Page 83 of What Doesn't Kill Her

“How could you feel guilty?”

“I was upset with you. I ran away rather than be mature and discuss our problems. Thenhefound me and shot me.”

Max came to his feet. He ran hand over his face as if trying to create an expression of understanding. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t know your whole story, but it was clear you’d been hurt in a relationship. Hurt...physically. Hurt in every way possible.”

“Yes,” she said faintly. “An abusive relationship...”

“I got that figured out. When we met, when you saved Annabella from that bastard who is her father, you had scars. Burn marks. There had been broken bones. You were still in the process of healing physically and mentally. So after we got together, you were jumpy. Something happened...” He trailed off.

She didn’t fill in the blank. Even now, she was a little shocked, a little angry that he had snooped into her private papers. He read her cousin Kellen’s résumé and believed it was hers.

He continued, “And you got scared and upset, and you ran. No guilt.”

Shocked and angry didn’t change the facts, and she took responsibility for her actions. “Running away was thoughtless and led to disaster.”

“You might as well blame my sister for marrying the bastard who tried to kidnap their child.” He shook his head. “There’s too many threads here. I can’t even begin to process the idea of your guilt.”

Hostility rose in her. “Nevertheless, I feel guilt.”

“Okay. Fine. My sisters say women are allowed to feel what they feel and men should shut up about how feeling that way is stupid because men are a bunch of insensitive beasts.”

“That’s what your sisters say?”

“When you strip away all the tact and rhetoric, yes.”

Kellen relaxed, laughed again and held her stitches. “I feel guilty that I don’t remember Rae’s birth.”

“All right.All right.Look. You were shot in the head at close range.” He came to her side and lifted her bangs and smoothed the red ring of scar as if he’d done it many times before. “You were in the hospital. You weren’t expected to live. No one could figure out how you were alive at all. But you were so strong. Annabella told me she could feel your spirit fighting to survive. I don’t know. Probably she said that because I sat there for so many hours by your side because I—” he looked directly at her “—I felt guilty.”

“Why?”

“I made you run away. I didn’t run fast enough to save you before that bullet...” He faltered.

She took his hand. “You didn’t make me run away. I ran because, when I was presented with a problem, that was what I did...then. It’s different now. If there’s one thing I learned in the Army, it’s that no one can outrun a bullet.”

“So I shouldn’t feel guilty?”

“No, please continue. It’s nice to have company in Guiltyville. When did you realize I was pregnant?”

He tensed again. “Not for a damned long time. You were being fed and given fluids intravenously, and your body was under huge stress as you went from trauma to a desperate bid to repair the damage. The doctors were amazed that, first, you lived, then that you seemed to be...not recovering, exactly, but that your brain seemed to be creating new circuits, going around the damaged areas. The medical team said they’d never seen anything like it. They were so focused on your head, and it never occurred to me it was possible for you to be pregnant. You had told me—”

“—that I couldn’t have a baby. I didn’t think I could. I lost a baby. My husband’s child.” She carefully phrased her next words. “The miscarriage occurred in difficult circumstances.”

“What did your husband do to you?”

So it didn’t matter how careful she was. Max understood that Gregory was at fault. “He pushed me down the stairs.” Kellen said it without flinching or crying for the loss of her baby. Maybe she’d already cried all those tears. “The doctor told me I couldn’t get pregnant again. But he was a small town doctor. He didn’t do any tests, so I guess maybe—”

“He wasn’t right? Obviously not. What did he say about your bruises and burns and broken bones?”

“Nothing to me. If he had the nerve to say anything to Gregory, I imagine he was told to mind his own business.” She thought back. “In fact, that was the last time I saw that doctor.”

Max watched her; just watched her.

“I’m fine now,” she assured him. “I can take care of myself. No one’s ever going to hurt me again.”

Still, Max watched, as if he wanted to burrow into her mind and understand her past and all the moments that had formed her.

She prompted him, “How did you discover I was pregnant with Rae?”

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