Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 10) by Kaylea Cross Page A

hands as the unthinkable hit home.
    My baby. My baby is dead.
    A doctor stepped into her view, face grim, eyes filled with sympathy. He looked from the monitor to her, and she knew it was true. Her baby was gone. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, taking her hand in his.
    Shock and grief collided inside her, crushing her heart and lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
    Another vicious pain hit her. Around her she could hear the staff moving, could hear their voices, but it still took a few moments for her to absorb what they were saying. What it meant.
    She was still going to have to deliver her dead baby.
    Time passed in a disorienting blur of pain and unreality. They finally gave her something for the pain, just enough to take the edge off, and promised it wouldn’t be long now. The doctor and two nurses stayed with her the entire time, holding her hand, wiping away her tears and sweat, encouraging her and supporting her as best they could.
    It wasn’t enough.
    Adam, I can’t do this without you , she thought frantically, feeling like she was about to shatter into a thousand pieces . I can’t go through this without you.
    But she had no choice.
    It took another hellish six hours for the dry labor to run its course. Five more agonizing hours of contractions, followed by one hour of pushing.
    “Just one more,” the doctor said from his position between her open thighs at the end of the table.
    A fiery pain burned all around her vaginal opening, like someone held a blowtorch to her tautly stretched flesh. Gritting her teeth, she gathered her remaining strength and pushed with all her might.
    Her legs shook in the nurses’ grip, every muscle straining. A strangled scream of mingled rage and pain tore free. She barely felt the tears flowing down her temples and dripping into her hair.
    The baby popped free and the pain ceased instantly.
    She dropped back to the table, exhausted, shaking all over. And God help her, she was too afraid to look. She couldn’t bear to see her dead child.
    Her stomach twisted. She gagged and turned her head to the side, where a nurse immediately held a stainless steel bowl beneath her. Nothing came up.
    When the dry heaves finished, she collapsed back against the clammy pillow. One shaking hand came up to cover her eyes as her face crumpled.
    “Do you want to hold him?” the doctor asked quietly.
    Him? A little boy?
    Fresh tears bubbled up. The physical pain was over but she knew the emotional pain had just begun.
    She dropped her hand, her gaze unerringly going to the tiny figure wrapped in the blanket the doctor held. My baby. My poor baby.
    Sitting up, heedless of the blood or the nurses trying to clean her up, she automatically reached for her son, desperate to hold him.
    The doctor placed him in her arms. Instinct had her cradling him tight to her chest, against her heart. Oh, God, he was so tiny. Way too tiny. Fragile.
    She bit her lip, feeling like she was crumbling apart inside. Why? Why had God done this to her? To her child?
    She made herself pull the edge of the blanket back to see his little face. A funny sound shot out of her. A high-pitched cry of grief and denial.
    Adam James. A.J. for short. That’s what they had chosen for a boy’s name.
    And he was…God, he was perfect she thought with another spasm of grief. His little nose was perfect, his skin wrinkled and red. All his little fingers and toes were there; he even had little nails forming.
    A tear landed on his cheek. She carefully wiped it away, devastated.
    Had he suffered? Had he been afraid? He should still be safely tucked inside her, giving her those wonderful little flutters and kicks.
    The nursery had been painted, the crib all set up. She’d grown so used to rubbing her belly and talking to him all the time, eagerly anticipating his arrival in the spring and the moment when she finally held him in her arms.
    Not the way she was holding him now. Never that. How was she supposed to go on now?
    Another nurse came in,