Page 69 of Wrapped Around My Heart
“Maybe leave out the bit about…” she says, holding out a hand for me just as one of the paramedics steps aside, allowing me to slip in. “For now, at least. No need to worry her.”
“Smart thinking.” I lean down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll be right behind you in the car and then the doctors will need to pry me from your side.”
She laughs before getting cut off by a sharp intake of breath and cursing. “Okay, let’s get this baby out of me before she shreds her way out.”
“You’re amazing,” I tell Arianna for the millionth time. From the second our little girl was placed in my arms, the only thing I could focus on was how perfect she is. Followed closely by the realization that the whole reason our daughter is here is because of Ari.
She carried her, supported her for nine months, and made sure to give her all the nourishment she needed to get here, perfectly healthy. Even if she did come two weeks early. It took her just over eight hours in delivery, but the second she heard our baby cry, Ari said it was all worth it.
Ari chuckles, eyes locked on where our daughter sleeps contently in my arms.
I round the bed, needing to be closer to her, and lower myself carefully to the edge of the bed so Ari can better see our baby.
“There’s one very important thing we forgot to do before she was born,” I whisper.
“What’s that?” Ari asks, eyebrows scrunching together adorably as she rests her head back to see me.
“We never talked about names.”
Her eyes widen and some color finally sparks in her cheeks, reliving some of the worry that had been festering ever since I saw her in the kitchen in pain.
“Actually, I made a list. And by list, I mean I wrote down one name and fell in love with it but couldn’t think of a middle name, so I kept putting it off.”
“Well, let’s hear what you got and see if we can come up with one together,” I tell her, passing her the baby so she can hold her while we do this.
“Clara,” she whispers hesitantly. I grin, staring down at our beautiful girl, who already looks so much like her mother. A middle name comes to me, and in this moment, I know she’ll love it just as much as I already do.
“Clara Katherine.”
Her breath hitches, but she nods her agreement.
“Clara Katherine Hayes.” Ari smiles up at me, eyes twinkling while I try to grapple with hearing my last name attached to her.
Just wait until Arianna has it too.
“Mom’s gonna cry,” Ari warns, cutting me from thoughts of getting married.
Laughing, I wrap an arm around her shoulders and hug her to my side.
“She was always going to cry just from seeing her baby have a baby.”
“True.”
We settle into silence, both of us content with being close to one another while watching Clara sleep. I’m lost in my own head, thinking about how lucky I am for the girls in my arms, by the time Ari finally speaks up again.
“Have you heard any updates about your brother?”
I sigh, dropping my head back and staring up at the ceiling.
My brother.
There hasn’t even been any time for me to process that bombshell since he was taken out of the house. I had just enough attention span to convince the police officers to take my brother to the same hospital Ari was going too, get Cora locked up in the house, and grab Ari’s hospital go bag before rushing to the hospital myself.
When it was clear that the delivery was going to be a while, I called Ari’s parents and Landon, who both offered to go check on Cora for us. Something I had Landon do, just in case there were any lingering police cars around the house. I knew he’d ask, but he’d at least wait until things settled, whereas his parents would likely panic.
After that I finally met with the police officers, who were baffled at the fact that I didn’t want to press charges. Arianna and I had talked about it for almost two hours in between contractions, and it was actually her insistence that we didn’t.
“He needs our help, not to be alone in jail.”
