Well, for a long time I just figured we still had plenty of time. Then I hit thirty and we had a come-to-Jesus talk that ended with me throwing out my birth control. But I didn’t get pregnant.”
She stopped talking, pulling the robe more tightly around her shoulders, as if it could protect her from whatever came next.
“I’d almost given up when it finally happened,” she said, eyes dimming. “I’d been tracking my fertility for years, had gotten all kinds of tests. Brandon would never get tested, though, and my doctor said there could be a thousand reasons . . . Then I got pregnant. It felt like a miracle, and I was so excited. I’d almost given up by then, you know? Anyway, I expected Brandon to be happy, but he really didn’t seem to care. He was working really hard on a bunch of cases, and one of them was kind of high profile. He was going after a motorcycle club, actually.”
She shot me another look. “Not yours, I don’t think.”
“No, wasn’t the Reapers,” I told her, thinking back to what I’d heard. “Smaller club. Seattle. They’re under us, but their own group. Kind of like the Nighthawks.”
“So getting that case was a big deal,” she said. “Huge deal. He was excited to be working on something so big, and he was busy. I was excited for the baby, and while he wasn’t really with me, I didn’t care. Looking back, I realize we’d been living separate lives for a long time anyway. We shared a house and had sex sometimes, but not that often. Other than that, I think I spent more time talking to his paralegal than to my own husband.”
“Sounds like a real prince.”
She snorted. “You have no idea. It’s worth mentioning that he cheated on me at least once, with another attorney who worked in his office. May have happened more than that, now that I look back. I’d stopped caring at that point.”
“Why the hell didn’t you leave him?” I asked, confused. “Life’s short—why waste it on someone like that?”
She shrugged. “Habit? I don’t know. In retrospect, it’s crazy, but when you’re in the moment . . . I think a part of me hoped that having a baby together would fix things. I don’t know. None of it matters, because when I was eight months along I started having trouble. Spotting. Cramps. A lot of that happens late in pregnancy anyway, but one morning the bleeding started and it wouldn’t stop. I lost the baby.”
I’d half expected something like this. I mean, either she’d lost the kid or had given it up for adoption. I’d known that from the minute I saw the stretch marks. Still, hearing the words made it real.
“I’m really sorry, Tinker.”
She blinked rapidly, and I watched as a tear ran down her face. She ignored it, staring straight ahead.
“She was a little girl. I hadn’t found out ahead of time. I wanted it to be a surprise. I named her Tricia, after my mom. Brandon was in court that day and he didn’t ask for a continuance or anything. He could’ve, you know. There’s no judge on earth who wouldn’t have let him go to the hospital, but Brandon didn’t care enough about our daughter to be there.”
“Fucking asshole.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” she replied. “But good riddance, you know? He finally showed up at the hospital late that night. After they’d taken her. I got to hold her, and a photographer shot some pictures, but her own father couldn’t be bothered. That’s when I decided I couldn’t be bothered with him any more, either. Threw his rings right at him in the hospital room.”
Tears ran down her face openly now. I reached for her, pulling her into my arms. She resisted at first, stiffening against me, but fuck that.
“He’s a piece of shit,” I told her, rubbing her back as she relaxed into my hold. “Tricia deserved better and so do you. I’m so sorry, baby. So incredibly sorry.”
“I wanted her so much,” Tinker whispered, starting to sob. Usually crying women freak me out, but this was different. This wasn’t some bitch whining about her boyfriend. I’d never had a kid—never even considered it—but I’d seen my brothers with their children. Losing one would destroy them.
“I kicked him out,” Tinker continued. “He moved in with his folks or rented something. I don’t know. Didn’t care. Then I hired a lawyer to take care of the divorce, but