“Thank you.” I move to stand up, but the room spins, and I fall back onto the bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Dr. Hamilton asks.

“To Callum. I need him.”

“Well, give me a few minutes to finish up here, and you can see him. Both of you are impatient and stubborn, do you know that?”

“Yeah.” I grin, despite the horrible headache. “It’s one of our best traits.”

He goes over my instructions for what I need to do for the next few days and suggests that I follow up with my primary physician as soon as possible.

“If I promise I’ll go to the doctor today, will you let me see Callum?”

He sighs. “I’ll let him come over in a few minutes, after I check him out one more time. Just relax, okay? You’ve undergone trauma, Aspen. Don’t make me admit you overnight.”

“I’ll be a good girl,” I assure him.

I’m pregnant.

Oh, God. Just the thought of that makes me sick to my stomach. I never thought I’d have more children. I didn’t want them. Of course, I didn’t plan to get married again, but here we are.

“Aspen?” Callum rushes into the room and over to me. “Darling, are you okay?”

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt. “There’s no other way to say it, and I can’t sugarcoat it. I’m going to have a baby, and I’m so sorry because I know we were super careful. We always used condoms. I should have gone on the pill.”

Callum’s scared face transforms into an expression of pure joy.

“This is wonderful news! It may be earlier than I would have planned, but having children with you is absolutely something I want.”

“No.” I reach for his hand, begging him to understand. “It’s not good news, Callum. I don’t want more children. I can’t be a mother again.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that this isn’t what I want. At all. I had a child, and I lost her. The ache that lives inside of me from that loss is constant. It never goes away, Callum. And I can’t fill it with another child. I can’t replace her and just forget her as if she never existed at all. That isn’t fair to her or to me, and I refuse to do it.”

“Love.” Callum climbs up on the bed with me and holds me close. “You’re not replacing Emma. That’s impossible. Your daughter will always be a part of your heart and soul, and nothing will ever change that.”

“I can’t do it again.”

He tips up my chin so he can look me in the eyes.

“You were a wonderful mother, and what happened to Emma wasn’t your fault. Do you understand that?”

“My mind understands,” I reply slowly. “But in my heart, I always believed that if I’d been with them that day, I could have done something to save her.”

“Or you would have died with them, and I wouldn’t have you with me now.”

I blink at the thought. “I never considered that.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It was a horrible accident, and I’m so sorry it happened. If I could change it for you, I would, even if that meant I lost you because you’d still have your husband. I would take the pain away in a heartbeat.

“Having our child doesn’t erase your past, Aspen. It just means that we’re moving forward. And Emma would want that for you.”

“Emma loved babies,” I whisper. “Do you think that Emma held this little one before sending him down to us?”

“I guarantee it,” he replies. “And what a lovely thought that is, sweetheart.”

“Yeah.” I sniff, letting my tears fall. Tears of grief because my sweet daughter won’t be here to meet her new sibling. And tears of joy because I have the chance to love another little someone the way I did my sweet Emma. “I didn’t plan this.”

“Clearly,” he says with a chuckle. “But we can move up the wedding.”

“No.” I shake my head again, adamant about this. “I will not get married again because I’m pregnant, Callum. I did that before, and I won’t do it again. As it is, people will talk and say that you’re marrying me because you have to. I’m not going to add fuel to that fire.”

“I do have to,” he replies easily. “Being without you isn’t an option for me.”

“You know what I mean.” But I place a kiss on his mouth. “And thank you for that.”

“I’ll marry you whenever you want. Tomorrow or next year, I don’t care as long as you’re my wife.”

“I want to have the baby and then have a wedding here in Cunningham Falls next autumn. If we got married right away, and I have a baby in seven months, it’ll be said that it was a shotgun wedding.”

“Charming.”

“And it’s not.”

“Of course, not. I proposed to you before I knew you were pregnant.”

“No one knows that.”

Tags: Kristen Proby Big Sky Royal Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net