Home > Heart & Soul (Lost & Found #5)(12)

Heart & Soul (Lost & Found #5)(12)
Author: Nicole Williams

I’d been trying to figure that out for a while and had come up empty, so I answered Rowen’s questions with a long sigh.

“What are you going to do if you see them together at Garth and Josie’s engagement party this weekend?” she asked. “Can you be civil? Not manage to embarrass your sister like you did when we ran into them at the movie theater last time we were in town?”

“They were all over each other,” I argued.

Rowen squeezed her fingers tied through mine. “They were holding hands.”

I huffed and shifted my gaze between our combined hands and her stomach. “Yeah, and look where holding hands got us.”

Her eyebrow lifted. “Happy? Married? In love?” She let that soak in. “Wouldn’t you want the same for your sister?”

“Of course that’s what I want for Lily. I want that for all of my sisters.”

Rowen was waiting with a well, then look on her face.

“I’d just rather they not find it with any of the Mason brothers.”

She laughed. “Well in our perfect world, I’ll make sure that happens, but in this world, maybe you can figure out a way to accept it.” As soon as my mouth flew open, she added, “Or at least deal with it. For your sister. You know how much Lily looks up to you and wants your approval.”

I grumbled to myself, a habit I’d taken up ever since I found out about Lily and Colt. “Yeah, well, she obviously wasn’t looking for my approval on this.”

“No, but I bet she wouldn’t mind having it.”

I gave my thoughts to that with another huff.

“So moving on from that topic that stresses you out like nothing else . . .” Rowen wiggled farther down in my lap, her eyes drooping with sleep’s call. “You all set for tomorrow’s appointment? After the last one, I almost asked the doctor if he could prescribe an anti-anxiety pill I could force-feed you an hour before the ultrasounds.”

My mouth went dry thinking about her appointment. Since Rowen was in the high-risk category, we’d been having ultrasounds at all of our monthly appointments, and she was right—every one had been like a slow form of torture. Waiting for the tech to find the baby, then find the heartbeat . . . that was the worst. Waiting to hear that flutter of a heartbeat echoing through the room. I knew it was Rowen who had the heart condition, but I’d somehow projected that onto the baby, and half the time, I was worried that our child’s heart would give out too. It probably had something to do with knowing that if Rowen’s gave out with the baby in her stomach, so would our child’s. Morbid thoughts hadn’t been in short supply the past few months. They were either haunting me or I was haunting them. I couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, that isn’t exactly a less stressful topic to discuss actually.” I couldn’t keep from smiling as I watched her eyes fade a bit more as she slumped in my arms. Pregnancy had turned Rowen into a champion at falling asleep quickly. “But yeah, I’m as ready as I ever am before our appointments.”

“I know they’re hard on you.” She was interrupted by a yawn. “You don’t have to go to every one, you know? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re usually the only guy camped out beside a pregnant woman in the waiting room, so you don’t have to feel guilty for missing a couple of appointments. It might be good for you to take a break.”

I drew my thumb down her cheek, cutting a line through the still-wet streaks of paint. “You don’t get to take a break. I don’t either then.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who’s about to have a heart attack every time we go.” It was barely recognizable, but something registered on her expression. She caught what she’d said but wouldn’t, for the life of her, admit it.

I hadn’t missed it either. Turning my thumb over, I saw the paint had transferred to my skin. A swirl of colors had seeped into the whorls of my fingerprint. I stared at it, wondering how something so beautiful could just be scrubbed away. Gone forever. As if it had never been there to start with. “I want to go. I like to go. I’m just terrified at the same time.”

Rowen was in the middle of a yawn, but she cut it in half. Her hand molded into the bend of my neck. I hadn’t realized how cool I’d been until I felt her warmth bleeding into my skin. “It’ll be okay. We’ve made it this far. I’ve stayed healthy. The baby is healthy. We’re in the homestretch.” She smiled, waiting for me to mirror it. It didn’t come easily or naturally, but I managed it. I could manage anything for her. “Nothing left to worry about but how to stockpile diapers and keep ourselves sane during the first crazy year.”

We were nearing the homestretch: the last few months leading up to the delivery and the most physically taxing part of the entire pregnancy. The most stressful, straining endeavor a woman could go through. How would her heart handle it? Could it handle it?

For Rowen, every day that passed eased her worries. It was the opposite for me.

I MIGHT HAVE been the pregnant one, but it was as if Jesse was the one sitting on a ticking time bomb. From the time we rolled into my OB-GYN’s office and plopped into a couple of chairs, his left leg hadn’t stopped bouncing. Although bouncing wasn’t exactly the right word for it because it was moving so quickly, it was almost a blur from the corner of my eyes. If the nurse didn’t pop her head through that door soon and call my name, he would rub a patch of the low-pile carpet bald with the heel of his boot. Along with the lacquer coating the wood chair-arm he kept running his hand over, twisting and squeezing it like he was trying to rein it into submission.

   
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