***
12 ½ years ago
“You think my dad will let me keep him?” I whispered, looking down at the tiny puppy in my arms.
Reed shrugged. “Honestly? If he doesn’t let you keep him, then we’ll just take him to my apartment. I have a pet clause, but it’s one hundred and fifty bucks.”
I nodded, feeling a little giddy.
But later, as my mother stood there, looking at the dog, I realized my mistake.
She found something that I wanted and that meant that she could control me easier.
The fight that I’d had with my mother had been epic, but I got to keep the dog. Although, there were rules. One, I had to pay for the dog food. Two, I couldn’t allow him to bark. Three, if he started to tear the house up, then he’d be gone.
Little did my mother know that Pepé would end up being the absolute perfect dog, and the only thing that stayed with me when I needed someone the most.
Chapter 13
Don’t take advice from me. You’ll just end up fucking drunk.
-Reed’s secret thoughts
Reed
I was mid-exam, my fingers in a woman’s unmentionables as I was checking her cervix for dilation, when a polite knock sounded at the door.
I ignored it, pulled my fingers out, and stripped off my glove.
“You’re at a solid two dilated, but that’s fairly normal at thirty-nine weeks. If you experience any more contractions, I want you to time them. If they get to three minutes apart or less, that’s when it’s time to go to the hospital. Okay?”
I offered her my hand and helped her to sitting, and she looked like she was ready to start freaking out all over again.
The first-time mother nodded her head, but her eyes went to her husband.
“Bags packed?” I asked.
He nodded, looking just as nervous as the mother.
I kept my laugh in check.
If he was freaked out now, I couldn’t wait to see him during delivery.
“Alrighty, then.” I threw my gloves into the trash and walked to the sink, washing my hands thoroughly.
Once I was through, I said my goodbyes, and paused when I saw the woman on the other side of the door.
Caria.
She just wouldn’t catch the hint.
Every single time she made a move, I made sure to put myself well out of her reach, yet she just kept trying.
In all honestly, it was fucking annoying.
It was getting to the point where I wanted to report it to Torres.
“Yes?” I asked curtly.
Caria batted her eyelashes at me. “You have a patient in room four with what she suspects is an ectopic pregnancy.”
I didn’t want to reply to her, but for the sake of being a professional, I did anyway.
“Whose patient is she?”
“Dr. Torres,” she answered.
“Is Dr. Torres busy?”
I could hear him fucking laughing about something in the breakroom, so he wasn’t busy enough for Caria to be bringing his patient to me.
“Umm,” she paused, trying to come up with something she could say to get her out of the mess I had a feeling she knew she’d gotten herself into.
Before I could tell her to go tell Dr. Torres about his patient, the door separating the inner office from the outer office slammed open, and my brother hurried inside.
“Baylor?”
“Lark called me,” he said. “I tried to call you, but you’re not fu-freakin’ answering.” He glanced around the office. “Krisney’s dog was killed.”
My stomach dropped.
“Caria, tell Torres I’m leaving.”
***
When I arrived at the vet, Krisney wasn’t there.
Lark was, though, and she looked extremely sad.
“What happened?” I asked, hurrying up to the counter.
She looked at me sadly. “The dog’s leg was caught in a trap outside Krisney’s property. He bled quite a bit and before we could repair the damage, he was already gone. But Reed, the problem is that kind of a wound shouldn’t have caused that kind of blood loss. So Dr. Castleberry looked around in the chest cavity after he’d passed and found that he had cancer. All over. It was so bad, that the dog literally would’ve only had a few more weeks at most to live.”
I felt like somebody had walked up to me and punched me directly in the chest.
“Does she know?”
Lark nodded. “We told her about an hour ago. She left with his body.”
I didn’t wait to reply to that.
I knew what she was going to do.
She was going to bury him, and I couldn’t let her do that alone.
I didn’t bother driving to her parents’ place.
There was no way in hell that she was going to bury him there. Her parents had hated that dog, and honestly, Pepé hadn’t been too fond of living there since he was forced to be in her room the entire time.
He was much happier once Krisney had moved out.
I drove to the old house, the memories assaulting me as I made my way to the place that used to be our refuge.
The old house was located directly next to the apartments that I used to reside in during my undergraduate studies.
The start of forty acres butted up right to the back door where my apartment had let out, and I let myself feel the excitement that always assaulted me when I pulled into the old driveway that looked like it needed updating way before even we came along.
I wasn’t surprised to find Krisney’s old car.
Nor was I surprised when I walked around the backside of the house to find her digging with a shovel.
Though, it did make me angry.
She wasn’t overly pregnant yet, but she was still pregnant enough that she shouldn’t be digging a fucking grave for a dog when she had a perfectly capable man to do the job for her.
“Kris,” I called out, reaching for the shovel. “Let me do that.”
She startled, and when I caught my first good look at her face, the nausea was back.
She was crying silent tears as she dug.
Fuck.
I dropped the shovel and pulled her into my chest, dropping my head to rest against her hair.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
I wish I’d have been here.
She sniffled against me, and I wrapped her tighter.
“He warned me,” she swiped away tears.
I pulled back so only my arms were around her.
She stepped away even further, feeling like she was taking my heart straight out of my chest as she did.
“Who warned you?” I questioned, wanting to go to her so badly it hurt.
“The owner that I bought the property from. He said that there were some old traps out there, but I didn’t give it thought, you know?”
I tilted my head, but didn’t speak as I let her get out whatever she was trying to say.
And she didn’t hesitate to continue.
“He said he wasn’t in the right frame of mind when he came home from the war, and put up a lot of traps. But Reed, you and I were all over that land when we were younger. Never once did we see any traps.”
We hadn’t.
Though, we hadn’t been warned about them, either.
“I should’ve taken his words to heart, but I didn’t. I thought that since we’d been all over the land, that there weren’t actually any out there. He said he’d done his best to clean them all up. If I’d known…”
“You didn’t,” I whispered. “You didn’t know that there were any more out there. And honey, the doc told me that Pepé was sick anyway. He said he bled out too fast, from a small wound. They decided to have a look around while they had him opened up. He was riddled with cancer.”
She shrugged.
So she knew.
“Baby,” I brushed her hair out of her eyes. “You would’ve lost him anyway.�
�
She swallowed, causing her throat to bob.
“Yeah, but I would’ve gotten extra time. I would’ve gotten to say goodbye.”
With nothing else to say to that, I held her in my arms for as long as she would let me. When she finally pushed away, I got to digging.
When the hole was deep enough, I reached for the cloth-covered body that used to be Pepé, and lowered him into the ground.
At one point, I caught Krisney’s movement out of the corner of my eye, and looked up to find her squatted down, her hands covering her face.
I felt sick to my stomach, watching this woman—my woman—go through something so terrible.
Not to mention she’d had to witness it in the first place.
But with dirt on my hands, and sweat pouring off of me, I stayed where I was and finished doing what I would never want Kris to have to do.
The moment that the last shovel full of dirt went onto the mound, I wiped my hands off on my scrub top and turned to find her still in the exact same position.
“Baby…”
My phone went off, and I sighed as I looked at the message.
“I have to go. It’s a woman in labor.” I apologized.
I went in to hug her to me once more, but she stopped me with an upraised hand.
“I don’t think this is a good idea anymore.” she whispered. “I want you to leave me alone, and when I come to your office, I want to see someone else.”
I felt what felt like a lead balloon fall in my stomach.
“Kris…”
“Just go.”
Chapter 14
I regret nothing.
-Krisney after she eats an entire family size box of Lucky Charms
Krisney
Avoiding him was incredibly hard when all I wanted to do was go to him.
The first time I felt the babies kick, I’d picked my phone up to call him, to tell him he needed to come over immediately. But then remembered that I needed to move on with my life and calling him to tell him wasn’t a good idea. It was just letting the door swing back open when I’d tried with all my might to close it.
When I’d wake up in the middle of the night, my heart pounding a million miles an hour from a nightmare, I’d wanted nothing more than to call him and tell him about my dreams.
I never did.
Then, when I’d see everyone in town and take in their judgment—I wished for nothing more than to have him at my side.
He’d tried to be there.
After the day Pepé died, he’d tried relentlessly to insert himself back in my life, but I’d done everything in my power to make sure that that didn’t happen.
The only thing I wasn’t able to accomplish was getting a new doctor.
Torres and the other doctor practicing with Reed in the office wouldn’t take me as a patient.
I’d heard through the grapevine that Reed had told them in no uncertain terms that if they took me on, he’d leave.
And since the practice was so swamped, they’d refused to take me on.
Meaning that three months after telling him that I wanted nothing to do with him, I still had to see him at least once a month.
This would be my third month seeing him, and I’d been shoring up my defenses ever since the last appointment.
***
“They’re moving well?” he asked excitedly.
I nodded, unwilling to speak unless I absolutely had to.
I didn’t want to chance telling him that I loved him, I missed him, and I wanted him to move in with me so I didn’t have to have his babies alone.
Hence the staying quiet bit.
My emotions were fucking everywhere, and I knew that if I could just get through this appointment, that I would make it another day without him.
I would.
He started to massage my stomach, and I had to clench my legs together to keep from jolting at the contact.
I knew this wasn’t anything sexual in nature in the least, but all he had to do was touch me, and I was panting for him.
I gritted my teeth when he moved down to just above my pubic bone.
“You feel this?”
My hand automatically went to his, and he guided my hand and pushed. I felt something round and hard.
“Yes,” I croaked.
“That’s a butt.” He laughed. “And this up here…” He moved my hand to a spot just above that. “That’s the head of baby A.”
The head was sideways by my lower ribs on my left side.
“This is baby B, head here.” He moved my hand again to my upper ribs, then pressed. “And this is the back.”
“How do you know this?” I blurted as he moved my hand down the length of the baby’s back.
“Practice,” he said, his eyes meeting mine.
They were happy.
He was happy.
And if I was being honest, I was the happiest I’d been since the last appointment.
“I start a new job on Monday,” I told him.
He held my eyes.
“Where?”
“At the dentist on Main Street. His old dental hygienist quit.”
Reed’s laugh was happy.
“That’s good news. I wasn’t sure you were going to get to utilize your degree.”
I’d gotten my degree in dental hygiene while in the Army and then had practiced somewhat in Alabama when I was in the Reserves. When I was sent to Germany, it’d been for my old job—which was a whole bunch of office work that I realized rather quickly that I was no longer cut out for.
That’d been the deciding factor to wait until I found a job that I knew I’d stay at, and not do one just for the temporary while I looked for a new one. That wasn’t fair to the employer or to me.
“I’m thinking it's good news, too. He also said that maternity leave won’t be a problem, because the old dental hygienist is willing to come back while I’m out for the six weeks.”
He nodded, giving my stomach one last press, before he pulled away.
“You know what today is?”
I nodded.
That’d been another reason why I was anxious.
It was the exam that would tell me what the sex of the babies I was carrying were.
After one more lingering glance at my belly, he stood up and walked to the sink where he washed his hands out of habit.
I tried not to be offended that he would think he’d need to wash his hands, and struggled to get up.
I was forty seven months pregnant with twins, and I felt like I was as big as a house.
I probably looked it, too.
Yet, the scale at the front of the office told me that I’d only gained my original twenty pounds.
Which was surprising since I was eating everything in sight.
Neither the nurse nor Reed seemed to be worried, though, so I chose to count that as a good thing as I tried not to think about my eating habits.
I’d just barely made it up onto my elbows when Reed was there, helping me to sit.
“Sorry,” he muttered, immediately releasing me once he had me in an upright position.
I bit my lip to keep from crying out at the loss, and made my way up to standing.
Once he was sure I was steady, he walked to the door and opened it, allowing me to exit in front of him.
I did, and I tried not to think about the way I was walking away from him yet again.
I hated leaving.
The only time I ever felt happy was when I was with him.
Pregnancy fucking sucked, because all I ever thought about was him…my babies that I got pregnant with by him. What he was doing. Where he was at. Whose baby he was delivering.
It just kept getting worse and worse, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle staying away.
I might just beg him for anything, admitting that I was an utter moron for telling him to stay away.
Scraps were better than
nothing—that I was quickly realizing.
“Caria, please let everyone know that I’m headed to the ultrasound with my…Kris.” He gestured to me with his head.
Caria’s eyes flashed, then she nodded.
Reed, however, didn’t notice. His eyes were all for me as he gestured to the door. “Let’s go.”
He was practically bouncing in his pretty, bright yellow shoes.
I wanted them. I was so transfixed on them that I didn’t think to even ask why he was going with me. I knew where the ultrasound floor was. I also had taken the path quite a few times before, mostly because also on the same floor was the lab that I had to do my sugar testing at the week prior.
“Krisney?”
I looked up, startled to find Reed that close, and blinked. “Yes?”
“What are you looking at?”
“Your shoes,” I told him. “They’re pretty.”
His mouth kicked up into a grin. “I like them, too.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
I couldn’t.
His smile was enough to make me feel like I’d been kicked in the stomach.
Absently I rubbed my hand over my belly, smiling slightly when a foot kicked out at where my hand was resting.
“Are they moving again?”
He pressed the button for the elevator, looking at me, waiting for me to answer.
“Yes,” I said, stepping onto the elevator once the doors opened. “You can feel.”
His eyes took in my sincerity, and then he reached forward, almost hesitantly, and put his hands back onto my belly.
This time it was different.
This time, there wasn’t anything he was doing that I could blame on him being a doctor.
No, this time, it was out of pure pleasure.
And I could read that pleasure all over his face.
Moments after his hand met my stomach, I felt a rather rambunctious kick slam right into his palm.
And the smile that he awarded me with was nothing less than euphoric.
“I wonder what they are…”
The doors slid open, and he stepped away.
Immediately I missed his heat.
I was also mad at inanimate objects—IE the elevator doors—for opening when all I wanted him to do was never stop touching me. Not ever again.
Goddammit, I was such a loser.
I was the one who told him to stay away.
The Hail You Say Page 12
