“Rach?”
“I—can’t,” she gasped. “I just can’t—” She turned and tried again to twist the knob and open the door. But her fingers slid off.
“Ash—?” she whispered. “Help—”
And she collapsed.
Chapter Three
By the time they got to the hospital, Rachel was alert and begging the EMTs to let her go home. But to Ash’s relief they didn’t pay the least bit of attention to her.
She’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, but it was long enough to scare the spit out of him. One second she’d been turning the knob on his front door and the next, she’d collapsed directly into his arms. He’d lowered her gently to the floor and made sure she was breathing, then he’d tried to wake her, but she’d been out cold.
He’d called 9–1–1 and identified himself as a detective with the Ninth District of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and ordered an ambulance.
By the time he’d hung up, Rachel had stirred. But she was nearly incoherent, so he’d made her stay on the floor and cradled her head until the EMTs got there.
Now he was pacing the waiting room floor like an expectant father as he waited for the doctor to finish examining her. They’d probably run a bunch of tests. Hell, they could be here until midnight.
A woman—who’d been sitting in the waiting room knitting ever since the nurse had deposited him in this drab little room that smelled of old coffee—looked up at him. “Your wife?” she asked.
Ash stared at her for a second, uncomprehending. “Uh, no. A coworker.”
“A coworker?” the woman said meaningfully, then she held his gaze until he relented.
“And you?”
“My son,” she said. “He came home tonight with a bloody nose. He got into a fight.”
“It’s broken? How old is he?”
She nodded with a sigh. “He’s thirteen. Old enough to know better, but not old enough to restrain himself.”
Just then a nurse appeared in the doorway. Ash and the woman both turned to her.
“Mr. Kendall?”
He stepped forward.
“Ms. Stevens is ready to go. You can follow me.”
“What happened? Is she okay?”
The nurse gave him an odd, knowing look. “I’ll let her tell you all about it.”
The nurse led him to a cubicle and slid the curtain back. “Here you go, Ms. Stevens. I’ll send the aide with the wheelchair.”
“I don’t need a wheelchair.”
The nurse looked at Ash, who nodded, then turned back to Rachel. “Oh, I think you do. We don’t want to take a chance that you might faint again.”
Ash felt a jolt of relief to see that Rachel had color in her cheeks. She looked a hundred percent better than she had when he’d brought her in.
“You look like a different person,” he said. “What did the doctor say?”
Rachel busied herself with her purse. “My blood sugar was low.”
“That’s all? You passed out because you hadn’t eaten?” Ash’s anger rose again, this time because he knew she was lying. Her answer had been too quick, too flip.
“That’s not exactly how low blood sugar works,” she retorted, “but basically, I guess you could say that.” She wouldn’t look at him, just kept rummaging in her purse until the aide came with the wheelchair.
She was definitely hiding something. A sudden thought sent a pang of fear arrowing into his gut. Was something wrong with her? Something serious? No, that wasn’t it. The nurse hadn’t seemed worried or sad. She’d seemed more—secretive, as if she knew something he didn’t know.
The aide kept up a stream of conversation, or more accurately, prattle, all the way to the emergency entrance. As the wheelchair turned the corner a few steps ahead of Ash, he heard a deep voice call Rachel’s name.
He turned the corner in time to see that the owner of the voice was in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. He was shaking Rachel’s hand.
“—and congratulations,” he said with a smile before he hurried away.
Congratulations? Why would any doctor say that to a patient?
He thought back to the nurse’s secretive look.
Oh, hell. Ash could think of only one reason for the medical staff’s reactions, and that reason sent lightning bolts of shock all the way to his toes.
There weren’t many things Ashton Kendall was afraid of. He’d discovered on that fateful Christmas Eve so long ago that life was too short to spend it in fear.
He’d transformed the grief and fear that he’d learned way too young into fierce determination. He’d turned the helplessness and anger into a hunger for justice and a career. And finally, he’d filled the empty place in his heart with a casual, carefree charm that earned him lots of dates and friends without getting him into an emotional tangle.
But he wasn’t sure if he could face what he’d just been hit with.
Was he about to become a father?
RACHEL’S HAND FELT NUMB where the doctor had shaken it, but it was not as numb as her heart. She waited without breathing to see what Ash was going to say. She knew he’d heard the doctor because she could feel his gaze boring into her back. Besides, she didn’t dare look at him. If he hadn’t already figured out what the doctor had meant by his congratulations, he’d see it written all over her face.
About that time, he walked past the wheelchair.
“I’ll get the car,” he said shortly as he stalked toward the elevators without looking back. He sounded just like he had when he’d found her asleep in his house.
Downstairs, he helped her into the car with an offhand gentleness that confused her. And he didn’t say anything on the drive back to his house, where her car was still parked in his driveway. But he kept glancing over at her, a bemused expression on his face.
Once he’d pulled to the curb and parked, he turned toward her. “I guess congratulations are in order,” he said evenly.
Here it came. Rachel bit her bottom lip and stared at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. His words hovered in the air, demanding an explanation.
“So that’s why you fainted?” he went on. “You’re pregnant.” His voice sounded strained. “Why did you think you had to lie to me about the low blood sugar?”
She squeezed her interlaced fingers together. “It wasn’t a lie exactly. I’ve always had problems with low blood sugar.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. He just looked at her. “So how far along are you?”
Her head snapped up. “Checking the time frame?” she asked bitterly.
He shrugged and dropped his gaze. His jaw quivered with tension.
“I’m eight weeks pregnant. My ob-gyn told me I probably conceived around the last week in July. His guess is July 22.” She threw the date down as a challenge and waited to see what Ash said.
He knew as well as she did the exact date he’d broached the subject of seeing other people. She’d never been a maudlin person, but that date was branded on her brain. It had been Saturday, August 7, two weeks after their honeymoon-like