Page 5 of Secret Heart
“Text me the time for the appointment, and I’ll pick you up for it.”
No way is she driving all the way to Jackson by herself for this.
“All right.” She turns around, but I grab her hand, pulling her close enough to press my lips to her temple. I don’t move until the tension in her body falls away and her sweet vanilla scent surrounds us both, overtaking the smells of the barn.
Chapter Three
EMILY
Three soft knocks precede the slip of a woman that enters the dim ultrasound room. The tech looks up and then stops whatever he’s doing with the machine, setting the wand back in its spot and standing from the stool. The woman smiles quickly and then focuses on me, her eyes lighting on Beau for a moment.
“Hi,” she says warmly. “I’m Dr. Mins. Lovely to meet you both.” She holds out her hand, and I shake it while still awkwardly half-sitting, half-laying down on the bed. Beau’s all smiles as he takes her offered hand next. She turns to the tech. “Everything looking good so far?”
He nods. “Left it ready for you in case you wanted to grab any extra visuals.”
“Fantastic. If you’ll let Angela know to prep a new room for them, that would be perfect.”
She sits in front of the ultrasound machine as the tech leaves with no fanfare at all, shutting the door before the dim room can be flooded with the hallway light.
“Let me just grab a good one to give to you both real quick,” she says, putting the wand back on my exposed stomach. It only takes her a couple minutes to get a view she likes, and then a small machine is printing out a single black and white photo onto glossy paper. “Growth is right on track. So at just shy of nine weeks today, you’ll be due right around the middle of May. I can give you an exact date once we’re going over the first trimester information in an exam room.”
I take the small, glossy paper, but that sense of wonder so many describe doesn’t settle over me. It… it’s just a blob of silver on a grainy black background. Beau leans forward, his own awe evident in the sudden breath he sucks in and the careful way he takes the picture when I offer it to him. Dr. Mins helps me sit up, and then she pulls up something on the computer in the corner.
“You had paternity testing done, yes?” she asks. I give her another quiet affirmative. “Let me just get those results pulled up here, then. They should be finished running by now. Ah, yes, here they are.” She clicks on something. “It’s negative. Is there another pack member you would like to test against?”
A lump crowds my throat, but I shove down the emotion trying to climb its way out of my chest. I’ll have time enough to cry over doing all of this alone. Right now I just need to get through the appointment so I don’t miss any important information.
Beau’s the one that manages to answer. “No, ma’am.”
Dr. Mins gives another warm smile. “Very well, then. Let me get you to an exam room, and we’ll go through the rest of your intake appointment.”
Beau walks beside me, close enough his shoulder brushes mine, but no one says a word as Dr. Mins opens a door along the hall and ushers us quickly inside. I ease onto the exam table, ignoring the slowly rising vanilla scent emanating out from me.
“I’ll have the nurse do your full blood panel and then be right in afterward.”
The door closes with a heavy click that reverberates through the sedate room. Beau wordlessly drops into one of the two hard plastic chairs tucked into the corner opposite the bank of cabinets full of displays and supplies. He cradles the ultrasound pictures in his large hand, carefully avoiding getting fingerprints on the glossy surface. The view of him way too large for the small chair—the faded brown ball cap worn backwards covering his short blond hair, his legs spread wide, his boots dirty and the hem of his jeans caked in mud—has a ball of heat sizzling low in my stomach.
For the first time since the three of us made out in that bar’s parking lot in April, I shove the feeling away.
“You can go grab a coffee or whatever while I finish,” I say, picking at the paper covering the exam table, focusing on the terrible impressionistic artwork on the wall rather than the cowboy across the room from me.
I really, really shouldn’t have let him talk me into driving up here together. I’m sure he’ll want out of here as soon as possible now that we know for sure the baby’s Triston’s and not his, and the idea of managing the entire drive back to Jackson makes me just as nauseous as the morning sickness I’ve been dealing with for several weeks.
“Are you thirsty?” he asks, glancing up from the ultrasound picture. “I can grab you some water while we wait for the nurse to come back.”
Just the idea of water has me wanting to throw up. The grimace is reflex. He smiles, a quick flick of one corner of his mouth. That ball grows a bit brighter, hotter.
“I can check if they have juice instead.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” I shake my head. The small tilt of his lips disappears as his eyebrows furrow. “You don’t have tostay here for the rest of this. You can go grab something to eat while I finish up.”
“Why would I leave?” he asks with earnest confusion.
I shift on the edge of the table, crossing my ankles. “It’s just going to be a ton of information packets and another blood draw according to Olivia.
He raises a single eyebrow. “You told Olivia? Damn, that probably means Hudson knows now, too. I wanted to see his face.”
I purse my lips.
