Page 104 of Rebel Heart
I needed nothing else but her and this baby.
But I could’ve sworn I’d heard panic in her voice.
A soft hand landed on my shoulder and shoved me. “Beau.”
Never had I heard my name spoken with such agony before. I shot up. “What? What’s going on?”
“Something’s wrong.”
I glanced at the clock beside the bed.
Just a few minutes past three o’clock in the morning. No wonder I was so disoriented. “What?”
“Something isn’t right,” she said, a groan of pain escaping.
“With the baby?”
Jules tossed back the blanket and exited the bed. I reached over and flipped on the light. By the time I turned back to face her, she let out a cry of pain and doubled over.
I was out of bed and by her side in a flash. I’d never felt such terror before in my whole life. “What’s wrong?”
She was hissing through her teeth, her eyes squeezed shut, and one hand resting on her belly as the other pressed into the mattress.
“Jules, angel, please talk to me.”
“My stomach,” she groaned. “It’s rock solid, and it hurts.”
I rested my hand on her belly and found she wasn’tmaking it up. “You’re only twenty-three weeks pregnant, though. It’s too early to have the baby. This isn’t labor, is it?”
God, I was terrified. Panicking. Someone needed to tell me what to do.
Jules pushed off the bed and began walking, moaning in agony as she did. “It’s not just my stomach. Oh, I’ve never felt pain like this before. It’s in my back, too. And it’s radiating around my side to my front.”
She began walking in circles—pacing and trying to breathe—and I was sure I needed to be prepared to take her to the hospital. I didn’t have the slightest clue what was wrong, but I knew this wasn’t something that was just going to go away on its own.
“Keep breathing, Jules. Just keep breathing. We’re going to go to the hospital. Okay? Just breathe.”
As I yanked on a pair of jeans and tugged a shirt down over my head, I watched as my pregnant wife walked and winced and shook her hands at her sides.
“I can’t get away from it,” she cried.
God, her voice was enough to bring me to my knees.
I pulled on a pair of socks. “Away from what?”
Her voice was barely a whisper. “The pain.”
“I’m sorry, angel. I’m going to get you to the hospital. They’re going to figure out what’s going on.”
“Oh, no.”
She took off toward the bathroom, and just as I made it there, she was bent over the toilet and vomiting. I gathered her hair in my hands and stroked along her back.
When she was upright again, I asked, “How do you feel? Is it any better?”
Jules shook her head. “It won’t subside. It’s just constant, never-ending pain.”
I’d never experienced anyone in childbirth before, but this didn’t seem right. Was it normal?
