“But am I right?” I pressed.
“Yeah,” she growled, glaring at me. “You’re right. But if I hear you reminding me of the time I said that, you’re a dead man, too.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you or the baby, pixie. We’ll make sure of it.” Then, unable to stop myself from doing it, I covered her belly with my hand. “I can’t believe we made a baby.”
Chewing on her lip, she stared at my hand. “How do you think it happened?”
“Drunk sex with piercings and a condom?” I chuckled, then stopped when she looked worried. “What?”
“You don’t think Shonelle…”
What did she have to do with anything? “What do you mean?”
“Parker said that two out of a hundred women get pregnant because a condom didn’t work. Well, you said you were too drunk to remember, so what if—”
“No,” I snapped.
“But it could be—”
“No, it couldn’t,” I interrupted her again. “And I’ll tell you why. That was almost a year ago, and I have zero doubts if she’d gotten pregnant that she would have thrown it in my family’s faces months ago. And before your mind even goes close to the next thing I’m going to bring up, I’m going to tell you that I had to have a physical for my new health insurance. Part of the tests they do is to make sure I don’t have any STDs or nasty problems. Everything came back negative.”
Her expression went from concern into anger, then morphed into confusion. “From the little I know of Shonelle, she wouldn’t have hesitated to throw that night in your family’s face. So why didn’t she?”
Because evil doesn’t always work the same way?
“I don’t know,” I sighed, knowing I had to tell her the rest of it. “But there’s something else you need to know.”
“Please don’t tell me you shagged someone else who’s unhinged.”
“Marcus’s best friend is a whizz on the computer, and he managed to get Riley’s phone records. A number from here showed up on it a couple of times, and when he traced it, it came back to Shonelle’s. He’s still trying to get into his emails to see if they exchanged information on there, too, but so far, that’s what we know.”
Staring at me wide-eyed, she gasped, “That’s how he knew where to find me.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to rip her hair out at the roots and shove her tit down her throat,” she growled. “Who fucking does that? If she was able to track him down, then she was more than capable of finding out what he’d done. She’d know he’s a convicted rapist, and what he tried to do to me, why would she do that?”
Sure, it was angry ranting, but at the same time, there was a lot of despair and vulnerability laced through the words, and it broke my heart to hear. Pulling Sadie into my chest, I kissed the top of her head, grateful just to be holding her again after the time away from her.
It wasn’t the homecoming I’d been thinking about and dreaming of. It was better.
“The type of person who does that isn’t one that’s worth your time and energy, pixie. Right now, that little being is in your stomach, wondering why his or her mommy’s so upset. If you don’t calm down, you’re going to end up getting sick again, and then they’ll never let you out of here until after you’ve given birth.”
She was quiet for a couple of minutes, and when she spoke again, I knew she’d moved on. “The OB/GYN said that depending on the hospital, birth, and insurance company, they might let me home the same day I have the baby. That’s what I want.”
Rubbing her back, I breathed her in and smiled into the top of her head. One of the first questions she’d asked was if she’d have to stay in after the birth because that’s what she’d seen on television, but didn’t like hospitals and wanted to take the baby home the same day. They’d even discussed home births, but I wanted her in a place where if there was an emergency, they could do something immediately instead of having to transport her to a hospital.
The OB/GYN had told her that the policy on keeping a new mother and baby overnight had changed recently. It depended on what the insurance company said, how the birth had gone, how mommy and baby were doing, and the hospital themselves. Now that I knew how strongly she felt about it, I’d be reading through both of our insurance documents, and if hers didn’t allow it but mine did, I’d add her onto my own just in case.
Telling her all of this was the right thing. “Thank you! I might feel differently after I have the baby, but just in case, it’s a weight off my shoulders having the option available to me. I was never angry or disappointed in you, Elijah. I was just hurt that you’d run away. But the version of you I see now shows me how much you needed that time, so it was for the best.”