The nurses at the front desk welcomed Drennan with a smile while side-eyeing him at the same time. Couldn’t blame them. The last two times he’d been here, he’d nearly brought the entire building down with his demands for them to prioritize Drennan. It’d been selfish considering all the people—young, old and somewhere in the middle—waiting their turn, but he didn’t regret a single moment. He hadn’t lied to her before. She was important. Maybe the most important person in his life.
Another shard of ice cracked from inside his chest, breaking off into nothingness as though it’d never existed. That…that wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to be important. He wasn’t supposed to want more of her in his life. Harvey stilled as a nurse led Drennan back into the corridor with private rooms branching off each side.
She turned toward him with a smile. “They’re ready for us.”
“You go on. You don’t want me in there.” His voice remained steady despite the storm building inside. Harvey flexed bothhands at his sides, trying to get the feeling back into them. “I’ll wait.”
“I thought you wanted to make sure the baby was okay.” The divots between her brows deepened as she studied him. He did, and he wanted nothing more than her to have this. The experience of hearing the baby’s heartbeat after everything she’d been through in those woods. Of seeing their child on the ultrasound screen, healthy and unharmed. It wouldn’t relieve all the anxiety and stress she held on to, but it would go a long way to ensuring she had a healthy pregnancy, and Drennan deserved his support. She closed the distance between them, lowering her voice. “I know this probably isn’t how you imagined our situation going, but I’m not sure I can do this on my own. Please.”
Oh, hell. Blood drained from his face. She was scared of getting bad news. Of being alone when it happened. And he’d… Damn it. He was being a selfish bastard. Harvey nodded. More to himself than her. “Yeah. Of course.”
He kept to her side as they followed on the nurse’s heels. Drennan stepped on a scale outside of another nurses’ station and was led into one of the private rooms where the nurse took her blood pressure and monitored her oxygen levels. “Is this all normal?”
“Yep. We just want to make sure Mom is taking care of herself before we check on baby.” The nurse rolled around on her stool, peeling the blood pressure cuff from Drennan’s arm before leading her to the exam table. “It’s all routine. Nothing to worry about, Daddy.”
Daddy. He was going to be a dad in seven months, whether he wanted this or not. A tingling set up in his fingers as he clutched on to the chair arms.
“Go ahead and lay back, Mom. Pull up your shirt and unbutton your pants.” The nurse grabbed a condiment bottlewith a long nozzle from the cart holding the ultrasound equipment. “Don’t want to get any of the jelly on your clothes. It’s gonna be a little cold at first.”
Drennan followed instructions as though she’d done this a thousand times before. As a physician, he imagined she’d seen it done many times, but living it and observing it were two different things. Her fingers shook as she tried to unbutton her slacks. She was still nervous, and Harvey’s instincts kicked in.
“I got it.” Shooting to his feet, he set his hand over both of hers and made quick work of the button and zipper before interlacing one hand into hers. The act itself didn’t even come close to what they’d shared in making this baby, but the floor threatened to sweep out from under him, anyway.
“All right. Let’s see how baby is doing.” The nurse took up her rolling stool and detached a wand-looking device from the cart. She pressed it larger side down onto Drennan’s stomach, then smoothed it over the jelly.
A rapidthud thud thudfilled the room. Fast and almost out of control. Drennan’s hand squeezed around his and refused to let go.
“There’s baby’s heartbeat.” The nurse shifted the device around. “Nice and strong.”
“That’s good.” Tangible relief drained from Drennan’s shoulders as she stared at the monitor. She collapsed back against the exam table, her free hand pressed to her forehead. The tears she’d held in earlier escaped down the sides of her face, and he couldn’t help but try to catch them before they made it to her hair.
“Strong heartbeat.” He didn’t know what else to say that might keep her concern at bay.
“Yeah.” She swiped at her face and sat up again. “I’m so glad.”
He couldn’t make anything out but a bunch of gray and white clouds across the black background, but then… There it was.The thud matched up with a flutter on the screen, and Harvey’s chest nearly exploded from holding his breath. An outline materialized with another shift of the ultrasound wand. Baby-shaped and very real.
Their baby.
His baby.
“I’ve spent so long dreaming of this moment.” A smile broke across Drennan’s face as she stared at the monitor then turned her attention to him. “Thank you.”
The tingling flared from his fingers into his arms and then his chest. It woke that monster living in his blood like a predator latching on to the scent of its prey, and Harvey felt his body temperature drop. He hadn’t heard her right. “What did you just say?”
“Harvey?” Drennan’s voice failed to bring the peace it usually did as he dropped her hand. As though she’d burned him. Or trapped him. “Are you okay?”
The tingling contorted into something dark and heavy. Full of rage and unpredictability. The trauma she’d suffered, the grief, the neglect, the outright hatred from her one surviving parent. The loss of her father and how she clung to those memories of their happy little family… Understanding struck. Her leveled reaction to getting pregnant, her asking him to be involved, her lack of any real relationships other than with her doctor friend and her boss. She’d…she’d played him from the beginning. His voice didn’t sound like his own as he spoke and his heart rate catapulted into dangerous levels. “You got pregnant on purpose.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
She’d expected this moment
She just hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.
The nurse sat the ultrasound wand on the cart for cleaning and hit a couple buttons on the screen. Grabbing for a warm towel, she wiped it across Drennan’s stomach to clean away the conductive jelly. “I’m going to print off a couple sonographs for you and give you two a few minutes of privacy.”
Drennan couldn’t feel her body apart from the cold sensation tightening the skin across her stomach. She registered the nurse leaving a strip of thin paper showing their baby on the counter and the door closing behind her, but nothing else would stay in focus. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth, a thousand different emotions clogging her throat. The first of which was a strong dose of disbelief. Followed closely by unfiltered anger.
