It took a moment for Mia to find her voice. “But I thought I couldn't get pregnant with my condition.”
Dr. Misti-Cooper shrugged. “So did I, but apparently, you are a medical marvel. It's still very early, though, so we'll need to keep a close eye on both of you, but from what I can see now, you two look perfect.”
The little dot shifted on the screen and Mia's heart filled with more love than she ever thought possible.
“You said it's a he?” she whispered, her eyes never leaving the screen.
“I call all these little guys 'he' until we know for sure,” the doctor explained with a friendly chuckle. “It's still way too early to tell. The earliest we can find out is at ten weeks with a maternal blood test, but most people still find out at the twenty-week ultrasound.”
“Twenty weeks?” Mia repeated. It felt like such a long time and yet absolutely not enough time at the same moment. She swallowed hard. Dr. Misti-Cooper gently patted her leg.
“You're going to have to take it easy. Be gentle with yourself. Given your history, I don't want you taking any unnecessary risks,” the doctor told her. “No sports where you might fall. No horseback riding, ice-skating, bike riding, that kind of thing.”
“Okay,” Mia agreed. She wasn't going to do anything to risk this miracle baby. She was ready to sit in a padded room for the next nine months if it meant her baby would be safe.
The machine beeped as it finished printing out copies of the ultrasound picture.
“Here you go,” the doctor said, handing her several copies. The image was just blurry black and white circles, but to Mia, it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. “I'll go get you some information on what foods and medicines to avoid while you get dressed.”
Mia nodded, not really paying attention to the doctor as she left. Mia was too busy staring at the picture in her hands. She was going to be a mother. There was a little person growing inside of her. She already felt incredibly protective of it.
“Don't worry little one,” she whispered to the white dot in the photo “I've got you, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You're safe with me.”
Chapter 30
Carter
Carter sat in the garage and went over the designs for his next year's car models and felt a wave of frustration wash over him. He wished he could just go to the plant and start on them now. There was so much that needed to be done that he couldn't do from his mountain home. As much as he loved being out on the ranch, it certainly made doing business ridiculously hard. He wished he could go down to the city for at least a couple of hours just so that he could get a few things accomplished.
Without access to his office and his usual business interactions, he felt out of control. He had far too much freedom out here, and he missed the hustle of the office. The ranch was great, but he craved the thrill of the deal and the excitement of being around people who shared his dream. He wasn't good at just sitting back and letting things happen, so being out here in the middle of nowhere was hard on him.
He sighed and pushed his chair away from the drafting table. If he was feeling like this, it meant it was time to take a break. He got up and went to the paddocks to see to his horses. This was the part that made being out here tolerable. He loved the horses and doing manual labor. It was so different from what he was paid to do that it was pleasurable.
The walk was chilly, but the sun still shone through the clouds, and the snows hadn't come yet. The mountain tops were white now, and frost covered the grass each morning, so it wouldn't be long now, but today was beautiful. A crisp, cool fall day with nothing to worry about. For the moment, the world was as it should be.
A security guard nodded respectfully as he passed and Carter returned the motion, almost like a salute. He hoped that whoever was sending the threats would be caught soon. He needed them to be caught so that he could go back to work and his real life.
Hopeful Dreamer nickered softly at him as he approached the fence to the big open space. The foal raised his head and began dancing around his mother with joy that his friend had come to visit him. If that wasn't enough to make him feel better, then nothing was, Carter thought to himself as he opened the gate and went inside the paddock.
It was amazing how much the little foal had grown in two months. He was still all legs and odd angles, but the grace of his sire was starting to show. He was a deep black with white forelegs and a star on his forehead. Star Dreamer was an appropriate name for him.
&
nbsp; The foal nipped at his sleeve as he came close, asking him to play in the yellow grass. His mother watched, munching on a mouthful of grass stems. She knew that Carter would keep her baby safe, so she almost seemed happy to have someone else keep the energetic young coal entertained for a while.
Carter checked the colt over with his hands, making sure that he didn't have any burrs or injuries. He knew that Laura did this every evening when the horses came in, but it felt good to do it himself. If he was going to be stuck here, he might as well feel like he was useful.
Hopeful Dreamer's head popped up and she froze for a moment before deciding there was no reason for alarm and went back to eating. Carter followed her gaze to see Brian coming up to the fence. The big man had a smile on his face which made Carter hopeful for good news. He gave Star Dreamer one last pat before walking back to the fence. The colt tried to follow him until his mother scolded him for going too far.
“What's going on?” Carter asked as he got close. Brian stood away from the fence with his hands behind his back and looking like the professional he was.
“I have good news,” Brian replied. “We have a lead. We got a hit on the fabric left on the porch bomb. The police are planning an arrest. We finally had enough information to put all the pieces together. This was the most frustrating puzzle I've ever worked on in my damn life.”
“An arrest?” Carter asked. “They're that close?”
Brian nodded. “All signs point to a family member of the airbag death lawsuit. A father of one of the girls that died. We'd been looking into them, but nothing connected them until now. We know who it is now. His name is Fred Hillstone.”
Carter stayed silent but nodded. He immediately recognized the name from the lists. His daughter was Beth and was nineteen when she died. He knew every name on the list of people that had died. He'd memorized them all. He could only imagine the amount of anger her father held toward him. He could understand it, but that didn't justify the death threats.