” He crossed the room, glanced at her mother, and then took the chair closest to her bed. He kept his voice low. “How’re you feeling?”

Reagan swallowed and gave a quick shake of her head. “What…what’re you doing here?”

“I took the call last night.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and met her eyes. “You were pretty sick.”

She didn’t know what to say. Her bed was in the maternity ward, and if he’d been one of the firefighters at the scene he obviously knew about the baby. “My…uterus ripped.”

“I know.” His eyes held hers. “I know everything, Reagan.”

Cold fear climbed in bed beside her and she heard her teeth rattle. A conversation would be impossible until she asked him. “Have you talked to Luke?”

“No.” Landon bit his lip, but his expression shouted out the question he wasn’t asking: Why had she kept the baby a secret? “I haven’t told anyone.”

Reagan was silent, desperate for the right words. But in the midmorning light of day nothing would make any sense. She dropped her gaze to her hands as another wave of pain passed over her lower abdomen. “Can you get the nurse? It hurts so much.”

Landon did as she asked, and ten minutes later, after the nurse had given her another dose of pain medication, they could talk again. This time Landon leaned back in the chair and asked the question she’d been dreading since he’d walked into the room. “Why, Reagan? Why haven’t you told him?”

Across the room, Reagan’s mother stirred and turned onto her side. Maybe if she woke up, she could help explain the situation. Whenever she and her mother talked about how she’d kept the baby a secret, her silence made sense. But here…now…“I didn’t know what else to do.” Her voice was small, and she turned and looked out the window.

“Look—” Landon touched her arm—“I’m here as a friend, not a reporter. You don’t have to be afraid to talk to me.”

Reagan drew a slow breath through clenched teeth and faced Landon once more. “It was all so complicated, after September eleventh, I mean.”

Landon gave a slow nod. “For all of us.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry about your father.”

“Thanks.” Moisture built in Reagan’s eyes, and she blinked to keep the tears from spilling onto her cheeks. “Luke and I were so good, Landon. We had plans, intentions. We…we set rules so nothing would get in the way of us doing things right.”

“Rules?”

“Yes.” She sniffed and made her hands into fists. “We promised never to be alone in my apartment, but on September tenth…”

Landon’s eyes registered the date. “A Monday…”

“Opening day for football, I think.” Reagan sounded tired, and her insides tightened at the retelling. But she needed to talk about it, needed someone who would listen and care and not think her terrible for what she’d done. “We were supposed to play softball, but Luke didn’t want to. Instead we went up to watch some game, I don’t know, the Giants and somebody.”

“Denver.” Sadness tinged Landon’s smile. “I watched the game at the firehouse.”

“One thing led to another and then…” Her voice trailed off.

“That’s okay, Reagan, you don’t have to tell me.” Landon’s face was kind and unhurried, without a trace of judgment.

“No, I want to.” She slipped her fists behind her and pressed them into her lower back. She’d been an athlete all her life, but no sport had caused her the kind of pain she felt now. A full breath eased out between her clenched teeth. “We were on the couch and my dad called, right in the middle of the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life. But you know what?”

Landon was silent, waiting.

“I didn’t take the call. I figured—” a sound more sob than laugh came from her—“I figured I could call him back the next day. I had all the time in the world, right? What difference would one day make?”

He worked the muscles in his jaw and gave a single shake of his head. “He died the next morning.”

Reagan rubbed her fingertips into her brow and paused a moment. If only her father had lived. He’d be here now, holding her hand, promising her everything would work out okay. “I never talked to him again. He—” she sniffed, and this time a tear rolled down her cheek—“he died before I could tell him good-bye.”

Landon touched her arm once more, and this time he kept it there. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes.” She wiped the back of her hand across her face. “Me, too.” She reached for the water on her bedside table and took a sip. Afterward she found Landon’s eyes again. “I thought his death was God’s way of punishing me. You know, that I should hide away at my parents’ place and pretend I’d never met Luke Baxter.”

“You were in shock.” Landon shrugged. “All of us were.”

“Did you ever find your friend, the firefighter?”

“Yes.” Landon brought his lips together in a hard line. “Found his body almost three months later.”

Reagan felt her shoulders slump. “I’m sorry.” She looked out the window again. “It was such…such an awful time.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Weeks went by, and all we did was wait.” Reagan watched a pigeon land on the windowsill outside. “One shovelful of dirt after another, and still we held out hope. This would be the day they’d find him, buried in an air pocket, hiding safely in the pile of debris waiting to be rescued. Day after day.”

“Luke called you, didn’t he?”

“Constantly.” She leaned back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling. “At first it was part of the punishment. I was the most horrible person on earth, and my father died because of it. No way I was going to allow myself the privilege of talking to Luke. A few months of feeling that way, and I knew it was too late. Luke still called, but I wasn’t the girl he’d fallen in love with. I was older and used and pregnant. Look how he treated Ashley when she came home from Paris.” She paused. “I convinced myself a guy like Luke wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

Landon nodded. “I guess that’s when he sort of flipped.”

“Yes.” She lowered her chin and they locked eyes once more. “I finally got the courage up to call him two months ago. I figured maybe I was wrong, and what if he
did
care, what if he still wanted to work things out?” Her voice fell a notch. “And I thought he had a right to know about the baby.”

“That’s when you found out about the other girl?”

She nodded. “His mother told me. She said he’d met her on campus, and now they were living together, and that…that he’d walked away from his faith, his beliefs. Even his family.”

For a while silence fell between them. The series of events since that night in her apartment was like a terrible chain she’d been forced to wear, one that grew link by link and sometimes made it difficult to walk without falling to her knees. The truth about Luke and the possibility that his choices were her fault were a part of the chain that weighed heaviest of all.

A part that at certain moments very nearly strangled her.

“You should tell him, Reagan.” Landon clasped his hands and rested his chin on his fingers. “The baby’s his, too.”

“I know.” Reagan covered her eyes with her fingers. “But he’s living with someone else. What am I supposed to do? Force him away from this…this lifestyle he’s chosen? And for what? Child support? A guilt trip?” She let her hands fall and looked at Landon. “I couldn’t do that to him. It’s better this way. My name will be the only one on the birth certificate, and he’ll never know the difference.”

“Unless someone tells him.”

Reagan could feel the heat in her cheeks, sense her blood beginning to boil within her. “That’s not your place, Landon.” Her tone was half terrified, half angry. “You can’t.”

“Not me, but someone else. People will find out, Reagan. You can’t hide a baby forever. And one day your son will want to know.”

She breathed hard through her nose and stared at her lap. “I have a lot of decisions to make, but that one is already made. I’m not telling Luke, and I don’t want anyone else telling him.” The feelings coursing through her were clear for maybe the first time. She was angry with Luke for what he’d done, for moving in with someone else so quickly after their breakup. If he cared that little for her, then he didn’t have a right to know. She angled her head and lifted her chin. “The baby’s mine.”

“Okay.” He glanced across the room at Reagan’s mother, but she was still sleeping. “I’m not your enemy, Reagan. I won’t say a word. But I pray you don’t regret this.”

“I won’t.” Her answer was automatic, and she forced herself to relax. Her body ached all over. “Sorry for getting upset.”

“It’s okay.” Landon ran his tongue over his lower lip and cleared his throat. “There’s something else I need to say. Something your mother wanted me to tell you.”

Reagan stared at him, her face frozen. Somewhere deep in her soul she was sure about something. This couldn’t be good news. Otherwise her mother would’ve told her and not asked Landon to do the talking. She waited, barely breathing.

Landon hung his head for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck. When he looked up, his eyes were deeper than before, and a new sadness shone from them. “You know what happened to you, right? About the torn uterus?”

“Yes.” Reagan’s mouth was dry. She didn’t want to talk medical details with Landon. In thirty minutes they’d bring her baby in and everything would be all right. She shifted in bed and tried not to wince. “I bled pretty bad; at least that’s what the nurse said.”

“Very bad. We were…afraid we’d lose you, Reagan. The baby was sitting just right or we probably would’ve.” When he narrowed his eyes, she had the impression he was trying to brace her for whatever was coming. He sucked in a slow breath. “When the doctors tried to repair your uterus, they found that the tearing was too jagged, the skin too torn apart for stitching.”

Too torn apart? The words banged about in Reagan’s head like loose bowling balls. What did he mean “too torn apart”? She’d had stitches—that much was obvious because of the pain in her lower abdomen. Also the nurse had told her not to make any sudden movements because of the incision.

Reagan looked at her hands. They were shaking, and her heart had stumbled into a rhythm she didn’t recognize. If the tearing was too jagged then— She slammed her thoughts back into the box where they came from. “I…had stitches. I know I did.”

“Yes.” Landon slid closer to her bed and grabbed her hand. “Reagan, they couldn’t save your uterus. It was too badly damaged. They had to remove it to save your life.” He searched her face, and again he glanced briefly over his shoulder at her mother. “Your mom wanted me to tell you.” He bit the inside of his lip and lifted one shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Reagan.”

The room was shaking, or maybe it was her. The edges of things looked blurry and undefined, and a black-and-white pattern flashed in her mind every few seconds. The sounds around her dimmed, and all she could hear was the strange, irregular beating of her heart and the incessantly loud whirring of the hospital machines.

What had he said?

They hadn’t been able to save her uterus? That couldn’t possibly be true. He must’ve meant something else, that she’d suffered some kind of surgery that the doctors hadn’t planned on, or that her recovery time was bound to be longer now. He couldn’t have meant that they’d
removed
her uterus, because if they had…

Landon was still holding her hand, but he was looking down now, studying a spot on the hospital floor.

“I…I don’t understand.” Reagan hated herself for putting voice to her thoughts, but the truth would come no other way. She couldn’t spend another moment guessing about what he meant. “You mean they had to…to operate on my uterus?”

Landon brought his head up slowly and gave a subtle shake of his head. “No, Reagan. They couldn’t save it. You…can’t bear any more children.”

Reagan grabbed a quick breath and closed her eyes. She’d been standing at the edge of a cliff, and Landon’s words pushed her over. Now she was falling, falling fast and hard with no way to stop, no way to catch herself. She hadn’t died giving birth to Luke’s son, but a part of her had. There would be no siblings for Thomas Luke. No brothers to play ball with. No little girl to play softball or volleyball with. No family gathered around the dinner table. Whenever she might meet the right man and fall in love again, she would never be able to share a child with him.

God, I can’t bear this. Why…when you know how badly I want a family, Lord? Why?

Daughter, my mercies are new every morning. The night may be long, but morning will always come.

The words were the faintest whisper across her soul, a strangely real answer that placed its arms around Reagan and surrounded her with a peace she hadn’t known in months. Nine months.