Atonement (Angel's Halo MC 5)

Scrubbing my hands over my face, I leaned back against the wall, mentally praying. For what, I had no idea. All I knew was that I wanted her to be okay. She had to be okay. I couldn’t have accepted anything else.

Fuck, I had only recently realized what that female really meant to me. I couldn’t lose her now. I refused to lose her.

Another five minutes passed. My sister appeared as if out of thin air, walking toward me with a closed expression on her face. “Any news?”

I shook my head. “If there is, no one has told me.”

She leaned back against the wall beside me, wrapping her arms around her middle as she looked across the hall at the closed examining room door. “I’m sure she’s fine. Quinn’s tough.”

“I’m starting to realize that.” I twisted my neck from side to side, trying to ease some of the strain in it. “Everything okay at home? The kids okay?”

“Willa and Flick took them to the clubhouse. Gracie is helping organize everyone for lockdown.” She grimaced. “The only way I got to come here is because Bash is out in the waiting room.”

“I figured as much.” No way was my brother-in-law going to let his wife run around without someone watching out for her.

The examining door opened, and the two nurses and the doctor came out. The noises coming from Quinn were driving me crazy. Whatever they had been doing to her in there hadn’t calmed her down at all. If anything, she was crying even harder now.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I didn’t care if my brother didn’t like it or not, I couldn’t just stand there when she was crying like that.

Pushing away from the wall, I went into the room before the door had even closed behind the doctor. Raven followed me, though I didn’t pay attention to anything she did as I hurried to the little bed where my girl was lying.

Quinn was covering her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably from how hard she was sobbing. Each sound that left her was like a stab straight to my heart. All I wanted to do was comfort her, to make whatever was wrong better. Fuck, I would have gladly taken on whatever was hurting her.

Colt’s jaw was locked when he looked at me, but he didn’t start yelling for me to leave. He moved away from Quinn’s side, walking toward me and Raven. Taking our sister’s arm, he headed for the door. “I’ll let you two have some privacy,” he muttered in a quiet voice. “If she needs me, just yell.”

I hadn’t expected this to be that easy, but I wasn’t about to complain.

I took his place at the head of the bed. Then I touched her shoulder carefully, giving it a gentle squeeze as I lowered my head and pressed my lips to her hair.

She lifted one of her hands to cover mine, gripping and holding on for dear life. Watching her like this had a lump filling my throat, and my eyes began to burn. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried, but right then, being so helpless to help her brought tears to my eyes.

“Sweetheart?” My voice was gravely sounding from the emotion trying to choke me. “Baby, tell me what’s wrong.”

She lowered the hand still covering her face and finally lifted her head, a small but bright smile on her lips. “I’m okay.”

The smile caught me off guard. All those tears. Those damn sobs I had heard coming from her would probably haunt me for the rest of my life, yet she was able to smile?

My own tears dried up in the face of her brilliant smile.

“I’m really confused right now,” I told her honestly.

She wiped at a few tears still running down her face. “I’ve been confused for weeks now, so I get it.”

“Will you tell me why you were so upset?” I cupped her face in one hand, rubbing my thumb under her eye as I looked deeply into them. “Because you were killing me with those sobs, sweetheart.”

Her lashes started to lower, but before they could close, she snapped them back up. “It’s complicated.”

I didn’t speak, not knowing what to say to that. Instead, I just stood there, waiting.

Quinn blew out a long breath. “Okay … But you might not like what I have to tell you.” Her chin began to tremble again, and my fingers contracted on her cheek. Still, I waited. “I’m pregnant.”

My hand dropped from her face at that whispered confession. For a few seconds, those two words didn’t make sense to me.

I dropped my eyes to her abdomen, covered with a sheet. One of her hands was lying over it, as if to protect the life growing there from me.

I sucked in a deep breath, tried to think through all the new crazy thoughts now swimming through my head. Pregnant? Quinn was pregnant.

The first thought that caught my attention was: how could I have been so stupid to not use protection? That was not normal for me. I had only ever not used it a few times in my life, and only then because I had known it was safe. But with Quinn, I had lost all control. Protection hadn’t even entered my mind.