Rescuing Harlow by Aubree Valentine
Chapter 23
“Come on baby. You’re doing great. The baby is almost here,” Zane encouraged.
Harlow let out a painful grunt and pushed harder.
“Give me one more push, Harlow. Baby’s head is almost out,” the doctor looked up at her briefly.
“I’m so tired,” her head fell back while she caught her breath.
Zane kissed the top of her head “I know, Pretty Girl. I know. Just keep breathing. You’ve got this.”
“Here we go, here comes another contraction, give me one big push.”
Harlow sat up and pushed with all she had left in her.
“Push, push, push.”
The next sound they heard was their baby crying.
“Congrats mom and dad, you’ve got a beautiful baby girl.”
Tears filled both their eyes.
“A girl?” Harlow asked.
“Yep, here she is Momma,” the doctor laid the baby on her stomach while the nurses wiped her off.
“She’s beautiful, Harlow. She looks just like you,” Zane cried.
“Oh my gosh. Look at that hair. Zane, she’s here.”
Zane’s smile lit up the whole room. “She’s here. You did so good Harlow. I love you so much. “
“We’re going to take her over to the warmer so the pediatrician can check her out and weigh her. Dad, do you want to cut the cord?” A nurse asked.
“Go. Go with her,” Harlow encouraged.
While Zane stayed with the baby and their little girl was being looked over by the pediatrician, the doctor and nurses got Harlow squared away and cleaned up.
She was exhausted. Emotionally and physically. This was not part of their birth plan.
Get kidnapped. Go into labor. Have a baby at a hospital she had never stepped foot in with a doctor she didn’t even know.
Nope. Not how this was supposed to go at all.
She needed a nap and a solid meal, but she wondered if she would ever be able to sleep again without picturing a dead man lying on the floor bleeding out. Their baby’s birthday was supposed to be a happy day, not a day overshadowed by some psychopaths.
Harlow wanted to be happy. She was happy that their little girl was here, but there was still so much emotion and adrenaline running through her system. She just had a baby and still needed to be questioned by the FBI. That would be one hell of a story for their daughter’s baby book.
“All right baby girl, here’s Momma,” Zane beamed, handing over their little bundle of joy who was all swaddled up with a cute little hat on her head.
Little by little, their room emptied out, leaving Zane and Harlow alone with their baby girl who was happily sucking on her first bottle.
“How do you do it?” Harlow whispered.
“Do what?”
“How are you completely in the moment right now? It’s like nothing happened before this. How do you just turn it all off?”
Zane brushed a loose curl behind her ear and gave her a gentle smile. “It’s something that comes with the territory, I guess. Something they’ve been reinforcing at work too. To be honest, I need to be in the moment because if I’m not, then I’m going to want to go running out of this room and kill the bastard who took you from me.”
“Too late,” Harlow hiccupped through another round of tears. “He’s already dead. I saw it. That guy, he...he shot him right in front of me. When I opened my eyes, there he was in a pool of blood on the floor.” Her body trembled.
“Shh. Hey, hey, hey. Let it out. It’s okay. We didn’t exactly get a chance to talk about what happened, did we?”
“Nope. Milyn had other plans,” Harlow looked down and ran her finger across their little girl’s cheek. “I never would have thought that she would come five weeks early.”
“It’s possible all the stress, ya know?”
“Oh, God. Zane. What about Bailey? Is Bailey okay?”
Zane rubbed her arm. “Bailey is good. They did emergency surgery and said she’s going to be just fine.”
“She tried to stop them, you know, protect me and all that. I should have paid better attention. Maybe if I had, I could have gotten out of the house. I had the gun in my hand. I was going to pull the trigger, then he said if I did, he’d shoot me right in the stomach and make sure…” she couldn’t finish the sentence. Tears and sobs wracked her body. “He was going to kill our baby.”
“But he didn’t. You did the right thing. You protected her at all costs. We’re going to find the man responsible for this. I promise you,” Zane kissed her cheek. “It’s been such a long day. Do you want to try to rest? I’ll stay right here with you.”
Did she need to rest? Yes. Did she want to? Not really. What she wanted to do was to be surrounded by her family that she knew was waiting.
“No. You should tell Cruz that I'm ready to be interviewed so that Milyn can meet her family. I know they’re all waiting.”
“You don’t have to do this right now, it can wait. Our family can wait. They all understand.”
“I want to,” she said with all the confidence she could muster. “I need to do this. Now.”
“Okay. I’ll go get Cruz.”
With her lengthy questioning session with Cruz and the team out of the way, Harlow was finally able to see her family and introduce Milyn to everyone.
The staff moved her to a corner room with a little more space and with a little pressure from Zane and Cruz - they bent the rules, allowing more than the usual 4 visitors at a time to join them.
“Maybe we should go. Let her get some rest,” Lynn whispered as Harlow started to doze off.
Being awake for twenty-four hours straight was beginning to take its toll but she quickly opened her eyes and shook her head. “Please don’t go. I can sleep just fine with everyone here. Don’t leave.”
She needed them to stay. She absolutely needed to be surrounded by everyone she loved. It was the only way she could even begin to relax and push away the visions that kept trying to haunt her.
“Honey, are you sure? We can come back in a little bit after you’ve slept,” her mom offered.
“No. Please. Don’t leave,” she pleaded as tears filled her eyes.
“We’ll stay,” Scarlett reached over and squeezed her hand, seeming to understand completely what it was Harlow was trying to convey. “We’ll all stay right here.”
“No one is leaving,” Zane added, squeezing her other hand. “You’re safe now. Rest.”
