He looked at her for a long minute, then took a seat beside her. A television was tuned to a twenty-four-hour comedy channel, the canned laughter and muttered conversations becoming a sort of white noise in the background. The walls were a pale hospital green and the carpet was multicolored, probably in an attempt to keep it from showing wear over the years. The scent of burned coffee hung in the air, a nasty layer over the medicinal stench of antiseptic.
“I hate waiting,” Justice muttered, throwing a glance at the door opening onto the hallway that led to Labor and Delivery.
“No kidding? You hide it well.” Maggie patted his arm absentmindedly.
Two other people, an older couple, were waiting in that room with them, having arrived just a half hour ago. The woman leaned forward and excitedly confided, “My daughter’s about to make me a grandmother. It’s a boy. His name will be Charlie, after my husband.”
“Congratulations,” Maggie said. “We’re waiting to become an aunt and uncle.”
“Isn’t it wonderful?” The woman was practically glowing as she reached out blindly and took her husband’s hand. “So thrilling to be a part of a miracle. Even in a small way.”
Beside her, Justice shifted in his chair, but Maggie ignored him. “You’re right, it is.”
“The waiting is difficult, though,” the woman admitted. “I’d do much better if I only knew what was happening….”
Whatever the woman might have said next was lost forever when a nurse in surgical scrubs poked her head in the door, smiling and asked, “Mr. and Mrs. Baker?”
“Yes!” The expectant grandmother leaped up out of her chair and would have rushed blindly at the nurse if her husband hadn’t dropped both hands onto her shoulders. “That’s us. How is Alison? Our daughter?”
“She’s doing great and said to tell you that Charlie is calling for you.”
“Ohmygoodness!” The woman turned her face into her husband’s chest and, after a quick hug, looked back at the nurse. “We can see them now?”
“Of course. Follow me.”
“What about us?” Justice demanded.
The nurse turned a questioning look on him. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s nothing,” Maggie told her, taking Justice’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Never mind.”
“Good luck to you, dear,” the new grandma said as they hustled out of the room after the nurse.
“What do you mean it’s nothing?” Justice asked when they were gone. “We were here long before them!”
Maggie laughed at her husband’s impatience. “Not exactly how it works, Justice.”
“Well, it damn well should.” He pushed up and out of his chair again, marched to the door and looked out. Then he turned back to her and said, “I feel like the walls are closing in on me in here. I don’t think I can stay in this little room another minute.”
“I’m kind of with you on that,” Maggie said. “Let’s take a walk.”
For the next several hours, Justice and Maggie prowled the hallways of the hospital, checking in occasionally with the maternity ward. They wandered down to the nursery to look at the new babies and once again ran into the Bakers, who proudly pointed out little Charlie. They checked in with the nurses’ station to get updates on Bella, and Maggie called the ranch to be assured by Mrs. Carey that Jonas had had his supper and his bath and was now sleeping soundly. She was told not to worry and to be sure to call the minute the baby was born.
“How did you do it?” Justice asked quietly when they were once more in the dreaded waiting room.
“Hmm? Do what?”
“This,” he said, waving a hand as if to encompass the hospital, the maternity ward and all they contained. “How did you do it alone?”
“I wasn’t alone,” she told him. “Matrice was with me.”
“Your sister.” He blew out a breath. “You should have told me. I would have been here.”
Outside, night crouched at the windows. The lights in the waiting room were dim, and thankfully, they had shut off the television, since they were the only two people in the room. Now she almost wished for that background noise so that the silence between them wouldn’t seem so overwhelming.
Looking into Justice’s eyes now, she would have liked to believe he was right. That had she called him from the hospital, he would have rushed right over to be at her side. But she knew better. In her heart of hearts, she just knew.
“No, you wouldn’t have, Justice,” she said with a sigh. “You wouldn’t have believed me then any more than you do now.”
He pushed one hand through his long black hair, scrubbed the other across the back of his neck and admitted, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I wouldn’t have believed you. But I would have come to you anyway, Maggie. I would have been with you through this.”
Something inside her eased just a little. To know that—to believe that he would have come whether or not he thought he was her baby’s father was a gift. Yet even as she admitted that, there was another voice inside her demanding to be heard.
“Do you really think I would have wanted you here if you thought I was lying to you?” Before he could answer, she added, “And do you really believe that I would have called you to watch me give birth to another man’s child?”
He watched her as long silent moments ticked past. Finally, though, he said, “No. You wouldn’t have. To both questions.” He rubbed absentmindedly at his thigh. “You really threw me hard, Maggie. Showing up at the ranch the way you did. With a boy you claim to be mine.”
God, she was tired of defending herself. Sighing, she said, “He is yours. I’m not just claiming it.”
He studied Maggie, his gaze moving over her features until she shifted uneasily under his steady regard. Eventually, he spoke. “I have something to tell you.”
“What?” Maggie held her breath as hope jumped up inside her and waved its arms and legs excitedly. Was he finally going to admit that he knew Jonas was his? That she wasn’t lying? Was he going to ask her to stay with him? Be a family?
“Mr. and Mrs. King?”
Maggie groaned at the interruption and turned her head to look at the nurse stationed in the doorway. Hours ago, she would have welcomed the woman. Now? What terrible timing. But the nurse was smiling and Maggie was already standing up to join Justice when she said, “Yes, that’s us. Are Bella and the baby all right?”