“I haven’t left you, Tru. I’ve been here the whole time. The only time I left was to see our boy—and he’s right next door.” Jake tilts his head to the right.

He’s right through there. There’s only a wall separating me from my son.

“I want…see him,” I force out.

“I know, sweetheart.” He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “But I think I should get Kish now that you’re fully awake to let him check you over. Your mom and dad—I should call them and let them know you’re properly awake now. They’re waiting over at the hotel. They’ll want to see you.”

And I want to see my son.

“No.” I shake my head. Shit, that hurts. “I want…him.”

Jake smiles, and this time it’s a real honest-to-God Jake smile. The smile he reserves for me only, and I couldn’t be more relieved to see it right now.

“Okay,” he concedes. “How could I ever say no to you? I’ll get him now and bring him through.”

Jake leans down and presses his lips gently to mine. “I missed you so much,” he whispers over my lips.

Then he leaves the room, leaving me alone.

The silence hits me immediately.

I was in a car accident that resulted in my son’s being born while I was unconscious.

I missed his birth. I’ve missed the first week of his life.

I’ve missed those important first moments. The moments when a mother bonds with her child and he bonds with her. They were taken away from me. I can’t ever get them back.

What if I can’t bond with him now? What if he rejects me?

He doesn’t understand why I’ve not been with him for the start of his life. To him, I’ll be a stranger.

We don’t know each other.

What do I say—do?

I know he’s only a baby and won’t understand what I’m saying, but these first moments between us now are crucial, and I’m lying in a bed, struggling to move and in pain every time I speak.

I hate that I haven’t been here for him. I hate that this is how I’m meeting my son for the first time.

This was not how I imagined it.

I imagined my baby being handed to me, holding him in my arms. Giving him to Jake to hold for the first time. Watching as Jake had his first moments with our son.

Not having my child pulled from me while I was unconscious and Jake was on his way to the hospital.

Loss for what should have been ours overwhelms me. Visions of what happened form in my mind, forcing fresh tears to my eyes.

My son was born alone, surrounded by strangers.

I’m just so thankful he’s had Jake with him ever since.

But it makes my heart hurt that Jake has had to cope with this alone—take care of me and become a dad all on his own.

I can’t even imagine how Jake felt when he was told what happened. If it were him, I know it would have killed me.

I know without a doubt that Jake and our son will have bonded, and I am so happy for that. I’m just afraid he won’t bond with me, that he might reject me.

I don’t know how I will cope with that.

And now instead of being excited to meet my son, I’m terrified.

I hear the door open, then the squeak of wheels and two sets of feet.

My body starts to tremble, my heart beats erratically.

I close my eyes, afraid.

I don’t think I can do this.

“Put him over by the bed,” I hear Jake say.

The squeaky wheels grow ever closer. Then they stop and I hear the sound of a plug being put it in the socket, a switch being turned on, and the gentle hum of a machine.

“Give me a holler when you want a hand bringing him back through,” I hear a female voice say. Then the door closes.

I feel the bed dip as Jake sits down by my legs. “Tru.” His voice is soft. “Are you awake?”

I know I made him get the baby, but now I’m scared. I hesitate, actually considering faking sleep, and immediately hate myself for it.

I nod.

“Open your eyes.” His voice is still soft, but there’s a quiet command in it.

Taking a burning breath, I whisper, “I’m…afraid.”

I hear a light sigh escape Jake. He takes my hand in his. I curl my fingers around his hand. “I know, baby…” I can tell he’s talking from experience. “But I promise, one look at him, Tru…that’s all it takes. Trust me.”

So I do. I open my eyes and turn my head to the side. There he is, in an incubator pushed up against the side of my bed. I see him, and it’s love at first sight.

He is beautiful. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

I can’t remember ever feeling a love like this before. It’s equally as powerful as the love I feel for Jake, but so very different.

A mother’s love.

God, I can see so much of Jake in him.

He has the same furrow Jake has in his brow when he’s sleeping.

Any worries of not bonding with him are gone. I just love him, completely. And I start to cry instantly.

Jake squeezes my hand. “Hey, don’t cry. He’s okay in there, really. It’s just keeping him warm.”

Jake thinks I’m crying because I’m worried that’s he’s in an incubator. Of course I’m concerned about the incubator, but that’s not why I’m crying right now. I’m crying because I’m happy.

“Why don’t you touch him?” Jake suggests. “That might make you feel better. It helped me the first time I saw him.”

I start to free my hand from Jake’s when he says, “Hang on.”

Jake releases my hand and disappears into the bathroom.

It’s then for the first time that I notice the tubes taped to my arm. I follow them up and see them attached to two different drips.

I glance at my right arm and see a cast covering it, my hand swaddled in bandage.

Jake said I hurt my head in the accident.

I lift my good hand to it and feel a thick bandage on my head.

“I just need to clean your hand before you touch him,” Jake tells me, reappearing with a bottle of gel.

I smile at him. He sounds so responsible. In a way, he sounds like my dad would.

That’s because he is a dad. He’s had over a week learning how to be one.

Today is my first day as a mother.

Forcing back a wave of fresh tears, I chance a quick glance at Jake and see him squeeze some gel out and rub it over his hands. Then he squeezes another blob into his hand, sits back down on the bed, takes my hand in his, and starts gently working the gel into my hand.

It’s cold on my skin, but Jake soon warms me.

“You’re good to go.” He smiles, giving my hand one last rub.

I grin at him.

Taking my hand from his, I slowly put it through the porthole, keeping my eyes on my baby boy.

The instant my fingertips touch the soft downy skin on his tiny hand, sensations explode under my skin, tunnelling straight for my heart.

He is perfect.

I could spend forever here with him like this.

I have so many questions about him that I want to ask Jake, but I don’t think my throat will hold out, so I ask the important one.

“Name?”

Jake shakes his head, smiling gently. “I haven’t named him. I was waiting for you. That honour is all yours, Tru.”

My heart crumbles.

I stare at my son, thinking of all the names I had come up with…all the ones Jake hated.

“He still like…rock songs?” I grate out.

A small chuckle escapes Jake. “Yeah, I sing to him a lot—the old favourites. I think we might have a mini–rock star on our hands.”

I shake my head, smiling. A rock star needs a rock star’s name, right? A smile curves my lips. “I know.”

Jake gives me a suspicious look, humour in his eyes. “It’s something crazy, isn’t it?”

“No,” I croak out, giving him an affronted look. “I thought…” I pause, swallowing through the burning. “Jonathan Jacob.”

The look on Jake’s face right now is beautiful.

“You’re giving him Jonny’s name?” I watch him gulp down the words.

“And yours.”

Jake bends close and gently kisses my lips. “I love it. I love you.”

“Love you,” I whisper.

From out of nowhere our little boy curls his fingers around my little finger, the one that was still gently stroking his skin, gripping tightly for his small size.

I laugh softly in surprise, turning to look at him.

“He does that a lot, he likes to hold on to your finger,” Jake tells me, running his own fingers along the crook of my arm. “I think he likes his name.”

“Yeah?” I smile.

“Yeah…” Moving away, Jake walks around the bed, kicks his shoes off, and carefully climbs onto the space beside me. Lying on his side, his head on the pillow, he says into my ear, “I missed you so much.”

His breath tickles my skin.

I turn my face to him and he leans in and kisses me softly on the lips.

Turning from Jake, I move my gaze back to my son. I’m finding it hard not to look at him.

Jake’s arm goes across my waist. “He looks like you.”

“No, like you.” Beautiful like you, Jake.

He laughs softly. “No, he definitely looks like you. Everyone agrees with me.”

Everyone agrees.

Everyone else got to see my baby before I did. Sadness pokes at my heart.

Brushing over my sadness, I shake my head in disagreement.

Jake chuckles, then presses his lips to the skin between my neck and shoulder blade. It tickles down my spine; even the parts of me that are in pain shiver with delight at the feel of Jake’s lips on me.

“He’s got your lips and your colouring,” Jake says against my skin, still kissing me.

“This…gonna go on for…while,” I force out, giving him a quick look, eyes smiling.

“Forever,” he replies, and I know he’s not talking about the disagreement anymore. Burying his face into my neck, he takes a ragged breath. “I love you so much, Tru. Thank you for coming back to me.”

I press my cheek against the top of his head. “I…always will.”

He tightens his hold on me. That’s how we stay.

Jake’s holding on to me, and I’m holding on to our son.

The three of us are together, and nothing is ever going to keep us apart again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It’s been three months since the accident. Three months since my beautiful son, JJ, was born.

We called him Jonathan Jacob for a day, and then Jake shortened it to JJ, and that’s what everyone has been calling him since.

I spent just over two months in the hospital recovering. Initially it was bed rest, letting myself heal. Then I started daily physiotherapy once my arm and hand had healed.

I also saw a counsellor twice a week. Dr. Kish recommended it. I may not remember the actual accident, but he said I’d been though a terrible trauma, and while I might not remember it on the surface, it’s still buried deep within me. Talking about the accident with someone would help.

And he was right.

I went through phases of emotions. One day I’d be on top of the world, feeling extremely lucky to be alive, knowing I could have died. Then the next day, I would be angry. Angry this had happened to me. Angry I had missed the birth of my son.