Rock Wedding(8)

The baby Abe had accused her of faking.

Looking back, she knew she’d still been in a terrible emotional place, in no state to make such life-altering decisions. Jeremy had to have known that, had taken advantage of her pain to tie her to him. So clear to see now, but then, she could think only that any child they created together would be wanted by its father. So she’d said yes. And in that, Jeremy hadn’t let her down: he’d stood by her, even put their future child or children into his will right after she told him she was pregnant—so that if anything happened to him, their child would still have his or her father’s support.

Sarah hadn’t loved Jeremy, but at that instant, she’d known she’d do anything to make the relationship work. This man, she’d thought, was a good human being. Her child would have a father and a mother, would have a proud history. Her child wouldn’t be a forgotten piece of flotsam other people could crush and hit and abandon.

Pain splintered through her.

Because her precious baby was gone, buried in a peaceful plot underneath the wings of a guardian angel. He’d been so beautiful, so perfect with his tiny toes and his tiny fingers, and so very, very still. No cries, no breaths, his light brown skin stark and bloodless. Her womb hadn’t been able to sustain him as it hadn’t been able to hold on to her and Abe’s child.

Putting down her coffee mug when her hand began to shake, she clenched her fingers in Flossie’s coat when her dog whined and nudged at her. “I know, Flossie,” she said on a wave of heart-deep pain. “I should call Lola.” Her best friend wouldn’t thank her for trying to handle this day of all days on her own—but Sarah was well aware Lola had stresses of her own right now.

The woman who’d once been a teen single mom and was today a successful entrepreneur—though still very much a mom to her now college-aged son—was normally resident in Los Angeles. Six weeks earlier, however, after her father suffered a severe fall, Lola had flown to Houston to help her mother cope. She and Sarah spoke on the phone at least twice a week and aside from those who’d been there that night, Lola was the only one who knew about Jeremy hitting Sarah.

She’d recommended they “fry the bastard’s balls” and “feed them to him.”

Lola could be a little scary when the people she loved were hurt.

Wanting to smile through the pain lodged inside her, Sarah made the call. Not just to lean on Lola’s shoulder, but to ask after her. It turned out her friend had needed a chat, too. “I love my folks,” she said toward the end of the call, “but I’m hanging out to see you. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer. Dad’s improving rapidly.”

“If you do need to spend more time in Houston, I’ll fly to see you.”

“Sarah, you have no idea how much that means to me,” Lola said before she had to hang up to take her father to a medical appointment. “And hon, be kind to yourself today, okay?”

Choked up by the love inherent in that gentle order, Sarah couldn’t reply with anything but a wordless sound.

The ring of the doorbell a second after she and Lola ended their conversation had her jumping. No one should’ve been able to get past the gate. She must’ve forgotten to lock it. That should’ve worried her. The fact that it didn’t worried her.

Flossie woofed as the doorbell rang again.

Ignoring it because she didn’t want to deal with anyone, and if it was Jeremy, she might just be tempted to walk out and knee him in the gonads, she picked up her mug, took a drink, then put it back down. She had to get up and out of this chair, start doing all the things that needed to be done. She couldn’t do this every single month, couldn’t X out the fourteenth in her diary because she knew she’d be a wreck unfit for company.

Her business hadn’t yet felt the impact, but it would if she didn’t find a way to deal.

Because Sarah was no longer a nobody. She had a small but thriving business, had employees who relied on her and clients who did the same.

A flash in her peripheral vision.

Giving a short yelp, she scrambled out of the armchair… to stare frozen at the big, muscular man on the other side of the glass of the solarium. Abe raised a hand, said something that didn’t penetrate the glass; his eyebrow piercing glinted in the noon sunlight, the metal cool against the warm, dark brown of his skin. That piercing and his unexpectedly clean-shaven head put all the attention on the harsh but gorgeous lines of his face. Sarah felt her own skin flush, her heart thunder. She hadn’t seen him since that terrible night at the Zenith Music Festival fourteen days ago—the night Jeremy hit her.