Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
ERIKA
I pulled my raincoat tight around me as I jogged through the pelting rain up to the main Hurst house.
I tripped and almost landed on my knees.
Running in rubber boots sucked. The sun was waning into dusk on this already dark Thursday evening.
I planned to see Josh tonight, maybe catch him at the clinic before he left for the day.
He liked to finish billing and writing charts for the farm calls between six and seven in the evening. But it was my night on-call. Again.
I’d actually switched Thursday for Friday with Josh so I could go to the school’s parent-teacher night with Vinny tomorrow.
At this point the days were blending together. We didn’t have time for ourselves, never mind a relationship. Work all day and possibly all night? This wasn’t sustainable.
I smiled to myself as I slowed my pace. Josh had left a chocolate muffin on my desk before he took off to a goat farm this morning. It’d been a sweet offering.
Mrs. Hurst’s little horse had somehow managed to damage the skin on its other front leg. Alone, I’d managed to convince the miniature horse to stay still by using food and placed a bandage. I wanted to stop by the main house before I left to thank Mrs. Hurst for the meals.
On the front porch, someone in a pink raincoat sat huddled in a chair, crying. Drawing closer, I realized it was…Milly? I may have had every reason to resent her, and there was a whole mess of ugly history between us, but I wasn’t heartless.
“Are you okay?” I asked, although I kept a safe distance from the crying woman.
She swiped her puffy eyes. “I don’t know why I thought it’d be a good idea to talk to Mrs. Hurst. She always seems so sweet at church.
I thought she could help smooth things over, or at least give me some advice about her son, but she got fussy.
Said it was my problem and left for church.
Just up and left.” She waved a hand toward where the Hursts parked their cars.
“You’d think she’d be happy to be a grandmother. ”
A grandmother? Milly was pregnant? The words crashed over me, but they didn’t make sense. My brain just…stopped. The world tilted, sounds blurring into a distant roar. Josh and Milly—they were having a baby? My chest tightened like it might crack open.
Somehow, I managed to whisper, “He doesn’t want the baby?”
“He made it clear this afternoon it’s never really been his thing. Wishes it gone.” Milly started choke-sob crying again. “You’ve…you’ve got Josh now and I’ve got…” The sniffling came hard with a lot of indelicate nose wiping. “I don’t know what I’ve got.”
“I don’t know that anyone has Josh,” I echoed.
“Look, this isn’t your problem.” She rushed off the porch to her car and drove off.
My heart cracked—sharp, splintering into a million pieces I couldn’t gather.
A Josh as cold and heartless as Milly said wasn’t the man I knew.
That aside, even if she may have misinterpreted him, he could never actually be mine.
Not now. Not if he was starting a family with Milly.
Not if he was becoming someone’s father.
He was the kind of man who would commit one hundred percent to fatherhood. I knew it in my heart.
That door to a life with Josh slammed shut. I felt the echo all the way down to my bones.
The words Milly said pinged around inside my skull long after they’d been spoken, bouncing around until they scraped me raw.
The drive back to the clinic was a complete blur—streetlights stretching into smears of white and yellow, the world moving while I felt frozen in place.
Everything inside me seemed wrapped in cotton, muffled, like I wasn’t really in my own body.
Inside the clinic, I found Josh in the office, typing.
I could barely think through the pain of him never being mine. I didn’t know what to say.
He glanced up from where he was typing records to where I leaned against the doorframe, water dripping off my raincoat. He glanced down to the rubber boots I hadn’t taken off and frowned. “Are you okay?”
I rasped out, “How could you do that to Milly? To deny her when she’s having a baby? Your baby?”
He blinked rapidly as if trying to reset reality. “What? She’s pregnant?”
“She told me you didn’t want it. Are you… Shit, Josh, are you asking her to get an abortion even though she wants to keep it?” I swallowed hard. “I’m not sure I even know who you are if you—”
“What the hell is this about?” Josh stood. “You think that I got Milly pregnant and then told her to piss off when she told me? Or that I said she should abort a baby?”
I blinked up at him, trying to process the horror on his face.
My brain warned me something was off, but my mouth kept talking.
“She was at your parents’ house when I was out there to tend to the miniature horse.
She said your mom was going to be a grandmother.
She wanted to ask your mom for guidance.
Like you’d already told her to do that.”
His face flushed a deep red. “I can’t believe you think that I’d tell any woman who carried my child to do that. Who do you think I am?”
“I don’t—” My voice broke. Softly I whispered, “I don’t really know. Even at our worst, I always knew you were kind. You’ve got this heart that’s just good. But this? I don’t know how to process it. It’s not who I thought you were.”
“You automatically assume anything Milly says is the truth. You immediately doubt me and think I could do something like that? I thought I knew who you were, that you trusted me.”
“I’m lost,” I whispered.
“Let me set one thing straight. The only woman who could be pregnant with my child is you. I never, never slept with Milly. Whoever the hell’s child she’s carrying isn’t mine.
If she suggested my mother is going to be a grandmother, then it’s got to be Timothy’s.
The thought of him sleeping with Milly while I was dating her is…
.” Josh shook his head. “But you think I’d tell her to…
to…” His silence became dangerous, the kind of silence before something breaks.
It wasn’t his baby. The relief was so profound.
But I’d messed up.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
His mouth opened as if he was about to say something but then it shut.
He picked up his keys and walked out of the office.
His back to me, he stopped. Without turning my way he said, “Erika, whatever we had is broken beyond repair. You showed me that right now. I can’t believe you imagined I was that kind of awful.
I’m…” He dropped his chin. “I’m disappointed. I-I can’t do this with you.”
I stared at the door he disappeared through, unable to blink. When it swung shut, the soft click echoed like a gunshot. Final. Absolute. It felt like the last thread between us snapped right there.