"Let me take Bryan," Ryker says, sliding into the seat beside the stretcher. The female EMT rides up front, flicking the sirens on once more. "You need sleep."
"I want to hold my baby," I protest. But my eyes are half-lidded, sleep dragging me downward at an alarming rate.
"I've got him," Ryker assures me. "Do you trust me, Cleo?"
"With my life," I say, the God's-honest-truth slipping out in an unguarded moment. Ryker is one of the few I trust.
His answering smile is dazzling. He holds out his hands for the small bundle in my arms.
"Then trust I've got him, Cleo. I'll kill anyone who tries to hurt him."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
I slide the bundle into his arms, and he clutches Bryan tight against his chest once more, warming my baby boy with his body. It's the last image I have of them before sleep drags me down into peaceful oblivion.
4
Ryker
My pen hovers over the official-looking form for just a second before I sign my name in the blank space provided. It's near Cleo's hurried signature, wrestled from her by an insistent doctor after they had settled her in a room. I sign the voluntary waiver offered by the nurse, aware this is the only way I'll be able to get my name to stick.
I stare at my name, signed as neatly as I can get it under these circumstances. Cleo will probably be pissed at me for doing this. I'm not Bryan's father. It's Bryan Leon Sutton scrawled into the name box, not Fenton.
But the blank space was there, taunting me, reminding me how little support Cleo has in the trying days ahead. She's already embraced the fact she'll have to be off work, cutting her pay to pretty much nil. She'll be heading back to the death trap of an apartment she inherited from her parents. It's no place for a baby. No place for her, either. She deserves so much more than she has. So much more than she's willing to let me give her.
Let her be pissed. If I'm listed as the father, she can press for child support if she needs it. Not that I expect her to do so, but the opportunity would still be there.
Heather watches me from the opposite wall, acting as my look out, just in case someone unsavory turns up. After the scene in the hallway this afternoon I don't trust that Trent won't try something. Her displeasure is aimed at me, though.
"This is stupid, Fenton," she grumbles. "You know that she can demand half your paycheck after this right? And I know damn well that is not your baby. You'd have been mooning over them both for months. What gives?"
I still wasn't in the mood to unload the complex clusterfuck of feelings I had for Cleo. Not here, within earshot of her hallway. And not to Heather, who looked like she'd rather eat the birth certificate than let me sign it.
"She's a good friend, Heather. And she won't do that. I'll be lucky if she'll even let me give her a ride home. More stubbornness than sense in that woman."
"Oh God. You really love her, don't you?" Heather says, examining my face with something of a dumbstruck expression on hers.
I grimace, but my silence is answer enough. I don't have a clue what Cleo feels for me, but it can't hold a candle to what I'm feeling for her.
"You poor bastard," Heather says with a shake of the head. "You're in for a shitload of pain, you know that?"
Unfortunately, I was pretty sure she was right. There was no way in hell I would be able to convince Cleo to let me help. She'd probably bend over backward to keep me at arm's length, the way she always had. My teeth ground together in frustration. There had to besomethingI could say that would allow me past her guard. I didn't fucking care about even being in her bed at this point. I needed to take care of her. In whatever capacity she'd allow.
And then an idea hit me. Something perhaps a little cruel, but if it worked...
"I've got to go, Heather," I murmur. "Can you please cover for me?"
Heather looks ready to chew her own tongue, but she relents. We have too much respect for one another when it comes right down to the wire to rat each other out. Heather might think I’m, being an idiot, but she'll cover my ass all the same.
"All right, but you owe me."
* * *
Cleo is sitting up in bed, Bryan clutched to her chest when I enter the room. I turn away, ready to avert my eyes if she's breastfeeding the kid. It's none of my business. But Cleo just chuckles.
"It's all right, Ryker. He's asleep."
