Chapter 75

The stark terror he'd read in Hannah's eyes returned to haunt him. He felt so damn helpless. Her desperation was as keen as his own. Her fear and pain had been alive in her eyes. And there hadn't been a damn thing he could do. The last he'd seen before he was forced out of the emergency room was her lips moving in silent, desperate prayer.

God, Riley decided. One spoke with God when there was nowhere else to turn. He wasn't a man accustomed to religion. There'd never been anything or anyone that he'd needed or wanted badly enough to risk going before the Almighty.

Until now.

He rose awkwardly to his feet, standing as he would before a superior officer. His shoulders were back, his eyes straight ahead, his hands dangling loosely at his sides.

A thick tightness gripped his throat as words escaped him. It didn't seem right, somehow, to make so important a request without offering something in return. His thoughts stampeded ahead to what he might possibly have to bargain with, but there was nothing. Nothing.

Unable to hold still, Riley started pacing, his mind and his heart confused. "I don't know why you sent Hannah into my life," he whispered. "But thank you."

He felt a little less inept once he started talking. "I promise you I'll be a good husband to her---I'm probably going to need some help with that." His intentions had always been good, but he didn't know much about the way women thought, so if God was willing to give him a few pointers along the way, then Riley would be more than happy to receive them.

Now that he'd breached the barrier of his own self-consciousness, Riley found it wasn't so difficult to speak his mind.

"I'm not the kind of man who finds it easy to ask for something," he began again. "It seems wrong to come to You with a request and not be able to give something back in return. It's about Hannah, God, and Junior. I can't do a thing for either of them. It's out of my hands entirely. If you'll take care of them both, I'll tell you what – I'll start attending church services with Hannah." It was the best he could do. Heaven knew that would be sacrifice enough for someone who'd only darkened a church door for weddings and funerals. Twice now, she'd invited him to come with her. That sort of thing seemed important to his wife. But then Riley should have expected that; after all, she was a preacher's daughter.

"If you can think of anything better, let me know," he ended, then in afterthought added, "Amen."

Riley felt a little better after that. He sat back down, analyzing the events of the afternoon. It didn't take long for him to realize Hannah must have started feeling bad sometime during their dinner. She hadn't said anything to him. Nothing. He continued to sort through his thoughts, adding up the obvious, when the physician approached.

Riley rose slowly to his feet, his heart beating so hard his rib cage ached. "How is she?"

The physician smiled. "Fine. The baby, too."

The wild sense of relief Riley experienced was beyond words. He went weak with it.

"You can go see her now, if you like."

"Thank you, sir," he said, reaching for the man's hand and pumping it several times. He started toward the cubicle when the corpsman stopped him.

"Hey, is that car yours? You're going to have to move it."

He nodded, ignored him and raced back to the small examining room where they'd taken Hannah.

Hannah felt like such a fool. She'd been convinced she was losing the baby, and the fear had struck terror in her heart. In fact, she'd been suffering from a bad case of indigestion.