“Dean, it’s not…”
The front door slams open. Archer is outside, shooting hoops in the driveway. He stops at the sight of Dean striding toward him. Before I can reach them, Dean gives Archer a shove that sends his brother stumbling backward.
“What did you do?” Dean snaps. “What did you fucking say to her?”
“What the hell?” Archer backs away, his hands up in defense as his gaze flies from Dean to me.
“Dean, stop it!” I grab his arm, tears blinding me as memories of that horrible day five years ago come flooding back. “He didn’t do anything. He helped me.”
And that, I realize suddenly, is exactly what has enraged my husband.
“Christ.” Archer stares at his brother. “I know I’m a fuck-up, but I’d never—”
“It’s… it’s nothing.” I tighten my hand on Dean’s arm. “Just a… a misunderstanding.”
Dean’s muscles are rock-hard beneath my grip. His fists clench and unclench. I pull on his arm, trying to get him back to the house.
“He knew you were having a miscarriage.” A vein throbs in Dean’s temple.
“No.” My throat aches. “He didn’t know.”
Archer lowers his hands. “I didn’t know.”
“Dean, please.”
His eyes still blaze at his brother, but he lets me pull him back to the house. I have a sudden fear that Joanna or Paige West might have seen this incident, but neither woman appears to be home. I manage to get us both back upstairs, fresh tears overflowing.
“He just drove me to the hospital.” I sink onto the bed and cover my face with my hands. “I couldn’t…couldn’t drive myself because I was so upset. He waited to drive me back to the house too. I didn’t tell him anything. He didn’t ask. He was… he made me a cup of tea and some toast.”
For some reason, that memory makes me cry harder. I can feel Dean’s anger, coursing through him like lava. Anger at himself for not being here. And a misdirected anger that his brother was.
“Liv.” Dean is in front of me again, grasping my wrists, moving my hands away from my face. “Liv… I’m sorry. So fucking sorry. I… I never should have left you. I don’t know what I was thinking, leaving you alone when you—”
His voice breaks. He hauls me into his arms, pressing his face into my hair, his body shaking. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tightly, the warm strength of his chest crushed to mine, the heat of him flowing into me.
His sheer solidity and presence is a balm, easing some of the wrenching ache. Slowly my sobs begin to calm. I tuck my face against his neck and breathe in the familiar scent of him.
He eases back to look at me, his eyes red-rimmed and filled with anguish. He brushes my hair away from my face.
“I’m so sorry,” he repeats. “Are you all right? Did they check everything?”
I nod. “It’s… the doctor said sometimes women need D and Cs if things don’t… progress, but… I’m pretty sure I’m expel… uh, losing everything.”
He swears and pushes off the bed. He stalks to the window, his feet crunching against the broken glass of the picture.
My heart shrivels. I can see his hard-edged guilt and grief, an agony made all the blacker by the shadows of his past. By the heartbreaking knowledge that he wanted this child.
Tears flood my eyes again.
Will he blame me? Especially since I once told him I didn’t even want to have children?
“Did you talk to Dr. Nolan?” he asks.
“I called her yesterday when it started, then again after I got back from the hospital.”
When I see his jaw tense, I wish I hadn’t mentioned the hospital. He picks up my phone from the nightstand.
“Dr. Nolan’s office is closed by now,” I say.
“I don’t care.” He scrolls for her number, then demands that the answering service patch him through to the doctor. Once she’s on the phone, he assails her with questions about miscarriages, treatments, and follow-up.
Half an hour later, he finally hangs up the phone. I can’t help noticing he did not ask the doctor when it would be safe for us to try again to conceive.
“Okay.” He drags his hands over his face. “I’m going to take a shower. My mother seems to think you have a migraine, so we’ll leave it at that. Then I’m going to get things settled with my father and get our tickets back to Mirror Lake.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m here or there, Dean.”
“It matters to me,” he says, striding to the bathroom. “I don’t want you to stay here anymore. We’re going home as soon as we can.”
Home.
He shuts the bathroom door behind him. A few seconds later, the shower starts. I wipe away my tears and go to clean up the broken picture on the floor.
As I’m dropping the bits of glass into the trash, I remember what had begun to alleviate my doubts. Why I was starting to anticipate the idea of having a child and raising him or her in Mirror Lake.
A faint hope surfaces. Dean comes out of the bathroom, dressed in boxers and still drying his chest with a towel. I wait until he’s pulled on a pair of jeans before I ask.