Truths That Saints Believe (The Klutch Duet 2)

My mouth turned dry, my stomach full of knots. My hands started shaking, and I had an overwhelming urge to run. To run where, I did not know. There was no running from this. Either the news was good, or it wasn’t. Either our baby was okay, or it wasn’t. Fear wouldn’t change fate. I’d continue breathing regardless.

“Stella,” Jay’s voice was still cold, detached.

I blinked, staring at him. He’d wiped off some of the blood that covered his face at some point, so his face was mostly free of it, but there were still splatters here and there. It remained on his hands.

If the kind looking doctor thought it odd that a blood-spattered man in a suit had ordered an ultrasound machine be brought to his house, she didn’t act like it.

“Mrs. Helmick,” she greeted me softy. “If you’ll lie down, I can check you over. Then we’ll take a peek at your baby. Get some photos for you and your husband.” She spoke in a calm, warm tone, much unlike that doctor who I’d screamed at all those months ago.

When Wren lost her baby.

My blood went cold, and the room tilted slightly. Jay was at my side in an instant, holding me up, face no longer a mask of cold granite. Worry, terror flickered there.

I was up in his arms in an instant, him carrying me the short distance to the makeshift bed. He brushed the hair gently from my forehead, eyes burning into mine before he stepped away. He didn’t go far while the doctor—Abagail—checked me over. First, she took my blood pressure, asked some questions. I answered them on autopilot, convincing myself that my baby was gone. Our baby was gone.

“Now, this will be a little cold,” Abagail warned before squirting something on my stomach.

I felt nothing. I was already numb, already bracing for impact.

Jay stood close, staring at me. I couldn’t look at him. Instead, my eyes went to the monitor connected to the ultrasound machine. If things weren’t different, I might’ve asked how the fuck Jay had managed all this.

Things weren’t different.

I just stared blankly at the screen as it lit up.

Her wand moved against my stomach. “Now,” she murmured, staring at the screen.

I would’ve fallen down if I wasn’t already laying down, because right there, make no mistake, was a baby.

A noise thumped through the speakers, fast, quiet, but it vibrated through my bones.

“That’s the heartbeat,” Abagail announced, smiling at me. “Your baby looks to be measuring perfectly for thirteen weeks.”

Perfectly.

Our baby.

Though it was hard to tear my eyes from the screen, I managed to look at Jay, tears streaming down my face.

He was staring at the screen in awe.

Too quickly, Abagail moved the wand and wiped the jelly from my stomach. As soon as she stopped, there was a hand there, on my stomach. A large, masculine hand, covered in blood, cradling my stomach. Cradling our baby.

For an instant. Then he pulled down my shirt and helped me up to a sitting position. “Stay there,” he ordered.

I frowned at him, but he was already looking at Abagail who was packing up her things.

“The baby is perfect, healthy,” the doctor assured us, looking to me then to Jay, tensing when she met his eyes.

I couldn’t blame her, there was something about Jay right now. Even in the best of circumstances, he had a ‘do not fuck with me’ vibe.

“And Stella?” Jay demanded.

“Your wife is healthy too,” she replied, meeting his eyes. It was exceptionally brave of her. Not that Jay would do anything. “She is a little dehydrated, and obviously her eye will be swollen for a time, but she is young. She’ll be fine.”

I wondered what this woman thought. If she thought Jay was the reason for my eye. I wondered if she was doing this for money or for some other reason. She seemed kind, strong. But there wasn’t exactly time for me to invite her to stay for coffee and tell me her life story. She was gone once Jay was assured of my health, but not before giving me her card, urging me to use it day or night.

Then it was just us. Me and Jay. Alone.

I thought that’s what I’d been waiting for since the second he stormed through those doors. Since I’d watched a friend of mine die in front of me.

Now it was here, now it was just the two of us, and I didn’t know what to do. How to be, what to say. Jay was across the room from me, staring. My skin burned underneath his stare, the harsh lights overhead illuminating the blood that stained his neck, his suit. Magnifying his beauty.

“You’re pregnant.” Jay’s voice was empty. Scarily so. Eyes too. I’d felt a considerable amount of fear these past few days. A lot, actually. But never had I been so terrified as I was now.