Page 14 of Saved by Him

“To think about yourwifebeingpregnantwith yourchild!” I barely managed to keep from shouting. “Anyone would need some time to process that.”

Clay shook his head. “She’s just looking for excuses to get out.”

“I’m not,” I hissed at him. “I don’t want to ‘get out’ of this thing with Jalen.”

“’This thing’?” he echoed. “Is that all we are to each other?”

“Go away!” I clapped my hands over my mouth as soon as I shouted the words.

I stared at the door as sickly yellows and greens swirled around my head. It’d only been two words, and I hadn’t screamed them. Maybe no one heard. Maybe they’d forgive me because I’d been so good. I hadn’t tried to run away or fight since years ago. Or hours. I still didn’t know.

My churning stomach calmed as the door stayed shut. That was good. I didn’t want to throw up. I’d already drunk all my water, and I didn’t have a place to rinse my mouth out. No bathroom at all. Not even a bucket.

I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t want to think about that.

“Of course you don’t,” Clay said. “You never want to think about the unpleasant things. It’s easier to just pretend everything’s fine and then run away when it gets hard.”

“I didn’t run away.”

“You sabotaged your FBI career before it even really began,” he pointed out. “You kept your shirt on when we had sex because you didn’t want me to see your scar, and I knew the second I pushed you on the subject, you’d be out the door.”

I wanted to tell him that wasn’t true, but I knew it was. I pressed my face against my knees and covered my ears. I didn’t want to talk to Clay anymore. I just wanted to drift on the colors and not have to think.

“I love this time of day,” Jalen said as he slipped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me tight against his side. “Not quite afternoon, not quite evening. It’s the sort of time that makes me feel like anything’s possible.”

“Anything is possible,” I reminded him. I ran my hand over my stomach, smoothing down the soft cotton of my maternity shirt.

It seemed like I’d gone from a slight little bump to showing almost overnight. In no time at all, our little one would be here, and we hadn’t even begun discussing names.

“What do you think of the name Dana?” I asked. “If it’s a girl, I think we should name her Dana, after my mother.”

“You want to name our child after a woman who was murdered?” Jalen asked.

I pretended his comment didn’t hurt. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She should have left your father the first time she saw that the accident changed him.”

I wanted to argue with him, but I’d said those words too. The first year after…ithappened, I’d blamed her. I’d screamed those words at Anton dozens of times those first couple years. The bitterness would have eaten away at me if Anton hadn’t told me that it was okay to be angry. That adults made mistakes, that they didn’t know everything. He told me that if my mother had known what my father would do, she would’ve made different choices.

I still struggled with anger for years after that, but the bitterness was gone. I could love my mom again even as I acknowledged how different things would have been if she’d made different choices.

I mustered a smile for Jalen and tried again. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “Let’s just call her Denise.”

I frowned. “That’s the name of your other daughter.”

“I know,” he said. “It’ll just make things easier for me, not having to remember two names.”

A cramp in my leg yanked me out of the nightmare, but it was too late. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I scrubbed at them, knowing I was just making things worse. I was filthy, disgusting, and it was no wonder that no one had come for me. No one wanted me badly enough to come.

Dimly, I wondered if the drugs they were giving me were affecting my mood as much as my thoughts, but I couldn’t hold on to the idea long enough to really think about it. Instead, my mind latched onto something else, and I gratefully followed.

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