Wild Heart (Viper's Heart Duet Book 2) (27 page)

He pulled back and looked up at me with big blue eyes that had the power to get anything they wanted out of me.

“How about we snuggle in my bed until Maura wakes up, then we’ll have pancakes, then we’ll play in the snow?”

He knitted his brows together. “But momma, Viper makes the pancakes.”

“I know he does, honey, but he’s not here. I’ll make them for you.”

“When’s Viper coming home? He’s been gone forever.” He walked over and climbed up onto my bed, flopping down dramatically on the pillow.

Oh God. What do I say?

I took a deep breath and lay on the bed next to him. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what’s going to happen with Viper. He’s going through some really hard grown-up things right now.”

His eyes searched my face. “What are grown-up things?”

“It’s hard to explain . . . just stuff that adults have to deal with sometimes. I don’t want you to worry about that though, okay? You just keep being the great kid that you are and everything will be fine.” I leaned forward and gently kissed his forehead, letting my lips linger for a second.

His eyes fluttered open as I pulled back and I knew that he was tired. I ran my finger back and forth along both of his eyebrows and swirled it across his forehead. Within a couple of minutes, his breathing evened out and he was sound asleep. I kissed his soft cheek a couple times and nuzzled into him until our foreheads touched. Then Iwent back to sleep.

After I made mediocre pancakes, and Matthew complained that he wanted Viper’s
again,
I bundled the kids up and we headed outside. My energy level was still pretty wiped out, but thankfully Matthew and Maura were content making snow angels and throwing the snow up in the air while I sat on the big bench on my porch.

My cell phone rang from somewhere deep in my jacket pocket. It was Kacie.

“Hey!” I answered cheerfully.

“Hey yourself! How are ya?”

“I’m good. Well, at the moment I’m sitting outside while the kids play, trying not to freeze to death, but other than that I’m good. How about you?”

“Ugh. I’m good. It’s been one of those days though. Is it frowned upon to have wine at ten o’clock in the morning?”

I laughed out loud. “What happened?”

“What didn’t happen? Piper took one of Lucy’s shirts and tried to wear it to school, so I had them screaming at each other. Then Emma dumped her plate full of French toast and syrup
on
Diesel’s back.” She paused and let out a heavy sigh. “I’m just waiting for Grace’s head to spin in a circle or something.”

“Holy crap. Syrup on the dog? I would have given up right there.”

“Right? I was tempted. Anyway, how was your Thanksgiving? I wish you would’ve come over and spent it with us.”

“I know you do, and I love you for asking, but it actually turned out really nice. My neighbor ended up coming over and brought this whole feast with him.”

“
Him?
” Her tone raised in curiosity. “I thought we were talking about Jodi, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a penis.”

“No,” I said through a small giggle. “Remember I mentioned Joel before? The one with the son who moved in across the street?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it was just him and Gavin for Thanksgiving, so we decided we might as well spend it together. I was planning on making grilled cheese, but he showed up with this huge Thanksgiving feast in a box. It was amazing.”

“Wow!” Kacie said incredulously. “That’s awesome. So . . . what’s the deal with this guy?”

I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me. “He’s just a neighbor. Nice guy.”

“Michelle. It’s me. Don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying!” I defended with a laugh. “I swear.”

“Is he cute?”

“I don’t know. Sure.”

The line was silent.

“Hello?” I asked slowly.

“I’m here. Just waiting for you to tell the truth.”

“You’re such a brat,” I grumbled. “Yes, he’s good-looking. Tall, broad shoulders, really dark hair, the craziest light blue eyes you’ve ever seen.”

“Hmm . . . interesting. Any feelings?”

“Feelings? I have nothing but feelings, Kacie. I’m heartbroken, I’m furious, I’m confused, I’m lonely. I have feelings coming out of every pore in my body, but none of those are for Joel. Tiny butterflies, maybe, but all of my feelings are stuck on someone else right now. And all of these hormones raging through my body aren’t helping.” I took a deep breath and stared at my babies running happily around the front yard as they threw snow at each other.

“I’m so sorry, Michelle,” Kacie said sadly. “I’m so fucking mad at him. I swear if I ever see him again, I might just kill him.”

“I might be okay with that.” I laughed. “All right, I’m gonna run and try and get these kids in the house. I’m not feeling so hot and I want to lie down.”

“What’s going on?” Her voice turned concerned.

“Nothing. I think I’m just dehydrated. I didn’t drink a lot yesterday, and now today I’ve been a little crampy.”

Kacie let out a heavy sigh. “Listen, I want you to call your doctor if anything doesn’t feel right, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise me,” she demanded.

“I promise,” I agreed.

“And if you call them and they want you to come in, you call me. Got it?”

“Yes, Mom,” I joked.

“I can’t help it. It’s the nurse in me.”

“Yeah, yeah. I love you for it. I’ll check in with you later, okay?”

“You won’t have a choice.” She laughed.

We got off the phone and I called Matthew and Maura into the house. They whined at first, but I promised hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and they came running.

A couple hours later, after a nap with the kids, my hands shook as I called Kacie back. “Hey, uh . . . can you come over? I’m gonna head in to the doctor.”

“Yes! Of course. What happened?” Her words were rigid and nervous.

“I took a nap with the kids and when I woke up and went to the bathroom, there was a little blood.”

“Oh, shit,” she mumbled under her breath. “Yes, I’m on the way. Be there in a while.”

Thankfully Taylor had the night off and rushed over to sit with the kids when I’d called.

“Keep me posted, okay?” She gave me a quick hug as I slipped my feet into my boots.

“I will. Thanks, Tay.” I squeezed her hand and was out the door.

On the way to my doctor’s office, I could tell Kacie was trying to keep my mind busy by talking about everything she could think of, but I barely listened as I stared out the window. If something was wrong, I had no idea how I would feel. Devastated about the baby, but that was a given. I would also never, ever be able to look at Viper again. Ever.

When we got to the doctor’s office and checked in, I didn’t even have time to sit. A nurse took me right into the ultrasound room and had me hop up on the table.

“Do I need to take my pants off?” I asked.

“Uh . . .” She looked down at my chart. “Nope. You’re fourteen weeks, so they won’t be doing an internal ultrasound at this point. Everything will be outside. She’ll be in shortly.” She flashed me a quick smile and closed the door behind her.

Kacie sat on the chair in the opposite corner of the room, her legs bouncing up and down.

“Knock it off,” I said as I lay back on the table. “You’re making my nervousness nervous.”

Her face fell. “Sorry, I’m just so—”

The door opened and in walked Sandy, the tech who had done most of my ultrasounds.

“Hey, honey!” she said cheerfully, squeezing my arm as she walked around me to her machine.

I wasn’t so upbeat. “Hey.”

“Okay, I know you must be a wreck, so let’s skip the small talk and see what you have going on.”

I nodded and turned my head to the TV hanging on the wall, praying that I would see a little blinking white light any second. Sandy spread warm jelly on my stomach and put the wand on top of it. She moved it just a couple of times, and there it was in plain view: a cloudy little figure with two arms, two legs, a big round belly . . . and a blinking heart. Relief washed over me and my eyes teared up.

“There it is,” Sandy said, sounding almost as relieved as I felt.

“And everything’s okay?” My voice cracked.

“Baby looks great so far. I’m going to take a bunch of pictures and see if I can find out what’s going on, so if you hear me snapping away, don’t get nervous, okay? It’s just me being thorough for the doctor.”

I nodded as a tear dripped from the corner of my left eye. Kacie stood and walked over behind me a little bit, taking my hand in hers.

Sandy clicked several pictures and then froze in one spot. “Hmmm,” she hummed.

My head whipped around to her. “What? Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? No. But I know what you’re having,” she said as a big smile spread across her face. “Do you want to know?”

“Yes!” Kacie blurted out before I could answer.

“Wait. I don’t know. Do I?” I looked over at Kacie. “He’s not here. Should I wait and see if he wants to find out, too?”

Kacie cocked her hip to the side and crossed her arms over her chest. “You want me to answer that honestly, because there will be a lot of four-letter words involved.”

“You’re right. Don’t answer that.” I turned back to Sandy. “Spill it.”

“Well,”—she grinned and shook her head as she stared down at her screen—“look up there and you can probably see it for yourself.”

I looked back at the TV.

“Let’s just say your baby isn’t very shy and is opening nice and wide for us.” Sandy let out a quick laugh. “See that little bulge right in the middle there? It’s a boy!”

My eyes welled up again as I squeezed Kacie’s hand hard. “Are you sure?”

“Yep. If it were a girl there would be three little lines. Definitely a boy . . . and from what I can tell he likes to show it off.”

“Like father, like son.” I laughed. In the back of my mind, a pang of sadness reared its ugly head. I had no idea how or when to tell Viper this news, nor did I know how he would react to it, but I chose to put that sadness in a box for later and just be ecstatic about my son.
My
son.

As it turned out, I had a small bleed—a subchorionic hematoma—that the doctors would have to keep a close eye on, but they reassured me that it typically fixes itself and told me just to take it easy for a couple of weeks. I was on cloud nine as we left the office and walked back to the car, unable to take the smile off my face.

Kacie stared down at the ultrasound pictures she was carrying, the extra set she’d asked Sandy to print for her.

“I can’t believe you did that.” I nudged her. “What are you going to do with ultrasound pictures of my baby, anyway?”

“Who knows?” She shrugged. “I might wait until bedtime and casually hand them to Brody. He’ll probably crap his pants, but it would make me laugh, so it’s all worth it in the end, right?”

“If you do that, you better video it and send it to me.” I laughed as I shook my head. “Seriously though, thank you for coming with me today. I was really scared.”

“I know you were,” Kacie said sincerely. “I was, too. I’m so happy he’s fine.”

I exhaled loudly. “Me, too. And I can’t believe we found out so early!”

“I know!” she exclaimed. “Now Auntie Kacie can start shopping!”

A couple days after the game, I was still high on adrenaline. I’d gone to two more home games, but that part was about to end because the Wild was heading out of town for a road trip . . . which might have been a blessing after all. Coach Collins asked if I wanted to go with, but I told him no. There were things at home I needed to deal with, and I
knew
I needed to deal with them, I just needed to figure out how.

In the afternoon, I headed off to therapy with a lot on my mind, hoping that Sherman would kick my ass and make me sweat it all out.

Sherman was leaning against the front counter when I walked in.

I froze in the doorway. “Are you kidding me with that?”

“With what?” He raised his hand defensively.

My eyes traveled up and down his outfit. He had on bright blue shorts, yellow socks that went up to his calves, a SpongeBob T-shirt and heart-shaped sunglasses that sat on top of his head. “That!”