Risking Fate (36 page)

It was a good thing that the doctor came in to check on
me, because I wasn’t really certain
what else I wanted to say to my husband.
The meds were making
me
mellow, but I knew once I stopped taking them that it was only going to be a matter of time before I went all psychotic on Ty. He was strong and would take anything I threw at him. Not just because he was trying to make it up to me, but because he somehow got off on me being mad at him.

Thinking about him being turned on made me think of him being with Heather, which in turn brought my focus back to the doctor, who had been trying to get an answer out of me the whole time.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“On a scale of one to ten, how is your pain right now?” He had sat down in a chair on the other side from where Ty sat and was looking down at my chart.

“I guess it’s about a six. I itch more than anything.”

He stood up and removed the blanket to check on my stomach. I felt a cold chill as the air in the room hit my body. My robe was being pushed up to my chest so that he could examine my stomach. I closed my eyes as I felt him lightly touching where my staples were. It was instantly warm again as he covered me back up and wrote somethi
ng down on my chart. “Okay, as o
f right now, we are going to monitor you
for another six to eight hours. If your condition continues to improve, we can get you
moved
to a regular room as early as tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course you will still need to be hooked to your IV’s. One is giving you fluids and the other is giving you blood. We are hoping your levels will be good enough tomorrow to stop with the blood. You’re making great progress, but you will need to be on
antibiotics
for at least ten to fourteen days to fight off any kind of infection. Do you have any other questions for me?”

Ty cleared his throat. “Actually, I have one.”

The doctor kept looking down writing in my chart. “Ask away.”

“My wife hasn’t seen our newborn twins. I’m sure you can imagine
how hard it is for her knowing they are so close and she can’t get to them. Is there any way possible that we can let her see them? I know it’s probably against every regulation, but they are the only b
abies in the NICU and I think if
she could see them it would help speed up her recovery on account of her wanting to get better to be with them.”

The doctor smiled and started shaking his head in disbelief at Ty’
s long excuse as to why I should be able to see my babies. “Let me see what I can do.”

Ty stuck his hand across my bed and shook the doctor’s hand. “We’d appreciate that. I mean, I’d hate to have to smuggle them in here under my clothes.”

The doctor froze and just looked at Ty like he was crazy. Maybe he actually thought Ty was serious. At any rate, he walked away shaking his head again.

“I think he believed me.” Ty started laughing as a new nurse approached my bed.

She smiled and handed me
a
cup full of pills. “You need to take these for the pain. They will probably make you tired.”

I took the pills and handed her back the little cup. “Thanks.”

“If you need anything just hit your button.” She pointed to the red button attached to my bed.

Ty leaned over and grabbed the button. “Push it now.”

I slapped his hand. “Why would I do that?”

“Just for something fun to do. I can’t believe there is no television i
n
this room. What are we supposed to do?”

“You’d rather watch that than talk to me?”

Without
asking, he leaned over and kiss
ed
me on the mouth. “I didn’t say that. I also didn’t want to push my luck. Yesterday I thought I lost you
forever
, for more reasons than one, I think we have
had
enough of the serious talk for one night, plus you don’t believe anything I say anyway.”

“I’m going to fall asleep soon.”

He gave me a half smile but look
ed
disappointed. “I know you need your rest, but I like it when you’re awake.”

“Help me scoot over.”

“Why, are you in pain?” He seemed concerned.

“No, I want you to lay with me. I just want to be close to you, like we’re at home
and none of this is happening
.”

Slowly, I began using my hands to shift my body to the side, but Ty went over to that side and pulled the sheet so I slid without having to move my body. “
Thank you, Miranda, even if we’re pretending.
”

“For what
, pretending what
?”

“For loving me even when you should hate me.”

“I will always love you, Ty. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.”

He climbed in slowly next to me, being super gentle around my body. “Do you want to stop?”

“Loving you? Well, when I saw those pictures and heard what that bitch was saying about you, yes, I really did, but the further I drove away from you and as soon as I got into the accident, you were the only person I wanted by my side.”

He intertwined our fingers together and kissed my cheek. “Don’t ever stop.
Please don’t ever leave me.
”

Ty being there with me kept my mind off of not being able to see
my boys. I knew the family was
with them and I appreciate it, but I wanted to be in there. It wasn’t fair that they held my boys before me.

So, not only was I dealing with my husband and his
alleged affair
, but I was missing out on the first day of my sons lives and I had sixty staples going across my stomach. Thanks to the medication, I wasn’t in any pain physically, but I ached for my babies
and everything else that was breaking my heart
.

I had Ty, for as long as I wanted him
around. A part of me wanted
him to suffer for hurting me, but I also couldn’t imagine hurting him the way I hurt. I wanted to doubt his love, instead I found myself wanting to believe him.
Aside from this one time, he’d never given me one instance of doubt in our entire relationship.

I was so confused.

Chapter 25

Ty

I should have known that telling my side of the story was just going to upset Miranda
.
I mean
,
who would have believed that story? I couldn’t imagine what was going through her head, or how she had enough love for me to want to stay together. I knew that most of the reason was for our children, even though she claimed to still love me.

I had to put my feelings aside and worry about my family. Miranda’s condition was improving, but until she was out of the hospital, I was going to worry. The twins were so little and I guess some people would have been afraid to hold them, but I
knew in my heart that we could take care of them and they were strong.

My mother was home every day and she was all ready to babysit whenever Miranda decided to go back to work. I wished she would just stay home, but she liked to get out a few days a week. I enjoyed being able to see her at lunch time on those days so there were positives to her working.

With my wife’s hand laced into mine, I rested my head against hers and let myself rest. Even after the accident and more than a day
without a shower, her hair still smelled familiar. Our marriage wasn’t on
the
best of terms, but in that moment, I felt like it was.

I woke up to my phone vibrating and a very angry nurse looking down at me. I slipped out of bed and stood in front of her.

“Your wife is in no condition to be sharing her space. You could have hurt her worse.”

I stuck my finger in her face. “My wife wanted me to lay with her and after thinking she was dead, I needed to be close to her to
o
. I would
n’t
do anything to harm her.”

She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “Please put your finger down, Sir.
We are breaking the rules letting you stay in here longer than normal visiting hours already, so I appreciate you following at least some of the rules. I came here to check Mrs. Mitchell’s
vitals so that we could take her to see her sons.”

I put my hands
in my pockets and shut the hell
up real fast.
Miranda
turned her head to face us and I could see that she was smiling. I smiled back at her, feeling my heart race when I thought about her seeing our boys for the first time.

The nurse did what she needed to do and wrote everything down in the chart before releasing the wheels on Miranda’s bed. A male nurse came over and started situating both the bag of blood and fluids so that they could roll beside the bed as they moved her. “Am I going right now?” Miranda pulled her free hand up to mess with her hair. It was silly that she was worried about what she looked like.

“We’re moving you to a private room and then the babies will be brought in there with you.”

I grabbed Miranda’s hand and squeezed it. Her smile filled the room and I was ecstatic for her. “You ready to meet the cutest boys on the planet?”

“Yes.”

“Baby, wait til you see what my awesome sperm created.”

Miranda started laughing at my wise crack, but I caught the nurses rolling their eyes. I hated people with no sense of humor. Maybe they were just pissed cause my sperm was so awesome. I didn’t really give a shit about their opinion anyway.

“You know, I helped create them too,” Miranda added.

I leaned down and stole a kiss, before she could turn away. “I remember every single moment of that process.”

We had to walk really slow since each of us had some kind of object in our hands that was attached somehow to Miranda’s bed or body. By the time we got to the maternity ward, I saw my mom, Conner and his mom standing in the hallway talking to Van and Colt. I lifted my head, since my hands were too full to wave.
A cocked eyebrow could
be
seen from Miranda’s mother. She knew something was going on between us. I was so glad Miranda hadn’t told her the truth.

It wasn’t like I’d gone out and purposely cheated on my wife. Even if she refused to believe me, I never would have done that.

Everyone had to stand outside of the room until we got Miranda situated and then they insisted that she try to eat something before she was overwhelmed with visitors. Once they did come in, the room filled with voices and Miranda seemed to be happy to see everyone. I caught her looking at me a couple of times and I knew it was because she wanted to meet our sons without the commotion of everyone around us.

I knew her mother would be pissed at me, but I cleared my throat loudly so everyone would give me their attention. “Sorry to interrupt, but Miranda has something that she needs to do and it would
mean a lot to both of us if you let her have her first minutes with our sons
alone.” I saw my mother in law opening her mouth and even my mom looked upset. “Look, you can all come in after a few minutes, but you’ve all had time with them already and she hasn’t.”

Everyone cleared out of the room without much said. I was glad, because I didn’t feel like getting rude with our family. Once everyone walked out into the hallway, Miranda hit her red button and told the nurse she was ready.

When they rolled each of the little plastic beds into our room, Miranda started to cry. She held her hands over her face as I stood by her side. The nurses wheeled them in on either side of her bed and lifted Jake to her first. They were still hooked to a couple tubes, but the nurses had wrapped them up good enough that you couldn’t notice. I got my phone out right away and took a picture of her holding him. She looked terrible and would kill me later for saving the photo, but I loved how happy she was.

I grabbed little Jax and sat on the edge of the bed with her. “Hey guys, this is your mommy. She’s been waiting so long to see you.”

Miranda looked up at me with her soaked face. “Ty, they’re so perfect.”

I leaned down and kissed her head. “We did good didn’t we?”

She opened Jake’s little blanket and looked at his fragile body. “I can’t get over how much they look like you.”

That made my lifetime. I loved my sons, even if they looked nothing like me, but to hear her say that was just
unexplainable
. “I told you I had super sperm.”
I leaned down and sat Jax next to his brother, between
Miranda’s
legs. I could tell from the way she was sitting that it wasn’t the most comfortable position for her. “You okay? You want to adjust?”

She shook her head and stared at the boys. “I’m fine. I just want to be close to them. I wanted to see them so much, Ty. I can’t believe they are both okay. I thought they didn’t make it. It was horrible.”