Page 59 of Pregnant After One Forbidden Night

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SEBASTIANASKEDNO questions as he drove. Or maybe he did, and she just hadn’t heard them.

Either way, when they parked, and he opened her door, she realized the journey from Redcliff to her doctor’s office had passed by in a vague blur, the colors seeping and bleeding together, aided in their distortion by the fall of rain.

She was glad it was raining.

Her mother had had a miscarriage. She remembered it.

The very late pregnancy had been an exciting surprise to the whole family.

At six, Jenna had been so excited to pass on the baton of being the baby of the family.

She had already filled two boxes of arts and crafts for the new baby when it had happened.

Her mother had been so sad.

Jenna’s doctor had assured her that while miscarriage was relatively common in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, with the increased morning sickness she’d been experiencing and safely making it past her first trimester without any trouble, she likely didn’t have anything to worry about it.

A nurse ushered her into the back, asking Daddy to wait in the lobby while they took Mama’s vitals. If they had come by for a routine check-up, Jenna might have had time for the expression on Sebastian’s face as he memorized everything around them.

Emotions flashed across his countenance, but she didn’t pay attention.

“Here, love, you know the drill.” The nurse’s voice was soothing, calm and easy as she handed her the sample container as if emergencies like this happened all the time.

In Jenna’s line of work, she knew they did.

Just not to her.

She was the one who saved other people from emergencies. She was not the one who had them.

Except now she was the one sitting in a hospital gown on a table in a silent exam room.

Her heart stuttered.

And then Sebastian was there, his presence like a shadow in the room, and something in her felt marginally steadier.

Coming to stand beside her, he took her hand.

The doctor came into the room, stopping her where she was. “Well, Jenna,” she said, looking at the chart in her hands, “that entry was nearly as dramatic as when you came into the world bottom-first, but I—”

Dr. Milano, the grandparent-like figure that Jenna had never seen uncomfortable in her entire life, stopped talking upon noticing Sebastian glowering darkly at Jenna’s side.

At first, the doctor stared at him in mild wonder. Then she squared her shoulders and gave a glare of her own. “Glad to see this pregnancy isn’t some kind of miracle. You never know with a woman like Jenna.”

Jenna’s mouth dropped open. For good and ill, the staff at the country hospital that Jenna had grown up going to didn’t always maintain their professional distance. Only Dr. Milano’s breach of etiquette reminded her that this was Sebastian’s first time accompanying her to the office, though. He had missed the early appointments while she remained at her parents, and she had not yet transitioned to the more frequent visit schedule of later pregnancy.

For his part, Sebastian’s hand tightened around Jenna’s, but he sounded easy when he said, “Agreed.”

The response wasn’t what the doctor had expected and resulted in some wary eyeballing before she finally turned back to Jenna. “We’ll do an ultrasound, but it is just us being extra cautious. In my opinion, everything looks well within the realm of normal pregnancy bleeding. You’re still feeling terrible every morning?” the doctor concluded cheerfully with the question.

She nodded. “Like clockwork.”

“Excellent,” the doctor said. “That’s the best sign that everything’s still on track. Ready?”

Nodding, Jenna lay back on the table, positioning herself as she had the very first visit. This time, thankfully, she had progressed past the wand. She had become leagues more comfortable with Sebastian in the near month they’d lived together but hadn’t quite progressed to wanting him in the room during invasive medical procedures.

Sebastian positioned himself on the opposite side of the bed from the ultrasound machine and doctor, his entire posture thrumming with an intensity that had nothing to do with desire but was no less fierce for it.

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