Page 5 of Adoring Delaney

I focused on the brick exterior of the restaurant, dark wood accents, green tin roof, and tried to relax. I could do this. I had to do this.

The man who was waiting for me inside was great. He was a teacher, too. He taught history at Parkside, the same high school I taught at. Steve was good looking, sweet, and had been asking me out off and on for two years. He was also around for the nightmare that was Derek Lowe, the science teacher who’d been cooking meth in his house, and wrangling students to deal for him.

My hand went to my flat stomach as it always did when I thought about Derek.

Empty.

I should’ve been in my third trimester. I should’ve been showing, hearing my baby’s heartbeat, feeling he or she growing and moving in my belly. It should’ve been the happiest time in my life. But it wasn’t.

Derek took that from me.

My stupidity allowed him to.

I didn’t listen when my brother told me to stay away from Derek and the case surrounding him. My foolishness led me to where I was. Derek may’ve landed the blow that had taken my child from me, yet I had played amateur sleuth even after all the warnings.

So really, I had no one to blame but myself.

I didn’t protect my baby, and he or she was gone. And with him or her, any chance at happiness. I’d lost everything in the span of a few hours, lying on the floor of an abandoned house, while Mercy had fought for her life. I laid there, thinking how I’d only known for less than a week I’d been pregnant but I already loved my unborn child so much.

So much I couldn’t move. I didn’t need the doctors to confirm what I’d already felt. My baby was gone, Carter was gone, and the future I thought I’d have, was gone, too.

Everything.

Gone.

What in the hell was I doing?

Moving on with your life, I answered myself.

It was time. It’d been months since Mercy and Jason’s wedding and I’d faced off with Carter. I left the reception, gone home, and finally let Carter go.

He didn’t come after me.

He had emailed me, which meant he was deployed, but I hadn’t read the messages. I’d deleted them unopened. All of them, and there were a lot. If I was going to move on, I needed to purge all things Carter out of my life. Which was going to be hard because our families were tight, but luckily for me, he wasn’t around much.

I’d taken his clothes out of my dresser and closet, packed his stuff he’d kept in my bathroom, other miscellaneous shit he’d had lying around, put it neatly in a few boxes and drove it to his brother, Ethan’s, house. During my drive over to Ethan and Honor’s it had struck me as sad that my life with Carter fit into two boxes and two suitcases. Carter had his own place, his own life, his own friends, up in Virginia Beach. None of which I’d seen, been a part of, nor met. So, really, I’d never been a part of his life at all. But he had been the center of mine.

Ethan had flinched when I told him I was dropping off Carter’s belongings. I didn’t know if the reaction was because I’d looked like literally everything had been torn from me, or if he was thinking about his brother. Everyone knew there’d been something going on, even if it was never spoken about. We’d done our best to hide it but when two people loved each other the way we had there was no keeping that a secret.

So damn dysfunctional.

If one of my friends had been in the same situation, I would’ve advised her to dump his ass. But, I couldn’t take my own advice, I loved him too much. Loved, past tense I reminded myself. I had loved him, my whole life.

Now I was moving on.

My gaze went from the restaurant to my own reflection. I looked nothing like I had eight months ago when I had everything I’d dreamed of literally growing in my belly. For the sake of my family I pretended I was fine. But I wasn’t. The bruises had healed but my soul never would. My sister-in-law Mercy was the only person who knew I’d been pregnant; she was the only one who understood how deep my anguish ran.

She also disagreed with my choice not to tell Carter or my family I’d miscarried. But she also was kind and loyal and would never betray my trust.

Finally, I checked that my lip gloss was still perfect, unbuckled my seat belt, and got out of my car.

I can do this.

I’d taken careful consideration while I’d been getting ready. Nice pair of dark-blue jeans, a blouse that was flowy but still showed a hint of cleavage, and on my feet a cute pair of wedge sandals. It was casual, but nice enough to wear to an upscale steak house. It also said, I made an effort for Steve without stating it overly so.

I opened the door to the restaurant, took a deep breath, and immediately found my date.

My date.

---