Pregnant with the Rancher's Baby: Reclaimed by the Rancher

“Mr. Rafferty, your wife made it through the surgery with no problems,” he said, reaching up to remove his surgical cap. “We were lucky and got the appendix out before it ruptured. Everything is fine and she should be able to go home in a couple of days.”

“Thank God!” The relief flowing through Nate was so intense it caused him to feel a little light-headed. “What about the baby?”

“We’re good there as well,” the doctor said, smiling for the first time since Nate met him in the ER. “I had an ob-gyn who specializes in high-risk pregnancies monitor the fetus throughout the surgery and she’ll continue to watch things while Jessie is in recovery.”

“When can I see her?” Nate needed to see for himself that Jessie was all right.

Dr. Chavez checked his watch. “They should be moving her to a room in about an hour. You’ll be able to see her then, but I doubt you’ll be able to talk to her much. The remnants of the anesthesia are going to cause her to sleep and she probably won’t be completely out from under that until morning.”

For the first time since Jessie came downstairs after her nap that afternoon, Nate felt some of the gut-wrenching fear that had held him in its grip begin to ease. “I can’t thank you enough, doc,” Nate said, shaking the man’s hand. As the doctor turned to leave, Nate suddenly felt like his knees might buckle and, making it over to one of the chairs, he sat down.

“What’s this about ‘your wife’?” Ryder asked, raising one dark eyebrow. “Do you have something you’d like to tell us, bro?”

Nate shook his head. “I lied and told them Jessie was my wife. Hank might be spinning in his grave right about now because one of his boys wasn’t completely honest, but I didn’t want to take a chance that they wouldn’t let me see her or let me know what was happening.”

“If we’d been in your shoes, any one of us would have done the same thing,” Lane stated. All of his brothers nodded in unison.

“How’s that going for you?” T.J. asked. “Any progress toward changing her mind about getting married?”

“To tell you the truth, we haven’t got around to talking about it lately,” Nate admitted. “But that’s going to change as soon as she gets out of the hospital and I take her home. I don’t care if I have to wear out the knees on a new pair of jeans from begging. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make Jessie my wife.”

Nine

When Jessie roused the room was dark and for a brief moment she wondered where she was and why the right side of her stomach was extremely sore. Looking around, she realized she was in a hospital room and vaguely remembered being airlifted from Nate’s ranch to the hospital where she worked because she had appendicitis.

Suddenly frightened by what that could mean, she immediately placed her hand on her stomach. “My baby,” she whispered.

As if responding to her mother’s voice, Jessie’s little girl moved, then gave her a definite poke. Tears of joy filled Jessie’s eyes and her breath caught on a sob. Her baby was all right.

Saying a silent prayer of thanks, she became aware of another person in the room and turning her head she found Nate sitting in a chair beside the bed. With his head leaned back at an odd angle, his arms folded across his chest and his long legs extended out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, she could tell he was sound asleep. He looked uncomfortable and she started to wake him, but her eyelids were so heavy and, unable to stop herself, she let them drift shut.

Sometime before dawn, a lab worker woke Jessie to draw blood for testing and she noticed that the chair beside her hospital bed was empty. Where was Nate? Why hadn’t he stayed with her? For a brief moment she thought she heard his voice as the lab worker left the room, but the shadows began to close in on her and she once again fell back to sleep.

“It’s time to wake up and eat your breakfast, darlin’.”

At the sound of Nate’s deep baritone, Jessie opened her eyes and for the first time since she was given a preop sedative in the ER she didn’t feel like she was struggling to get through a thick fog. “Were you here all night?” she asked, knowing by the shadow of beard on his lean cheeks that he had been.

“I wouldn’t think of being anywhere else.” He pointed to the tray of food on the overbed table. “The nurse told me I could raise the head of the bed so you can eat.”