And without another thought, the next question is off of my tongue and hanging in the air still vibrating with Colton’s anger. “Is it possible for … can I get pregnant again? Would I be able to carry to term?”

She looks at me, sympathy flashing over her stoic face, a sigh on her lips, and tears welling in her eyes. “Possible?” She repeats the word back to me and closes her eyes for a moment as she gently shakes her head back and forth. She reaches out and grabs my hands in hers and just stares at me for a moment. “This wasn’t supposed to be possible, Rylee.” Her voice breaks, my grief and disbelief obviously affecting her.

“I’d hope fate wouldn’t be cruel enough to do this to you two times and not give you another chance.” She quickly dashes away a tear that falls and sniffles. “Sometimes hope is the most powerful medicine of all.”

* * *

I can feel him before I even open my eyes, know he is sitting beside me. The man who waits for no one is waiting patiently for me. My body sighs softly into the thought and then my heart wrings at the thought of a little boy lost forever to me—dark hair, green eyes, freckled nose, mischievous grin—and when I open my eyes, the same eyes in my imagination meet mine.

But his eyes look tired, battle weary, and concerned. He leans forward and takes the hand I’m reaching out.

“Hey,” I croak as I shift from the discomfort in my abdomen.

“Hey,” he says softly, scooting forward to the edge of his seat, and I notice his shirt has been replaced with a pair of hospital scrubs. “How are you feeling?” He presses a kiss to my hand as my tears well again. “No.” He rises, sitting his hip on the edge of my bed. “Please don’t cry, baby,” he says as he pulls me against his chest and wraps his arms around me.

I shake my head, feelings running a rampant race of highs and lows through me. Devastated at the loss of a child—a chance that I might not ever get again despite the dash of possibility this whole situation presented—and at the same time guilty feeling relief because if I had been pregnant, where would that leave Colton and I?

“I’m okay,” I tell him, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, drawing strength from the steady pulse beating beneath my lips, before leaning back on my propped up pillows so I can look at him. I blow out a breath to get my hair out of my face, not wanting to use my hand and break our connection.

The look in his eyes is so intense, jaw muscle clenching, lips strained with emotion, that I look down at our joined hands to mentally prepare myself for the things I need to say to him but fear his responses. I take a deep breath and begin. “We need to talk about this.” My voice is barely a whisper as I raise my eyes back up to meet his.

He shakes his head, a surefire sign of the argument that’s about to fall from his lips. “No.” He squeezes my hand. “The only thing that matters is that you’re okay.”

“Colton …” I just say his name but I know he can hear my pleading in it.

“No, Ry!” He shoves up off the bed and paces the small space beside it, making me think of him on the side of the freeway yesterday, overwhelmed with guilt. Was it just yesterday? It feels like a lifetime has passed since then. “You don’t get it, do you?” he shouts at me, making me cringe from the vehemence in his voice. “I found you,” he says, his eyes angled to the ground, the break in his voice nearly destroying me. “There was blood everywhere.” He looks up and meets my eyes. “Everywhere … and you …you were lying in the middle of it, covered in it.” He walks to the edge of my bed and grabs both of my hands. “I thought I’d lost you. For the second time in one fucking day!”

In an instant, his hand is holding the back of my neck tightly and he’s pressing his lips possessively against mine. I can taste the raw and palpable angst and need on his tongue before he pulls back and rests his forehead against mine, hand still tight on the back of my neck while his other one comes up and cups the side of my cheek.

“Give me a minute,” he whispers, his breath feathering over my lips. “Let me have this okay? I just need this … you … right now. To hold you like this because I’ve been going out of my fucking mind waiting for you to wake up. Waiting for you to come the fuck back to me because, Ry, now that you’re here, now that you’re in my life … become a part of me, I can’t fucking breathe without knowing you’re all right. That you’re coming back to me.”

“I’ll always come back to you.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think, because when the heart wants to speak it does so without premeditation. I hear him breathe in a shaky breath, feel his fingers flex on my neck, and know how hard the man who’s never needed anybody is desperately trying to figure out what to do now that the one thing he’s never wanted he suddenly can’t do without.

We sit like this for a moment, and as he leans back to press a kiss on the tip of my nose, I hear the commotion before I see her barrel into the room. “Christ on a crutch, woman! Do you enjoy giving me heart attacks?” Haddie is through the door and at my side in an instant. “Get your hands off of her, Donavan, and let me at her,” she says, and I can feel Colton’s lips form into a smile as he presses them against my cheek. Within seconds I am engulfed in the whirlwind that is Haddie, held tight as we both start crying. “Let me look at you!” she says, leaning back, smiling through the tears. “You look like shit but are still beautiful as ever. You okay?” The sincerity in her voice makes the tears well again, and I have to bite my lip to prevent them from falling. I nod and Haddie looks up and over my bed, and meets Colton’s eyes. They hold each other’s gaze for a few moments, emotion swimming in both of their eyes. “Thank you,” she tells him softly, and I close my eyes for a moment as the enormity of everything hits me.

“No tears, okay?” Her hand’s squeezing mine and I nod my head before I open my eyes.

“Yeah.” I blow out a breath and look over to meet Colton’s eyes. There’s something there I can’t latch onto, but we’ve both been through so much in the past few days it’s probably emotional overload.

We sit for some time. Each moment that passes, Colton becomes more withdrawn, and I can tell Haddie notices it too but she just keeps chatting away as if we aren’t in a hospital room and I’m not mourning the loss of a baby. And it’s okay that she is, because as usual, she knows just what I need.

She’s in the middle of telling me that she’s spoken to my parents and they’re on their way up from San Diego when her phone receives a text. She looks at it and then looks over at Colton. “Becks is down in the parking lot and wants you to come show him where to go.”

He gives her an odd look but nods, kissing me on the forehead and smiling softly at me. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

I smile back at him and watch as he walks out the door before looking over at Haddie.

“You want to tell me what the fuck is going on here?” I laugh, expecting nothing less than her frankness. “I mean shit.” She blows out a breath. “I told you to have reckless sex with him, clear the cobwebs and shit. You couldn’t be any more Jerry Springer if you tried. Getting knocked up, wrestling a gun-wielding man, and miscarrying a baby you didn’t even know you were carrying.”

The tears come now—tears of laughter—because anyone else listening to this conversation would think Haddie is being callous, but I know deep down she is dealing with her sudden anxiety the only way she knows how—with sarcasm, and then some. And for me, it’s my own personal therapy because it’s what I’ve clung to the past two years on the really rough nights after Max’s accident.

She’s laughing with me too but her laughter is chased by tears as she looks at me and continues. “I mean who knew the man had sperm with super powers that could just swoop on in, rescue and repair a broken womb like a damn superhero?”

I choke out a cough, startled by what she’s just said because I’ve never told her about Colton and his superheroes, never wanting to betray his trust. And she never notices, she just keeps going. “From now on, every time I see a Superman logo, I’m going to think it stands for Colton and his super sperm. Breaking through eggs and taking names.”

I laugh with her, all the while silently smiling softly at her words and looking toward the doorway, wanting him—needing him—to come back in the worst way.

“How’s he doing?” she asks after her laughter tinged tears slowly abate.

I shrug. “He’s not really addressing the—the baby.” I struggle even saying the word and squeeze my eyes shut to try and push the tears back. She squeezes my hand. “He won’t say it but he blames himself. I know he thinks that if he hadn’t left me at the house alone then Zander’s dad wouldn’t have been there. Wouldn’t have hit me. I wouldn’t have …” And it’s silly really that I can’t say the words—miscarriage or lose the baby—because after all this time, you’d think my lips would be used to saying them. But each time I think it … say it, I feel like it’s the first time.

She nods her head and looks at me before looking down at our joined hands. I wait for her to speak, one of her Haddie-isms to fall from her mouth and make me laugh, but when she looks up, tears are welling in her eyes. “You scared the shit out of me, Ry. When he called me … if you could have heard what he sounded like … it left no doubt in my mind how he feels about you.”

And of course my eyes tear up because she is, so she stands and shifts to sit on the bed next to me, pulling me into her arms and holding on tight—the same position we’d spent hours in after I lost Max and our baby. At least this time, the burden weighing down on my heart is a little lighter.