Love's Second Chance (Second Chances Series) (24 page)

“Korinne, wake up.” The voice sounded so far away, but close at the same time. Something cold touched my forehead and I flinched. The moment I did, the pain shot through my body.

“Oww,” I groaned. My tongue felt heavy and thick, and there was a spot on my forehead where the horrific throbbing was coming from. When I reached up to touch it, I noticed there was a bump there that hadn’t been there before. I could feel the world spinning around me and I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet.

“Open your eyes, care bear,” a voice said soothingly by my ear.

“Mom?”

“Yes, it’s me,” she answered.

I opened my eyes and saw that my mother and father were beside the bed. Looking around the room, I had no clue how I came to be in a hospital bed. “What happened?” I asked them.

My mother and father looked at each other, and then back to me. My father was the one who spoke. “Apparently, you took a nasty tumble and hit your head on Dr. Andrews’ desk. You’ve been out for five hours.”

It only took one second to remember why I had passed out. Running my hand over my stomach, my eyes went wide. Both of my parents smiled when I gazed back up at them with tear-filled eyes. “You both know?” I asked.

My mom nodded excitedly and cried, “Yes, we know. Jenna decided to tell the whole world because she was so happy. As soon as we walked in she told us. We were ecstatic when we found out we were going to be grandparents.”

Seeing her and my dad smile actually made me happy for a second, but then I remembered the bad news Jason had told me.

“They can’t take my kidney,” I told my parents anxiously. “We need to get Galen a kidney. Do you know if they have one or if he was put on the waiting list?”

“We don’t know, pumpkin, we haven’t heard anything yet, but you need to calm down and relax. You have someone else to think of now, too,” my father emphasized by looking down at my stomach.

My mother brushed the hair off of my forehead and smiled. “The doctors want to do an ultrasound to make sure the baby is okay. They were waiting for you to wake up.”

“When are they going to let me out of here? I want to see Galen.”

“Impatient as ever aren’t you, Ducky?” Jenna announced, coming through the door with Brady and Elizabeth behind her.

“I just want to see my husband,” I snapped impatiently.

“I see my brother got you knocked up. I believe heart-felt congratulations are in order.” Brady laughed.

I was taken aback by his joking, but Elizabeth barged in and took over. “Brady hush! That was really uncalled for to say it like that. I think you and Jenna also need to be getting busy, to give me more grandbabies.” She came to over to me and kissed me on the forehead. “Galen is going to be so happy when he finds out about the baby. Congratulations, my dear. Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know if you could have kids or not? I wouldn’t have hounded you so much.”

My eyes roamed over to Jenna and she shied away sheepishly. “It wasn’t something I liked to discuss,” I informed her. “Jenna, you are all about revealing the secrets today, aren’t you?”

“I was excited,” she admitted. “Knowing you, you were going to stay passed out for forever and I couldn’t wait to share the good news. It was a blessing in this tragic situation. Everyone needed something good to come out of it.”

Hearing her say it like that it didn’t sound so bad. It all seemed surreal. I couldn’t believe there was actually a life growing inside of me, but what made my heart hurt was that my child might not ever get to meet their father. “Is there any news about a kidney for Galen? I know you are all happy for me and the baby, but I think we need to focus on getting Galen taken care of,” I pointed out to them.

Jenna came up to the bed and shook her head, grinning the whole time. “Well, Ducky, if you hadn’t passed out, you would have heard the rest of the good news that Jason wanted to tell you. However, it does happen to be bitter-sweet news.” Narrowing my eyes in question, she continued, “The good news is that they found a kidney for Galen.”

I screamed for joy as the happiness inside of my body blossomed to every fiber of my being. “That’s great news! He didn’t have to be put on the waiting list?” I asked, looking at everyone. They all seemed happy, but there was sadness in the air that I couldn’t place. “By the looks on your faces, I guess this is where you tell me the ‘bitter’ part of that news.”

Lowering her eyes, Jenna nodded. “Yes, it is. Apparently, Galen
was
going to be put on a waiting list, but something must have changed because now he’s good to go.”

“What happened?” I asked curiously.

Jenna shrugged. “Dr. Andrews didn’t specifically say, but they’re going to get everything set up and ready to operate by morning. Now all we have to do is hope that Galen wakes up from the coma.”

The smiles around the room slowly ebbed off because with that admission there still came the realization that the worst part was not yet over. Even if he did get a kidney, he still had to wake up from the coma. I lifted my chin, and announced to them all. “He
will
wake up. After finding out I’m pregnant, when I was told I most likely wouldn’t have children, is a sign. A sign that miracles can happen. Galen’s strong, and I have no doubt in my mind that he’ll pull through it.”

Their smiles came back and I felt a new hope surge through the room. Everything was going to be okay.

“Are you ready to see your little peanut?” the nurse asked.

“More than anything,” I said nervously. My mother, Jenna, and Elizabeth were all in the room with me. When the nurse came to get me, they all squealed and demanded to be able to go, too. I couldn’t tell them no.

“This is so exciting,” Jenna shrieked, bouncing up and down. I laughed at her and turned back to the nurse, who was putting lube on a something that looked like a giant penis.
Great
, I thought sarcastically. I didn’t realize I was going to have an internal ultrasound. “Whoa!” Jenna exclaimed, looking at everyone and then back to the rod in the nurses’ hand. “I guess we don’t need to tell Galen that his wife got prodded while he was out, do we?”

Elizabeth and my mother both burst out in laughter while I hid my head in embarrassment. Leave it to my friend to say something like that. The nurse snickered and said, “Trust me, I don’t think Mr. Matthews would object since we’ll be seeing his child with it.” We all laughed, but then everyone went silent when it was time to see what my little one looked like. I kept my eyes on the monitor, eager to see how big the baby was and to get an idea on how far along I was. I had no clue, but I guess I knew then why I’d been getting sick so much the past few weeks.

The nurse turned up the volume on the monitor, and as soon as I heard my baby’s heartbeat I saw the little peanut clearly on the screen. I burst out into tears just as everyone in the room gasped and began crying as well. “Look at my little girl,” I whispered.

“Now how do you know it’s a girl?” my mother chimed in.

Smiling at the screen, I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just do.” I looked up at the nurse and asked, “Is there any way to find out right now, or is it too soon?”

“It’s still too soon. You look like you may be about eight weeks pregnant. In another ten weeks or so you should be able to find out. If you want some good recommendations for excellent OB doctors, I can get you a list to choose from. You’ll need to start taking prenatal vitamins, and make sure that you take care of yourself, and definitely no extra stress.”

“I understand completely,” I agreed with her.

“I’m going to print off some pictures, so that way you’ll have them and can show your husband when he wakes up,” the nurse insisted.

I smiled. “That would be great.”

The time had come for Galen’s surgery. I sent my parents home because I
knew
things would turn out okay. That, and also because I knew my father had to get back to work. I didn’t want him losing his job over me, even though I knew he would have stayed just to make sure I was all right. It took some convincing, but I finally got them to head home to Charleston. Brady and Elizabeth took their turns to see Galen first and spend time with him before his surgery. I wanted to talk to him last so I could spend more time with him. While Galen’s family visited with him, I took that time to call Rebecca. Brady had called her the other day and told her everything about the accident. I hadn’t spoken to her at all, so I had no clue what was going on with work or if there were any issues, and I’m sure she was dying to hear from me.

Dialing the office number, I waited on her to pick up. “M&M Architectural Design,” Rebecca announced. It broke my heart to hear her voice. She didn’t sound like her usual chipper self, but someone that was sad and preoccupied.

My voice quivered when I spoke. “Rebecca, its Korinne.” It must have caught her off guard to hear my voice, because she fumbled with the phone.

“Holy hell, Korinne. How are you? How’s Galen? Please tell me everything is okay. I’ve been dying to hear from you,” she told me anxiously.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called, but it’s been a little hectic. Galen has his surgery here in the next couple of hours. My good friend, Jason Andrews, is the doctor who will be doing the surgery. I trust that he’ll do everything right and help Galen pull through. After the surgery we just have to wait for him to wake up. With the head trauma we won’t know the full damage until he wakes.”

“Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I’ve been around Galen since he was a baby. I love that boy like he was my own,” she cried.

“I know you do. We have to believe that he’ll be okay. Has anything happened at the office? Do I need to call anyone?” I asked her.

“Oh no, honey, it’s all taken care of; however, the builders did call yesterday asking for the floor plan to the cabin. I didn’t know what to tell them, so I said I would be in contact soon.”

“Call them back and tell them they’ll have the floor plan as soon as possible. There needs to be some changes made to it,” I said to her. The changes would come as a complete shock to Galen when he saw it, but it would be a surprise that he’d surely love. It’d be the perfect Christmas present for him.

“Sounds good, Korinne. I just want you to know that we’re all thinking about you here.”

“Thank you, Rebecca. I’ll be in touch soon.” By the time we hung up, Brady and Elizabeth came out of Galen’s room.

“You’re up,” Brady said.

I walked into his room and hoped beyond hope that he’d look better, but he still looked the same… so still and vacant. I really didn’t know what I was expecting, but I knew what I was hoping. Hopefully, once they got him off of the coma inducing drugs he’d wake up easily. If he stayed in a coma for longer than two weeks the situation would become dire. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if he didn’t wake up during that two week period.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said, moving closer to the bed. I hovered over him and kissed him on his dry, cracked lips. “You better wake up, Galen. After this is all over you better wake up. I have so much to tell you, and you wouldn’t believe all the things that have happened.” I paused and just stared at him, imagining how his face was going to look when I told him I was pregnant. Rubbing my stomach, the tears had started to fall, but they were good tears. “You’re going to love the surprise I have for you. Believe me, it was definitely a shock for me when I found out. I have the bump on the head to prove it.” I laughed.

“Mrs. Matthews?” a soft voice said coming from the doorway. The nurse was a short lady with long, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and looked to be in her late thirties.

When I acknowledged her, she approached me and held out her hand. “I’m Sarah. I’ll be assisting Dr. Andrews with Mr. Matthew’s surgery. I used to assist your late husband, Dr. Anders, as well.”

I shook her hand and smiled. “I’m Korinne, and it’s nice to meet you, too. You know, I remember Carson talking about a nurse with your name. He always told me how he enjoyed working with her and how she was excellent with patients. It must have been you he was talking about.”

“Really?” she asked. Her eyes were welling up with tears, but she wiped them away. “He was the nicest doctor I had ever worked for. I worked with him on the last night he was here. I don’t know if this oversteps the boundaries, but I thought you would like to know this. Do you want to know what he said to me before he left?”