A cry escaped me. "God...Ever."
"I...if she wakes up, due to the nature of her injuries, not just to her head, which are the most severe, but to her abdomen, it is unlikely she will ever conceive again. I'm...I'm so sorry again, Mr. Monroe."
I heard her shoes scuff on the tile, and then stop abruptly. I opened my eyes to find Eden standing behind Dr. Miller. She'd clearly heard the conversation. She was shaking her head, tears falling in a torrent from her chin, onto her hand, her mouth.
And suddenly, looking at Eden was impossible. I tried to look away, but all I could see were Ever's eyes, jade green, and her nose, her mouth, her lips. Eden approached me.
"Caden...how did this happen?" Her voice broke.
Mine was worse. "I don't know. It was so sudden. It happened so fast."
Then Mr. Eliot was there, too, behind Eden. I couldn't meet his eyes. Had he heard, too? About the--the baby?
Dr. Miller came back in with a clipboard and a pen. "I need you to sign this." She extended the clipboard to me. "We need your permission to do some further testing."
Mr. Eliot took the clipboard, assuming she meant it for him. "What tests?"
Dr. Miller reached for the clipboard. "I'm sorry, Mr. Eliot, but...I was speaking to Mr. Monroe."
Mr. Eliot let her take it, shocked. "Him? Why? I'm her father, her legal guardian."
The doctor looked at me, seeming to understand.
I swallowed hard. "Because she's my wife," I said. "We got married three months ago."
Fury made his face go red. A vein throbbed in his forehead. "You--you got married? How--she--how did I not know this? Why didn't she tell me?"
"We eloped," I explained. "It was...how she wanted it."
"But--but--" Mr. Eliot stammered, stumbling backward, anger warring with shock and confusion.
Eden took him by the arm. "Come on, Daddy. Let's go get some coffee, okay?"
He let her take him, but then turned to look back at me, as if I'd stolen something from him.
When he'd left, Dr. Miller said, gently, "No one but you, and your sister-in-law as well, it seems, knows that she was pregnant. Maybe that's important to you."
"Thank you," I said, and the doctor left.
Ever had been pregnant?
I would have been a father.
Never conceive again.
Probably won't wake up.
I'd lost her.
And if I thought that I'd been broken inside before, I wasn't. It was Ever who had healed me, and now the accident had ripped off the bandage and shattered what was left of my soul, irreparably.
Look for After Forever
Coming Christmas 2013
songs, artists, albums
Montgomery Gentry
"Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin
"Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix Surfing With the Alien (album) by Joe Satriani "Springsteen" by Eric Church "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones "The Sinner Is You" by Volbeat "Hoppipolla" by Sigur Rose
"Sketches of Spain" by Miles Davis "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals fun.
"Delicate" by Damien Rice
"Just A Kiss" by Lady Antebellum "Awake My Soul" by Mumford & Sons "Bulletproof Weeks" by Matt Nathanson "A Thousand Years (Part 2)" by Christina Perri ft. Steve Kazee "Flapper Girl" by The Lumineers "If You Want Me" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova "Little house" by Amanda Seyfried "Pitter Pat" by Erin McCarley "Cosmic Love" by Florence + The Machine
Jasinda Wilder
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My other titles:
The Preacher's Son: #1 #2 #3
Biker Billionaire: #1 #2 #3 & Omnibus Big Girls Do It Better: (#1) Wetter (#2) Wilder (#3) On Top (#4) Married (#5) On Christmas (#5.5) & Omnibus Delilah's Diary: #1 #2 #3
Wounded
Rock Stars Do It Harder Rock Stars Do it Dirty Rock Stars Do It Forever Falling Into You
Falling Into Us
Big Girls Do It Pregnant Stripped
Jack Wilder Titles:
The Missionary
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Forever & Always Page 26