26. Cara
26
CARA
I couldn’t blame Declan for storming out of my room.
It was the worst-case scenario I’d feared. His face registered pure shock. All that confusion that shone in his eyes made me feel even worse, like he struggled to understand how or why I’d deceived him at all.
We started our marriage based on lies. We met each other under the force of manipulation. And still to this day, we were bound to our own selfish wishes.
I needed to secure a better life for my mother.
He had to produce an heir.
But it seemed our best-laid plans to accomplish that were not feasible with our staying together.
After he left my room without a word, I ran to the bathroom to shower. This gown was a mockery, and I couldn’t wait to get it off.
I had no business pretending to be his wife, to stand by his side and try to act like one of those fancy Mob wives, those elegant women who stood with their men like the puppets they were.
This wasn’t me. I would not let myself be some idiot, dolled up in this gorgeous gown when I should be back home, toiling away on the farm and helping Mom with her care and getting her to her appointments.
“I’m such a fucking idiot,” I groaned to myself as I stepped in the shower.
All this time I’d wasted. I was a fool to ever actually think there could be an easy way out of a hard life. That making a deal with my father would ever end well. That trying to sweep all my stress away in one fell swoop would really work.
Now I’d lose him , too. I’d told Declan that I’d give him six months. Only five remained now, and I wouldn’t be any more likely to get pregnant within them. He’d leave me, per the deal we shook on at the church. He’d let me go, like he said, and I knew I would never see him again.
After the hardships that pushed me to reach him, to discover that dark, deep love that I knew couldn’t be a lie, I had to lose it all with him.
I stood in the shower, letting the hot water pummel my flesh. It was a weak attempt to invigorate myself. Unless the water could seep under my skin and rinse out the guilt, shame, and building heartbreak, I would remain broken and dirty.
After I turned numb and my skin pinkened with the blast of heat, I shut the water off and got dressed to try to do damage control again.
Declan had given me my phone to call my mother only, but that rule no longer mattered to me.
If I couldn’t go to her, I’d do the best I could from a distance. I called the hospital. I tried to get ahold of all the doctors who made up the care team for her problems. It was late, though, and I struggled to speak with anyone who could help me.
That night, I curled up on the bed holding my phone in case someone would call. I was prohibited from checking in with Mom directly. She couldn’t take calls, and Oscar’s phone wasn’t connecting. I prayed that he, or the neighbor, was with her so that she wasn’t alone, but I doubted she would understand why I wasn’t at her side. She wasn’t likely to forgive me for my absence, either.
With my heart breaking and my mind a ragged mess, I fell into a fitful sleep only to wake late.
Groggy and disoriented, I sat up and immediately tried all the numbers again. Faced with the same issues, I clenched my teeth and growled through the frustration of being so useless. Since it was the weekend, no offices were staffed. No one answered the phone. And the two people I did speak with weren’t any help. One woman at the hospital confirmed that my mother was still in critical care, and the other person, a young man who was an after-hours receptionist at her primary doctor’s office, suggested nothing more than making an appointment for three months from now for a follow-up.
I paced, so mad that the ache and tension in my stomach worsened further. Rubbing my abdomen hardly helped, and it took all my energy to breathe through the panic attack of my life coming apart.
Declan hated me.
Mom was ill.
All the debts remained.
And I was a liar, deceiving my husband. That stung the worst of all.
When my phone rang again, I answered quickly, so relieved to be able to speak with Oscar.
“Is she okay?” I asked as a greeting.
“I don’t know!” The sounds of chaos filled in from his end. Machinery. Men arguing. Animals protesting. “The tractor engine caught on fire. I’ve been trying to salvage the farm. The buildings are damaged.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth just as knocks sounded on the door. Declan wouldn’t knock. The only other person here who’d seek me out would be Riley.
Tears welled in my eyes as I opened the door to let her in. “Are the animals…?”
Oscar sighed. “They’re fine. Scared but fine. I’ve got some neighbors helping to relocate them and contain it all, but I’m sorry, Cara. I can’t check on Nora.”
I sniffed as Riley entered my room, eyes wide as she closed the door after her. In her hand, she held a tray of food with a cup of coffee. Breakfast. I’d missed it, but the scents of it all bothered my stomach more.
“Okay. I understand.”
“It’s not looking good, kid.” Oscar grunted. “None of this is. I know you said you can’t tell me anything about why you ran off. Hell, I wouldn’t blame you. This is no life. All these worries and everything. The farm, the money, the debt, your mom. But this is the worst timing.”
I nodded. He was wrong. I hadn’t run off. I’d taken the first dumb idea to solve all my problems. And it had colossally backfired.
I disconnected with him when he said he had to go, and I felt worse to keep him on the phone at all, bothering him when he was trying his best.
Riley set the tray on a table, but I shook my head. “No. Please, get that out of here.”
“Not feeling good?” she guessed.
I shook my head. How could I feel all right when my life was breaking apart? When my mom was suffering and my husband hated me?
“I can’t do anything right,” I groaned as I slumped to the couch and rubbed my stomach.
“Eh. I doubt that. I saw you make Declan smile the other day. That’s a miracle in itself.”
It’d be the last one, too. “He won’t be so happy anymore.”
“Why? What happened?” She sat on a chair across from me, seeming sincerely worried.
“Oh, God.”
As she came closer, the smell of the greasy bacon wafted closer. “I’m going to puke.” Covering my mouth with my hand, I tried to stave off the worst of the nausea.
“Damn. You are worrying yourself sick.” She pressed her lips together in a sympathetic frown. “I bet it was scary seeing Declan hurt last night. But that’s life. They’re rough men, but he’ll be fine. Don’t let yourself dwell on the what-ifs of it all.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not that.” I had been worried when he was hurt, but I’d already seen for myself last night that he was fine and stitched up.
“Then what’s wrong?”
I grimaced, battling the agony of my empty, upset stomach. “The smell of that bacon. And the thought of even eating. It’s making the stress even worse.”
She perked up, grinning. “Cara!”
I reared back at her outburst. “What?”
“You—” She stood and folded her hands together, so excited that she practically jumped.
“ What ?” I repeated.
“Are you pregnant?”
I opened and closed my mouth, trying to hurry and connect the dots. Why she’d ever leap to that conclusion was beyond me, but as I thought back to health class in high school, I realized that maybe what I was suffering could sound like morning sickness.
I’m not. I shook my head. “No. It’s not that.”
“You know?” She smiled. “Have you taken a test?”
I shook my head again. Not necessary.
“Are you late?”
I was. I thought I was. My cycles were never that consistent. I used to assume it was because I did too much manual labor and was so fit that my body never went through it. Athletes often had wonky schedules with their physique like that. And then all the stress… I never considered the details of my unreliable menstrual cycles because of my life and the complications when I was a teenager.
“No.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You hesitated to answer. Are you?”
I furrowed my brow. “I’m not pregnant.”
She huffed. “I know there’s got to be tests in the bathroom. Try one. You might not know.”
She just didn’t get it. But I didn’t want to lose the one friendly person here. If I had to stay married for five more months while Declan hated me, it would be hell.
Riley left me, taking the tray with her, but once she was gone, I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. About how my husband might treat me now that he knew I couldn’t serve a purpose for him.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mumbled as I went to the bathroom to find the stick. I may as well prove her wrong. Declan would want the proof too.
I was sick to my stomach with stress, and as I peed on the stick, I rolled my eyes and wondered why I was bothering.
I left the test in the bathroom to fetch my glass of ice water that I did ask Riley to leave with me, and by the time a minute had passed, I returned to the bathroom to check on the package for how long this test would require to show I was infertile.
Or not.
I blinked, looking from the package to the stick.
Three more minutes remained, but two lines showed clearly already. A pair of parallel streaks darkened, and I gaped at the evidence.
Pregnant.
“Oh, my God…” I grabbed the stick and stared at it like it was a joke. I shook it. I peered at it closely, questioning the lighting of the room.
“It’s got to be a fluke.” I fumbled for another test, dumping out three from the box. My heart raced as I used them all, having a thread of common sense to use a cup to collect the sample in and test again. And again. And again.
I read through every single word of the fine print with the instructions. I pored over the list of steps. It didn’t matter.
Every stick showed positive.
I was pregnant. The impossible had happened.
The doctors must have been wrong. I wasn’t infertile.
I was pregnant .
Shock rendered me numb, but a deeper, stronger sense of excitement filled me to the point that I almost cried. Laughing instead, hysterical, I curled up on the bed and pressed my hand to my flat stomach.
“How?” I whispered, overjoyed with the fact that I would be a mother.
How in the hell?
This was a twist I couldn’t have ever expected after the ups and downs of the last day. But I wasn’t mad or scared about it.
I’d never wanted a child before, when I thought I couldn’t have one. I formed my opinions long ago that I didn’t want to ever bring a child into a poor quality of life at the farm with my hopeless circumstances. Now, with Declan in the picture, though, I was excited to share a baby with him.
Elation coursed through me as I imagined the surprise and shock that would show on his face. He would be a good father, the authoritarian, for sure, but he would provide for this child in a way I never could have dreamed of before.
But he didn’t know. For the next two days, he stayed away, and I was torn apart with his absence.
I yearned to tell him how sorry I was. I wanted to express my remorse for not being honest and telling him from the beginning that I was infertile when it was no longer an issue with the new life growing inside me.
Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to days. For two long ones, I gave in to the feeling of being out of control. Nothing was in my control anymore, and I wished so badly that I could put an end to this stress about making everything right.
The only time I ever felt so free and released from stress was when he was here. When he was fucking me hard and pushing me to pleasure, preventing me from obsessing and trying to stay in control of everything.
Now, with him seeming to block my texts and calls, with him avoiding me completely and staying away, it looked like I would be wife number three to be removed from the Sullivan estate.