“Thanks for your hospitality, but that’s not why I’m here. I mean it is, but not really.”
Was it safe for their baby for her heart to beat this fast?
“Steph, I can’t begin to describe how much I’ve missed you.”
Stupid, hopeful tears welled. Had he realized breaking up was wrong? Her chest swelled with hope. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“All I think about is you—us getting back together again. But then I remember my little brother and it all turns sideways. I told the guys about my situation and they all agreed I should just take the genetics test and be done with it.”
“Yes?” Her last breath lodged uncomfortably at the back of her throat. If he went for genetic testing, then that meant he knew what she had all along? That he was fine. He wasn’t a carrier of that tragic disease, which meant there was no logical reason for the two of them to spend one more day apart. She could tell him about their baby and he would be as overjoyed as she was and—
“Where to start?” He ducked his gaze.
She could think of all sorts of wondrous, romantic places.
“The doctor—her official title was Genetic Counselor—she had bad news…”
What? Stephie’s nausea returned.
“Turns out I’m a card-carrying member of the gene, meaning my reasons for us being apart were valid.” He punched the air in front of him.
As the ramifications sank in, she hugged her belly. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Fear—no, terror, balled in her chest until the tightness hung between her breasts like hardened concrete.
“She said the chances of my offspring being born with a neural tube defect was rare, but she couldn’t rule it out. I’m sorry, Steph, but armed with that information, I know my decision to never have kids was right.”
“Of course.” Mind racing, pulse a runaway train, she couldn’t think or breathe or do anything other than panic. Right now—right at this very minute—the baby she’d already grown to love with every fiber of her being could already be dying. She knew better than to consult Dr. Google on medical matters, but she’d had nowhere else to turn. The statistics were beyond grim. If their baby was diagnosed, Stephie had two options—terminate the pregnancy or carry to full-term only to lose the infant days after his or her birth.
“Say something.”
She literally couldn’t.
Chapter Eight
“PLEASE, STEPH,” PATRICK begged. “I need you to say something. Anything. I mean, for years I’ve carried this fear inside me, but there was always a chance—however slim—that it wasn’t real. That this monster wasn’t inside me. But now that I know it is…” Tears glistened in his eyes.
He hated himself for that. For not being stronger.
Instead of mourning what might have been, he needed to view the situation as having dodged a potential bullet. He and Stephie would always at least be friends. She wouldn’t hate him the way her mother had grown to irrationally hate his father. That was a positive, right?
Not for the man who loves her.
The thought scratched at his nerves like the snow that had turned to sleet against Steph’s bedroom window.
Even though he’d begged her to speak, she sat silent, eyes shining with unshed tears, usually pretty mouth held in a grim line and her hands pressed to her belly. Was she imagining how different this all might have played out?
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She forcefully shook her head. “You have nothing to apologize for. If there’s anything life has taught me, it’s that crap happens.” She shrugged. “This is one of those things. I love you enough to respect your decision to not risk having children.”
“Thanks.” He faced her, taking her nearest hand in his. “Please know this has nothing to do with how I feel for you. I mean, I suppose I could get a vasectomy and we could adopt, but I know how many times you’ve talked about having your own kids—having more blood relations to help remember everyone you’ve lost. I won’t ask you to give that up.”
“It’s whatever.” Lips pressed tight, as if willing herself not to cry, she nodded, then shook her head.
He sighed. “I guess since that’s the extent of my news, I’ll crash on the sofa.”
“Yes…” Her expression proved impossible to read. Far off and searching, her gaze narrowed like she was looking for something in the distance she couldn’t quite see.
Achy from raw nerves and a day spent in a too-cramped plane and too-tight waiting room chairs and a too-small barstool, Patrick’s entire body groaned when leaving the bed. All he wanted was to turn off the bedside lamp, strip to his boxers, then ease between Stephie’s warm flannel sheets, holding her until drifting off to sleep.
At the door, he glanced over his shoulder, praying she’d ask him to stay.
She did not.
With Patrick out of the room, not flooding her senses with his size and perpetual scent of pine trees and leather and that special something that her heart recognized as him, Stephie should have felt better. But if anything, she felt worse.
She missed him on a soul-deep level.
But he’d made it painfully clear that he never wanted to be a father. What would he have said if she’d told him that at this very second she already carried his baby? They’d always used condoms, so would he deny the baby was even his? Would he haul her to an endless parade of doctors for an endless barrage of tests? And what if they discovered the worst? That their sweet, innocent baby had the birth defect they feared?
She wasn’t strong enough to terminate the pregnancy—her heart wouldn’t allow it. In the same respect, she also wasn’t strong enough to deliver her precious boy or girl, hold him or her in her arms, only to lose them a couple days or even hours later. She couldn’t do it.
Stephie couldn’t do any of this. So where did that leave her?
In a beyond impossible situation.
Right now, all she wanted was for Patrick to hold her. To whisper everything was going to be okay. But odds were nothing would ever be okay or the same—not between them and certainly not within herself.
Fighting back tears, she forced herself off the bed to pee and brush her teeth, thankful her room had its own bath. No way could she face the guys who sounded as if they’d opted to keep the party going. The muted strains of laughter and a sci-fi movie starship battle drifted through the closed door.
Had things been different, she’d be out there with them, making popcorn, happy to be with friends. But her agonizing reality was that until she knew if her baby was healthy, she wanted—needed—to hide. To protect herself from questions and pitying glances.
After climbing into her cold bed, she flicked off the bedside lamp and stared at the ceiling. It would be a long night.
Eventually, exhaustion claimed her, but Stephie woke Sunday morning to sunlight streaming between the blinds. She winced before pushing herself upright, only to dash for the bathroom to throw up.
“Baby,” she said after pressing a cold cloth to her face, “please stop making Mommy sick.”
Mommy.
Given her circumstances, the word slipped into her head far more than it should. If she was smart, she would try not to get too attached to her baby or daydreams of playing with Barbies or becoming a soccer mom.
Someone pounded on her bedroom door. “Steph?”
Patrick. She groaned.
“The guys and me were wondering if you could please make pancakes. No one makes them as good as you.”
Really? Couldn’t they leave her in peace and go to IHOP? “Sure! Be right out.”
Stephie splashed cold water on her face, brushed her teeth, crammed her hair into a messy bun, then changed from one pair of sweats and a T-shirt to another.
“There she is,” Tanner sang to the tune of Miss America when she joined the guys in the living room. The two of them had developed a special bond while she’d cared for him in the burn unit where she worked. Both of them had been to hell and back and lived to tell their sto
ries, sharing them with fellow burn survivors to help them through their recoveries.
Should the unthinkable occur and her baby be born with anencephaly, she’d do the same. Learn from the tragedy. Grow from it. Ache from it...
Shatter in a million pieces.
After swiping tears from her eyes, she ducked into the kitchen to regain her composure.
Unfortunately, all five guys trailed after her.
Colby said, “I just talked to Rose and she told me to study your technique.”
“It’s not a hard recipe.” She took her cast iron skillet from the bottom cabinet to the right of the stove. From the cabinet above the stove she rummaged for a cookie sheet to use for a pancake platter. “I make my batter on the thin side, then use more oil than is probably healthy—oh, and add vanilla to the mix.”
She glanced up to find Patrick staring and gulped.
“Remember when you made them for me Christmas morning,” he said, “but since I burned the bacon, we ended up eating them in the running car because the kitchen was too smoky?”
Why did she feel drawn to him as if they were the only two people in the room?
On the planet?
“I do… Remember.” She strove for a casual tone—like the memory wasn’t cherished. Like it had been just another day even though nothing could be further from the truth. Every day spent with Patrick had been special, only at the time, since she’d assumed they’d always be together, she hadn’t taken the time to properly mark each occasion.
“Ouch!” She looked to Hawk, who held Rambo and Rapunzel. “I thought we were friends?”
“They bit you?” Steph asked.
“Nibbled.” Hawk’s hands were large enough that he easily held both tiny furballs in one hand. “But it still hurt.”
Laughing, Colby said, “Shrapnel burns hurt. Chipmunk nibbles?”
Now everyone save for Hawk was laughing.
Even her. And it felt good.
Maybe for this slice of time, sharing her morning with five big strapping men who were capable of literally rescuing the world but not making pancakes was exactly what her fragile heart needed? And maybe she and Patrick’s baby would be born strong and healthy and they would all live happily ever after?
“Whoa—fire!” Brody’s lightning reflexes had the grease fire extinguished in seconds by smothering it with the cookie sheet, but that hadn’t stopped the kitchen from filling with smoke.
Colby opened a window.
Hawk took Rambo and Rapunzel out of the haze and back to their cage.
Tanner waved a dishcloth.
Patrick asked, “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” There went her happy daydream.
Literally her rainbow and unicorn vision vanished in a puff of smoke.
“Change of plans.” Colby carried the pan to the sink and turned on the tap. “Steph, we’ll clean this for you, then how about we treat you to breakfast? Isn’t there an IHOP just down the street?”
Yep. And the thought of being crammed alongside Patrick in a booth for the next hour was about as appealing as scrubbing the apartment’s toilets. “You’re sweet to offer, but I’ve got a full morning planned. Want me to call you an Uber?”
“What do you have to do?” Tanner asked.
“Leave it alone,” Patrick said. “She’s busy.”
“Doing what? Not five minutes ago, she was making us pancakes.”
“Now she’s not.”
Stephie was mortified to find the two men exchanging heated looks. Even worse was the fact that Patrick seemed to want away from her as badly as she did him. What happened to the love they’d once shared? Where had it gone? Not only did she miss his kisses and the comfort of his big, strong arms wrapped around her, but she missed their silly emoji texts and marathon Facetime sessions. She missed her friend.
Cupping her hands to her still-flat belly, she wanted nothing more than to come clean with him about everything. Their baby. Her fears. But how would that be fair to him? It wasn’t as if she’d tricked him into her pregnancy, but knowing his views, she felt that way. Would he, too?
When Colby finished scrubbing the cast iron skillet, he said, “Whoever’s as hungry as I am, let’s be good to go in five.”
“Roger that.” Tanner had already turned for the living room.
“Sorry,” Patrick said once they were alone in the still faintly smoky kitchen. The open window had mostly aired it out. “We never planned this invasion.”
“No worries. We’re good,” she said with a faint smile, even though they weren’t. “I’m glad we got things out in the open. I’m glad you went ahead with the genetic testing. Now you definitively know.”
Expression grim, he nodded.
He stepped forward, inching out his arms as if planning a hug, but then changed his mind, instead ramming his hands into his jean’s pockets. “I guess this is goodbye?”
She nodded.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry…
“I wish you all the best,” he said.
“Likewise.”
Their words said one thing, but she knew him. Loved him. He no more wanted this separation than she did, but what were they supposed to do? Where did they go from here? There were no easy answers, which was why when Colby barked at him that their Uber waited out front, with a simple wave that somehow conveyed a million layers of emotional complexity, Patrick left her apartment and life.
Chapter Nine
June
“DON’T BE alarmed,” Dr. Johnson said at Stephie’s twelve-week appointment, but your maternal serum screening came back positive.”
“W-what does that mean?” Do you really need to ask? Cold nausea crested and rose inside her like a wave. In the month since she’d last seen Patrick, she’d convinced herself their baby was fine—perfectly healthy. She’d put off her doctor’s request that she have an ultrasound. Obsessive online reading taught her that once she had an ultrasound, there would no longer be room for hope. Even as early as eight weeks, a skilled technician would see signs her baby suffered from this beyond tragic condition.
“Like I said, the most important thing for you to remember at this point is to stay calm. Neither you nor your baby need stress. In most cases, these elevated numbers prove to be no big deal. But they can also be an early warning sign that your baby is at higher risk for Trisomy 21 or 18 or even a neural tube defect. What I propose is further testing—in fact, if your schedule allows, let’s get that ultrasound you’ve been putting off done today.”
“I-I can’t today.” Stephie swallowed the boulder lurking at the back of her throat. “But tomorrow. Tomorrow is good.”
“I understand. Sit tight. I’m going to step out and get everything set up. In the meantime, you slip into a gown and let’s do a thorough exam and listen to this little guy or gal’s heartbeat. I’ll be back in a sec. Sound good?”
“Thank you.” Mouth dry, heart pounding loud enough for her to hear it like a warning drum in her ears, instead of changing into the pale pink hospital gown resting on the paper-lined exam table alongside her, she slung her purse over her shoulder and approached the room’s closed door.
She inched it open, checked the hall was empty, then slipped out of the room and office’s winding back passageways until once again reaching the sun-flooded reception area that was filled with expectant moms and babies.
“Ma’am?” the receptionist called as Stephie passed her desk on her way to the outside door. “Do you need to reschedule?”
Ignoring the question, Stephie kept right on walking until reaching her SUV.
Behind the wheel, she operated on autopilot, starting the engine, slipping the car into gear, telling herself everything was normal until passing a nursery school playground where tiny, perfect pint-sized cuties raced like atoms around swings and slides.
Tears hit fast and hard enough to render her incapable of driving.
She pulled over on the quiet, tree-lined street and sobbed, releasing the fear and pain and ut
ter anguish stemming from the doctor’s confirmation that pretty much Patrick’s every fear had just come to pass.
In most cases, these elevated numbers prove to be no big deal.
The nurse in her, the logical half, told her to turn the car around and return to the clinic where the doctor would run further tests and most likely announce Stephie’s baby perfectly healthy.
But her terrified half? The part of her unsure she could handle hearing profoundly bad news? That part of her made a swift, maybe rash, maybe irresponsible, maybe downright crazy decision…
July
“Before I forget…” Hawk gritted his teeth during a free climb while navigating a particularly gnarly portion of Devil’s Gorge. “The weirdest thing happened.”
“Yeah?” Patrick reached for a hand-hold but came up empty. He shifted six inches left to peer up at their clients—a dot-com billionaire and his “bros.” They seemed like all right guys, but they wouldn’t have lasted two hours in BUD/S. They had physical strength, but no discipline. For their own safety, Patrick warned them not to get too far ahead. They’d listened about as well as Hawk’s toddler, Mckynley. If something happened to these A-list clients, Brody would have Patrick’s ass on a platter.
Patrick hastened his pace.
Hawk rambled on. “So I guess Rose is hosting her annual picnic for the Fourth, and since Steph’s roomie and I have been—”
“Wait—” Patrick was so taken aback by this news that he slipped from his handhold, but quickly found another. “You and Delia?”
Hawk shrugged. “What can I say? When I took Mckynley to that Disney on Ice thing in Anchorage, I’d been talking up Delia’s sugar gliders and my girl wanted to pet them. Delia was happy to oblige.” He launched himself upwards a good four feet without breaking a sweat. The man was a beast Patrick had always been glad to have on his team. At least until now. He didn’t want the notorious player anywhere near Stephie or her best friend. Hawk was proving to be a surprisingly good dad, but he was a shitty boyfriend. He and Tanner had nearly come to blows over Tanner’s wife, Jenny. “When we got to the apartment, I expected to see Steph, but she was gone.”
St. Patrick’s Baby (SEAL Team: Holiday Heroes Book 4) Page 4