<b>Book </b><b>3 </b>Emergency Timeout


    Emma gripped the hospital bathroom sink, trying to stop shaking. The cramping had gotten worse sincending, and the bleeding wasn’t stopping.


    She needed to see a doctor. But first, she had to find Jack.


    The pediatric ICU was a maze of beeping machines and worried parents. Emma found Jack slumped in a chair outside Room 314, still in yesterday’s clothes, his normally perfect hair disheveled.


    “Emma.” He stood up immediately, pulling her into a grateful hug. “You came.”


    “Of course I came.” Emma held him tight, drawing strength from givingfort even as her own world crumbled. “How is he?”


    “Pneumonia. Severe, but treatable.” Jack’s voice was hoarse from worry. “They have him on antibiotics and oxygen. The doctors think he’ll be okay, but…”


    “But he’s so little,” Emma finished.


    Jack nodded, tears threatening. “I keep thinking about all the times I was traveling, all the games I prioritized over bedtime stories. What if I’d missed this? What if something happened and I wasn’t here?”


    Emma felt a sharp cramp and had to grip Jack’s arm to stay upright.


    “Emma? You’re pale.” Jack studied her face with concern. “Are you okay?”


    “I’m…” Emma started to say she was fine, then stopped. She was tired of pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t. “No. I’m not okay.”


    “What’s wrong?”


    Emma looked around the busy hallway, filled with other people’s medical crises. “Can we sit down?”


    Jack led her to a quieter corner of the waiting area. Emma struggled with how to exin without falling apartpletely.


    “I’m pregnant,” she said finally. “Or I was. I think I’m losing the baby.”


    Jack’s eyes widened. “Emma, my God. Have you seen a doctor?”


    “Not yet. I came straight here from the airport.”


    < Book 3 Emergency Timeout


    “Forget about me. You need medical attention now.”


    “Your son is sick-


    <b>+25 </b>Points


    “My son is stable and sleeping.” Jack stood up, pulling Emma with him. “You’re bleeding and alone in a strange city. We’re getting you help.”


    Emma wanted to protest, but another wave of cramping doubled her over. Jack caught her arm, steadying her.


    “Emergency room,” he said firmly. “Now.”


    The next few hours blurred together. ER doctors, blood tests, ultrasounds, sympathetic nurses who’d seen this too many times. The medical term was “inevitable miscarriage” – clinicalnguage for the end of hopes she hadn’t realized she’d been harboring.


    “I’m sorry,” the doctor said gently. “There’s nothing we could have done to prevent this. Sometimes it just happens.”


    Emma nodded numbly, staring at the ultrasound screen that showed nothing where a baby should have been growing.


    “Do you have someone we can call?” the nurse asked. “Your husband? Family?”


    Emma thought about Alek, probably still furious with her. About Katie, managing two toddlers without exnation. About the fight that had sent her fleeing across the country at the worst possible time.


    “No,” she said quietly. “There’s no one to call.”


    Jack appeared in the doorway as if summoned. “The doctor said I could see you. How are you feeling?”


    “Empty,” Emma said, the word epassing more than just her physical state.


    Jack pulled a chair close to her bed. “I’m so sorry, Emma.”


    “It’s not your fault.”


    “Isn’t it? If I hadn’t called, you wouldn’t have been on that ne-<b>” </b>


    “The doctor said it would have happened anyway.” Emma’s voice was t. “Stress doesn’t cause miscarriages. Just bad luck.”


    “Still. The timing…”


    Emma looked at her former husband, seeing her own grief reflected in his eyes. “How’s your


    < Book 3 Emergency Timeout


    son?”


    +25 Points


    “Better. The antibiotics are working.” Jack reached for her hand. “Emma, I need to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth.”


    “Okay.”


    “Are you here because you care about my family, or because you’re running away from yours?”


    The question hit harder than Emma expected. “Does it matter?”


    “It matters because you’re grieving and making decisions from pain. And in my experience, that never ends well.”


    Emma pulled her hand away. “So now you’re giving me life advice?”


    “I’m returning a favor. You’ve saved me from bad decisions more times than I can count.”


    Emma closed her eyes, remembering all the times she’d talked Jack out of risky investments, impulsive career moves, rtionships that would have destroyed him.


    “Alek and I had a terrible fight,” she admitted. “I tried to help with his work situation and made everything worse. He basically said I destroyed his dreams.”


    “And you believed him?”


    “Didn’t you hear what I said? I made everything worse.”


    Jack was quiet for a moment. “Do you remember what you told me when I wanted to quit hockey after my injury?”


    Emma didn’t want to remember. She was too tired for wisdom.


    “You said that sometimes the people we love most are the ones we hurt deepest, because we feel safe letting our worst fears out with them.”


    “This isn’t the same-”


    “Isn’t it?” Jack’s voice was gentle but insistent. “Emma, you’ve just lost a baby. Your husband is probably terrified about his career and taking it out on the person he trusts most to still love him afterward.”


    Emma felt tears finallying, hot and unstoppable. “What if he’s right though? What if I do make everything worse?”


    “Then you learn and do better. But you don’t run away.”


    3/5 <fn011c> This update is avable on f?i?n?d?n?o?v?e?l?</fn011c>


    Book 3 Emergency Timeout


    “I didn’t run away. I came to help you.”


    “And I’m grateful. But we both know you came here for more than my crisis.”


    +25 Points


    Emma sobbed into her hands, months of pressure and fear and exhaustion finally breaking free. Jack rubbed her back, offeringfort without judgment.


    “I don’t know how to fix this,” she whispered.


    “Start by calling your husband.”


    “He probably doesn’t want to hear from me.”


    “Emma.” Jack’s voice was firm. “You just lost your baby. If Alek doesn’t want tofort you through that, then he doesn’t deserve you. But I suspect he’s been worried sick since you left.”


    Emma’s phone had been on airne mode sincending. When she turned it back on, seventeen missed calls from Alek lit up the screen.


    “Seventeen calls,” she told Jack.


    “That’s not the number of someone who doesn’t care.”


    Emma stared at the phone, afraid to call back. What if Alek was only calling out of duty? What if their fight had destroyed something that couldn’t be repaired?


    “I can’t,” she said finally.


    “Then I will.” Jack reached for her phone.


    “Jack, no-”


    But he was already dialing.


    “Alek? It’s Jack… Yes, she’s with me… She’s in the hospital… No, wait, let me exin…”


    Emma watched Jack’s face as he exined the situation to her husband. She couldn’t hear Alek’s responses, but Jack’s expression grew increasingly concerned.


    “He’s on his way,” Jack said, hanging up.


    “He’sing here? To Seattle?”


    “He’s already at the airport. Has been for three hours, trying to get on any flight to Seattle.” Emma felt something c***k open in her chest. “He’s been at the airport for three hours?” “Since about twenty minutes after you left, ording to him.” Jack’s smile was sad but


    < Book 3 Emergency Timeout


    knowing. “That doesn’t sound like a man who’s done with his marriage.”


    +25 Points


    A nurse appeared to discharge Emma with instructions for rest and follow–up care. Jack insisted on driving her to his apartment, where she could shower and change before Alek arrived.


    “You’re being too kind,” Emma protested as Jack made up his couch with clean sheets.


    “You dropped everything to be here for my son. It’s the least I can do.”


    Emma settled onto the couch, exhaustion finally overtaking her. “Jack? I’m sorry about earlier. About our marriage, about how it ended. You deserved better.”


    “We both deserved better. But we were kids trying to y adult roles.” Jack covered her with a nket. “What you and Alek have is different. It’s real partnership, not just romance.”


    “It doesn’t feel very partnership–like right now.”


    “That’s because partnerships go through rough patches. The question is whether you fight for each other or give up.”


    Emma closed her eyes, thinking about Alek rushing to the airport while she was bleeding alone on a ne. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe they were both scared and taking it out on each other.


    But some damage felt too deep to heal.


    Some words, once spoken, couldn’t be taken back.


    And some losses changed everything, whether you wanted them to or not.


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