I wouldn’t go so far as to think of myself as a germaphobe. I could push an elevator button or shake hands with people just fine. I was just a terrible patient. I hated not being able to do anything, I hated feeling bad, and I hated taking medicine. Even that pink bubble-gum-flavored goo that everybody else seemed to love made me gag. Being sick was just not one of my strong points.
And there I was, not only feeling terrible but hiding out in what was essentially a stranger’s cabin because people were after me with only the worst intentions in mind. The second cabin I had hidden out in at that.
At least I had Aiden. He’d been doing everything he could to keep me comfortable and make me feel better. There was a constant stream of hot tea, and he even made me a giant pot of mashed potatoes when that was the only thing that sounded good. When he wasn’t taking care of things around the cabin or outside, he was cuddling on the couch with me.
If this was what being sick was when I was here, I might be able to handle it.
Having Brett and all of Alfredo’s crew around all the time was a bit of a drawback, but I kept telling myself how thankful I should be that I had these men around protecting me.
A few days after I first started feeling bad, I woke up with a rush of nausea that had me scrambling for the bathroom. Rather than getting better, I felt like I was getting worse. I spent several minutes in the bathroom before being able to brush my teeth and come back out into the living room. Aiden was in the kitchen making more tea, and he called in to check on me.
“I feel worse,” I told him.
“Do you think maybe you have the flu?” he asked as he came into the room with my tea. He handed it to me carefully and sat down beside me to rub my back. “Maybe we should bring you in to see a doctor.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t feel like it’s the flu. I’m not aching. My head doesn’t hurt. I don’t have a runny nose or anything. I’m just really sick to my stomach.”
“Maybe you’re pregnant,” he said with a laugh and went back into the kitchen.
He sounded like he was joking, but that sentence was not at all funny to me. It hadn’t even occurred to me that this could be morning sickness, but now that he said it, I couldn’t get that possibility out of my mind. I immediately felt worse as a wave of terror rushed over me.
I ran back into the bathroom and closed the door, pressing my back against it and trying to draw in breaths to calm me down. I needed a few seconds alone to think this through. Thinking back, I realized the first time we had sex was about a month before, and I couldn’t remember my last period. I definitely hadn’t had one while I was at the cabin. It hadn’t even crossed my mind there were so many other things going on in my head.
Getting myself together, I went back out into the cabin and asked Aiden to use his phone.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m just going to call Sammi to check in with her.”
He nodded as he handed me the phone. “Do you want anything to eat?”
I shook my head. “Not right now.”
I brought the phone into the spare bedroom so I would be as far away from Aiden as possible. I didn’t want a chance for him to overhear the conversation. Sammi answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you feeling any better?”
“No. And I’m kind of afraid I might know why.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I think I might be pregnant,” I said.
“What?” The word burst out of her with such force I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “Pregnant? What do you mean you’re pregnant?”
“I said might be,” I said. “I don’t know for sure. All I know is that I’ve been feeling really sick for days, especially when I first get up, and I haven’t had a period in more than a month. I feel really stupid that I didn’t even think about it, but I honestly didn’t. Not until Aiden said something.”
“Aiden knows?” Sammi said, sounding like she was freaking out nearly as much as I was.
“No. No one knows. It’s still just a chance. But he was talking about me being sick, and he made a joke about me maybe being pregnant. He was laughing about it like he didn’t think it was even a chance, but that got me thinking, and I realized we first had sex about a month ago,” I said. “I’m just really scared right now. I don’t know what to do. What if I am? What would I do?”