The Lover: Book 3 in The Bride Series

by S Doyle

  I wasn’t listening to any of that. Instead I was focused on the on hand towel she was holding between her legs that was red with her blood.

  I didn’t think, I didn’t ask any questions. I just scooped her up in my arms and ran as fast as I could to the truck parked under the portico. My keys were in it, out of habit, and as gently as I could I slid Ellie in the back seat. Immediately she curled up in pain.

  “Shit,” I cursed. Then I hopped in behind the wheel and drove as fast as I knew how to drive.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Stop saying that.”

  She was writhing in pain in the back seat and trying to tell me she was sorry.

  “No, it’s my fault,” she sobbed. “It’s because I was upset at first. I didn’t want to be pregnant. So this happened.”

  “Nothing is your fault, Ellie. You did nothing wrong!”

  “I’m so sorry, Jake. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  It was horrible. I would glance behind me, but when I did I would see the blood and I could not handle the sight of Ellie bleeding. I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t know what it meant, but I couldn’t think about that right now. My focus had to be on Ellie.

  Ellie was in pain. Ellie was bleeding.

  I needed to make those things stop.

  It felt like forever, but in reality it was the shortest drive into town ever. I pulled up in front of the clinic and jumped out. It wasn’t easy because she was having another cramp, but I managed to pull Ellie out of the back seat so that she was in my arms.

  “Breathe through it, Ellie,” I told her. “Short pants, then deep breaths.”

  I was a rancher. I had watched any number of things give birth. Breathing was the only thing you could do to not tighten up against the pain.

  “Dr. Jenkins!” I shouted as soon as I got through the door.

  Mary bounced up and took one look at me and seemed to know immediately what was happening.

  Right. Ellie had said something about the clinic. She must have been here earlier today, maybe worried about the bleeding. I had been pushing her these last two weeks that she needed to make an official appointment.

  “Follow me,” Mary said and led me to the examination room straight ahead. She opened the door and I put Ellie on the table.

  “The doctor is in with someone, but I’ll get him now.”

  Ellie rolled to her side with a groan. She was sobbing now, but I didn’t know if it was from the pain or…

  I couldn’t think about that now.

  Dr. Jenkins came in and then immediately turned to me. “I need you step out.”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  “Jake, I’m telling you now. Step out of the room.”

  “Go, Jake,” Ellie cried from the table even as her hands were pressed against her belly. “Please go. I don’t want you to see.”

  I had never felt more useless in my life. I walked out of the room and the door closed behind me and it was like nothing I had ever felt before. I walked down the short hallway and sat in one of chairs in the waiting area, my head in my hands as I thought about what just happened.

  I had been so freaking happy today. Had been every day since she’d been home. As happy as I had been, was as sad as I was now.

  Why couldn’t Ellie and I ever get a break? One fucking time, a break. From pain and loss and sadness.

  A half hour later I looked up and Dr. Jenkins was standing in front of me.

  “It’s done, Jake. As far as I can tell, she was about ten weeks along.”

  I knew exactly how far along she was. It happened on her birthday. I closed my eyes against the pain.

  “I’m going to send her in the ambulance to Jefferson.”

  “Why?” I asked with a new sense of fear. “Is something else wrong? Is there some kind of complication?”

  He shook his head and put his hand on my shoulder, I suppose to calm me. “No. But given how far along she was, there is a procedure to make sure everything has been expelled from the uterus. I don’t have the facility for it here. She’ll go to Jefferson, they’ll probably do it first thing tomorrow morning, and then you can take her home after that. You know where you’re going?”

  I nodded. “Jefferson Hospital.” It wasn’t like there was more than one hospital.

  “You okay to drive?”

  I looked up at him. “Yeah. Can I see her?”

  He had that sad somber look I assumed all doctors must practice when they had to deliver bad news. “She’s a little upset right now, Jake. I would give her some time. You’ll see her once they put her in a room at the hospital.”

  She didn’t want to see me. Okay. I got it. That made sense. Maybe it was a good thing. We were both a little raw.

  “Jake, she’s a young, healthy girl. Miscarriages happen. She’ll pull through this.”

  “Yeah.”

  Dazed, I made my way outside and back to my truck. I had left the keys inside and the back door open. I suppose that was some luck thrown my way. That some passing car thief hadn’t stumbled across it.

  I sat for a moment and tried to deal with what had just happened. Then I saw the ambulance, which was always parked behind the clinic, pull out and instinctively I knew I had to follow it.

  The whole time I kept my eyes on it, wondering what Ellie must be going through.

  She thought it was her fault. Because at first she hadn’t wanted to be pregnant. Of course she hadn’t. It’s not like we had planned this. I knew she wasn’t happy with the idea of having to get married, but in the end she’d come around. These past few days…

  We had been so damn happy.

  I lost the ambulance when it pulled into the Emergency Room entrance way. I had to go around back to visitor parking. I entered through the front doors and the first thing that hit me was that smell. Hospital smell. A combination of sickness and antiseptic. I hated that smell. That was the smell of Ernie when he died. Sam too, although Sam had been dead long before he reached the hospital.

  Now it was the smell of Ellie and our lost baby.

  I asked the receptionist for Ellie’s room, but they said it would take some time to process her. She asked me about health insurance and I shook my head. Neither Ellie nor I had it. We talked about signing up for one of those self-employed insurance plans, but we were probably both too young and too stupid to think we needed it.

  The last thing I cared about though was the money. I just wanted to see Ellie. Finally, after what felt like forever, the receptionist gave me a room number. I made my way up two floors and down the hallway and turned a corner. I stood outside the door, wondered what the hell I was going to say to her, and then took a deep breath.

  I knocked on the door to give her warning, but she didn’t look at the door. She was in the bed closest to the window and was staring out of it. The other bed in the room was empty.

  I walked over and slowly sat down in the chair next to her. She still wouldn’t look at me. I reached across the bed and tried to take her hand, but she made it a fist.

  “Ellie…”

  “I can’t, Jake,” she said and I could hear her voice cracking. “I can’t talk to you right now. Please don’t make me.”

  Make her? Hell, I wasn’t going to make her do anything.

  “Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”

  She shook her head tightly.

  “You don’t have to talk to me, Ellie. But I need to be here. You need to let me stay here. Is that okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay.”

  Ellie

  The next day

  Maybe the hardest part was the car ride home from the hospital. The two of us in this tight space. I still couldn’t talk to him. I didn’t have any words. I’m sorry wasn’t enough. I didn’t know if he was sad or relieved or what he felt.

  I was numb. Full-on numb.

  As upset as I had been about finding out I was pregnant, the miscarriage should have mean
t nothing to me. If anything it should have been a relief. Now we didn’t need to get married. I should be happy. That only made sense.

  Except as soon as the cramping started I had this bolt of fear and I prayed with everything I had in me that it wouldn’t happen. This dot that I hardly let myself think about became the most important thing in the universe in that moment, and I didn’t want to let it go.

  Only I couldn’t stop it.

  Now it was gone and everything was over. And it was like I would never feel anything ever again.

  It reminded me of when my dad died.

  Shock.

  That’s what Jake had called it back then. We got back to Long Valley and instead of parking Jake pulled up to the front of the house.

  “Stay here.”

  It was the first words he said to me since we left the hospital. After he asked me how I was.

  Then the car door opened and he was lifting me out and holding me in his arms.

  “Jake, I can walk.”

  “You’re not walking.”

  I didn’t have the energy to fight him. He brought me inside, carried me up the stairs like I weighed nothing, and then started walking me toward his room.

  “I should stay in my room,” I said. I wasn’t sure where that came from, but I just knew I didn’t want to go back to his room. I didn’t want to lie in that bed where we had been so happy. Not when I felt like this.

  “Why?”

  “It’s better if I sleep alone, so you don’t jostle me in the middle of the night.”

  It was awful. To imply even obliquely that he might do something to cause me more pain. But I knew it was something he wouldn’t argue with me about.

  He didn’t. Instead he took me to my room and set me gently down on the bed.

  “You must be hungry,” he said. “It’s almost five in the afternoon and you haven’t eaten since yesterday. I’ll go put together some sandwiches quick.”

  “Actually I’m not hungry. Just really tired. Is it okay if I take a nap instead?”

  “Yes,” he blurted. “Of course. Whatever you want to do. Are you comfortable?”

  The doctor told me what to expect. Some minor cramping and bleeding over the next two days or so. They had given me an ibuprofen for the pain, so actually I felt fine. They had given me a pair of scrub pants because my jeans had been ruined…

  Don’t think about it.

  But yes, between the scrubs and the t-shirt I was wearing I was fine. I didn’t have shoes on, because I hadn’t been wearing any when it all went down, so I pulled the covers down around me and then slid into bed.

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “Ellie…”

  I turned away from him then, which was rude, but I didn’t want him to see me crying and I still didn’t have any words for him.

  “Please… talk to me. Let me help you.”

  “Later, okay Jake?” I sniffed. “I really am super tired.”

  Jake

  I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to shake her. Force to her say something. Anything. Yell at me, hit me, blame me for every sadness in her life. Something other than this.

  Because this was worse. This felt like she was shutting me out. I carried her up the stairs and I remembered the last time I had done it. The day of the snowstorm when she’d unhooked herself from the damn safety line to try and save a calf.

  I remembered freaking out then because I thought I might lose her to hypothermia.

  Only now I was the one who was frozen.

  Because she was shutting me out and it was crushing me.

  Quietly, I left the room because there was nothing I could actually do. I made my way downstairs toward the study, because a drink was the only thing that made sense right now.

  I poured the whiskey and sat down in the chair behind the desk. The one that used to belong to Sam. I thought about the horsewhipping he might give me if he was here right now.

  “Yeah, Sam,” I said to the empty room. “Sorry about taking her virginity and knocking her up. For putting her through this crushing ordeal. But I’m sure you would understand… I really wanted her.”

  I took a hard gulp. I tried to think about what this might mean going forward, but it was like my brain didn’t want to go there. All I knew for certain was that for next few days she was supposed to stay off her feet and rest as much as possible.

  That, right now, was all I could handle.

  Sixteen

  Ellie

  August

  It was time. I was fully recovered. Really I had been after a few days, but the only thing Jake could do for me was pamper me, so he insisted I stay in bed for five days and then wouldn’t let me leave the house for another three after that.

  Then it was another few days of walking on eggshells around me until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  So it was time. I had my most important stuff packed and already in the truck, just a suitcase and my scales. I would come back for the rest later. I wasn’t even really sure why I was taking my scales. It’s not like I wouldn’t eventually be coming back here, but the thought of being without them was too upsetting.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table, thinking about twelve weeks ago when I had told Jake I was pregnant. I had said those words like they were the words of doom. I knew Jake wanted kids. I had always known that about him. And the first experience of having children that I gave him was a really crappy announcement followed up by a miscarriage.

  What a particularly horrible way for our story to end.

  I heard the back door open, and I tensed.

  I was not going to cry through this. I was not. I was going to say what I had to say and then I was going to leave with some modicum of dignity. At the very least our story deserved that.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” he asked as soon as he came into the kitchen.

  So damn beautiful, I thought. Just a stupid t-shirt and jeans and he was smoking hot. And he was mine. Or had been for a little while. I could at least have that.

  “Fine,” I answered. The same thing I answered any time he asked.

  “Ellie, what is it? I can tell something is wrong.”

  “I’m leaving.”

  There, I said it. I let out this woosh of breath.

  “I don’t… what do you mean?”

  “I’m going back to the room above the Hair Stop. I’ll see if I can get my job back at Frank’s. Chrissy will be heading back to school soon.”

  He was shaking his head.

  “I’m not following.”

  “I’m done, Jake. I can’t do this anymore. We’re not married. We have no reason to be married now, and I’m done.”

  “Done with me,” he said tightly. “You don’t want me anymore. Why don’t you say it one more time? I’ve been feeling it for the past two weeks!”

  I looked up at him then. His face was blank but that muscle was twitching at the back of his jaw.

  “Oh no. You don’t get to make this about me.” I could feel my anger bubbling. Anger would be good right now. Anger would get me through this.

  “How can I not make this about you? You’re sitting there telling me you want to go. You’re done with me. I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay. So yes, Ellie, this is about you and your choices. Not mine. Never mine.”

  I was nearly incredulous. Was he kidding me right now?

  “Hey Jake.” I stood then, my hands braced on the table. “Breaking news just in. I LOVE YOU. I HAVE LOVED YOU FOR YEARS. And you know it! You goddamn well know it. But you don’t love me. Oh yes, you care for me. I’m family. But you’re not in love with me. You know how I know? Because when we woke up after my birthday you should have said I love you, Ellie. Come home with me. Because when I told you I was pregnant you should have said I love you Ellie, please marry me and make me the happiest man alive. But you didn’t. Not one I love you. Not once. So yes, I’m done, Jake. I deserve to be loved as much I love you. I deserve the kind of happiness my parents had. I do.”

  He
said nothing and I straightened my back until I was as tall as I had ever been.

  “I’m going to go back to the room over the Hair Stop. You are going to build your house as quickly as you can and move onto your land. Some day in the future we’ll find a way to get along somehow. And that is the end of the Jake and Ellie story. Goodbye, Jake.”

  I made it to the front door when I heard him.

  “Don’t go.”

  I turned around to tell him not to make this any harder, but when I did I saw he hadn’t been looking at me when he said it. His gaze was off as if staring at a ghost over my shoulder.

  “That’s what I said to my mother the night she left. She came into my room. I was eleven at the time. You don’t remember her, I know, you were just a baby. Anyway, she came in to tell me that she was leaving. That she couldn’t stay in Montana anymore and that it was better if I stayed with Dad. Then she said it would be cleaner this way. I didn’t realize at the time she meant she was just going to forget she ever had a son. Then she left the room, and I ran after her down the hall and I said, Mom, I love you. Please don’t go. And she left.”

  The tears came and I couldn’t stop them. “You never told me.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Who wants to tell that story? I told myself I would never say those words again. That wasn’t going to happen. No way. That… being rejected like that…that just hurt too much.”

  “Oh Jake, I’m so sorry.”

  “I tried to show you. I thought I… did. I tried to give you presents I knew you would love so you would see. I tried to be there for you when you needed me. I tried to be the man someone like you deserved. I… in bed… I mean I tried to show you what I was feeling the whole time. I thought you knew. You had to see it. Feel it. Yeah, I thought if I could show you. It would be enough.”

  He walked toward me then and I was shaking so hard I couldn’t move.

  He fell to his knees in front of me and rested his head on the womb that used to carry his child.

  “I love you, Ellie. Please don’t go.”

  Then he did something in my life I had never seen Jake Talley do. Not when his dad died. Not when my dad died.