He stared at her, his big brain clearly not processing that.
“The one the dog had last night.” She closed her eyes. “It… wasn’t an evaporation line.”
“You’re pregnant?” There was only the faintest rising of his tone, which, in Cash-speak, was pure shock.
Hadley nodded, struggling to hold back the flood of tears that wanted to fall. She had no doubt there’d be many, but she needed to get through this first.
Bracing herself, she met his gaze head-on. “I didn’t do this on purpose.” It seemed absolutely vital to establish that, as they both knew women around them where they grew up who’d done that.
“I know you didn’t.” The absolute certainty in the statement had some of the knots in her stomach unraveling.
Moving slowly, as if he thought she might spook, he closed the distance between them, gripping the arms of the chair to pull it over to the bed. Then he sat and gently pried one of her hands free to fold into his. That simple gesture all but undid her because he wasn’t pushing her away.
“Okay. How do you want to handle it?”
She blinked at him. “You’re not going to make declarations?”
“No.” His tone was low and soft, and she had the impression he was treating her like a bomb that could go off at any moment. It wasn’t an inaccurate comparison. “I can express my opinion, but it’s your body, your choice. I’d rather know how you feel about it before I get into my thoughts.”
“I don’t even know how I feel. I swore I’d never let this happen again.”
He was good at shielding his emotions, but not good enough to cover the tremor that went through him at the statement. “Again?”
This was the part she feared the most. Admitting her truth and not knowing how he’d react. Swallowing hard, she curled tighter against her knees.
“After Holt went into the Army and I was out on my own, I got involved with this guy. I was careful. He… was not. When I turned up pregnant, he bailed. There was a part of me that was glad of that, because I knew getting married because of a baby was a terrible idea. That was how it started with my parents before my dad walked. Better he show his true colors before going down that path.” She sucked in a breath, wishing it did anything to calm her.
“I knew what it was to be raised by a single parent who couldn’t hack it. I was eighteen. No education yet. No career. I was barely supporting myself. I sure couldn’t support a child. I had no one. Holt had only just gotten free of raising me, and I wasn’t about to ask him to help again. Plus, I’m pretty sure he’d have killed the guy. Add to that, I kept thinking of you.”
“Me?”
“I had a front-row seat to how awful it was on you to be raised by a mother who resented you, who wasn’t ready to be a parent, who didn’t want you and took every opportunity to say so. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want that child. Didn’t want a permanent tie with a guy who wasn’t going to stand by me. There was no reason to expect he’d somehow come back and stand by the child, either. So I got an abortion.”
Back then, it hadn’t even been a question. There was no other rational alternative. “I’m so fucking thankful that I had the privilege of that. That I lived in a state where it wasn’t a question. Where I didn’t have to give up my life because of a mistake. A lot of women aren’t that lucky. You and I both know that the people behind those rules don’t give a good damn about the life of a child once it exits the womb. They don’t understand the reality of that hypothetical life. We do because we lived it.”
Hadley straightened her shoulders, feeling some defiance in the face of his absolutely unchanged expression. “We lived it,” she repeated. “And because we did, I got an abortion. I’ve never regretted it.”
She sat back in the chair, extracting her hand from his as she waited on the backlash for having made that decision, bracing herself for the judgment so many freely gave without knowing anything. It was why she’d never told a soul what she’d done. But now she’d told the man she loved. Her truth was out there, a bomb lying between them. And she was bracing herself for the detonation that would mean the end of them.