“I thought I did, but you’re right. How much do we really know about each other?” Her throat worked on a deep swallow, and Drennan darted her gaze to her things by the door before heading for them. He thought he’d seen a hint of silver lining her eyes, but it was gone before she turned back to face him. She grabbed for her purse, checking her phone briefly before shoving it into her bag. “It’s been a long day, and I’m tired. Thank you for getting me to the clinic and letting me recover here. I’m going to call a rideshare and go home.”
A hit of surprise nearly knocked him off his feet. She was leaving? Of course, she was leaving. He’d given her every reason to walk right out that door with the intention of letting her. He wouldn’t stop her, but that deranged part of him that had been searching for her the past eight weeks wasn’t ready to let go. “I can give you a ride.”
Drennan slung her bag to one shoulder, and a wave of exhaustion played across not just her face but down her entire body. “Why, Harvey? Because you feel obligated to make sure the woman you got pregnant makes it home or because you want to give me a ride?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. At least, not one that would convince her he wasn’t completely out of his mind.
“You asked me who hurt me.” She gripped the strap of her purse hard enough for the whites of her knuckles to show through the delicate skin on the backs of her hands. “There are people in this world who pride themselves on never putting their hands on someone who doesn’t deserve it while tearing their victims down any way they can. Sometimes it’s by making promises they never intend to follow through with or building up hope while intentionally planning on how to use their victim’s weaknesses against them. They belittle, they lie, they exaggerate and turn your words back on you. Over and over until you’re convinced you’re the bad guy and they’re the victim, but the worse part? You still want a relationship with that person. Because, in your mind, one glimpse at the good instantly outweighs all the bad. You want those moments where you matter to be true more than anything in the world.”
Every muscle down his spine tightened under battle-ready tension. And he instinctually knew Drennan was speaking from experience, that someone had strategically torn her apart piece by piece. Preyed on her affections and used her vulnerabilities against her. It was an invisible kind of abuse that no one noticed—psychological warfare—and he’d… Oh, hell. He’d gotten her hopes up with that kiss.
“You said you didn’t want anything to do with this baby. You don’t think you’re fit enough to be a father, and I will believe you if that’s what you want. I will support your decision, and I will never hold it against you.” Drennan shifted her bag farther up her shoulder.
The sincerity in that simple statement nearly crushed him. His choices had never mattered. Not as a kid and sure as hell not in the military. There was always someone overriding his free will and making decisions for him. From what he ate, tohow long he slept, to where he was allowed to go and when. The only real freedom he’d experienced in the past few years was in the middle of nowhere trying to keep hikers from doing dumb things. Like get themselves killed. But Drennan… She’d just accepted him as if his decision mattered. Like he mattered. How? How was it possible that of all the people he’d been with over the years, this woman had the one thing he’d craved for years but was the one person he couldn’t let himself have?
“What I won’t do is let you play with my emotions or use me to test the limits you’ve set for yourself.” Her shoulders rose on a strong inhale as she reached for the front door. “I’ve just stopped being an easy target for someone else. I won’t be one for you.”
Harvey didn’t know what to say to that, what to think. He wanted to know who. Who had dared to convince Drennan she was anything less than the capable, optimistic, indispensable woman standing in front of him? A former boyfriend? A husband? “Drennan.”
He wasn’t sure if he was trying to stop her from leaving or if he just needed to say her name, to have it etched deeper in order to hold on to her a bit longer. Because she was going to walk out that door, and once she did, every ounce of training he had told him she wasn’t coming back. That while he’d drawn the line between them, she would uphold it better than he ever could.
Swinging the front door open, she kept her hand on the knob, barely angling her chin over her shoulder, as if she couldn’t even stand to look at him. And he deserved that. Hell, he deserved worse, and he would take anything she threw at him. “I don’t need your financial support for the baby, Harvey. I was just hoping for you.”
She stepped out into the night, closing the door behind her.
Chapter Eleven
Something oily took up residence in her veins.
Vulnerability felt like that. Thick and uncomfortable. Crap. She’d basically told Harvey that she’d wanted to be a couple before she’d escaped his house last night. To try to make this work between them.
Drennan was furious with herself for letting that buried little secret slip. She knew better. How many times had she voiced her wants and had them thrown back in her face or used against her over the years? She’d promised herself she wouldn’t do this again, and she couldn’t breathe through the tightness in her chest because of it. Embarrassment didn’t cover it. This was outright fear. Conditioned into her over years of being told nobody in their right mind would choose her. That she was—
“No.” Her voice echoed through the basement exam room, harsher than she’d expected. That voice didn’t get to live rent-free. Like Cassidy had said. Drennan closed her eyes, setting her hands against the cold stainless steel of the exam table.
But that kiss… It’d held the kind of passion she’d always wanted. The desperate, hot kind that made her feel wanted and important. And while more than one night together hadn’t been the agreement, she and Harvey really hadn’t planned for a baby. That changed things, didn’t it?
“Did you say something?” Dr. Yarrow entered their dark little exam room as she imagined someone might enter a formal event, all smooth lines, pressed seams and straight posture. Even his forehead didn’t dare wrinkle despite his age beingsomewhere in the mid-sixties. The lab coat protecting his slacks and button-down hung off his shoulders with a little extra give down the sides. The man had single-handedly led the Office of the Medical Examiner here in Hurricane for over thirty years. With more natural deaths than homicides between the locals, Zion National Park and Springdale, there’d been plenty of time to take care of his physical health, but the stress around his eyes was starting to show.
“No. Sorry.” Drennan got back to arranging the tools the ME would need to start the autopsy of the drowned victim from the park, everything from the bone saw to specimen tubes to collect bodily fluid samples as they progressed through their established routine. Thankfully, it seemed Harvey had acted quickly enough to call Dr. Yarrow to collect the body from the clinic parking lot that not a whole lot of damage had been inflicted on the remains by the extreme heat. She wasn’t going to lose her job. Yet. “Just talking to myself.”
“Must’ve been a hell of a conversation for me to hear it down the hall.” Dr. Yarrow rounded the exam table and folded down the thin sheet providing a small modicum of privacy to their patient.
The victim had been stripped of her personal items, including her hiking gear, the beanie she’d been found in, her jacket, shirt, underwear, boots and socks. Impeccably arched eyebrows framed almond-shaped eyes, the deepest shade of brown Drennan had ever come across. Full lips, a blade of a nose, clear skin and healthy mid-back-length dark hair spoke of someone who took the time to take care of herself. Her body was soft, revealing the victim’s preference for cardio rather than strength training. The blisters on the bottoms of her feet and the lack of wear on the hiking boots said this woman hadn’t been much of an outdoorswoman or she’d started a new interest.
There hadn’t been reports of any missing women as far as Drennan had been able to find when she’d contacted Springdale PD and Zion’s law enforcement division head she’d met at the scene, but that didn’t mean someone out there wasn’t missing her or simply hadn’t known where she’d gone. Drennan made a mental note to check in with the surrounding police departments. The victim was potentially young enough to fit in with the college crowd from St. George. Maybe someone had inquired after her there. Still, they had very little to go off of when it came to uncovering her identity. No driver’s license or other form of ID had been discovered on the remains or in her backpack. It would take DNA, fingerprints or dentals to solve that puzzle unless the rangers could recover her missing personal items.
Dr. Yarrow tipped the victim’s head back, unlocking her jaw to peer inside the woman’s mouth before stepping back and donning his protective eyewear, gloves and mask from the secondary table she’d arranged while trapped inside her own head. “Are you feeling better today?”
Drennan nearly dropped the syringe she’d been in the process of handing off to collect fluid from behind the victim’s cornea. Vitreous humor. It was just one of many samples they’d preserve for toxicology and reexamination down the line. She managed to hand off the syringe without losing the rest of her dignity. “Um, yes. Thank you.”
“That park ranger—what’s his name, Knight?—said you’d collapsed from dehydration.” Strapping the magnifying glasses over his head, the medical examiner positioned the tip of the needle to the side of the victim’s eye and pushed forward, pulling on the plunger at the same time. A filmy white fluid filled the syringe.
Drennan tried not to roll his name around in her brain for too long, but the unsolicited reaction started in her toes andtightened the skin on her scalp. Images of that kiss, of the way he’d held her weight against that archway as though she weighed nothing, attacked before she could assemble her defenses. Her mouth dried.
“It shouldn’t have happened. I’ll be more careful in the park next time.” Her skin heated with another dose of that thick oily feeling in her veins. It wasn’t a lie, but she wasn’t ready to explain what else had led to her throwing up all the fluids she’d drunk yesterday. Not until she had to.
Setting aside the now full syringe on the metal rolling cart to collect various samples, Dr. Yarrow went back to the victim’s mouth to collect DNA with an oversize Q-tip. “Well, pregnancy is certainly hard no matter where your health starts. Just let me know if I need to adjust your duties or your hours.”
