Love in the Light (Hearts in Darkness, #2)(29)

With her heart in her throat, she opened the boxes and laid the plastic sticks out in a row—two of each kind. She used them all, just to be quadruple sure. And then she waited. And her pulse raced. And her belly flipped.

And then the results came in.

Plus. Plus. Pregnant 3+. Pregnant 3+.

Makenna stared at the little windows like she was trying to decipher Sanskrit.

Plus. Plus. Pregnant 3+. Pregnant 3+.

She was pregnant. And it had been more than three weeks since she’d ovulated? How far along was she? She sank down onto the closed toilet lid and dropped her head into her hands.

Oh God. Ohgodohgodohgod.

Okay. Don’t freak out.

Right. I’ll do that right after I freaking freak out!

“Stop. Think this through,” she said out loud. An idea came to mind and she went in search of her cell phone. She called her doctor’s office and found out how to get a blood test—might as well start with confirming this.

She quickly showered and dressed for work so she could stop on the way to get the blood test and have a chance of getting the results back before the weekend. Because even though she knew—home pregnancy tests were way too accurate to get four false positives—she still wanted the official result. And she suspected Caden would, too.

Staring into the bathroom mirror, her gaze dropped to her stomach.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered to herself, as if she was revealing a secret. And she guessed she was. Because no way was she telling Caden until she knew everything there was to know.





CHAPTER ELEVEN



The nightmares were getting worse. They’d tormented him during the little bit of sleep he’d gotten the night before, so he’d gotten up and paced the living room, ultimately leaving rather than face Makenna’s knowing eyes in the morning. And during the long period of no calls they’d had during today’s shift, he’d drifted off, only for the nightmares to come at him again.

They all started the same.

It was the endings that were different.

In one, it was him and Makenna in the backseat when the car flipped, and it was Makenna who didn’t survive while he did. He called her name over and over, but she never answered.

In another, Sean morphed into Makenna from an earlier version of the dream. It was her eyes that accused him. Her voice that said, “It shoulda been me. I shoulda been the one to live.”

In a completely new spin of his subconscious, Caden became his father and Makenna, his mother. When the car flipped, Makenna suffered his mother’s fate, her head battered against the side window, her neck breaking, her death instant. And not only was Caden trapped hanging upside down knowing that everything he’d ever loved was gone, but knowing, too, that it was his own fault.

He’d lost control. And she’d paid the price.

So by the time a call came in to the station, Caden’s head was a f*cking wreck. Which probably explained why he had his very first on-the-job panic attack while responding to the scene of an accident. It was the hair that did it. The female driver’s long red hair.

His mind had done its usual thing, and for several long moments, he’d been absolutely sure his worst fears had come true. Makenna was dead in that car. His chest went tight, his breathing shallowed out, and he froze.

It didn’t matter that Makenna rarely drove her car. Nor that the car in the accident hadn’t been the same as Makenna’s little Prius. Or that there was absolutely no reason why Makenna would be on Duke Street near Landmark Mall at four o’clock in the afternoon when she worked miles away in Roslyn.

His brain didn’t trade in logic in moments like those.

Embarrassment aside, it was even worse that he could’ve jeopardized a patient’s life. In the end, the woman’s injuries weren’t that serious. But that wasn’t the point. He was f*cking out of control, and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. He hadn’t been this bad in years.

Then again, he hadn’t had anything to lose in years, either.

Now he did. And he was losing it.

When they returned to the station house, his captain called him into his office.

Exhausted and strung out, Caden dropped into the chair in front of his captain’s desk. In his forties and prematurely gray, Joe Flaherty had been Caden’s supervisor all nine years he’d worked in this house, and he was aware of Caden’s background. A few of the guys were.

As a rule, Caden didn’t flake out—he showed up early, he left late, he picked up extra shifts, he covered for the guys with families, he left his rig clean and well stocked, and he did the job to the best of his ability. They all knew he was solid. Well, until today.

“What happened out there, Grayson?” Joe asked, his voice concerned, but not unkind.

Caden scrubbed at his face. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” Caden said. “Nightmares about the accident have been coming back lately for some reason.” He shook his head, wanting to be honest, but not wanting to say more than he had to. He met Joe’s gaze head on. “When I first saw the woman, I thought it was Makenna.”

A thoughtful expression on his face, Joe nodded. “We all see someone we love in the face of a patient at some point, so don’t beat yourself up about that,” he said. “You talking to someone about the nightmares?”

He shook his head again. Caden hadn’t sought any kind of therapy in years. He’d worked things out. Gotten himself under control. Learned ways to handle his shit.