Tempt Me

“Hey.” He came up to her bed and gripped the metal side rail.

“Hey.”

Unable to help herself, she reached out and placed her hand over his. “I’m okay,” she reassured him. “The bullet grazed my shoulder. It didn’t penetrate or do any major damage.”

“Because you dropped your glasses. Otherwise you would have taken a direct hit somewhere more vital. I wish I’d been on your other side,” he said, teeth clenched, his frustration and anger with himself obvious.

“You couldn’t have guessed where he’d be.”

Austin nodded, his jaw tight, as if he really did know that, he just hated the fact that she’d been hurt.

Silence followed for a few minutes and he finally spoke. “Are we going to talk about it?” he asked.

She glanced down at her still-flat stomach. “We should.” She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “I was going to tell you right after the trial.”

He inclined his head. “I believe you. I just can’t really wrap my head around the fact that you’re pregnant. I mean, we used protection, no holes in the condoms,” he said wryly.

“It happens.” She still looked down, needing to gather herself as she said what she’d planned to say next. “Austin…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Mia,” he said, a definite warning in his tone.

She shook her head. “No. Let me finish.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Go ahead.”

She swallowed hard. “I know this happened to you before.”

A low growl escaped him but she forged on. “You got a woman pregnant and it wasn’t planned and you felt obligated to marry her and try to create a family for Bailey’s sake. And I admire and respect that about you, I really do. But I want you to know, I’ve heard you loud and clear.”

She looked up in time to see him narrow his gaze. “You heard what?”

“I heard you when you told me you didn’t want anything serious, and more importantly, I heard you tell Ben you’ve done the family thing once and you weren’t going to do it again.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. I was waiting for the bathroom at Dan’s,” she said quietly. “And I respect you too much to ever put you in that position again.”

“Are you finished?” he asked, his tone low and brittle.

“No,” she said, her head buzzing, dizziness and emotional pain assaulting her. “There’s one more thing. I won’t stop you from having whatever relationship you want with our child.” She met his gaze. “Now I’m finished.”

“Good. Because you have everything wrong.”

She blinked up at him. The fluorescent lights from above her head were harsh and she glanced down. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She couldn’t imagine how she’d been mistaken in any of this.

He jiggled the bed rail until he lowered it and sat on the bed beside her. He picked up her hand, and her heart rate spiked at the feel of his more calloused fingers entwined with hers.

“Let’s start with Kayla. She tricked me into marriage, and yes, I married her because she was pregnant, but here’s the difference between you and my ex-wife.” His grip tightened around hers. “I love you.”

She blinked and tears fell from her eyes. It was everything she wanted to hear, and she understood that, if they were going to have any kind of future, she needed to start trusting in things she’d never quite let herself believe in. She needed to trust in him.

She was overwhelmed by his words and the events of the day as she spoke. “Austin, I—”

“Shh.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’ve had a rough day, a shock to your body, and now this. I know you want to believe me and you’re afraid. You might even think I’m saying I love you because you’re pregnant, but when you think about things, think about this. I married Kayla, yes, but I never told her I loved her.”

Her eyes opened wide as the meaning and import of his words sunk in.

“Ms. Atwood?” A nurse pushed the curtain aside. “The police want to talk to you. We have to report all gunshots, you understand.”

She wanted to decline the visit, to focus on Austin and all the new feelings floating around inside her. Of course, the floating could be the painkillers, but the high caused by his words? Not so much.

“You can send them in,” she said, shooting Austin a regret-filled glance.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, his hand still in hers.

And though she hadn’t processed what his proclamation really meant for them, the baby, or her future, she squeezed his fingers tighter as she prepared to deal with the police. At least now, her heart was light and her entire body filled with hope.