Riding the storm - By Julie Miller Page 0,71

right thing here, angel. It’s too soon for you. Even with the procedures you must have had to create that baby, after your first time, things are probably a little tender. We should wait.”

“Is that your medical opinion? Or a polite way of putting me off?”

Instead of answering, he dropped his hand to her belly and splayed his fingers there. “How’s the baby? I don’t want to hurt him, either.”

She pressed her hand over his, guiding him to little Joaquin’s responsive flutters. “We’re both fine.”

Nate’s fingers trembled with a gentle convulsion against her. He closed his eyes, but Jolene had already seen his pain. “He’s so tiny. Helpless. I want him to be strong. Grow tall. Learn how to ride a horse and play some baseball. If something happened to him, I couldn’t…”

A glimmer of understanding pushed aside her own quest for answers. He was holding something back because she was pregnant.

And that terrified him as much as it fascinated him.

Loosing her hold on him and the bed, Jolene reached up to frame his face between her hands. His skin was smooth to the touch now, though the muscles beneath were clenched tight. “Tell me about the baby, Nate.”

She didn’t have to explain which baby she was talking about. Clearly there was a little one somewhere in the world who haunted him. Moonlight sparkled in the tears he blinked away.

“I lost a little girl,” he announced starkly, snatching his hand away from her womb.

“Lost?”

He tapped his hands against her shoulders, then rubbed them up and down her arms, as if he wasn’t sure whether to latch on or move away. At last he took her wrists and pulled her hands from his face. “I couldn’t save her. There was hardly a mark on her. But she’d been thrown so far from the car. There was too much head and neck trauma. She wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t get her to breathe.”

A tear fell from the corner of his eye and steamed across his angry expression. “We worked that wreck for hours. If we’d gotten the call sooner…If she’d cried out…If we’d known we had to look for her…”

“I’m so sorry.” Answering tears burned in Jolene’s eyes. “But, Nate, the nature of your job as a paramedic…Sometimes…” She held back her own sorrow, vowing to be strong for him. “Sometimes, there’s one you can’t save.”

He released her on a bitter sigh and paced the room. “This one got to me. I didn’t even know she was there. She was still in her car seat, just over the edge of the ditch, out of sight. We were working on her mom. She just quietly died by the side of the road. All alone. I was too late to resuscitate her.” He shook his bowed head. “I was too damn late.”

Jolene crossed the room behind him. “You can’t blame yourself for her death. It was an accident.”

“I can’t get her face out of my mind—even when I close my eyes, it’s always there.”

She laid her hand against his back. He flinched, but she used the motion to slip in front of him and silently demand that he look her in the eye and see her faith in him.

“You saved my dad and my home by coming here in the first place. You saved Lily and Amber Browning. You saved Deacon Tate and Cindy and Wes. You nearly got yourself killed saving that stupid bull. Those are memories you should think about, too.” She brushed her fingers along the cut side of his jaw. “You saved me and my baby. More than once. Count the miracles, Nate.”

“I can’t.” He grabbed her hand and turned to press a kiss into her palm. Then, with a tug, he gathered her up in his arms and crushed her to his chest. “It’s the one who gets away that eats you up inside.”

He pulled her ponytail loose and sifted her hair through his fingers. He smelled of clean soap and honest emotion as he rubbed his cheek against hers. With nothing but the towel to cover himself, his arousal bobbed against her belly, thrilling her with his desire, frightening her with the depth of his need. Jolene hugged him tight around the waist and offered whatever she could give.

He dipped his mouth and nuzzled the juncture of her neck and shoulder, melting her bones into putty. His hands slid underneath her shirt, roughly scorching her skin. “It’s that one failure that makes me think that the next time, when