“Come on, lie back.” He encourages her against the throw pillows, pulling a chair up beside the sofa.
“It’s fine, right?” she asks, knowing anything he says will be a lie.
“It’s fine. A little rest and you’ll be right as rain again.”
She offers him a half smile at hearing her own line. “You’re such a bad liar.”
“I might be better than you think.”
“What do you…Oh…that’s not, I just—”
“Easy, squeeze my hand if you need to.”
And so she does, digging her fingernails into his skin as her muscles contract in ways they aren’t supposed to just yet.
He can only hope it’ll pass soon and prove to be a one-off situation that has no bearing on the baby whatsoever.
He refuses to entertain the idea of any other outcome.
Chapter 13
Everything is fine.
This is normal.
Addison won’t assume the worst when there’s not a damn thing she can do about it either way. At least that’s what she tells herself in between cramps until the pain gets too awful to bear. Then, she allows all those fears she refused to entertain creep to the forefront of her mind again.
Wyatt hurls questions at her as if she has answers, but she’s too busy writhing to give them much thought.
He doesn’t hesitate to scoop Addison off the floor. The fact that she has no energy to protest is telling in itself.
After he’s deposited her onto his bed, she reaches for him. It’s a habit to deal with pain alone. Ignore it, fix herself up, pretend it’s not happening. Anything to avoid showing weakness. This time, she only wants to be closer to him. He’s safety and security all wrapped up in the same package, the only person she wants by her side when she’s hurting.
“Tell me what’s happening?” he says, dipping the bed with his weight. “Did you hurt like this with Emma? You said you had cramps then, too. Did you see someone for it then?”
She frowns, trying to call up those memories. “To be honest, I can’t remember if it was this bad or not. The only medical care I had was from the midwives, which is fine for a birth and lessfine for complications prior. It was the only care the community believed in.”
“And it’s too soon to have felt the baby move at all yet?”
She nods with a sniffle. This baby is so new that it’s barely there at all.
She’s had nightmares about this more than once. Kept telling herself it’s an overactive imagination and stress combined to form a rolling snowball of anxiety, but now it’s hard to ignore.
They have few options, and that reality has her latching onto the only thing they can do. “You have to get the ultrasound machine.”
He shakes his head, horrified at her request. “I can’t leave you like this. What would we even do with the information we get from it? What you need is a real doctor.”
She grips his arm in a tight squeeze as another cramp rolls through her. “Please. It’s not far. I need to see. It might not be too soon for a heartbeat.”
It isn’t the most rational thing she’s ever asked for, but at the moment, it’s the only thing she can latch onto.
The hope of a doctor is slim.
The machine isright there.
He’s as torn as she’s ever seen him, and she expects he’ll protest again and make her beg, but he surprises her with a solemn nod of agreement.
“Take Emma with you?”
