Page 32 of Saving Hanna
Chapter Twenty-Two
HANNA
There wasn’t much that I remembered about the night at the Drake building, but when Aiden told me that Carter shot me, I just couldn’t believe it. I had cried for days knowing that I would never see him again. It had been two weeks since the shooting and every day I was getting stronger. I was looking forward to the day when Dr. Donaldson allowed me to go home. When I found out what Aiden did, I knew we would be bound together for life. Giving up a kidney wasn’t something you did every day.Were we a perfect match according to the doctor?
Sitting up in the hospital bed, I was tired of looking at home improvement magazines that the nurse had brought in. Aiden would soon return with my ice cream that I had been craving all morning. Placing the magazine on the bed, I let out a large sigh and said, “I want to get out of here.”
I hadn’t realized that Aiden had returned until he commented, “Tomorrow, Hanna.”
Holding my ice cream in his hand, he approached me with a gorgeous smile and said, “Here you go, baby.”
Taking a big bite, my mouth was very happy. The taste was out of this world. Of everything in this hospital, I was going to miss this the most. “God, this is heaven.”
Letting out a laugh, Aiden dipped his finger in the cup and said, “Mmm, I would have to disagree. The only heaven I see is you.”
Even though he was discharged from the hospital a few days after the procedure, Aiden never left my side except to get us something to eat or go home to shower. I never once got tired of him being here. He always managed to put a smile on my face. Saving the last bit for him, I placed my spoon in the cup and handed it to him. “Here you go, handsome.”
It didn’t take him long to grab the cup and wolf the remaining ice cream down. I never understood why he didn’t just get one for himself.
While we were talking about nothing except what we were going to do when I got out of here, a knock came at the door. We looked toward the door to find that the doctor had entered the room. Pushing my body further up the bed, I hoped that his visit was to let me know that I was being discharged today instead of tomorrow.
“Ms. Marsh, how are you feeling today?” he asked as he looked over the information on my chart.
“I feel wonderful,” I answered confidently.
“That is good to hear. I would like to do another blood test before you are discharged tomorrow, just as a precaution. I will send a nurse to get a sample. In the meantime, take this time to relax. God knows you deserve it.”
When the doctor left and the nurse came in, I wasn’t looking forward to getting stuck again, but I knew it was only a precaution. If it meant that I could go home, I was all for it.
~*~*~*~
“Pregnant. Are you sure?” I huffed.
“Ms. Marsh, blood tests don’t lie. You are definitely pregnant,” the nurse confirmed.
I didn’t know what to believe. After everything that had happened to me, how could I be pregnant? Wondering what I was going to do, I was thankful that Aiden wasn’t in the room when the news of my pregnancy came out. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell him or how he would even feel about it.
Sitting alone in the room with only my thoughts, I began to wonder what it would be like to be a mother.Would I be a good one? Would Aiden be a good father? Would we be able to raise a child together without being married?Placing my hand over my stomach, I imagined holding my little girl and what it would feel like. Smiling to myself, I said softly, “I’m going to take really good care of you.”
“Take good care of who?” Aiden questioned, making his presence known.
Thinking hard, I said, “Me, silly.”
“Why don’t you let me do that?” he replied.
“Well, you can too.”
I needed to be more careful when I said something. I had no idea I wasn’t alone. Watching him approach me with our dinner, I pulled the bedside table over, moving my water to the side. As he began removing the items from the bag, my mouth began to salivate. Even though I just ate, I was starving. I knew it wasn’t because of the baby. Technically there wasn’t one yet. It had to be all in my head, knowing that pregnant women always ate.
As we sat and ate, there was still one thing I didn’t understand about what happened that night. Aiden told me that Carter ended up taking his own life after trying to shoot him and hitting me instead. Carter was very unstable and I had seen it when he came to my house, trying even then to take his own life. As much as it saddened me that he was gone, I still couldn’t understand why he was at Elite Exchange in the first place.
“Aiden, can I ask you something?” I began.
“Sure. You can ask me anything.”
“Why was Carter there?” I asked.
Aiden finished the bite he had taken before responding, “I’m really not sure. My father said that he blamed him for losing money on the investment he made. My father urged him not to do it, but he didn’t listen.”
