“Okay, any other questions?” the doctor asked as he moved the wand around inside of me.
I shifted restlessly, not liking the way the wand felt inside of me.
Malachi squeezed my hand, recognizing my discomfort.
“No,” we both said at the same time.
I watched the screen for a few more seconds, watching my baby’s heart beat fast, before the doctor removed the wand and disposed of the condom covering it before hanging the tool back up.
Malachi pulled my gown down to cover me, and I looked at him with a smile.
He knew my wants and needs better than I knew my own. Or so it seemed.
“No sex. No vigorous exercise. I want you to be on your back, in your bed, doing nothing more than picking your phone up or the TV remote. Understand?”
At the doctor’s words, he patted my knee and walked out without another word.
The moment the door closed behind him, I looked over to Malachi to see him staring at the grainy black and white photo that the doctor printed out for him.
“You going to make it?” I asked him.
His eyes looked up. “She’s going to make it. I just feel it.”
I looked down at my wedding ring. “So much for a fast wedding. Can’t really get married in bed, now can I?”
His eyes gleamed. “You just let me worry about that.”
Together we walked out of the doctor’s office, hand in hand.
My eyes lit on the front of the building where, when we’d arrived, they were taking a plate-glass window out of the very top of the building and replacing it.
They were hoisting up a new one.
“This is some Final Destination shit,” I mumbled as we walked under the people working on the glass.
Malachi shot me an amused glance.
“I’d be more worried about it if we were actually going to be walking under it,” he teased.
We were taking it slow, and we were about two steps away from the car before a screech of tires had both of us looking up and whipping around to see the commotion.
What we saw made my heart stutter hard in my chest.
Adrian, in his brand newly fixed truck, was barreling down toward us.
Before he could get to us where we were standing on the sidewalk, however, the glass that they were replacing broke completely in half, then into even smaller shards. One deadly looking, sharply pointed piece came straight down and embedded itself through Adrian’s windshield, making him swerve wildly and hit the concrete pole to our left and not us to the right of it.
The crack of the truck hitting the concrete had my heart shuddering in my chest, and fear clogging my throat.
But just as fast, I started to laugh.
“Now do you feel me when I said it was some Final Destination shit?” I teased my man.
That’s when Adrian started shouting in pain.
“His parents aren’t going to like having to fix that after just having to pay for it to get fixed last time,” I found myself saying.
Malachi shot me an amused smirk. “Drive home. Go get in bed. Let me handle this.”
I gave him a thumb up and did just that.
And I didn’t worry once about whether Adrian would live or die.
It seemed that my give a damn was broken.CHAPTER 22Shine on, you batshit crazy diamond.-Coffee CupMALACHISierra,
Today was the worst day of my life.
There are many times that I thought that day had come to pass, but seeing you there, with your body attached to a vehicle by a rope? I learned new levels of terror that my body could be put through.
I swear to all that’s holy, I’ll never, ever let you go again.
I’ll cherish every single day that you’ve been given to me to live on this earth.
I love you with all my heart,
Your Malachi
• • •
Sierra went home. Her brother met her at the entrance of the hospital in his police cruiser.
By now, she was in bed, hopefully snuggled up with a book.
Me?
I was busy watching firefighters try to extricate this stupid piece of shit from his truck.
Not only had he smacked into the pole pretty hard, but the shard of glass that’d fallen? It’d impaled him in the chest.
“Adrian!” the boy’s mother warbled. “Adrian! Oh, my God! Are you okay?”
“Ma’am,” I heard one of the officers say. “Back off. They’re trying to work. They can’t have you yelling and screaming in his ear or something might happen.”
If only.
What would it matter if they slipped and he accidentally died? I knew that I wouldn’t care one fucking bit.
“Oh, God. What happened?” she cried.
Some bystander that’d seen the whole thing go down walked up to the edge where the woman was screeching.
“That crazy man just came out of nowhere and almost ran over a pregnant woman and that cop,” the bystander said, making me smile. “Then, as if in a miracle, the piece of glass broke up there.” He pointed at the top of the building we’d come out of. “And a piece came down and impaled him through the windshield.”