Page 34 of Shielding His Heart
I lean against the door frame and lift my other shoulder. “Never enough time, I guess. Since we had the girls back-to-back, you had your work, and I’m not home all the time, it never seemed like the right moment to commit to something else.”
As she runs a hand over the cat’s back, she says, “Seems pretty hectic.”
“Yeah, I guess so. We always seemed to like it that way.” But there isn’t a lot of conviction in my voice. My thoughts go back to the night of her accident, and my stomach sours with regret. Did we always like it so busy, or did we simply let our commitments become more important than everything else? More important than each other?
“And you’re sure we can keep her? I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
I cross to her and lift her chin, setting aside the urge to press the pad of my thumb over her lower lip. “You’re not an inconvenience. Why don’t you get some blankets from the closet for her? We’ll make up a bed in the laundry room where she’ll be nice and toasty and comfortable. Did you get food for her?”
“It’s in my car,” she says. “Our closet?”
The urge to kiss her is overwhelming, but I don’t want to push her again. Not yet. So I merely nod and retrieve the food, dishes, and litter box from the car. There are also toys, catnip, and a scratching post. I carry the lot of it to the laundry room at the back of the house. I’m filling up the water dish when I hear Tana’s footsteps in the hallway.
“Did you get enough stuff for her?” I tease as I stoop to put the water dish next to the food bowl. Turning, I find Tana holding the cat in the doorway, her face ghost white.
My heart falls to my feet. “What’s wrong?” I move to her. “Baby, what is it? Are you hurt?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.
And then I realize.
She knows.
CHAPTER17
TANA
The cat wiggles once it scents the food, so I set her down on the floor with numb hands, my heart pounding in my ears. Frustration has my thoughts in a jumble—even more so than they usually are. I close my eyes to try to focus. A headache brews in my temples.
“Did you remember?” comes Alec’s breathless voice.
My gaze shoots to his. “No, I don’t remember. You need to accept my memories aren’t going to come back like that.” I snap my fingers. Throwing the paperwork on the dryer next to me, I bite out, “I found this in the closet. Explain it to me, Alec, because unless I’m mistaken, what I’m reading is that I—we—miscarried after the accident. Why didn’t you tell me?” The hurt I feel is so complex it feels like my insides have been scraped raw. “Is it because you think I wouldn’t care? That it wouldn’t matter to me?”
Alec may as well have been made of stone. “Babe, no. That’s not why at all.”
He tries to move closer, but I take a step back. He freezes in place, his eyes hurt and pleading. “Don’t call me that. I’m not your babe. I thought we were going to be honest. Did you want me to remember on my own?”
His hair stands straight up because he constantly runs his hands through it. “I don’t have the perfect answers for you. I should have told you before now, but Tana, I only just got you back. There never seemed to be a right time.”
“Of course there isn’t a right time to tell me something like that.” The maelstrom of emotion coursing through me makes my chest ache. “But if I had to guess, it would have been right away.”
He goes quiet, and he visibly deflates. “You’re right.”
“Then tell me now. Tell me everything right now, Alec, or I walk.”
He gives a stiff, jerky nod and moves to his bedroom. The paperwork and photos are sprawled out on the bed where I’d left it in a panic after finding them in the closet. I’d been pulling down a blanket from the top shelf when the box came tumbling down with it. Inside the box—which I didn’t notice the first time around—is a strip of ultrasound pictures, a half a dozen pregnancy tests, a stuffed bunny, and a well-worn onesie. These items don’t mean anything to me, but I find my heart clenching at the sight of them.
Alec slumps on a chair, looking forlorn, his posture weighted down with his emotions. “This was your keepsake box. We’d been trying to have another baby for a few months now. You were so excited when you got the positive test that you took about twenty of them and kept every single one. I was hesitant at first about starting over—that’s why I had been signing up for so many shifts at the time of your accident. We’re doing fine financially, but the thought of adding another kid to the mix made me realize I don’t want to just be doing fine. I want to give my family everything.” He sighs and puts everything back in the box, nudging it in my direction. “You’d been spotting for weeks, and at first, our midwife said it was probably normal. It happens sometimes, but I think you knew something was wrong. I could just tell. You seemed so nervous about this pregnancy, and you never had been before.
“That night, you called me at work to touch base, and everything was fine. We were cautiously optimistic about the pregnancy, even though it also terrified me. Later on, you knew something was wrong because you tried calling me over and over, but I was busy on another call and missed it. You were driving yourself to the ER when you were hit. After that, when you were taken to the hospital, I found out our baby was gone. I was afraid I was going to lose you too. It was the worst night of my life, bar none.”
“How far along was I?” I press a hand to my belly, trying to imagine a life growing there. I don’t know what to feel. I should be sad, but it’s clouded by the anger of having something so fundamental kept from me.
“Eleven weeks.” He hands me the ultrasound photos. “These were from eight weeks or so.”
I squint my eyes at the swipes of shadows and white space. If it weren’t for a little arrow pointing to a section with a heart rate strip at the bottom, I wouldn’t have even known what I was looking at. A knot forms in my throat. I’d already lost so much. . . so much. This, on top of everything else and combined with Alec keeping it from me, has the tears I’ve been holding back spilling over.
“I’m so sorry, Tana. I have no excuse for not telling you other than I selfishly thought I was protecting you. I didn’t want you to think it was your fault or keep you from making any progress in healing.” His head dips. “To be honest, I was also grieving the loss, and it felt like if I said it out loud, it would make it real. Too real. I’d lost the baby, and I didn’t want to lose you too if you found out and decided it was too much for you.” He lets out a ragged breath. “It was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have kept something so important from you. I won’t do it again. I promise you.”
