The Trouble with Tomboys (Tommy Creek #1)(57)

doctor told her he recommended she never try to 172



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have children again, she turned her back to him and refused to speak to anyone—Grady included—for a week.

Things were never the same after that. He stuck by her side, and she eventually returned to the land of the living—or half-living, as he came to know it.

But it was obvious the essence of the woman he’d married had vanished. A couple of years passed, and they fell into a new routine, not like how it was before, but Grady remained comfortable and content.

He still had his wife; that was all that mattered to him. Then his sister, Emma Leigh, turned up

pregnant. He should’ve recognized that as a warning sign. But blindly, he assumed Amy was reconciled to the fact babies were not in their future unless they adopted.

She wasn’t reconciled to any such notion.

He came home from work to find a glowing, happy Amy waiting at the door with a bright smile and positive pregnancy test in her hand. Gaping at the stick, he turned livid. She’d tricked him, gone against his wishes and stopped taking her birth control.

That night, the two of them had the biggest fight of their marriage. Grady couldn’t believe she was so willing and even excited about risking her life for a baby they could just as easily adopt. And Amy didn’t understand why he didn’t want his own child, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood.

“Of course, I’d prefer that,” he argued. “But it’s just not possible for us, Amy.”

She laughed bitterly. “If it’s not possible, then why am I pregnant?”

“You know you’re just going to miscarry again,”

he countered. “And then what? It’s going to crush you just as bad, if not more, than last time. I don’t want to go through that again.”

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“So, what do you want me to do? Get an

abortion?” She snorted. “That’s not going to happen.”

Grady gritted his teeth. “You shouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first place.”

Glaring at him, she spit back, “Yeah, well, it takes two to make a baby, darling. You sure weren’t arguing like this in the bedroom the night I conceived.”

Unable to do anything but stand there and

seethe, Grady stared at his soul mate, feeling so disconnected he thought he was looking at a

stranger.

“If you don’t want this baby,” she hissed, “I’ll go have it somewhere by myself.” Then she turned and stomped away.

This time, they didn’t speak for two weeks.

Finally, Amy approached him one evening. With a bowed head, she quietly said, “Because you feel so strongly about this, I’ll agree to look into adoption if we lose this child.”

Grady pulled her into his arms and apologized for being a butt until he started to weep.

“I’m so scared,” he admitted, burying his face in her hair. “The last miscarriage almost ruined us, Amy. I don’t...I can’t even breathe when I think about what would happen if we had to go through that again.”

“Shh,” she soothed and ran her fingers through his hair. “It won’t be the same, Grady. I swear it. It won’t be the same this time.”

Once again, he believed her promise. And to an extent, she was right. It didn’t end up like the time before. It was worse.

Their second child almost made it to full term.

Six weeks before her due date, Amy went into labor.

And Grady, like any excited, expectant father, rushed her to the hospital.

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emergency cesarean. Grady was allowed into the delivery room where he watched the entire

procedure. But problems developed, complications he didn’t understand from the medical jargon the doctor and nurses used. More help rushed into the room to assist, and Grady was asked to leave. But he didn’t budge. And everyone was too busy to scoot him along.

He watched Dr. Carl pull the limp, bloody form from his wife, and he continued to watch as they tried to revive the boy through chest compressions.

When one nurse shook her head, Amy opened her eyes and asked to see her son. The doctor told her to relax.

“Just take it easy, Amy,” he soothed.

Amy’s weak voice repeated, “Baby.”

Grady took her hand, but she didn’t seem to feel the pressure of his fingers gripping hers because she was too occupied looking the other way and taking in the sight of their lifeless infant.

“No,” she gasped in a hoarse voice and reached for Bennett. “No.”

“Amy,” Grady whispered, lifting her hand to his mouth and gently kissing her knuckles.

His only answer was the long steady beep of her heart monitor as she died. She didn’t fight; she merely looked at her dead child and gave up. Not once did she look at him or ask for him. It was like she didn’t consider him worthy enough to live for.

It took a while for him to forgive her for that.

Blowing out a shaky breath, he stared down at the picture book opened on his lap. He blinked when he saw a snapshot of Amy in her wedding dress, grinning up at him.

Frowning, he tried to recall when he’d left the kitchen and come into the living room to look through his wedding album. But here he was.