Page 76 of Shattered Secrets

“Can I ask what happened?”

He tugged her closer until she lay half on top of him. “You can ask me anything, sweetheart,” he said against her forehead. “In a nutshell, it was a case of mistaken identity.”

Scarlet tipped her face toward him, and questions swirled in her brown eyes.

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and eased her head back to his chest. “My sister-in-law, Carmen, had this sick fucker who was stalking her. She and I were walking to get some food, and the asshole shot me, thinking I was my brother.”

Scarlet gasped. “Oh, Matt . . .”

“I’m okay.” Now.

Her fingers still lingered over the scar, so he covered her hand with his, flattening her palm to his chest. Not because he wanted her to stop touching it, but because he wanted to feel her entire hand on his skin. “The guy shot me in the back and the bullet exited here. I’m just so damn thankful that Carm was standing next to me and not in front of me, or else it would have hit her, too.”

She pulled free from his grasp and wrapped her arm around him. Squeezing, she asked, “Do you promise you’re okay?”

God, this sweet woman . . .

“I promise, Scar.”

After holding him for another moment, she loosened her grip and propped her chin on his chest once more. “Your brother and sister-in-law are okay, too?”

Recalling everything that had transpired with Jake and Carmen, Matt sobered. He’d been so damn helpless.

“Yeah. They’re good now. Granted, they went through hell, but they came out on top. They were instrumental in my recovery, actually. I wasn’t in a good place after all that, but they were both there for me.”

“Talk to me,” she whispered, caressing the side of his face.

Matt leaned into her touch. This woman had trusted him with the dark secrets of her past. The least he could do was trust her with his own. And to his surprise, hewantedto share this part of himself with her, even though he’d never told another soul. Not his brother, not Cade, not his department-assigned therapist... No one.

He moved Scarlet fully on top of him, spreading his legs so she could settle comfortably between them. She tucked her head under his chin, and he pulled the sheets over them before wrapping his arms around her.

“I’m not sure where to start,” he admitted. Taking a deep breath in, he took comfort from Scarlet’s hand tracing gently back and forth along his rib cage. “I guess... Long before I was shot, things hadn’t been going well in my marriage. When Krista and I got married, I’d already been a detective for a couple years, but I was still the newest one in the department and out to prove myself. Things were fine for a while.”

Until they weren’t.

“I don’t know,” he continued as Scarlet remained silent. Her steady touch kept him grounded, let him know she was still there and listening. “I could play the blame game, but with hindsight, I know I wasn’t faultless. I put my job before her a lot. I worked really late hours, and that wasn’t fair to her. For the last nine orten months of our marriage, we were in couple’s therapy, and it looked like we could maybe work things out, but then... I got shot.”

Matt remembered waking up in the hospital and being flooded with panic about Jake and Carmen. And then he remembered the agonizing pain. The difficulty breathing. The concern on Krista’s tear-streaked face.

“When I came to at the hospital, Krista was there. She was obviously upset and scared. She told me I had to keep fighting. I had to get better. For her. For us. For our baby.”

Scarlet gasped. She lifted her head off his chest, and her surprised eyes locked with his.

Unable to hold her gaze, he looked at the ceiling and swallowed past the boulder in his throat. “I remember being so fucking happy. So goddamn thrilled. She and I had talked about having kids someday, but the pregnancy was a surprise. The best fucking surprise...” His voice grew hoarse, but he continued, “I wasn’t out of the woods yet, and I’d gotten a nasty infection. I drifted in and out for a couple more days. When I woke up again, I was still in the ICU, but things were clearer. I remembered exactly what Krista had said. We were having a baby, but...”

He screwed his eyes shut. The grief was a tangible pain in his chest, like someone had reached through his ribs and yanked out his fucking heart. He ground his teeth together until his mouth ached and a low growl left his throat.

Warm hands cupped his face. Soft lips pressed gently against his.

“Breathe, baby,” Scarlet whispered into his ear. “Breathe. I’m here.”

He hugged her tighter. It took two tries, but he finally managed to say, “The baby wasn’t mine.”

Scarlet pulled away, and again, her hands framed his face. “What do you mean?”

Whether it was the scent of her floral shampoo, her comforting touch, or having finally said the words out loud, he felt steadier. But his heart was still broken over something that had never been his.

“When I came to and looked at Krista, I realized I wasn’t the father. I couldn’t have been. She and I hadn’t been intimately involved for at least six months. And there was no way she was that far along.” Their confrontation replayed in his mind. His yelling, their tears, her denial... “She insisted the baby was mine, but I knew she was lying. I had the hospital staff bar her from seeing me. Hell, I basically tried to have everyone barred from seeing me.”

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