Chapter Nine

Orange Ball of Pain

Scotty sighed deeply, a sigh of both weariness and contentment, as he finally turned off the water and reached for his towel. He had no idea how long he’d been in the shower, washing away the sweat and the soreness from a day lugging heavy furniture, but he’d spent a long time, probably too long, he conceded, luxuriating in the fact that he could be under the spray for longer than four minutes and thirty-seven seconds before the temperature plummeted to that of a recently melted glacier. The new shower was much bigger, too, and boasted a wonderful massage feature, which he used to full advantage to loosen his stiff shoulders and aching back. He loved that new shower. Loved the hardwood floors. Loved the fireplace. Loved the lack of curry and country music. Loved every damn thing about this place.

Everything…except his stubborn, pig-headed, pain-in-the-ass roommate. Not that that should’ve surprised him. He knew what she was like even before he signed the lease, knew on some level that the pregnancy hormones would probably make everything worse, knew he probably shouldn’t have snapped out at her like he had that afternoon…but, dammit, she’d pushed his every last button. She’d used that freakin’ "I’ve done this before" trump card one too many times for his liking, and, quite frankly, he was glad she’d stormed up the stairs like one of his cousins in the throes of a melodramatic teenage hissy fit. Once she’d locked herself away in her bedroom, the awkward tension that had permeated the place since the moment they started unloading boxes had gradually dissipated, the rest of the move had gone smoothly, and, after everything was in, Scotty had treated Lilly and Vera to enormous quantities of pizza and beer as a thank-you for all their hard work. They’d then settled down in front of March Madness on TV, he and Vera cheering their hearts out for a team from some tiny, obscure university they’d never heard of while Lilly looked on with gentle amusement. Then, the mood celebratory and lighthearted, if a bit fatigued, his co-workers had headed for their respective homes, and Scotty had made a beeline for the shower, where he’d stayed until his skin was flushed crimson and his fingertips turned to raisins…and still, to his astonished delight, he had hot water. He couldn’t believe it.

Feeling rejuvenated, Scotty stepped out of the shower, relishing the cool blast of air that hit his overheated body, and wrapped the towel around his waist without even bothering to dry off, then headed across the hall to his bedroom to begin what would no doubt be a long, frustrating search through a couple dozen hastily-packed, ill-marked boxes for a clean T-shirt and some boxers. However, once he reached his room, he was surprised, and elated, to discover that the mountains of boxes he’d expected to see were nowhere to be found. Instead, all his work clothes were hanging neatly in the closet, and the bureau was filled with his T-shirts, gym clothes, and boxers, all folded and organized far more neatly than he ever did it himself.

With a rueful grin, he grabbed his favorite Sixers T-shirt from the drawer and tossed it on top of the bureau, then opened the neighboring drawer to grab some boxers. He knew he really should go apologize to her, he thought…but he also knew it would be foolhardy at best, and lethal at worst, to try and do it tonight. Kat needed some space, and she needed him to give it to her. That, he realized, he could easily do.

He was just about to dry off and start getting dressed when a soft, yet urgent knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

"Scotty?" he heard a quiet, tremulous voice say.

"Yeah, c’mon in," he replied with a mystified frown. He certainly hadn’t been expecting Kat to make the first move, hadn’t been expecting even to see her until the morning, if she was even speaking to him by then, so he wondered what the hell she was doing knocking on his door at this time of night.

The door creaked open, and he glanced over at her with a grin…which faded in a heartbeat when he saw her. Her normally dark skin was pale and clammy with sweat, and she was still clad in the faded Metallica T-shirt and stretch pants she’d been wearing all day. Her trembling hands clutched at the swollen bump in her lower abdomen, the bump that was their child, and all that would have been disconcerting enough…but, good Lord, her eyes…her eyes scared him to death. Ebony with pain, they were overlaid with a sheen of tears and hollow with the most devastating, bone-chilling terror he’d seen in a long time. Not for years. Not since Elisa.

"Kat?" he asked, instantly feeling the chill of dread coiling in the pit of his stomach and rising in his throat until he nearly choked on it. "What’s wrong?"

She inhaled, her breath shaky and tentative, and then scarcely comprehensible fragments of sentences poured out of her mouth in a panicky voice barely above a whisper as her nervous hands flitted around like butterflies. "I…did something. I—I hurt something," she stammered. "Scotty, I gotta to go the ER. I need you to---God…I---I—I called Dr. Bridwell…she—she said to meet her there…Scotty…I gotta go…"

"Sit down," Scotty ordered firmly, trying to absorb what she was telling him. "Gimme thirty seconds to get dressed, and I’ll have you there in two minutes." Carefully, he guided Kat toward his bed and lowered her to the edge of it, and was more alarmed by the fact that she wasn’t resisting him at all than by just about anything he’d seen from her since she knocked on his door. She wasn’t Kat Miller. Not now. She wasn’t herself. She wasn’t okay.

His heart pounding frantically, Scotty grabbed his shirt and yanked it over his head, then retreated with his boxers into the closet, where he hastily slipped into those and the first pair of jeans he could tug from their nest on a shelf, realizing, with a bittersweet pang of gratitude, how fortunate it was that everything was so well-organized, then slid on a pair of sneakers and grabbed his keys from the top of the dresser.

"Okay," he said, turning to look at Kat again, and instantly regretting it. That horrifying look in her eyes had gotten even worse, and he hadn’t thought that was possible. He was nearly paralyzed with panic, but he fought it back. She was flipped out already, so he had to be the calm one. And, really, that was okay…he had experience with it, after all. Besides, he realized, it was far less terrifying for him when there was some concrete thing he could do, some action he could take, some way he could help….and right now, there was. So he could do this. He was in his element now.

"You ready?" he asked briskly, grabbing his wallet and stuffing it into his pocket.

Wordlessly, Kat nodded, and he helped her to her feet, pain lancing his soul as she grimaced on her way to a standing position. He steadied her and let go, then watched in horror as even more color drained from her face during her struggle even to take a step. Scotty was dumbfounded. Never before had he seen her show any kind of pain, and indeed had idly wondered if she was even capable of it, so if she, after the fight they’d had that afternoon, was letting him see her, like this…he didn’t even want to imagine what kind of pain she was in.

His heart ached as he watched her try to take another step, and when she lost her balance and reached out to steady herself on the edge of his bed, he realized he just didn’t have it in him to watch her suffer anymore, and quickly formed a plan of action. Maybe she’d kill him for what he was about to do. In fact, he kinda hoped she would…because that would mean she was still in there somewhere. But in the meantime, he needed to do something, so, with a sympathetic murmur of her name, Scotty swept her into his arms and carried her around the corner and down the stairs.

With only the tiniest of whimpers, Kat buried her face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck, and, his heart twisting painfully at the sound, Scotty tried his damnedest to walk as smoothly as possible so he wouldn’t hurt her any more than she’d already apparently hurt herself. Panicked thoughts tumbled through his head, sheer terror for both her and the baby…but he stuffed them down with all the force he could muster. There was no room for this. Not here. Not now.

He could freak out later.

***

When they reached the hospital, they found Dr. Bridwell waiting for them in the lobby, which enabled them to bypass the usual formalities. Within moments, they were both in an exam room, Kat lying on the table, looking small and helpless in a hospital gown, with goopy blue ultrasound jelly smeared all over her abdomen.

"Let’s just take a quick look," Dr. Bridwell said as she readied the ultrasound wand, her outward demeanor calm, but Scotty’s keen detective’s eye told him she was far more concerned than she was letting on, and that made yet another icy shiver of panic run down his spine. As the obstetrician started to maneuver the wand over Kat’s belly, Scotty clutched his roommate’s cold, limp hand in both of his and kept his eyes glued to the tiny black screen of the monitor, hoping beyond hope, praying more fervently than he had in quite some time…

A sense of relief like he’d never known flooded through him when Dr. Bridwell turned up the volume on the monitor and the exam room filled with that steady, rhythmic whooshing sound. His knees buckling and his entire body starting to shake, Scotty bowed his head, squeezed Kat’s hand, and finally let out the breath he’d been holding since she first knocked on his bedroom door.

"Baby looks just fine," Dr. Bridwell announcd, her smile betraying her own relief. "Her heartbeat’s nice and strong."

Scotty’s head snapped up. "Her…heartbeat?" he parroted, frowning at the doctor.

Dr. Bridwell winced, then grinned ruefully at both of them as a faint blush crept into her cheeks. "You…did want to know the sex, right?" she asked, almost apologetically.

"Well---well, yeah," Scotty stammered in reply, trying to wrap his mind around what the doctor had just told them. "It’s a---a girl?" he asked, his voice wavering slightly on the last word.

"It’s a girl," she confirmed, her smile wide and proud. "Congratulations."

In amazement, Scotty glanced down at Kat to gauge her reaction, expecting a relieved smile, a smart-ass remark, something…but she was staring straight ahead, her eyes glued to the wiggly white blob on the monitor, her face registering almost no emotion, and when he gave her hand another squeeze and then let go, she let it drop limply to her lap. She was clearly off in her own world, and, as Scotty studied her carefully, he wondered if she’d heard even one word the doctor had said.

"So, Kat…now that we know that the baby’s okay, we can deal with you," Dr. Bridwell announced, switching off the monitor and turning her attention to her patient. "Anything unusual today? Anything at work? Any heavy exertion, anything out of the ordinary for you?"

After a long pause, Kat finally spoke, the first words she’d uttered since her panic-stricken announcement in his bedroom. "I moved today," she replied flatly, her voice dull and devoid of feeling.

"You moved?" Dr. Bridwell asked blankly as she cleaned the ultrasound jelly off Kat’s abdomen.

"We got a place together," Scotty explained. "She was movin’ some boxes."

Dr. Bridwell turned her attention from Scotty to Kat. "Just boxes?" she inquired, almost knowingly.

Kat sighed and closed her eyes, and even that small display of emotion simultaneously brought Scotty further relief…and caused his heart to ache for her even more. "And an end table," she admitted.

Dr. Bridwell arched a brow. "You know you’ve got to watch out for that," she reminded her patient. "I know you’ve done this before, but that was eleven years ago. You’re not twenty-two anymore, Kat," she continued, peeling off her gloves. "What was okay then may not be okay now. Your body’s different than it was last time. You’re older. And while thirty-three is certainly not old, it’s an age where there are just some risks that younger women don’t have."

Scotty tried hard to follow along as the young, dark-haired doctor abruptly launched into a rapid-fire stream of medical jargon…words like placental abruption and uterine prolapse. He’d didn’t know what any of those were, exactly, but he could tell by the color that was draining from Kat’s already paled face that they weren’t good. Late miscarriage, though…he sure as hell could figure out what that meant, and he felt his blood turning to ice.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bridwell was still speaking to Kat, her voice a beautiful mixture of firmness and compassion. "You need to take care of yourself, Kat. You need to listen to your body, and you need to take it easy. I know you don’t like hearing that…but it’s not an option anymore. It’s an order."

Kat nodded slowly, her eyes on her hands, which she was wringing nervously in her lap.

"We got any idea what she did to herself?" Scotty asked lightly.

"It’s nothing serious, definitely," Dr. Bridwell reassured him, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she scribbled a note in Kat’s chart. "Just a few pulled muscles and strained ligaments. We’ll give her some pregnancy-safe painkillers, and she’s gonna have to be on bed rest for a couple days, but she should be back to her old self by next week," she declared, clicking her pen and tucking it into the pocket of her salmon-colored scrubs. "Take good care of her, okay?" she said with a smile, then pulled back the curtain and departed.

Scotty felt his shoulders slumping as another tidal wave of relief washed over him. She was okay. The baby was okay. Everything was okay.

He hoped.

***

But for the throaty rumble of the Mustang’s engine and the swish of passing vehicles on streets soaked with a gentle late-evening rain, the drive home had been eerily silent, and now, as he idled at the window of the drive-thru pharmacy, Scotty stole another concerned glance at Kat, more worried about her than ever. Physically, she was going to be fine…but her monotone responses to Dr. Bridwell’s questions were the last words she’d spoken, and since then she’d shown no relief, no reaction…she’d just stared straight ahead, almost like a ghost. The nurse had given her an injection of painkillers, which she’d accepted without so much as a flinch, much less the argument Scotty would’ve expected. Dr. Bridwell had also prescribed some pain pills, which a smiling pharmacist was handing to him now. He’d half expected Kat to put up a fight about those, too, but she just gazed out her window and remained unnervingly still.

Pulling out of the drive-thru window, Scotty sighed as he continued to study her out of the corner of his eye, and then decided that now would be as good a time as any to apologize. He certainly hadn’t been wrong to put his foot down earlier, and their trip to the emergency room had proven it…but he definitely could’ve been nicer about it, he realized. Definitely could’ve…well…respected her a bit more than he had.

"Kat," he began hesitantly, but that was all he got out before he felt something shatter like glass in the seat next to him, and he glanced over at her in alarm, then froze, stunned by what he saw. Where a mere second before, she’d been nearly catatonic, now she’d buried her face in her hands and was weeping helplessly, the tears dripping between her fingers and her shoulders shaking with deep, heart-wrenching sobs.

Quickly, Scotty pulled into a space in the drugstore parking lot, unbuckled his seat belt, and moved to put his arms around her, but she wriggled out of his embrace.

"Don’t touch me," she choked out, and Scotty backed off, retreating to his side of the car and, still reeling from the sudden change in her demeanor, he wracked his brain trying to determine what the hell was going on with her, and what he could possibly do to help.

"Kat, I---" he began helplessly.

"I’m sorry," she whimpered between sobs. "I’m so sorry, Scotty. I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…" she repeated over and over.

"For what?" he asked blankly, still desperately wishing he could pull her into his arms, but knowing she wouldn’t let him.

"I—I coulda killed our baby," she wailed, and the indescribable depth of grief in her voice tore his heart in two.

"Hey," he whispered, trying once again to wrap his arms around her, but she ducked out of his embrace and leaned her forehead against the passenger window.

Scotty frowned, trying to figure out how to get through to her. "Kat, she’s fine," he tried to reassure her, wondering why the hell she still wouldn’t let him touch her. "You’re fine. Everything’s fine."

Kat whirled to face him, her eyes rimmed with red and sparking with indignation. "It’s not fine," she nearly screamed in reply. "I risked our baby’s life to win an argument with you. What the hell kinda mother does that?" She looked up at him then, her tear-streaked face challenging him to come up with a reply, which, of course, he couldn’t. Not when she was looking at him like that.

"You win, okay?" she continued, her voice trembling with furious tears. "I don’t know what I’m doin’. You’re right not to trust me," she declared, then leaned against the window and choked back another sob.

So that was what she was doing, Scotty suddenly realized. She was refusing to allow herself even the momentary comfort of a compassionate embrace as a way of punishing herself for what she’d done.

"Kat, I never said I didn’t---You ain’t---I didn’t mean---" he faltered, then stopped and sighed in frustration. After a moment spent kneading the steering wheel, considering his options, he decided to resort to begging. Words weren’t his thing, not outside the interview room, anyway…and sure as hell not in situations like this. He simply couldn’t do this, couldn’t talk her down off the ledge…not if he couldn’t touch her.

"Could you please, please, for the love of God, just let me put my arm around you for a couple seconds?" he asked, almost angrily. "For me?"

Kat searched his eyes for a moment, then sniffled and acquiesced, burying her face in his shoulder, clinging to his neck and letting her tears soak through his T-shirt. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, hoping beyond hope she’d just stay there, and feeling greatly relieved when she did. Knowing his embrace would say more to her than his words ever could, Scotty decided to remain silent and just hold her while she cried.

After a few minutes, the storm of her emotions dissipated, and she raised her head from his shoulder, returned to her side of the car, and hunted through her purse for a Kleenex. Aside from a brief, almost embarrassed glance, she avoided his eyes, and he could sense her grief being rapidly replaced by something far less vulnerable.

"Kat---" he ventured again, hoping to get in under the wire before her trademark anger was fully in place.

"Don’t," she snapped, with as much force as she could muster, which, in her current state, wasn’t much, but it was still enough to startle him into silence. "Just…don’t, okay?" She blew her nose, then sighed and fixed him with a shadow of her usual glare. "I can’t take a lecture right now. I screwed up, I forgot that I can’t do everything. You were right, I was wrong, and I already told you you won. So just…please...spare me the gloating for tonight," she demanded.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake!" Scotty exclaimed in exasperation. Kat Miller had to be the most stubborn, prickly, difficult woman he’d ever encountered…and yet somehow, for some unfathomable reason…she was the mother of his child. Like it or not, he was connected to her for eternity.

She opened her mouth to argue, but he glared at her so fiercely that she quickly closed it again, and he kept his eyes riveted on hers until he was sure she’d remain quiet at least long enough for him to finish his thought.

"All I was gonna say," he began softly, the glare a distant memory, his voice and eyes now devoid of everything except tenderness, compassion, and relief, "was that I’m glad…so damn glad…that the two of you are all right."

Kat’s eyes widened, and Scotty’s brow creased in confusion once more. "What, you…you actually think I’m gonna use this as an opportunity to gloat?" he asked, with a slight chuckle, but the disbelieving look in her eyes told him unequivocally that, yes, as a matter of fact, she did think that.

"Jesus, Miller, d’you know me at all?" he asked incredulously, suddenly feeling deeply insulted that, for some reason, that was what she expected of him.

She still said nothing, but looked instantly contrite, tears filling her eyes anew, and the anger melted from his heart as quickly as it had arisen.

"Look," he continued quietly, "all I care about is that everything’s okay. That’s all I’ve ever cared about. And that’s all I wanted to do today. Swear to God." He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "I didn’t go about it real good, I’ll admit that, and I’m gonna try to do better in the future. You have done this before, you’re a great mom already," he paused then, his gaze riveted on her, willing her with his eyes to believe the truth of what he’d just told her, "and you know a helluva lot more about this than I ever will."

Kat sniffled and nodded, then wiped away another tear that had managed to escape down her cheek.

"I gotta listen to you, Scotty," she said tremulously, her eyes on the floor. "I’ve been thinkin’ you don’t know anything, but you do, and I---"

"Shhh," he whispered. "It’s fine. It’s all gonna be fine."

Once again, Kat turned to face him. "Scotty, I—I need you," she blurted out, then froze, her expression like that of a deer caught in headlights. She hadn’t meant to say that, he was certain, and he watched her frantically trying to take it back, to reel those words back in and stuff them down so deep they‘d never come out again, but she couldn’t, and her eyes sparked briefly with anger as she realized it, then clouded with a reluctant, almost sheepish acceptance of the truth. Holy crap, she really did need him.

"Hey," he said softly, snaking an arm behind her and pulling her close, elated when she accepted his embrace and rested her head on his shoulder. "I need you, too. You got any idea how scared I was tonight?"

"Not as scared as I was," she admitted, resting a hand on her belly.

"I ain’t talkin’ about the baby, Kat," he told her. "I mean, I was scared about her, too…but the one who really scared the shit outta me?" He pulled away from her just enough so he could see her face in the pale glow of the streetlights. "That was you."

She sat up straight, her eyes rapidly searching his. "Her?" she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Yeah," Scotty replied, smiling despite everything, thrilled beyond belief that he was getting to deliver this news. "It’s a girl. And she’s fine."

Kat choked back another sob and let her head fall onto Scotty’s shoulder again, and he felt another few tears soak into the fabric of his shirt.

"It’s a girl," she repeated tremulously. "It’s a girl. Another little girl. I got another daughter. We got a daughter, Scotty," she said, raising her head from his shoulder and meeting his gaze.

"Yeah," Scotty whispered, his own emotions suddenly and dangerously close to the surface.

"You gotta help me take care of her," she implored him, her eyes suddenly wide and pleading.

Scotty grinned slightly. "S’why I moved in, Miller," he replied as jovially as he could.

"I mean…now, too," she whispered, lowering her eyes to her lap.

Scotty gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I know," he echoed.

***

By the time they arrived back at their new home, Kat was slumped in her seat, very nearly asleep. The events and the emotions of the day, in addition to the painkillers, had taken their toll, it seemed, so Scotty carried her back up the stairs to her room and laid her gently in her bed. Her eyes fluttered open when her head met the pillow, and she smiled up at him. It was a wan, tremulous smile, a faint shadow of the one he knew she was capable of…but he’d take it just the same.

"Y’okay?" he asked her as he slid his arms out from beneath her and straightened to his full height.

"Think so," she replied sleepily, still smiling as her eyes fell closed again.

Scotty returned her smile, then set the paper bag containing her pain medication on the bedside table. "You gonna take a pill tonight?" he asked.

Kat shook her head. "Shot hasn’t worn off yet," she told him, and Scotty decided to let it slide. If she wasn’t in any pain, there wasn’t any reason for him to insist on the pills, at least, not yet. That, he decided, was a battle he could fight tomorrow.

He was just turning to go when her eyes opened slightly. "I got some…muscle rub…" she suggested, indicating a box atop a stack in the corner next to the bathroom. "Doctor said it might help…"

Scotty crossed the room in a flash, pulled the box down, and dug through it, retrieving the small plastic tube after a few seconds’ search. He then returned to Kat’s bed and handed it to her, but the look in her eyes stopped him.

"Could you…?" she began almost sheepishly, then trailed off, still clearly reluctant even in her sleepy, emotionally drained, painkiller-addled state to ask him for anything, and he couldn’t suppress the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth as he flipped open the cap and squeezed a bit of the cream onto his fingertips. His grin turned into outright chuckling as the pungent, minty aroma filled the air.

"What?" Kat murmured as she rolled onto her side and raised her T-shirt so he could reach her lower back.

"I’m thinkin’ maybe I oughta keep this stuff in my room," he informed her casually as he began to massage the cream into her dark skin.

"Why’s that?" she asked him with an adorably puzzled frown.

"Got oil of wintergreen in it, Miller," he grinned in response. "Don’t think for a minute I’ve forgotten your threat."

He wasn’t expecting much of a response from her, and so was thrilled when she issued a brief chuckle. "Think you’re safe for tonight," she replied, rolling over onto her other side so Scotty could reach her enlarged abdomen.

Her eyes slid closed as he continued his gentle massage, and then she sighed in blissful contentment, and the sound warmed him to the tips of his toes. She was such a badass most of the time, so stubborn and prickly and difficult…but when she sighed like that, like just that simple bit of attention was the most blissful thing she’d ever experienced… it reminded him that beneath all that was a woman. A wonderful woman, with a brilliant mind, a beautiful soul, and a caring heart. A woman, he suddenly realized, that he was absolutely thrilled was carrying his child.

The pungent white cream had almost completely vanished into the dusky, glowing skin of her abdomen when he felt a soft, barely-perceptible fluttering beneath his fingertips. Dumbfounded, he froze stock-still, his eyes fixated on the spot and his heart in his throat. Was that---? Did he just---?

Scotty thought he was imagining things, was almost positive he was making them up…but then he felt the fluttering again, a bit stronger this time. He tore his astonished gaze from Kat’s belly to her face, only to discover that her eyes had opened and were shining with unshed tears of joy and love, and she was smiling as broadly as he’d ever seen her. That smile alone would have answered his question, but he supposed he must have still had a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face, because she laughed gently and placed her hand on her belly, shyly intertwining her fingers with his.

"Baby’s kickin’, Scotty," she said softly.

Scotty was absolutely floored, his hand frozen to the spot.

"V didn’t kick this early," Kat mused, her tone wistful, her eyes faraway.

"Is this---?" he asked again, still in too much shock to finish his sentence.

"First time," she confirmed, then chuckled again. "And if she’s anything like V, we’ve got a lot more of this to look forward to."

Scotty couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t even move. All he could do was keep his hand glued to that spot on Kat’s stomach and try to absorb the fact that that fluttering lump he was feeling was a person, a real live person…a little girl. He had a daughter…his daughter was okay…and she’d just kicked him. It was almost more than he could take in.

He had no idea how long he sat there, but there was no repeat performance, and finally, reluctantly, he slid his hand off Kat’s belly and, clearing his throat, wiped the excess muscle rub on his jeans.

"You, uh…y’okay here?" he asked again, feeling suddenly awkward.

"Mm-hm," she murmured, her eyes falling closed and her lips still curved upward in a ghost of a smile. "’Night, Scotty."

"Yeah…night," he replied, rising from the bed and heading for the door.

Scotty made it all the way to the door, his hand on the knob…but he couldn’t, for the life of him, force himself to turn it. He couldn’t leave her. He just couldn’t. Not after the night they’d had. Not after the danger she’d been in. Not when he stopped for a second to consider just how close he might have come to losing everything. In a flash, he felt himself descending into the abyss, that black hole he got in sometimes when he started thinking about all the losses he’d faced in his life, and realizing that a pain just as great, if not greater, could so easily have stabbed him through the heart again. So he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave her alone…and he couldn’t be alone himself…not now…not tonight. He just…couldn’t.

With a sigh, he let his hand drop from the doorknob and quietly crossed the room, where he slipped out of his jeans and laid down on the bed next to Kat, placing one hand tentatively on her belly and stretching the other over his head, where he lay for hours stroking her hair and listening to the soft, even breathing of her slumber.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when he finally rose from bed, grabbed his jeans, and crept down the hall to his own room.