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“Harlow?” I ask cautiously.
Because something is wrong. Definitely, utterly wrong.
She jerks in acknowledgement but takes a long time coming to her feet and facing me. When she does, she’s clutching something in her hand, pressing it against her chest.
“Baby?” I creep closer. I don’t want to scare her, but something tells me not to leave her alone, either.
“Noah.” She looks paler than normal. She looks stunned.
“I’m here,” I assure her. “What’s going on? Tell me and I’ll—”
“I’m pregnant.” Slowly, she uncurls her fist and shows me the home pregnancy test folded inside. A pink plus sits in the middle of the little window. “It’s the third one I’ve taken.”
When she glances over at her nightstand, I see two others sitting there. I rush over and grab them. One says the wordpregnantin the middle of the stick. The other shows two thin lines in the viewing field.
Shock freezes me. If she said she was actually Minnie Mouse, I would have been less bowled over. How? When?
Carefully, I set the tests down. “We only started trying three days ago. Is there any chance Simon—”
“No. None.” She licks her lips. “I’m guessing this happened weeks ago, after we ditched the condoms. I’d been taking the pill less than a week, but I was so early in my cycle that I never thought this could happen.”
I blink, my thoughts racing. I wouldn’t have guessed that was more than marginally possible, either. Clearly, we were wrong. And I’m totally fine with that. Inside, I want to do a crazy-happy man dance. We’ll definitely still be together when this baby is born. I’ll have at least a few months with my son or daughter. We’ll bond as a family, and Harlow will see that I’ll be here as a husband and a father.
Everything would be fantastic—hell, perfect—if she looked remotely happy.
“Baby, isn’t this what you wanted?”
Slowly, she nods. “I just didn’t expect… I realized on Saturday that my period was late by a couple of days. I didn’t think much of it. The stress of everything that happened with Simon, all the stuff happening between us”—she shakes her head—“meeting Evan, focusing on your anxiety issues… There’s a lot going on. Plus, introducing and stopping the pill in the same month was probably messing up my system, right? So this morning, I borrowed your rental and grabbed a test at the drugstore, just in case. When it came out positive, I wondered if it was wrong. It had to be. I hear they can be unreliable. So I ran out and grabbed two more—different brands—thinking that surely they would come out negative.”
But they hadn’t. She’s in shock. Since we wanted to conceive, I don’t know why she seems as if she’s not processing this development with a huge smile and a celebratory whoop.
“I’m happy as hell they didn’t.” I risk reaching out to her and gripping her shoulders because she doesn’t look as if she should be alone right now. “Harlow, we’re going to have a baby. Our baby.”
Finally, she meets my gaze. Tears well, and her eyes are green pools of worry. “I’m scared.”
“Of what? I’m here. We’re getting married in eleven days. Everything is perfect.”
She swallows and nods slowly, but I can tell her brain is racing ninety to nothing.
“There’s nothing else to worry about,” I assure her, stroking her arms up and down.
She eases away from me and wraps her arms around herself, looking down and away. Looking anywhere but at me. “I didn’t think I’d feel this way. I thought I was over…what happened. That I’d pushed all the bad memories aside. But…what if I lose the baby?”
I frown. I don’t want to discount her fears, but I don’t want her fretting over a mere possibility. Other things about her response disturb me, but I have to break this down one worry at a time. “You’re healthy. We can start doing all the right things to ensure you keep this baby. We’ll see a doctor ASAP and follow his advice to the last letter. There’s no reason to think you’ll miscarry. Is there?”
When Harlow blinks, tears roll down her cheeks unheeded. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
With a sob, she falls to her knees.
Shock rolls over me as I kneel next to her and take her in my arms. “You had a miscarriage?”
For long moments, she can’t answer me. Every soft cry and ragged pant that comes from her mouth and steals her breath stabs me in the heart. A thousand questions roll through my mind. I want to know. Ineedto know. But I wait until Harlow is ready to speak. She’s fragile, and instinct tells me she’d ten times rather run away than divulge something this painful. The fact that she’s reaching out for me, burying her face in my neck and holding me while she sobs, tells me she’s trying. It tells me that, at least on some level, she trusts me.
“Yes,” she finally manages to squeak out.
Dear god.
“How long ago?” Was it Simon’s baby? Or someone else’s?
