Page 102 of Where You're Planted

“I’m covered,” Amy said, laughing when he still didn’t move.

“I—” His voice came out too tight, and hell, his vision blurred. He blinked back the tears, just barely managing to keep them from spilling over, but he wasn’t hiding anything from Amy.

“Jack,” she said, softer.

He drove the heel of his hand into each stinging eye, set the bag of tacos on a counter, and finally faced her. Amy passed the baby to Omar and patted the spot next to her, grabbinga bottle of hand sanitizer and motioning for him to hold out his hands.

Jack wrung them longer than necessary because he didn’t know what to do with himself. She patted the bed again, and he perched on the edge, careful not to touch her, taking in the IV in her hand. Only now did he realize that he’d been half expecting the same image from her last stint here—the intubation tube and that terror in her eyes. She looked worn out, hair frizzing around her face, but she was whole and here, and a strange calm emanated from her that he felt as tangibly as if she was brushing soothing hands down his arms.

“Omar said you didn’t need surgery,” he said, aiming for casual, although he had to clear the tightness from his throat.

She snorted a laugh. “They tried, but she had other plans and shot out before the doctor could even get his gloves on.”

“I was in the hallway talking to you,” Omar said with a wry, playfully accusing edge, but he was smiling down at his daughter. “Nearly missed all of it.”

“Why did they want to do a C-section if she was coming that fast?” Jack asked.

Amy rolled her eyes. “My blood pressure was a little high.”

“So it wasyou, not her.”

“Yes,Iwas the problem. It was me.”

Jack sighed. “I meant, you were at risk.”

“Barely. And I’m fine now.”

“They know about your heart? They checked you out after?” He looked at the monitor to the side of her bed, the line of her heart rate dipping and spiking uniformly, and then he looked back at the curtain by the door, wondering why no one was here monitoring hernow, just letting her sit in here potentially on the verge of catastrophe while also responsible for a baby.

Amy squeezed his hand on the bed. “They just checked on me before you came in. I’m completely fine. In fact, I feel weirdly great. Like I could go run a marathon.”

“You look tired.”

“Hey, watch yourself, sir. I just performed the miracle of life.”

Itfeltlike a miracle.

“You want to hold her?” Amy asked.

“Oh, um…no, that’s okay.”

“Give her to him,” she said to Omar.

“Amy, I don’t—”

“Youneedto hold her. You just do. Trust me.”

Omar came around the bed and lifted his elbows to his sides, gesturing for Jack to make a cradle with his arms. Jack stood and did as he was instructed, sure that if he was the one hooked up to a monitor right now, alarms would start going off. He felt panicky, like when he’d bought his truck a few years ago and for the entire drive home felt sure he’d wreck it.

As soon as Omar passed the baby into his arms, Jack sat back down on Amy’s bed for extra safety. The baby wasn’t even a full day old. The weight of that required every bit of caution.

“Omar, my phone,” Amy whispered, reaching for it on a nearby table. “Take a picture.”

Omar tried to take the photo himself, but she grabbed for it until he passed it to her. She took at least thirty photos, finally setting the phone on the pillow in her lap. “I know I just made the perfect baby, and she’s pulling a lot of weight here, but this—” She circled her finger at him. “This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” And then tears were pooling in her eyes, and her voice was tight and high. “Oh God, here we go. Shit. It’s just—you, holdingher.”

This hardly clarified why she was crying, but Jack didn’t need an explanation. He’d never officially sworn off holdinga baby or anything, but there was a good chance he’d have quietly avoided it for the rest of his life. That he was holdingAmy’sbaby moved Jack as much as it seemed to move Amy.

And, hell, Amy’s baby was incredibly cute, her little mouth pillowy and pink, her eyes open and just quietly looking around, sort of only half seeing but not mad about it.

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