I Can Hear My Unborn Baby’s Thoughts, and We’re Taking Down the Other Woman Together Chapter 08

I Can Hear My Unborn Baby’s Thoughts, and We’re Taking Down the Other Woman Together Chapter 08

After that public “claiming” at the training ground, Declan’s campaign to win me back was both intense and hilariously clumsy.

He filed for a transfer, giving up all frontline rescue missions to become a training instructor. Every day, like clockwork, he showed up at my new apartment door.

He didn’t bring me fancy roses. He brought me “tactical grade” fruit containers—perfectly cut squares of fruit, all his own work. He didn’t know how to sweet talk, so he quietly got certified as a newborn care specialist, a lactation consultant, and an infant CPR instructor. He taped all those certificates to my fridge in a neat row.

To be able to speak in long sentences again, he practiced speech therapy in front of the mirror every night, often until his throat bled.

[Hmm, Daddy’s recent performance barely scrapes a passing grade.]

My baby’s voice was as sassy as ever.

[Mom, last night he was reading a parenting book and crying into your old photo. Can we, like, shorten his probation a little?]

I rubbed my growing belly and watched through the window as that tall figure circled my apartment complex in the hot sun, checking every fire hazard and security risk. My lips twitched upward.

Truth was, I’d forgiven him long ago.

I was just greedy. I loved the way he looked at me now—like I was

everything.

Two months later, my due date came.

The room was warm with yellow light.

I curled up on the sofa when a heavy, low pain settled in my belly.
Then my pants felt damp.

My water broke.

The same second I stopped breathing, Declan—apron still on, doing dishes—froze. Like he’d sensed it.

He dropped the bowl in the sink and walked to me fast. His face, calm a moment ago, went pale. But his eyes were steady. Safe.

He knelt down, helped me into nonslip shoes, grabbed the hospital bag he’d packed weeks ago, and lifted me as if I were made of glass. His arms were solid and warm, blocking out the world.

Rain rumbled outside. He carried me down the steps, into the car, and started driving—fast, but so smooth, barely a jostle.

[Don’t be scared, Mom! Daddy’s the best!] my baby cheered in my head. [He drives so steady. We’ll see the doctor in no time!]

At the hospital, Declan carried me straight into the delivery room. His jaw was tight, but he never let go of my hand. The man who never showed fear in danger zones now had sweaty palms and was barely breathing.

Inside the delivery room, the pain crashed over me in waves. I was

drenched in sweat, gripping his hand.

Declan knelt by the bed, using a cold cotton swab to wet my dry lips.
His eyes were red. Tears fell onto my hand one by one.

All those months of speech practice, of fighting to heal—they meant something now.

He wasn’t mute anymore. His voice was hoarse but soft, wrapping around me. “Sage, don’t be afraid. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry you suffered so much… I love you, Sage.”

His voice was a warm current, holding me together when I felt like falling apart.

[Mom, I’m coming! I’ll protect you both from now on!] its little voice gave one last happy shout.

Wah—

A sharp, strong cry cut through the room.

“It’s a boy. Seven pounds two ounces. Perfectly healthy.”

The doctor placed a tiny bundle in front of us. A red, scrunched up little face, crying his lungs out.

In that moment, the little voice that had been with me for so long faded. And the real baby was here, in our arms.

Declan looked at the baby, then at me—exhausted, spent. The man who never cried finally broke. He buried his face by the bed and

sobbed, soft and hot, like a child who’d been given back everything he’d lost.

I reached up and brushed the hair off his forehead. I cupped his face and said, my voice soft but clear, “Congratulations, Captain Hayes. You’re off probation.”

He jerked, looking at me through blurry tears. His eyes shone like they held starlight.

Then he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to my damp forehead, the tip of my nose, my lips. Gentle. Precious.

The rain outside had stopped.

The first light of dawn broke through the clouds and filled the room with a gentle glow.

All the regrets of the past life, all the pain of this one—they dissolved in that cry, softened into a long, gentle future.

From now on, year after year, he would hold me, hold our child, and fill all the missing tenderness, one day at a time.