Chapter Twenty-Two
She wasn’t the abuse she endured.
A resounding echo thudded hard in Harvey’s chest.
“No more, Drennan.” He turned for the bed, collecting her phone from the comforter that had kept them tangled together throughout the night.
He handed the device off. The choice was entirely up to her.
He couldn’t make it for her. “Stop putting yourself in a position to get hurt. You have good intentions in reminding yourself of what she’s capable of, but one of these days, a message will come through that won’t do that job.
It will do what she intends, and you’ll be right back to being her metaphorical punching bag. ”
She sighed. “I know. I’ve told myself to block and delete her number so many times.
” Tears glittered in her eyes. She nodded, as though trying to convince herself—of recognizing—that what he said made sense.
“I just keep hoping she’ll realize her mistake and she’ll remember that I’m her daughter. That she’s supposed to love me.”
He didn’t know the specifics of what her mother had put her through, but he couldn’t help but admire the woman who’d come out on the other side of it.
How Drennan had stood there and braved exposing a piece of herself she’d guarded for so long.
Because he knew she had. He knew the lengths she’d gone through to protect her abuser out of shame and potential disbelief from people who were supposed to care about her.
He’d done the exact same thing. Lying to his teachers, pushing away his friends, not making eye contact with anyone long enough for them to realize the bruises on his face hadn’t come from falling down the stairs the second time in a week.
He’d isolated himself just to avoid having to answer questions about his home life and ensuring his father’s wrath if the man ever found out about it.
It hadn’t gotten any easier in the military, but at least he hadn’t been—how had Drennan put it?
—trying to heal in the same place he’d been broken.
And Drennan was… She was awe-inspiring. Stronger than anyone he’d ever known, including the men and women in his unit, and everything he wasn’t.
She’d overcome that part of her that relived every injury and harsh word over and over to get her through the day.
He wanted that. More than anything he wanted to move past the hollowness in his chest and find something worth reaching out for.
But the man he’d become had been built on years of detachment, grief and pain, and letting go felt like forgiving.
Something he wasn’t sure he could ever bring himself to do.
He stepped into her, drawn by more than the need to offer some semblance of comfort—if he was capable of that at all.
He wanted to feel her, breathe her in, make her and the peace she brought part of him.
Harvey pressed a soft kiss to her mouth, excited by her gasp, as he shifted her damp hair away from her face.
“People like your mother will always need someone to blame. They teach you that love is not unconditional or deserved, that it’s given only when certain expectations and whims are met.
They need the control and use manipulation to feel powerful, and when you don’t give them what they want or you fight back, you become the villain.
But, Drennan, I would much rather see you as the villain in her story than as a victim. ”
She swiped at her face. “I don’t want to be a victim. I want to be the mother this baby needs.”
Hell, that threatened to gut him on the spot. She was one of the few, the ones who recognized the cycle and refused to pass it along to the next generation. If his father had been brave enough to make that choice… Harvey didn’t know where he would be. “You already are.”
Her laugh punctured through the hard layer of ice he’d set in his chest. Clear and full of a brightness he hadn’t let himself recognize in a long time. “You don’t have to say that. I’m sure all of this is too much to handle, even for you.”
“I can handle you.” He kissed her again, this one more than an offer of comfort. The sweep of his tongue was driven by the need to reward her for all the hard days, the lonely nights and the tears she’d shed for a woman who didn’t deserve a single one of them.
“You should get dressed.” Harvey skimmed his knuckles along her throat, reveling in the strong beat of her pulse.
Warmth radiated into his hand at the contact, and he wanted to drown in it.
To drag her back into that bed and help them both forget the atrocities they’d survived.
That was what they were. That was what the pain in her eyes that’d called to him the night they’d met spoke of.
Survival. It was something they shared, something that bonded them, but every cell in his body told him even without that, he’d still feel this unexplainable connection to get close to her.
He fanned his fingers over her jaw, framing one side of her face.
“I want to drop by the clinic to get you that ultrasound before I head into the park to follow up with the law enforcement rangers. Make sure everything is okay with the baby.”
“I’ll just need a few minutes.” Nodding, Drennan clutched at the towel with a wisp of a smile as she backed toward the bathroom door. “Thank you.”
A swell of something foreign climbed his throat, but he wouldn’t let it out.
Nothing he said in response would be worthy of the woman having his baby, so Harvey sat back on the edge of the mattress to wait.
No one had ever thanked him for his advice, but then again, he’d never felt comfortable giving it.
While he might’ve gone through his own personal hell, he’d kept that part of his life locked up tight.
But it’d felt good to talk Drennan through those contradictory feelings of wanting to destroy the threat to your well-being while trying to make it love you at the same time.
Felt freeing. Healing. True to her word, mere minutes passed before she stepped back into the bedroom clothed in black slacks and a T-shirt and tennis shoes and they were on their way to the clinic.
Harvey maneuvered into the parking lot he was becoming all too familiar with and rounded the front of the SUV to help Drennan out.
Based on her hesitation and automatic reaching for the door, he was betting no one had done that for her, either.
Or she hadn’t let them, needing to prove she could make it through this life without help.
He understood that. Didn’t mean he was going to let her.
The nurses at the front desk welcomed Drennan with a smile while side-eyeing him at the same time.
Couldn’t blame them. The last two times he’d been here, he’d nearly brought the entire building down with his demands for them to prioritize Drennan.
It’d been selfish considering all the people—young, old and somewhere in the middle—waiting their turn, but he didn’t regret a single moment.
He hadn’t lied to her before. She was important.
Maybe the most important person in his life.
Another shard of ice cracked from inside his chest, breaking off into nothingness as though it’d never existed.
That…that wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to be important.
He wasn’t supposed to want more of her in his life.
Harvey stilled as a nurse led Drennan back into the corridor with private rooms branching off each side.
She turned toward him with a smile. “They’re ready for us.”
“You go on. You don’t want me in there.” His voice remained steady despite the storm building inside. Harvey flexed both hands at his sides, trying to get the feeling back into them. “I’ll wait.”
“I thought you wanted to make sure the baby was okay.” The divots between her brows deepened as she studied him.
He did, and he wanted nothing more than her to have this.
The experience of hearing the baby’s heartbeat after everything she’d been through in those woods.
Of seeing their child on the ultrasound screen, healthy and unharmed.
It wouldn’t relieve all the anxiety and stress she held on to, but it would go a long way to ensuring she had a healthy pregnancy, and Drennan deserved his support.
She closed the distance between them, lowering her voice.
“I know this probably isn’t how you imagined our situation going, but I’m not sure I can do this on my own. Please.”
Oh, hell. Blood drained from his face. She was scared of getting bad news. Of being alone when it happened. And he’d… Damn it. He was being a selfish bastard. Harvey nodded. More to himself than her. “Yeah. Of course.”
He kept to her side as they followed on the nurse’s heels. Drennan stepped on a scale outside of another nurses’ station and was led into one of the private rooms where the nurse took her blood pressure and monitored her oxygen levels. “Is this all normal?”
“Yep. We just want to make sure Mom is taking care of herself before we check on baby.” The nurse rolled around on her stool, peeling the blood pressure cuff from Drennan’s arm before leading her to the exam table. “It’s all routine. Nothing to worry about, Daddy.”
Daddy. He was going to be a dad in seven months, whether he wanted this or not. A tingling set up in his fingers as he clutched on to the chair arms.
“Go ahead and lay back, Mom. Pull up your shirt and unbutton your pants.” The nurse grabbed a condiment bottle with a long nozzle from the cart holding the ultrasound equipment. “Don’t want to get any of the jelly on your clothes. It’s gonna be a little cold at first.”
Drennan followed instructions as though she’d done this a thousand times before.
As a physician, he imagined she’d seen it done many times, but living it and observing it were two different things.
Her fingers shook as she tried to unbutton her slacks.
She was still nervous, and Harvey’s instincts kicked in.
“I got it.” Shooting to his feet, he set his hand over both of hers and made quick work of the button and zipper before interlacing one hand into hers. The act itself didn’t even come close to what they’d shared in making this baby, but the floor threatened to sweep out from under him, anyway.
“All right. Let’s see how baby is doing.” The nurse took up her rolling stool and detached a wand-looking device from the cart. She pressed it larger side down onto Drennan’s stomach, then smoothed it over the jelly.
A rapid thud thud thud filled the room. Fast and almost out of control. Drennan’s hand squeezed around his and refused to let go.
“There’s baby’s heartbeat.” The nurse shifted the device around. “Nice and strong.”
“That’s good.” Tangible relief drained from Drennan’s shoulders as she stared at the monitor.
She collapsed back against the exam table, her free hand pressed to her forehead.
The tears she’d held in earlier escaped down the sides of her face, and he couldn’t help but try to catch them before they made it to her hair.
“Strong heartbeat.” He didn’t know what else to say that might keep her concern at bay.
“Yeah.” She swiped at her face and sat up again. “I’m so glad.”
He couldn’t make anything out but a bunch of gray and white clouds across the black background, but then…
There it was. The thud matched up with a flutter on the screen, and Harvey’s chest nearly exploded from holding his breath.
An outline materialized with another shift of the ultrasound wand. Baby-shaped and very real.
Their baby.
His baby.
“I’ve spent so long dreaming of this moment.” A smile broke across Drennan’s face as she stared at the monitor then turned her attention to him. “Thank you.”
The tingling flared from his fingers into his arms and then his chest. It woke that monster living in his blood like a predator latching on to the scent of its prey, and Harvey felt his body temperature drop. He hadn’t heard her right. “What did you just say?”
“Harvey?” Drennan’s voice failed to bring the peace it usually did as he dropped her hand. As though she’d burned him. Or trapped him. “Are you okay?”
The tingling contorted into something dark and heavy.
Full of rage and unpredictability. The trauma she’d suffered, the grief, the neglect, the outright hatred from her one surviving parent.
The loss of her father and how she clung to those memories of their happy little family…
Understanding struck. Her leveled reaction to getting pregnant, her asking him to be involved, her lack of any real relationships other than with her doctor friend and her boss.
She’d…she’d played him from the beginning.
His voice didn’t sound like his own as he spoke and his heart rate catapulted into dangerous levels. “You got pregnant on purpose.”