Fearless In Love

He might have shouted. She might only have been reading lips. Cradling his precious son in his arms as Noah cried, Matt slogged to the stairs. Water streamed from them both as he climbed out.

Ari had already grabbed her phone. Doreen answered immediately, and Ari shouted instructions she couldn’t actually hear over the roar in her ears.

“I think he hit his head.” Matt ran his shaking hand over Noah’s scalp. “It’s okay, buddy. Daddy’ll take care of you.”

He carried Noah across the deck while Ari followed. Matt’s sodden suit left a trail over the sun porch, then the floor, and Doreen met them at the front door.

“The car’s ready.” Matt’s driver took in Noah’s pale face and Matt’s ruined suit, then ran down the front steps to open the car door, her blond ponytail bouncing, so perky and out of place in the moment.

They piled into the backseat, Noah in Matt’s arms and Ari crowded against them, her hand on Noah’s forehead.

She couldn’t feel a lump, and she prayed he’d suffered no more than a scrape and a bruise. He’d taken a tumble—and scared the living daylights out of them—but his daddy had saved him.

Then she lifted her gaze from Noah. And saw Matt’s stricken face.

* * *

How could I have let this happen?

Matt shouldn’t have surprised them. And he should have been more strict with Noah about never running by the pool. But Noah sped everywhere, and he was always excited when Matt got home.

“He’s going to be just fine,” Ari said softly.

She was trying to soothe him, but just as he hadn’t stopped Noah’s tumble into the pool’s edge, he couldn’t stop the jumble of his guilt-ridden thoughts either.

He swallowed hard, his teeth grinding together. Noah no longer whimpered and lay quietly in his arms as Doreen guided the big car through the streets. Thank God the hospital wasn’t far.

“It’s probably just a scrape.”

He could barely hear Ari’s words when he was so frozen with terror and when he kept seeing Noah falling on repeat inside his head.

“It was an accident,” she said softly. “That’s how kids are, always rushing.”

But accidents didn’t happen to Noah. Matt had vowed to always protect his kid. Always. He was worth more than an oil baron or a social media king, and if he couldn’t protect his kid no matter what, then what was the use of all that money?

He wanted to yell at Doreen to drive like the wind. An ambulance would have had sirens, but would also have taken longer to get to them.

All the while, Ari’s voice in his ear kept him just on this side of sanity. “All kids fall when they’re running. They fall when they’re riding their bikes. They have little accidents.”

They had huge ones as well. Like Jeremy, Will’s soon-to-be brother-in-law. He’d been hit by a car at the age of seven while riding his bike, and he’d never been the same. He was a great kid, but he would always be a kid, even at eighteen. That accident had robbed him of the chance of ever growing into a man.

The car swayed into a turn, and Matt held Noah tighter. Everyone thought Matt was too powerful to break. But his son was where he doubted himself. Because Noah was the most important thing in the entire world.

And if he couldn’t step up to protect this precious child, then what the hell good was he?

Doreen drew the car up beneath the Emergency Room portico, and Matt climbed out with Noah still clinging to him.

“Daddy? I’m cold,” Noah whimpered as Matt carried him through the automatic doors. His soaked bathing suit had dropped a few degrees in the air conditioning.

Ari tore off her terrycloth cover-up. “Put this on, sweetie.” She tucked the terry robe around Noah. Then she rubbed Matt’s arm. “You must be freezing.”

He was so cold his teeth wanted to chatter. But it wasn’t his wet clothing. It wasn’t the air conditioning.

It was his failure to protect his son.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, they were in an examining cubicle separated from the other cubes by a curtain. Matt could hear the low murmur of voices, but his focus was solely on Noah. A nurse had brought him scrubs to change into, and a pair for Ari as well since she was shivering in her swimsuit.

“Can I have another lollipop?” Noah asked.

“As soon as I’ve finished the exam, but only if your father says it’s all right,” the doctor said. Matt tried to take solace in the experience lining her face. She gently probed Noah’s scalp, his arms, his legs, then finally stepped back. “You’ve just got a few scrapes and bruises.” At Matt’s nod, she held out the jar for Noah to choose a purple lollipop. “I’ll let Jami, my wonderful assistant, clean up that scrape on your forehead.”

Ari put her hand on Noah’s knee as the nurse came over with alcohol wipes, the pungent smell making Matt’s eyes water.

He lowered his voice for the doctor’s ears only. “Doesn’t he need a CT scan to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion?”

The smile the doctor gave him reminded him of Susan. “Mr. Tremont, he’s fine. I’d be willing to bet he scraped his head against the pool’s edge rather than actually hitting it. There’s no bump. Just take him home, give him some SpaghettiOs, and let him rest.” Noah had started chattering about SpaghettiOs and mummies and gorillas the moment the doctor gave him the first lollipop and began her exam. “You have nothing to worry about.”

If he could think rationally about what had happened, if he could stop replaying that recording in his brain of Noah falling, he might be able to see that the doctor and Ari were right about the scrape. But he never wanted his son to feel the kind of pain he’d experienced himself.

Matt would never forget falling off his bike when he was trying to get away from the neighborhood bullies who’d made his life a living hell. To this day, he remembered their laughter and that long walk home, his arm cradled against his stomach. He’d known his dad was going to be madder than ever. Don’t be such a freaking weenie and How the hell did I raise such a wimp? were two of his favorite refrains. That day, his father told him to buck up, his mother nodding furiously behind him. Somehow, that was even worse, the fact that his mother hadn’t believed it was her job to protect him, and that she’d agreed as his father said, “We can’t afford no freaking emergency room for a stupid sprained wrist just because the idiot couldn’t stay on his bike.”