Drennan paused with the fork heavy with that first bite halfway to her mouth. Disappointment lapped at her fragile steady state. A statement like that had once kicked her need for peace and survival into high alert. A past version of herself would’ve instantly dropped the fork and offered it back, but she’d earned this cheesecake, damn it. And she wanted it more than anything. “Don’t you dare take food from a pregnant woman.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He settled back in the stool as easily as though it had a back support, crossing his feet at the ankles and his arms over his impressive chest. Harvey didn’t say anything, simply studied her as though taking his eyes off her would hurt, and she…she didn’t know what to do with that.
And she didn’t want to know what he thought about having to come to her rescue. Didn’t want to know if he regretted getting mixed up with her. He hadn’t planned on getting involved in her life at all, still didn’t want anything to do with her or the baby beyond financial obligation, and right then, she was sure he saw a woman so desperate for affection that she would seek it from someone who didn’t even want friendship between them. And he wouldn’t be wrong, would he?
“You don’t have to be here.” That first bite of creamy filling and the tart burst of cherries nearly dragged a moan from her throat, but the flood of sugar wasn’t enough to drown out the chaotic self-deprecating thoughts. “I know you have other places you’d rather be.”
“Dr. Yarrow called with an update on the victim we pulled from the emerald pool. She was pregnant, a few weeks ahead of you.” Drennan flinched as though he’d physically struck her. His voice dipped into dangerous territory, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “So while I might have other places to be, Drennan, I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Eighteen
“You didn’t have to drive me home.” Drennan shoved her key into the dead bolt slot and twisted the doorknob open. She walked straight into a too-small box that smelled of her. Something light and citrus, like a lemon orchard in the spring.
It drove deep into Harvey’s lungs and set up residence in the fibers of his cells. Like she had over the course of the past few days. The hospital had given in to his demand to keep her overnight for observation, but there were limits on how long patients could remain in the ER. While he’d stepped out of the curtained section to give Drennan some privacy, the ob-gyn had assured them the baby hadn’t suffered any damage from the abduction. Scanning the small box she called an apartment, Harvey memorized the layout. Living room front and center, the galley-style kitchen and dining space directly ahead, one bedroom off to the left. Probably with an attached bathroom. “What part of ‘I’m not going anywhere’ didn’t you understand?”
“The part where you couldn’t run fast enough in the other direction when I told you I was pregnant.” She set her keys on the scratched black round dining table. The thing looked like it’d been spray-painted at one point, with natural wood scars peeking through. Worn at one edge where she most likely sat to eat every day. In fact, every piece of furniture in the place looked as though it’d been pulled straight from a dumpster or a thrift store, but all of it was clean. Odd. She’d been a trauma surgeon. She must’ve made good money before taking up a position as anassistant medical examiner. So either she preferred old furniture or she didn’t have the funds to buy new. Maybe she didn’t care.
He’d always been able to tell a lot by someone’s home. What kind of person they were. Sentimental or functional, social or isolated, relationship focused or independent, habits, routines. Some things were harder to discern, and he was having a hell of a time holding himself back from asking the thousand questions on his mind. Like why she’d left a stable career to move into the middle of nowhere Utah to cut up dead people.
Knickknacks and books peppered the bookshelf set up on the other side of the TV, more books than personal trinkets. She was a reader, but Harvey had already known that. She was wicked intelligent with a medical background. A quick glimpse at the titles told him they were mostly crime thrillers and a handful of romances. All with cracks down their spines and flawed covers, to the point he was willing to bet these particular books were comfort reads. He found himself wondering which one would offer her some semblance of peace tonight.
“Yeah, well, things have changed, haven’t they?” He couldn’t explain the shift as he navigated around the once light sectional, the part of him that’d dreaded the idea of leaving her alone in that hospital bed. The man who’d abducted her had wilderness experience and used acronyms like a law enforcement official. This case… It was coming back on her. They’d both given a description of her abductor, but without the victim’s identity, it would be hard to narrow down the man who’d killed her. He didn’t like the statistics, but over 80 percent of women were killed by someone they knew. That was where they needed to start. If they were really lucky, the weapon he’d taken off her abductor would lead back to a name, but the State of Utah didn’t require gun registration. Hell, if they could find something identifying the remains at the scene, they could get ahead of this, but the superintendent was ordering the Emerald Pools trailreopened despite the fact any evidence of their victim’s death might be contaminated by the public. Drennan’s gear had been left behind at the scene, but there’d been no sign of any of the victim’s personal effects. Had the killer been there to get to them before she did?
But Drennan was right. He’d made his intentions concerning her and the baby clear, but that was before he’d learned someone had targeted her, and through her, his baby. That the son of a bitch had hurt her. “Besides, your doctor said I needed to keep an eye on you due to the hit you took to the back of your head.”
“Of course she did.” Drennan moved back into the living room, looking as antsy as he felt inside. He wasn’t great at standing still. Being busy meant distracting himself from the buzz of thoughts he didn’t want to take too close a look at. The military had been good for that. He’d been told when to eat, sleep and take a leak and where to be 24-7, and discharge had been a bigger shock than he’d expected. Folding her arms across her chest, she showed off the scrapes and bruises marring her forearms. “Well, I have a medical license. I think I am more than capable of taking care of myself.”
Harvey studied her—really looked at her—recognizing that all-too-familiar pain in her eyes he’d gravitated to the night they’d met, and his heart stuttered at the rawness. “You don’t like it when other people try to take care of you, do you?”
Her chin notched a few centimeters higher, her shoulders pulling back ever so slightly. It wasn’t a big change in her posture, but one he’d seen all the same. Like every move she made tugged on some invisible connection between them and got him to pay closer attention. She bit her bottom lip, hard enough that blood beaded quickly. “I never said that.”
He was moving before he consciously realized he’d started closing the distance between them. “You didn’t have to. The second you woke up in my house yesterday, you were trying toleave. Like your being there was some great burden, even though I never gave you that impression. It’s more than not liking the attention, though, isn’t it?”
He wasn’t sure why he was pushing other than maybe her answer might provide insight he’d been looking for his entire life. Why, despite years of no contact and freedom and his father being buried six feet underground, he couldn’t seem to let go of the past. The one thing that would free him, and the one thing that would damn him at the same time.
Drennan didn’t answer for a series of breaths. She didn’t have any reason to trust him, but he felt more than saw the responding exhaustion filter into her expression. Like she simply didn’t have the energy to hide. “I don’t want to owe them anything, and I especially don’t want to be in debt to you.”
“What makes you think you owe me anything?” Instinct had him closing those last few feet separating them. “I didn’t bring you back to my house or come after you in those woods to collect some kind of debt.”
Her laugh surprised him, though it lacked the key ingredient of humor. “No. Just out of obligation, right?”
Harvey pulled up short. “Obligation?”
“Can you really tell me you would’ve done those things if I wasn’t pregnant with your baby?” Her voice had lost some of its steadiness, the question a mere whisper to the emotion breaking her words. “Would you have stuck around the clinic both times if I hadn’t told you? Would you be here now, making sure there’s no one waiting in the apartment for me?”
He…he didn’t know the answer to that. He knew what his father would’ve done, and hell, Harvey had gone out of his way to make sure he never followed in that bastard’s footsteps. “I was attracted to you before you told me you were pregnant.”
She pressed her lips together in a thin line. “That’s not an answer, and, you know what? You don’t owe me any kind ofexplanation or justification. I understand you can’t help but want to protect your baby, really. But you asked why I can’t stand the thought of someone else taking care of me? It’s because admitting I need help or exposing what’s important to me has always been used as a bargaining chip or to hold over my head, and I will never let someone have that kind of power over me again. Even the father of my child.”
Harvey locked down the instant urge to argue with her logic, but he couldn’t. She was right. He wouldn’t have stayed at the clinic for any other woman he’d spent one night with. And he’d leave the search for her abductor to the law enforcement officers or Springdale police. But with Drennan… She brought out a protective streak he couldn’t explain. He’d sworn not to put anyone’s life in danger by getting close, but the baby connected them in a way he’d never expected to be linked to another human being. In less than forty-eight hours, it’d altered the very cells that made him who he was, had him doubting every decision he’d made up to this point in his life. That thought should’ve scared the crap out of him, but it didn’t. Because in those hours where he’d imagined finding Drennan dead in those woods… Those had been the worst hours of his life. Hard as it was to admit to himself, losing her and the baby would’ve ripped him apart. “Why are you here, Drennan?”
Her name had never felt more right on his tongue, said like a prayer. Did she feel it? In the span of two days the woman had learned she was pregnant, passed out in the park, held her own against his stubborn ass and survived an abduction. She was strong, stronger than him. Fierce and ready to go toe to toe with anyone who dared talk down to her, but that kind of strength wasn’t born. It was earned. “Why go from working as an emergency surgeon to a medical examiner in the middle of nowhere?”
Her throat worked on a swallow. Drennan took a step back, but she didn’t make it far, her lower back connecting with one of her dining room chairs. “It’s impossible to heal in the place you’re being broken over and over.”
Every muscle in his body tensed at the hurt in those words, at the fact that someone had taken this beautiful woman and been so careless. He wanted them to hurt just as much, if not more, to destroy them.
“It’s hard to see the truth while you’re stuck in the cycle.” Drennan gazed at something over his shoulder, not really seeing him. “You’re attached to people who have been distant with you. You’re paying attention to people who ignore you. You make time for people who are too busy for you. You care about people who don’t remember that you exist unless they need something. And even when you do whatever is asked of you, it’s not enough. It’s never enough, and it doesn’t change anything. Years of wanting them to just…see you. Acknowledge that you’re just as important to them as they are to you. You get your hopes up at the smallest hint of affection one minute, but then it’s ripped right out from under you the next. Every time it breaks off something inside of you. Until there’s nothing left. I was dying, and I didn’t even know it. So I left.”
