Page 85 of Make Me Whole

After he left, I sat back down on my cot, assumed my standard position, and went a little crazy thinking about Sky until the corridor door opened and Al walked through it.

I immediately stood up. He looked tired and worried, but those were the expected emotions considering the situation.

My lips tugged sideways for the first time since entering Windy River last night. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself, criminal.”

I let out a mirthless chuckle. “How the hell did you get here? They said only lawyers could get in.”

“Nick. The guy is worth every penny.” He ran a hand through his hair and gave me a tired, unamused smile. “We posted your bail half an hour ago, and two minutes after they had taken our money, the sheriff informed Nick that the charges against you had been dropped.

“He was pissed, yelled a bunch, literally threw a book at the sheriff, and not only got the money back but also permission for me to come talk to you while he handles the paperwork.”

I shook my head, confused. “He threw a book?”

Al chuckled. “Yeah. I’ll tell you about it later. It’s a funny story, and I don’t want to ruin it by telling it now when I’m exhausted and in a shit mood.”

I nodded in agreement. I wasn’t in the mood for a funny story, either. There was more pressing information I needed.

“How’s Sky and the kids?” I asked, my voice tense and tired. “Nick told me you had a personal matter. Was it about them?”

Al sighed and looked down at his feet. Not a good reaction.

“Yeah, but Aiden is okay. He’s at Molly’s. I just talked to her, and she said that though he’s upset and scared, knowing you’ll be home soon calmed him a little.”

He’s with Molly? Why? He should be with Sky.

Fear gripped my insides. The last time that Eli had threatened me, Sky had pulled away to protect me and Aiden. If a threat had caused that reaction from her, I could only imagine what this arrest had done to her head and how hard she would push me away now. With all my heart, I hoped that we had made enough progress in our relationship for her to stay put in adversity, but I still had a bad feeling about this.

Heart pounding in my throat, I asked, “Why isn’t he with Sky? Are she and Ella okay?”

Al closed his eyes and pressed his teeth together, making the muscle on his jaw kick. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“The fuck we will. What happened to Sky and Ella?”

His chest waved with a few deep breaths. And that’s when it hit me. The charges had been dropped. The charges brought up against me by Eli. There was only one reason he would do such a thing.

My heart sank to my gut, and my blood felt like ice in my veins. “Tell me she didn’t go back tohimto get me out of here.”

Al was silent for what felt like forever, just rubbing his hands on the sides of his legs. Then, in the saddest tone I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth, he said, “I’m not sure that was the only reason, but yes.”

I think breathing would have been easier if he had sucker punched me. I took a couple of stumbling steps backward. “What other reason would she have?”

His face turned into a disgusted scowl. “Molly told me Sky is pregnant, so there’s that. She married the SOB when she got knocked up with Ella. If she just learned that she’s expecting his child—”

I stopped paying attention to what Al said after that because suddenly, everything made sense. Her mood swings. The puking. How sensitive her breasts had become. The way her life-changing surprise turned out to be a little too mundane after our conversation about children.

Sky wasn’t expecting his child. She was expecting mine.

The room spun around me. The air was too thick to fill my lungs. The news was too overwhelming to wrap my head around.

I had so many questions.How could she keep this a secret from me? How could she go back to Eli with our baby—my baby—growing in her belly? Did she plan to disappear from my life and never let me know I had another child? Did she really think I wouldn’t go after her when I found out?

“I need to get out of here and find hernow,”I practically barked at Al.

He looked at me as if I had grown a second head. “You’ll get out soon enough. Besides, I know you have taken to protecting Sky as a pet project, which I appreciate a lot, but I doubt there’s anything you can do. I tried to talk sense into her, but the child—”

“Is mine,” I interrupted and finished the sentence.

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