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“You aren’t going anywhere,” Phyllis said, more scared than she’d ever been in her life. “You hear me?” she demanded, mustering up anger from somewhere. “You hang on, Tory. You have a job to do here.”
She’d keep the young woman with her by sheer force of will if she had to. Tory had paid a big price for her happiness. She wasn’t going to lose it now. Not if Phyllis had anything to say about it.
CHAPTER TEN
A MONITOR STARTED to beep alarmingly, and hospital personnel scurried. Dr. Anderson came in almost immediately. There wasn’t time to put Tory to sleep.
“Let’s bring this little girl home, shall we?”
Tory started to cry. Big racking sobs, “I can’t, Phyllis.
Not without Ben.”
“Yes, you can. You’ve done much worse than this, honey.”
And she had. Tory had lain all alone the last time she’d been in a hospital. She’d dealt with great pain and fear then, too—and grief. The car accident that had put her there had killed her beloved older sister.
“If I tell you a secret, do you promise not to tell anyone?” Phyllis asked, desperate for a way to keep Tory with her.
Tory nodded, her pretty blue eyes focusing on Phyllis’s face. Phyllis could see the effort it took Tory to do that much and had to choke back her own tears.
“You aren’t the only one bringing a baby into the world,” she said, moving in close enough to force Tory to meet her eyes.
“I know,” Tory croaked. And then, “Cassie and Randi, too.” Phyllis could read her friend’s weariness on her face. Not just exhaustion from the difficult birth, but from all the struggles life had brought her way.
Somehow they made Phyllis’s struggles seem like nothing. Even if something terrible happened and Phyllis lost her baby, she wouldn’t have suffered as her young friend had.
“There’s someone else, too,” Phyllis said, knowing she’d do anything to take Tory’s mind off these next minutes as the doctor delivered her baby.
She had a feeling her carefully kept secret would, if nothing else, grab Tory’s attention for a second. And even a second away from the fear and the pain would be worth it.
“Who else?” Tory’s voice was fading again, her head falling to the side.
“Me.”
“What?” Tory asked, her face moving back toward Phyllis.
Phyllis nodded and found a tremulous smile. “I’m three months along as of yesterday.”
Tory’s tired blue eyes focused completely, searching Phyllis’s face. She frowned, obviously concentrating with great effort.
“You’re pregnant?”
Dr. Anderson was working swiftly. “Yep,” Phyllis said, smiling at Tory.
“Who’s…the…father?”
Of course, thought Phyllis. Of course Tory would ask that. She should have expected it. But she hadn’t thought things through. She’d been desperately grasping for something to distract Tory from the terror she’d been experiencing.
“Nobody you know,” she said. “Nobody I really even know.”
Tory’s eyes widened, filled with horror. “You weren’t—”
“No!” Phyllis said quickly, rubbing Tory’s hand between both of hers. “I wasn’t raped, Tor,” she told her. She should’ve realized that Tory, with her past, would immediately jump to that conclusion.
“He was just someone I met and had a one-night fling with. And I ended up with a consequence I didn’t count on.”
Tory flinched.
