AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anguish.
Though I thought I’d hardened myself to this man, built myself a shield he couldn’t penetrate to do me harm, it hurt me seeing Kip in this kind of turmoil.
“I need to explain,” he said, grasping my hands, lowering his lips to my fingers.
The gesture was impossibly tender. Sweet. Loving.
“Explain?” I repeated. “Unless you paid that guy to veer into my lane and crash into me, I’m pretty sure you have nothing to explain to me.”
Kip’s mouth thinned, and his eyes glowered at the mere mention of the person who caused the incident.
Eek. I did not envy that guy—or gal—right now. I had no idea if they’d even survived the crash.
If they had, Kip looked like he was going to change that. Which was equal parts scary and kind of hot.
I shouldn’t be thinkinganythingthis man was doing was hot, most especially while I was in a hospital bed. It seemed my libido wasn’t at all damaged in the accident.
“I’ll be dealing with that… later,” he vowed, echoing what the scary look on his face communicated. He was still gripping my hand. “I just spent a fucking hour thinking you were dead.” He rested his other hand on my belly.
My body tightened at the contact, weirded out by it. Kip had touched me plenty before he got me pregnant, and every single time, I relaxed into him—melted into him, in fact. But he’d never laid a hand on the place I was growing our baby, not with that soft and reverent look on his face.
I liked it. His hand on my stomach. What that gesture communicated. But I also fucking hated that I liked it.
I was still meant to be pissed at the guy.
“I’m not dead,” I said stiffly. “Neither of us is.” I looked down at my stomach, his hand on it, with a forced frown. “We’re fine.”
Kip looked from my stomach to my eyes. “You’re lyin’ in a hospital bed with a huge gash on your head, a broken fucking wrist, and a bunch of other injuries that could’ve been a fuck of a lot worse.”
Despite my anger at the man, his panic couldn’t help but penetrate. “It wasn’t worse,” I told him softly.
“Yeah,” he murmured, closing his eyes for a second as if he had to remind himself of that. He opened them again, intent on me. “I need to explain why I’ve been such a fucking asshole for the past five months.”
I arched my brow. “Thisis the time for that conversation? I’m not really in the mood for your commitment issues, your daddy issues—which weren’t hard to miss, by the way,” I said. “As serious as I’m sure you think they are, you’re not going to get me to feel any sympathy for you at this current juncture.” My voice had a bite to it now. I felt weirdly pissed about him trying to make this abouthimwhenIwas the one in the hospital bed.
“Yeah, I understand that this is not the moment for it,” he agreed. “I should’ve had the fucking balls to tell you the second you told me you were pregnant. Maybe it might’ve changed something. Maybe you wouldn’t be lying here.”
“‘Maybe’ isn’t a fun game to play,” I informed him. “Whether or not you told me whatever you were going to tell me would not have changed the course of my life so drastically that I would be mystically protected from all accidents.”
Kip didn’t look convinced. Of course, he thought he was powerful enough to have changed everything if he’d just stepped into his role as the ‘man.’
“My wife and daughter died in a car accident over five years ago,” he said, voice even, flat, eyes locked on mine.
I was less shocked at the car that hurtled into me a few hours ago than I was at this piece of news.
Of all the things I’d expected from Kip’s backstory, it wasn’t that.
I opened my mouth, struggling to find something to say before closing it again. What did you say to that?
“I was deployed at the time,” he continued. “I was deployed for most of our marriage, actually. Gabbie and I married young, got pregnant on one of the rare occasions I was home. I missed her birth. My daughter. Evelyn.”
Her name slammed into my chest, caving it in. He said it so delicately, like it was so fucking precious he feared it might crumble apart in the air.
“I loved being her dad,” he said with a smile, with eyes that communicated he wasn’t seeing this hospital room.
“Even though I didn’t get to actually be there for her.” He sighed, rubbing his jaw. “Not really. Because I thought I was making her proud, thought I was providing for my family, being a fucking hero.” He shook his head, disgust with himself clear. I could feel it. The self-hatred, the regret. It was thick in the air.
“They didn’t tell me straight away,” he said, quieter now. “I was on a mission.” He let go of my hands so he could clench his fists so tightly his knuckles went white. “Gabbie died on impact. But Evelyn held on.” He smiled again. The saddest smile I’d ever seen in my fucking life. It tore me apart.
