“Tell him I’m fine but that I’m asking for him. I want to be the one to tell him about the baby.”

“I’m on it.” I’ll have to use a public phone since I left mine at home in the mad dash to get here.

Addison is admitted to a room and is all settled when Zac does just as I predict—he barrels into the room panicked, although I’ve assured him she is fine. His eyes grow huge when he sees a very pale Addie in the bed. “What happened to her?”

“Addison wants to be the one to tell you.” I put my hand on her arm. “Addie. Zac’s here.”

She stirs and opens her eyes before a wide smile spreads. “Hey, baby.”

He’s instantly at her side, crouching so he’s face to face with her. “What’s wrong?”

It’s time for me to go. “I’m going to leave so you can talk.”

Neither acknowledge me or my exit; they’re both too terrified, but for completely different reasons.

18

I’m driving to Avalon, knowing the whole way that Laurelyn will kick me out when I get there. It’s her thing—what she does when she’s angry with me. And she’s super pissed right now. There’s no way she’ll let me stay after the way this morning went, but I can’t sit back and do nothing. I have to try.

I enter the house through the kitchen and toss my keys onto the counter. L isn’t in the kitchen or the living room. “Laurelyn?” I’m not sure she’ll answer if she isn’t speaking to me but I call out her name again anyway. “Laurelyn.” No reply—that’s no surprise.

I enter our bedroom and nothing can prepare me for what I find. “What the fuck happened in here?” There’s a huge pool of blood on Laurelyn’s side of the bed with a trail leading into the bathroom. And a path going out the door down the hallway. I had to have walked through it on my way to the bedroom. How did I not see it?

This is no small amount of blood. Something significant happened here.

I take my cell out and call her. The sound of my personal ringtone echoes from the bathroom. She doesn’t have her phone and I’m further alarmed. I pick it up and look at her recent calls. The last one was made to Addison last night, long before she returned to the hotel, so I dial Addison and get no answer. Shit!

I look at the pool of blood on the floor and begin mapping it out in my head. I smell her body wash so she took a shower. She left a wet towel on the floor, something she never does, so she was either in a hurry or something happened, like a sudden case of profuse bleeding. There’s a trail leading from the puddle to the bed. She must have gone to lie down after it started, hoping it would stop, but from the looks of things, it only worsened.

Oh fuck! I’m panicking because this is very bad.

There’s a pair of blood-soaked panties on the floor so she has to be miscarrying—it’s the only possible scenario that fits. And it’s all my fault. I did this to her and our baby.

I follow the trail from the bedroom, up the hall, and through the kitchen to the garage. Her car is gone. I wasn’t here to help her so she must’ve gotten into her car to drive herself to the hospital. Why didn’t she call an ambulance? Or me?

There’s more than one hospital so I have no idea which she would have gone to. I take my phone out and start calling. “I’m trying to find my wife. Laurelyn McLachlan.”

I’m put on hold at least a dozen times before I finally speak to someone who can give me answers. “Sir, we don’t have a patient by that name.”

I hang up to call the next hospital and I’m told for a second time that Laurelyn isn’t a patient at their facility. My mind races. Maybe she didn’t make it to the hospital because she passed out from the bleeding. It’s possible. There is a fuckload of blood on our bed, not to mention what’s on the floor.

Her car. It can be traced. I’m in the process of finding the number to call when I hear the garage door open and then close. I dash to the kitchen and see Laurelyn, safe and sound. I drop my phone and rush to her, taking her in my arms and squeezing. “Fuck, you scared me. What the hell happened in our bedroom?”

I lessen my hold because I’m afraid I’m squeezing too hard but I don’t let go. “Addison started bleeding. Bad.”

“Are she and the baby okay?”

“Yeah, but can we go inside? It’s been a crazy morning and I’d really like to sit down.”

I let go of her and we go into the house. She sits on the couch and kicks off her shoes before putting her feet up on the coffee table. “The doctor says she has a previa. Her placenta attached itself at the bottom of the uterus next to her cervix instead of the top where it should be.”

That doesn’t sound good. “How serious is it?”

“They say it’ll probably resolve itself because it’ll grow up away from the cervix as the baby develops, but they put her on bed rest until that happens since her bleeding was so heavy.”

“And if it doesn’t resolve on its own?” I ask but am afraid to hear the answer.

“They won’t let her go into labor if the placenta is still attached to the cervix. She’ll stay on bed rest the remainder of the pregnancy and get a C-section when her due date comes.”

“Which is when?”

“July twenty-fourth.” I’m trying to do the math in my head but they figure that pregnancy stuff differently. “She’s almost four months.”

“Whoa. She’s that far along and still hasn’t told Zac?”

“She told him and he was happy about it—like, really happy. He proposed—already had the ring and everything. He’d been walking around with it for weeks and was just waiting for the perfect time to present itself.”

I understand that. “And it never did so he seized the moment. Sound familiar?”

“Yeah. It sort of does.”

I don’t want to address the latest shitstorm, but I have to. “We’re scheduled to go in for a paternity test at the end of the week. It’s the soonest we could get in with the doctor my lawyer recommended. He says it’ll take a little longer to get the results since we’re doing a legal paternity test and not a personal.”

“How long?”

“Probably a week.” She sighs and looks up at the ceiling as tears form in her eyes. “Look at me, L.” She lowers her face and tears spill onto her cheeks. “If that boy is mine, I have to take care of him. You know I do.”