Rock Wedding(48)

“There’s a reason Fox is lead singer,” Abe pointed out. “The man has serious vocal range.”

“Yes, but Fox’s voice wouldn’t work for this song.” Sarah could see exactly why his bandmates wanted Abe to take lead vocals. “You should do it.”

Abe tapped his finger on her kitchen table. “I’ll think about it.” A quick flash of white teeth. “I don’t want to become a showboat like Fox and Noah.”

Laughing at the old joke, she turned off the oven timer when it buzzed, then pulled out the tray with the frittatas. Abe helped her throw together a green salad, then the two of them sat down to lunch. Sarah tried to eat, she really did, but her stomach wasn’t in the mood to cooperate.

Abe’s dark eyes dropped to where she rubbed at her tummy. “You think it might be—”

Sarah interrupted before he could finish his question. “Just nerves.” She picked up her phone, stared at its mockingly silent face. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Abe didn’t attempt to stop her, and she spent twenty minutes in the shower, another forty minutes drying her hair and putting on makeup, before pulling on tailored black shorts and a short-sleeved top in deep orange, a thin gold chain around her neck her only ornamentation. When she padded to the living room on bare feet, she found Abe sitting on the sofa with his feet up, Flossie beside him.

The two of them were engrossed in a documentary about penguins.

And her heart, it went all mushy at the cozy sight she would’ve given anything to witness during their marriage. Fighting the soft, squishy feeling, she left them to it and walked into the kitchen with the vague idea of baking something.

The phone rang.

Sarah had it in her hand with no knowledge of having pulled it out of her pocket, but she 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.