The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 187

<Chapter 169 emergency Delivery

Chapter 169: Emergency Delivery

Bella POV

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Once the decision was made, things moved with a terrifying speed. The room was filled with people who possessed the calm efficiency of a team that had done this a thousand times.

I hadn’t done this-not like this. My first birth had been different, but this felt like being caught in a current

moving faster than I could process. Through the pre-op, the cold theater, and the surgical drape, Caleb never let go of my hand. His grip wasn’t a performance; it was just warm, steady, and there.

“Look at me,” he said when I started to shake.

“Talk to me,” I said, low enough that only he could hear it over the sounds of the room.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything, just keep talking.”

He was quiet for a beat, and then he said, “Tom asked me this morning if the baby would like dinosaurs.”

I exhaled – something between a laugh and a sob. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him she’d probably like whatever he taught her to like.” He kept his eyes on mine. “He said he was going to start with the friendly ones so she wouldn’t be scared.”

“There are no friendly ones, they’re all terrifying.”

“I know,” he said. “But I didn’t dare correct him.”

I focused on his face and breathed, and the shaking eased slightly.

“She’s going to be okay,” I said, not asking.

“She’s going to be okay,” he said back.

Thirty-four weeks, weeks early meant the NICU and a beginning we hadn’t planned for. I felt the pressure and the strange, disconnected sensations of the surgery.

And then-sound. Small, sharp, and furious. It was a noise so specific it hit me where everything important lived, far below language or thought.

“She’s here,” Caleb said, his voice completely undone. In a year of watching him, I had never heard him. sound so broken and awed at once.

I couldn’t see her yet. I strained toward that tiny, furious voice announcing itself to the room. Then a nurse was there, and a tiny face and fist pressed against my cheek. She felt impossibly small. I whispered something-hello, and felt the world reorganize itself entirely around this new person.

“She’s strong,” the nurse said. “Listen to her.”

She was loud for something so small, absolutely furious about being here and not shy about saying so. I laughed through tears I hadn’t realized were falling.

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Chapter 169 Emergency Delivery

Caleb pressed his forehead to my temple, his breath unsteady. “She’s perfect,” he said.

“She’s so small.”

“She’s perfect,” he repeated, as if it were the only relevant fact.

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I looked at him over the drape, this man with his undone eyes and his unsteady breath, and said the only thing I had in me. “We made her.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded once.

“She’s going to be loud,” I said. “You heard her. She’s going to be absolutely exhausting.”

“Good.” His voice was wrecked. “Good, I want that.”

“Caleb.” I tightened my hand on his. “She’s here. Whatever comes next – she’s already here.”

He lifted my hand and pressed his mouth to my knuckles. I felt the tremor he was holding back-the sheer weight of the last hour finally crashing down on him. Then the nurse arrived, Grace was wrapped, and the room began to move again.

They took her to the NICU before I was out of theatre. I knew it was coming, but it was still the hardest moment-watching her go before I could truly hold her.

Caleb went with her. He hesitated, torn between us, but I told him to go. “Don’t let her be alone,” I said, and

he went.

I lay in recovery, listening to the hospital hum and remembering the feel of her face against mine. Stay strong, I thought toward her.

A nurse came to check on me twenty minutes later older, unhurried, with the quiet competence of someone who had sat with many women in many recovery rooms.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, checking the monitors with practiced hands.

“Like I want to know if my daughter is okay,” I said.

“Your husband is with her,” she said. “She’s in good hands.”

“He’s not” I stopped. “Is she breathing on her own?”

“I’ll get you an update as soon as I can.” She looked at me directly. “You did well there.”

“I didn’t do anything, I just lay there.”

“You kept her alive for thirty-four weeks,” she said simply. “That’s not nothing.”

I looked at the ceiling and felt the tears slide sideways into my hair and didn’t try to stop them, because there was no one watching and I was so tired of holding things in place.

“She was so small,” I said, to no one in particular.

“They fight hard, the small ones,” the nurse said. “In my experience, way harder than anyone expects.”

I held onto that, Caleb returned an hour later. He sat on the edge of my bed, eyes red. “She’s in the

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Chapter 16 Emergency Delivery

incubator, breathing on her own. The nurse says she’s a fighter.”

“Tell me everything,” I said. “From the beginning.”

He brought my hand to his mouth, then nodded as if finally understanding the reality of it all.

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“She’s tiny,” he said. “I knew she would be, but it’s different seeing it. She’d fit in both my hands.” He paused, his jaw working. “She has hair. Qark, not much, but it’s there. And her hands-Bella, her hands are perfect. Every finger. I counted.”

“You counted her fingers.”

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