Lone Wolf (Wilde Brothers Ranch #6)- Scarlett Grove Page 0,16

dropped the bag on the floor in the bathroom. She sat down on the lid of the toilet, her head in her hands, tapping her foot anxiously. She knew pregnancy tests were supposed to be taken first thing in the morning. It was now afternoon. But if the first one didn't work, she had two more to try.

She tore open the first box and read the instructions five times before pulling out the test and staring at it. She followed the instructions to the letter then set the test on the bathtub ledge. Sitting on the toilet seat, she stared at it. The liquid washed past the first screen then the second. Little lines slowly appeared in the window. Her heart seized as the line in the second window turned into a plus sign. She dropped to her knees on the floor beside the bathtub, her eyes locked on the test. The alarm on her phone went off, marking three minutes.

There was no mistaking what the pregnancy test said. It was positive. She was pregnant. She covered her mouth with her hand and sobbed, her eyes wide with shock. She shook her head wildly, squeezing her eyes closed as tears slid down her cheeks.

She shot to her feet, grabbed the pregnancy test, and dropped it in the waste basket. She charged to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of ice water and chugged it. Leaning against the counter, her mind racing, she tried to figure out what to do next.

Maybe it was a false positive, she told herself. That kind of thing happens all the time, doesn’t it? She picked up her phone and typed it into her web browser. She quickly discovered that false positives on pregnancy tests were rare. She dropped her phone on the counter and growled, her heart racing.

Maybe the test was defective. That had to be it. She went back to the bathroom and quickly took the second test. After setting her phone timer for three minutes, this time she didn't wait in the bathroom to watch the liquid spread across the windows. Instead, she paced the living room, her phone clutched in her hands until the timer blared.

She walked slowly back to the bathroom like a character in a horror movie who was about to confront a monster. She peeked into the bathroom. Unable to see the results of the test from across the room, she inched forward until the test was directly in her line of sight. Her eyes focused, and the results became clear. There was no denying what she saw before her—another positive test.

“No, no, no,” she growled.

She lifted her head to the sky, her heart pounding. Why had she let this happen to herself? Why hadn’t she been more careful? She ran to her bedroom and flung herself on her bed, curling her legs up to her chest. Her breasts already felt achy, and her stomach was in knots. She cried for quite some time, until she fell asleep.

Annie didn't wake up until the next morning. The clock beside her bed said it was 5:00 a.m. She’d cried herself to sleep at three o'clock in the afternoon and slept all night. She groggily rose from the bed, started her coffee maker, and drank a glass of water.

When the memory of what had happened yesterday slowly sank into her foggy mind, she slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and went back to the bathroom. She opened the last pregnancy test, knowing exactly how to perform the operation on her third try. She set it on the bathtub ledge and went to fix herself a cup of coffee. When she came back, the test had the same results as the other two. Annie was stone-cold sober. She wasn't surprised anymore.

She sat at the dining room table, nursing her coffee, her mind clicking into place. She knew what she needed to do. She would have to get rid of it and move on with her life like it had never happened.

By midday, she was sitting in the waiting room of a clinic, filling out a health history questionnaire. She gave the questionnaire to the nurse then waited for her name to be called. Everything was happening in slow motion. When she stood to follow the nurse through the back door into the clinic, she felt like she was watching someone else's life.

She was weighed and measured and given a cup for a urine test. Fifteen minutes later, she