Page 38 of Before You Can Blink
Clearing my throat wasn’t enough to keep my words from coming out rough. “I’m a lot of things—too many to name—but I can honestly say I’m not angry. Certainly not with you. And as you pointed out, the odds were against it, but somehow, it happened anyway.”
Slowly—so fucking slowly—it began to sink in that I was going to become someone’s father. The thought scared the living daylights out of me because I didn’t know how to be nurturing or patient, and as of right now, I was out of a job. By all rights, I had no business starting a family I couldn’t support financially.
That poor kid had pulled the short straw, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it now.
I extended my arm toward her. “Daze, honey, come back over here.” When she hesitated, I begged softly, “Please.”
Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she blinked furiously while brushing the tears away from her face. Then her chest lifted on a deep inhale, and she lowered her gaze to meet mine as she crossed the room, perching on the edge of the bed.
I grasped her hand, running my thumb over her engagement and wedding rings. “A baby, huh?” God, that was strange to say out loud, knowing it wasn’t just any baby; it wasmybaby.
She brought our clasped hands to rest over her still-soft belly. Nodding, she whispered, “Yeah, and if it’s all right with you, I’d really like its father to live long enough to see it born.”
Guilt slammed into my chest with the force of a sledgehammer. And suddenly, the realization hit me that if my fall had been worse, I’d have left Daisy with nothing more than the baby I’d put in her belly. At least when my pop had passed, there had been life insurance money to secure a future for my ma, for me until I turned eighteen. I had nothing set up for the future because I couldn’t see past the next rodeo, the next win.
The news that I was going to become a father created a seismic shift, forcing my priorities to change in an instant.
No longer could I allow my ambitions to be my driving force.
My wife and child deserved to be put first, and that’s what I was going to do.
September
The heavy-duty pain meds usually knocked me out so that I slept like the dead, but the sudden dip of the mattress and bare feet slapping against the hardwood had me stirring from my dreamless slumber. Then, violent retching reached my ears, and my eyes snapped open.
Fuck. Daisy.
Rolling out of bed, I groaned when the motion pulled at my bad shoulder. I shuffled toward the bathroom, and my heart about damn near broke at the sight of my wife hunched over the toilet, her entire body trembling as she heaved the contents of her stomach into the porcelain bowl.
Snatching up a clip left near the sink, I made a weak attempt at pulling the hair away from her face one-handed and securing as much as I could atop her head.
My wife let out a low moan between bouts of vomiting. “You’re hurt. Go back to bed.”
Yeah, no way in hell that was happening.
Pressing my back to the wall, I slid down it, barely suppressing a pained grunt when my ass landed on the tiled floor, sending a shockwave through my injured chest.
“Even if I could sleep with all the noise, darlin’, I wouldn’t want to. We’re in this together, even if I’m forced to watch on from the sidelines for the next few months while you’re forced to carry the brunt of the burden.”
Spitting into the toilet, Daisy draped an arm over the seat, her head lolling onto her shoulder, almost as if she didn’t have the strength to move. And from the looks of her, she didn’t. My girl’s skin was pale, coated in a thin sheen of sweat, and her usually bright eyes were dull and unfocused.
“Honey, you can’t go to school tomorrow.”
A deep sigh echoed in the small space. “The world doesn’t stop because I have morning sickness, and I can’t afford to take days off right now. Not with only one of us bringing home a paycheck.”
She hadn’t meant it as a dig, but it cut deep just the same. Even if I hadn’t told her of my plans to hang up my spurs and quit competing, I’d already made that decision. But banged up as I was right now, no one was going to give me a job. Regardless, I needed to figure something out and quick. It didn’t sit right with me that she was pregnant and working while I sat at home licking my wounds—literally.
A man was supposed to provide for his family, and come morning, I was going to set to work figuring out exactly how I was going to make that possible.
“Thanks for coming to pick me up. Those four walls were starting to close in on me.”
Wade hummed from the driver’s seat. “Surprised it took you this long to call me up. Figured you would have gone stir crazy as soon as school started, and your hot nurse abandoned you to wrangle ankle-biters all day.”
Without conscious thought, I snapped, “Watch your mouth when you’re talking about my pregnant wife.”
The car came to a screeching halt in the middle of the empty country road, and my best friend turned to me, eyes wide, a look of pure shock etched across his face. “Did you saypregnant?”
My good arm lifted, and I gripped the back of my neck. “Yeah.”
