The Bachelor's Baby(41)

He was starting to really care about her. He suspected he was falling in love.

Her breathing changed and she stretched, eyes staying closed but her hand snaked under the covers to find him, petting his thigh and hip. “Did the sun wake you? Was I wrong?” she murmured.

“No. Look.” He waited until she’d opened her eyes and chinned toward the window.

She rolled to look at the view and he reached to spoon her naked warmth into his front. Man she felt good. All silky and smooth, hair tickling his nose and lips, ass a delightful pillow against his stiffening erection. He splayed his hand low on her belly, which wasn’t really a bump, but it was a firm non-flatness. She’d bemoaned her thickening waistline, which he flatly refused to be drawn into remarking upon, but he was oddly eager for more evidence of their baby. The more they planned, the more real it became, the more he wanted to hurry time to pass. Meg was going to be a good mother, he could already tell, and he was going to try like hell to be a great dad.

They were making a home. A real family.

“I love Montana,” she said dreamily, making his nerves jump briefly at what he had thought she was about to say. “Thank you for giving me a reason to come home.” Her hand covered his on her belly.

He caressed her, thoughtful. He wanted to be the reason she’d made this her home.

He was still thinking about that, and how much he had and how much more he wanted, when she came to him in the barn a few hours later. Her face was pale, her blue eyes wide and terrified.

“Linc, there’s blood.”

“What? Where?” He looked to her hands for a cut.

“In my underpants.” Her bottom lip quivered.

He set down whatever was in his hand, not even aware of what it was.

“I think I should go to the hospital.”

“I’ll take you.” He walked over to her like he was walking through a wall of mustard gas, nose and eyes and lungs beginning to burn, finding no oxygen, suffocating.

This was exactly what he had dreaded. Caring and losing. He wanted to hold off the threat of pain and…

He couldn’t. He drew her into him, sought the feel of her because he couldn’t bear the magnitude of emotion breaking loose in him. He gathered her in, then picked her up, like she was fragile and delicate. Like if he held her close enough, he could prevent whatever was happening to her. Them. All of them.

She turned her face into his shoulder and silently soaked his shoulder as he carried her to the truck.

*

Meg sat in a hospital gown on the emergency room bed, legs covered by a blanket, but all of her was cold as ice, all the way to her core. The bleeding hadn’t continued. It was just a few spots really, and she wasn’t having any pains. Rachel had heard a heartbeat and told her it might be something as innocuous as a shift in the placenta, but she’d warned that if it was a miscarriage, there was nothing they could do.

Horrible words.

They were going to do an ultrasound to double-check so Meg was stuck here, waiting for the technician who’d been called in, waiting to find out their fate. If the baby was failing, or gone, procedures would be initiated. She didn’t want to think about it.

Linc returned, shouldering through the curtains, looking like he’d aged ten years in the hour since she’d come to him in the barn. He was still gorgeous, not having shaved this morning, green eyes turbulent and sexy mouth twisted in agony.

God, she loved him.

“Blake and Ethan have the chores covered,” he said, pushing his phone into his shirt pocket, then sitting on the edge of the bed, hand coming to rest heavily on her thigh. “Liz wants to come.”

“I can’t do that to her,” Meg said, chin crinkling. “She doesn’t want to relive something like this.”

“She offered. I told her we’re hoping it’s going to be okay and that I’d call as soon as you’ve had the scan.” He covered where she was knotting her fingers together.

She shouldn’t be surprised that Liz would want to step up and help or that Linc would bring in a pinch hitter. This was ‘women’ stuff she supposed, but her heart was already splitting down the center. Having him take a step back from what was happening was understandable, but it was a brutal betrayal.

On top of another that she could hardly bear.

“My own baby doesn’t even want me, Linc.” The anguished suspicion crept out of her, unable to be held back.

“No, sweetheart, no.” He tried to draw her into his arms, cradling her the same way he had the minute she’d told him, like he would carry her safely through a rain of Hell’s own fury. She stiffened, not believing he meant it. Not really.

She wished he did. She was so in love with him it was World Record level. She loved him for being like this, willing to hold her when she cried, and ready to change his life and drop everything for their baby.