“All right.” He scanned her face from forehead to chin. Looking for the lie? Unfortunately for him, he wouldn’t find one. “And you’re positive the baby is mine?”
“You’re the only…” She cleared her throat, focusing on the impossibly tall cliffs that seemed to blend right in with the clouds. Every second that body waited in the back of the van to be transported to Dr. Yarrow was another second the evidence could be compromised, but this… This felt more important. Like she was standing on the edge of one of those cliffs, and Harvey was the only one who could save her. She could fall alone, or he could pull her back. She had no idea what to do with a baby. She’d only taken a semester of obstetrics, and most of her work with pregnant mothers in the ER was referred to the maternity ward. She understood the basics of pregnancy and childbirth, of course. But what would happen after she took her baby home from the hospital?
Real fear simmered under her skin. How was she supposed to work and care for the baby at the same time? Where was the baby supposed to sleep in her one-bedroom apartment? What all did a baby need to survive? Would she and Harvey share custody or would he expect her to move in with him after she delivered? Question after question with no end in sight.
Sweat that had nothing to do with the midday temperature slicked the back of her neck. She…she couldn’t do this on her own. “There isn’t anyone else it could be.”
Harvey slid both hands into his uniform slacks and broke his gaze off from hers. A hardness that hadn’t been there a moment ago edged into his jaw. “Then what is it you want from me? Money?”
Her lips parted with an answer, but she didn’t have one. Was that what he thought of her? That she’d told him for a payout? A sinking feeling crushed the last bit of nausea, intensifying the heaviness in her limbs, and she felt as though she really was standing on the edge of that cliff. Reaching for him and meeting nothing but air. And a small part of her that’d hoped for a different reaction—the part she’d clung to since seeing those two pink lines—died.
Her job as an assistant medical examiner didn’t pay much—no government job did—but she’d been smart with her salary in her former life. She didn’t need to work for a few years, but starting fresh here had meant using her skills and ridiculously expensive education for something new. Continuing to help people, providing answers and closure to the families she worked with. Drennan shook her head. “No. I just…thought you deserved to know. It’s your baby, too. I think you should have a say in how he or she is raised.”
Harvey scrubbed a hand down his face. “So you’re keeping it?”
The thought of not seeing this pregnancy through hadn’t even crossed her mind. From the moment she’d read that first pregnancy test—and the five after—she’d known her decision. There wasn’t anything more important to Drennan than the family she’d had once upon a time—before everything had changed—and if there was even an ounce of the love she’d felt as a kid she could give to this child, she would do everythingin her power to make it happen. A surge of defensiveness arced through her. “Yes.”
“All right. I’ll help. Clothes, college, braces, even your doctor appointments, I’ll support him or her. If you want me to pay child support and have a lawyer draft up an agreement, I’ll sign it, but I think I need to make something clear, Drennan. I’m not interested in being a father.” Harvey stepped into her, close enough to touch, and lowered his voice before maneuvering around her to the front of the van and toward the visitor’s center. “When it comes to raising this baby, you’re on your own.”
Chapter Four
He wanted to kick his own ass.
Harvey set sights on his SUV parked across the lot of the visitor’s center and headed toward. His shift had ended nearly two hours ago, and he was working off less than a handful of hours of sleep. The estate lawyer just wouldn’t give up. Calls, messages, voicemails, letters. He didn’t want any of it.
He didn’t want a damn thing from his father.
Every decision he’d made over the past twenty years had been in exact opposition to the son of a bitch who’d claimed to raise him, but even in death, his father was going out of his way to make Harvey’s life hell. The military had given him an out, but twenty years hadn’t provided nearly enough distance between them. Then the bastard had to go and die from a stroke and leave him everything. Life insurance policy, checking and savings accounts, the house… What had been going through his father’s head when he’d signed his will and trust, Harvey didn’t know. They hadn’t talked in decades. Just how Harvey had liked it after everything that man had put him and his mom through. The abuse had killed her in the end. Not all at once, but a slow draining Harvey had never been able to put a stop to, and he wouldn’t accept a penny or sign a single document admitting he was his father’s son. No matter how many times the estate lawyer tried to convince him otherwise. Everything he’d done had been to ensure he never ended up like that man. Miserable. Angry. Strung out and blaming his problems on anyone but himself. Harvey wasn’t going to be that person.
Except he’d just offered to financially support his and Drennan’s kid. And while his biweekly National Park Service paycheck covered rent, food and transportation, it wouldn’t stretch as far with a baby in the picture.
Hell. He could’ve handled her news better. Should’ve taken the time she’d offered for him to get his head straight. To explain. A baby. He was going to be a father whether he was involved or not, and the shot of terror he couldn’t swallow since she’d given him the news doubled.
Harvey added more weight to his opposite leg, but there was nothing that would relieve that pain until he got off his feet, popped a few ibuprofen and iced his knee until his next shift tomorrow morning. Switching his water bottle from one hand to the other, he attempted to balance his weight, but it wouldn’t do any good. Never did. The army had spit him out without an option to re-up thanks to the piece of shrapnel lodged under his kneecap, and he’d decided the best choice to prove them wrong was hiking up and down these cliffs all damn day. Seemed he had a knack for making stupid decisions.
Screeching tires peeled through the parking lot. He caught sight of the plain white van he’d helped load a body into skidding to a halt. The driver’s side door shot open, and Harvey abandoned his escape.
Drennan scrambled from the driver’s seat and doubled over, hands pressed against the van’s panels as she heaved.
Harvey was already moving across the parking lot toward her, a knot of something he didn’t recognize squeezing his chest. Pain flooded from his knee into his upper thigh as he picked up the pace, holding him back from an all-out sprint to get to her. “Drennan?”
She flung a hand out. “I’m fine. Just stay back. You don’t… You don’t want to see this.”
Her hair fell over her shoulder as she heaved again. The water she’d gulped after their descent from Emerald Pools splashed across his boots. Harvey gathered her hair back out of the way and set his free hand along her spine. His stomach convulsed at the thought of her so miserable in this heat. “Believe me, I’ve seen worse.”
Her shallow exhales caused her back to arch against his hand, and he started soothing circles into her skin. Nothing but a distraction she needed to breathe through the nausea. It helped sometimes. He’d seen enough soldiers lose their breakfasts, lunches and dinners from the crap they’d had to face overseas on the front lines in Afghanistan. Bodily fluids hardly scared him.
Drennan swiped at her mouth but didn’t move to straighten. Waiting for the next wave? “You’re right. Pulling a body from the pond this morning is worse. You win.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about that.” He couldn’t stop the laugh escaping his chest. Even in the face of one of the most uncomfortable situations, she managed to shift his mood. But hadn’t that been why he’d approached her in that bar in the first place? She’d smiled at him from her single table with a beer in hand, and all that rage and betrayal he’d held on to since the funeral disappeared. Instant magic. It hadn’t taken much to convince himself to chase that feeling straight into his bed, and hell, she’d done an amazing job in helping him pretend the world could stop turning.
“You’ve seen worse than a dead body?” Drennan shifted away from the fluid inching into the cracks of the broken asphalt.
“I was military. Infantry. You see a lot of stuff you never thought you’d be able to stomach on the front lines.” But he didn’t want to think about any of that. “Are you sick, or is this…”
“Morning sickness?” She faced him then, tugging her hair free of his hand, a little paler than when he’d told her he wouldn’t help her raise this baby a few minutes ago. Despite thecircumstances, she couldn’t even bother to look anything short of beautiful with all those sharp features, an inner glow and a few shards of hazel in her green eyes. Otherworldly and powerful as she’d been the night they’d met. She closed her eyes, her shoulders rising on a deep inhale. “Sure. You could say that. Except it’s almost lunchtime, and the body I have stashed in the back of the van is starting to smell of algae and decomposition in this heat.”
His cringe filtered into his expression. He didn’t know a whole lot about pregnancy short of what his mother had told him of his birth story and the cravings she experienced while she was pregnant. Everything else in that arena he’d picked up in health class or by experimenting with girlfriends. His dad certainly hadn’t given him any of those talks other than threats if Harvey had ever got a girl knocked up. Funny how the old man’s death had led to just that. “Anything help?”
