Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,52
couldn’t make herself answer it, though Dr. Snyder’s name flashed on the home screen. Abe was suddenly beside her, his arm strong and warm around her waist.
He took the phone from her unresisting hand, put it on speaker, said, “Doc, we’re both here.”
“Sarah?” Dr. Snyder said in his slightly gravelly tone. “I need your permission to share your medical results with Abe.”
“Yes,” she whispered, then coughed and answered more clearly. “I’m here, Dr. Snyder. Please tell us both.”
“There’s no doubt—you’re pregnant.”
Sarah’s knees buckled. Only Abe’s quick response, the arm he had around her waist locking tight, stopped her from crumpling to the floor. She was barely aware of him thanking the doctor and promising to get back in touch; the noise inside her head was a swarm of angry bees.
Shivering, stunned, she only snapped back to herself when Abe swung her up into his arms. “Abe, I—”
“I’ve got you.” His grip tightened.
Sarah hadn’t been afraid he’d drop her. Abe carried her like she weighed nothing, and she wasn’t a small woman. She’d been about to say that she was better, could walk. But seeing the hard line of his jaw, feeling the rigid strain of his body as it moved against her, she kept her silence until they reached the sofa and he sat down with her in his lap.
Scrambling off to curl up at the other end, her arms around her knees, she forced herself to ask, “Are you angry?”
“What?” His eyebrows drew together over his eyes, his body angled toward her. “No, of course I’m not angry. I’m worried—about you.”
“Oh.” She swallowed, tried a wobbly smile. “Can’t blame you when I nearly pulled a Scarlett O’Hara impression.”
Abe stretched out one arm on the back of the sofa. “So.” His tone said he wasn’t about to be distracted. “We’re having a kid together.”
Sarah’s hand crept over her abdomen, her terror as brilliant as the sudden burst of love in her heart. “I’m no good at keeping babies alive, Abe.” Hot and wet, the tears locked up in her throat began to fall. “They die inside me.”
“Sarah, sweetheart, don’t cry.” He hauled her back into his lap.
She didn’t resist this time and he held her close, stroked her hair, her back, whispered things she didn’t hear, his voice a deep rumble against her as she fell apart.
SARAH’S HEARTBROKEN SOBS DESTROYED ABE. He wanted so much to take away her pain, fix things, but he could do nothing except hold her safe while she splintered into a million pieces.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said after a long time, her voice a thin whisper.
A deep ache in his chest, he cupped the back of her head. “I’ll back whatever you decide.” That was all he could say, Sarah’s pain too violent for any other response.
She didn’t answer for a long time. When she did, it was another punch to the gut. “What if my body can’t hold on to our baby?”
Abe didn’t know how to ease Sarah’s hurt, but he couldn’t stay silent when the guilt in her voice was a heavy, suffocating blanket. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You did everything right.” He knew that without having been there for her second pregnancy, because during the first, she’d religiously followed all medical advice. “You hear me, Sarah? You did all you could. Some things in life we can’t control.”
Sarah didn’t answer.
It wasn’t until maybe an hour later that she stirred. Sliding out of his arms, she left without a word; he wanted to follow, see that she was all right, but he told himself to give her space. She knew he was here, his shoulders ready to help her bear this weight.
She returned after five minutes, having washed her face and redone the knot into which she’d twisted her curls. “We need to work out the logistics.”
Abe wasn’t surprised by her sudden calm. Sarah had always liked to organize things, had found serenity in ticking off items on a list. Back at the start of their marriage, she used to make lists for what he needed to pack when he went on tour. He’d find the list beside his phone, smile because she’d always add smiley faces next to stern warnings about essentials he couldn’t afford to forget if he didn’t want to be caught short. Those lists had been for fun anyway—Sarah had ended up packing for him more times than not.
He could still see her standing alone in the doorway, waving good-bye as he