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“Baby, are you okay?” he asked. Pleaded.
“I’m okay,” I croaked. But my voice was lost to the waves.
Kip gathered me into his arms. It was impressive. I was really heavy now, and walking against the water and then in the sand while we were both wet was no easy feat. But he did it.
I looked at Emmet’s body floating motionlessly in the water. The waves were pushing it up to the beach like forgotten trash.
I felt nothing.
Again, that was probably the shock.
Kip didn’t stop once we made it to the beach. No, he walked us back toward the house. Then up the stairs.
“I’m too heavy,” I protested, but my throat was still raw, and I was still coughing, so I didn’t sound as authoritative as I wanted to.
Though I guessed even if I did sound authoritative, Kip still would’ve ignored me. He was still in ‘save my wife’ mode, and he wasn’t about to let me do something as simple as walk with my own two feet. Then again, I wasn’t quite sure my feet would hold me at this point.
He moved quickly, his strides long and purposeful, eyes flickering down to me every handful of seconds as I tried to regain even breathing.
“You’re okay,” he murmured every few seconds. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I rasped as he ascended the stairs up to the cottage.
I’d heard those stories about mothers getting an adrenaline rush when their kids were pinned under a car or something, and then Mum suddenly got strong enough to lift the car. Maybe that’s what this was.
Kip was plenty strong already, but I wasn’t sure he could’ve carried me nine months pregnant up some pretty steep stairs after killing a man if there weren’t some kind of chemical magic going through his veins.
He wasn’t even breathing heavily when we made it back to the deck. The doors were still open, and I could see where a barstool must’ve fallen at some point. My house felt odd now, changed somehow.
I made a mental note not to let him haunt this place. I’d hire an exorcist, burn sage, do whatever the fuck I needed to do to keep this place mine.
Kip laid me gently on the outdoor furniture, kneeling between my legs.
“Fiona,” he whispered, eyes burning with worry. With absolute terror.
Then I realized what he’d seen. He’d seen someone drowning his pregnant wife.
It started hitting me that that’s what I had been through. My ex-husband turned up here to kill me. I’d almost died.We’dalmost died.
I started trembling.
Kip’s hand was on my stomach, the other on my chest, as if he had to remind himself that my heart was beating.
I covered his hand with mine. “I’m okay,” I told him.
The baby kicked his hand. He jerked, obviously feeling it. “She’s okay too.”
His brows pinched. “We’re going to the hospital.”
“Of course, we are,” I replied, my breathing finally returning to normal but my mouth still tasting of seawater and death.
Kip gaped at me in shock. “You’re not arguing.”
“Dude, my ex almost drowned me,” I said. “And I’m nine months pregnant. I’m stubborn but notthatstubborn.”
He glowered and gripped me harder. “That is the first and last time we’re gonna be joking about you almost being taken from this world.”
I felt immediately guilty. Kip was strong. Exceptionally so. Strong enough to race through the ocean and literally end the life of a man who had been trying to kill me. He was strong enough to scoop me into his arms, carry me soaking wet across a beach and up some serious stairs, but that was a different kind of strength. He was fraying at the seams, being tugged at by a different reality. One he’d already lived.
