Couldn’t get a full breath.
The things he’d said to Drennan. The accusations he’d made…
Hell. Harvey closed his eyes mere seconds after she’d slammed the door into the wall. Shame unlike anything he’d experienced before burned beneath his skin. That familiar numbness had infiltrated his chest and refused to get out. It was a heavy feeling and he didn’t have any desire to speak or move. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep, because the process of breaking was exhausting. He’d tried to make the past few minutes justifiable, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t connect to that part of him he’d created to survive the worst.
Drennan had eviscerated it in a matter of days.
And that…scared the hell out of him.
The detachment wouldn’t come as easily as it had in years past, and a sense of panic swirled up in its place. It was suffocating and dark and gut-clenching all at once. It closed in on him until he couldn’t remember to breathe. Harvey fisted his hands at his sides, reaching for some tendril of control, but all he could think of was the utter devastation on her beautiful face.
Devastation he’d put there.
Because she was right. He was a coward.
He’d spent years not wanting a damn thing except to get through the day and the one after that, relying on his pain todrive his choices, counting on someone—anyone—to tell him what to do from one minute to the next. It was easier to live as a shell and isolate himself than to face the fact he might make a wrong choice. That he could put someone he cared about in danger just by being around him.
But Drennan had seen past that. She’d made him feel. She’d made him want. She was…everything. And he couldn’t reach for that numbness because she’d made him feel everything for the first time in years. He couldn’t go back. He felt her loss, an aching hollow sensation that threatened to bring him to his knees.
Then more.
The grief he hadn’t let himself acknowledge when he got the news his mom had passed, a thing of its own that was heavy and full of rage. All the disappointment and heartache every time his father put his hands on him in anger, colder than he expected. The stab in his chest at the words he’d thrown in Drennan’s face, burning and twisting.
He’d made this choice.
He’d made every choice that had brought him to this room, just as Drennan had said—not being able to distance himself, dreaming of a life that included her and the baby, hoping—and it was all going to destroy him from the inside out. She’d had every right to walk out on him, but Drennan would never hate him as much as he hated himself right then. But what was worse? The way he’d thrown her past in her face. Because she was right about that, too. She’d trusted him with one of her deepest fears, and he’d used it against her. He’d become his father in the worst way. Using someone’s—a person he cared about—weakness against them to get what he wanted. To push Drennan away so thoroughly that there would be no going back, and it made him feel sick. No matter how many times he managed to apologizefor that—if she let him get close enough to try—it would never be enough.
And he would have to live with that for the rest of his life.
He did this. He’d broken them and any kind of future he’d imagined between them, tried to break her. This caring, dedicated, strong woman who’d shown him the real meaning of healing. Harvey scrubbed his hands down his face. He needed to find her. Not for a second chance but to take back everything he’d said about her.
Because he knew she hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose. He knew she’d never use her experience with emotional abuse on anyone else for fear of them hurting themselves or others. And he knew he’d never deserved her. Never deserved a family of his own, to be happy. Hadn’t his dad warned him a thousand times? That he was nothing and would always amount to nothing without his old man there to take care of their family.
Well, his dad had been right about that. At the first chance of making a different choice, Harvey had clung to that familiar misery because he could anticipate what happened next. He knew how his story would play out, but with Drennan? There had been too many variables and unknowns he couldn’t see, even when he’d known it had to be better than his self-imposed suffering. Because she would’ve gladly been there.
If he’d just given her the chance.
But she didn’t want him anywhere near her or their baby, and he’d never hold that choice against her. He’d do what he could to support her from afar, whether she knew that support came from him or not. Send checks in the mail, drop off diapers and wipes and formula if she needed, ask his fellow rangers to help out so she could take a shower or a nap. Hell, he’d willingly learn how to knit or crochet a baby blanket if that was what she required.
Because Drennan deserved better. She deserved the world for how hard she’d fought to get the family she wanted.
Harvey peeled his eyes open, and the storm cycloning through him stilled. And took the air from his chest. The photos left on the counter pierced through the thick wall of shame and guilt crushing him in time to his racing pulse. He took one step closer, then another, his feet heavy as lead. Or maybe gravity had decided to kick his ass for what he’d done, too. He didn’t care.
The gray and white patches on the dark background didn’t mean a whole lot to him on the screen, but now, there were words on the photos marking exactly where the baby was growing. Their baby. Spindly limbs shot straight out from the middle of the gray-and-white outline, with another set coming out from the narrower end. Despite the mere eight weeks it’d been since that night in the bar, the baby’s head had developed significantly, much larger than he’d expected. Echoes of that flutter—too fast and so loud—sounded in his head as he studied where he thought the heart might be.
It was a baby. His baby.
The rage he held on to for himself slowly lost its hold as he memorized the first photo. Harvey was careful as he peeled the line of photos off the cart. The paper was thinner than he expected—fragile—and he didn’t want to do anything that might tear or damage it. Drennan would want them. Considering their conversation and the way he’d treated her, he imagined she’d left them behind by accident.
Logically, he’d known Drennan had been telling the truth about the pregnancy, but this… This made it real. He was going to be a father. His breath rushed out of him, eyes burning just for a second before he got himself under control. How the hell had he convinced himself he didn’t want to be a part of this?
An ache set up in his shoulders. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there or if the nurses in the corridor had called security toescort him out of the clinic. Hell, he wasn’t even sure how long it’d been since Drennan had walked out, but he couldn’t stay here. He’d driven Drennan to the clinic, and leaving her in the parking lot wasn’t an option.
Folding the thin paper in thirds, each photo stacking on top of the other, he slipped the sonogram into his back pocket and headed for the cracked doorway. The nurses at the station outside the room eyed him with expressions of sadness and disbelief. All of which he’d earned. “Did you see where Dr. Hawes went?”
None of them answered, getting back to whatever clipboards and charts that needed to be filled out. Their collective anger pulsed against him, and he would take it. There was no doubt they’d heard every word—every accusation—he’d slung at Drennan, but he didn’t have the energy to give it much thought. His father would’ve lashed out, embarrassed by the negative attention, but he was not his father.
A flood of something swept through him.
