Page 50 of About that Fling (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #2)

“It couldn’t have been your fault,” he said, feeling dumb offering such an empty platitude.

She shook her head. “I never told Shawn about the pregnancy or the miscarriage. He never knew. Hell, he probably still doesn’t. He barely looked up from his phone when Mia said what she did just now.”

Adam stared at her, trying to wrap his brain around the magnitude of it all. “Who knows about this?”

“Only your ex-wife,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Everything’s so tangled up. Mia knew about the miscarriage, but Shawn didn’t.

And Mia didn’t know Shawn didn’t know, because what kind of woman would hide that from the man she’d planned to marry?

And I let Mia assume it was my fiancé who got me pregnant because the truth was so much more complicated and—” She choked out a sob, her voice rising higher.

“Shawn knew I was sneaking off to meet you after pizza a few weeks ago, but Mia was completely in the dark about that. And about the gun range, God . Gert knew I’d been seeing you, but I didn’t tell her where we went this weekend so she wouldn’t have to lie to Mia and?—”

“God, what a mess.” He said it without thinking, then flinched at the hurt in her eyes. “Jenna?—”

“Gert’s agent knew I was trying to keep her story suppressed, but Gert didn’t.

” She kept going, almost like she needed to get it all out.

Like the lies and half-truths had been poisoning her from the inside.

“I eventually told Gert I went to Seattle with you, but Mia still doesn’t know.

” She was sobbing in earnest now—big, heaving gasps that made her shoulders shake.

“I’ve spun such a ridiculous web of deceit and cover-ups, just trying to keep things under control.

But I’m not even sure what’s real anymore. ”

Adam swallowed, his chest tight with emotion. “And the whole thing blew up in your face tonight.”

She nodded, watching his face for a response. Adam didn’t have one. He didn’t know what to think, what to feel. Tears streamed down her face, and part of him wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her. Part of him wanted to walk away.

He stood rooted in place, torn in two once again.

Jenna wiped her eyes. “I’ve tried so hard to keep everything under control. To protect the people I care about—” A ragged sob choked out the rest of her words. He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t elaborate. She was locking her feelings down tight.

Part of him knew where it came from. Her habit of hiding the truth when she thought it might hurt someone wasn’t a trait she’d pulled from thin air. She’d learned from her mother that was how to show love.

But understanding that didn’t make this any easier.

Part of him wanted to hate her. Part of him loved her so fiercely he almost forgot how to breathe. “Jenna?—”

“You should go, Adam.”

“What?”

“I can’t,” she said, sniffling. “I just—I can’t. I’m so done.”

“Done,” he repeated, not sure he understood what she meant. “Done with what?”

“With everything. With this whole tangled-up mess of secrets and betrayals. I fucked up too badly to fix, Adam.” Her voice sounded hollow and her eyes looked so haunted. “I don’t have anything under control. I’m done.”

The words sounded brittle, her voice like someone else completely. He nodded numbly, the echo of the word in his brain.

Done.

With him?

The finality in her eyes, the stiffness in her posture, told him the answer.

Maybe it was best. She looked up at him then, tears shimmering in her eyes. Waiting for him to stop her? Or waiting for him to say his goodbyes.

“Adam! Jenna!”

He turned to see Gert bustling out of the restaurant, her hair wild and her coat flying. She spotted them on the street corner and hurried toward them, running damn fast for a seventy-eight-year-old woman. Adam moved toward her, bracing himself to catch her if she tripped.

But she didn’t trip, and she waved him away as he approached.

“We have to go to the hospital now !” she shouted.

Jenna gasped, drawing a hand to her mouth. “The baby. Mia’s having the baby?”

“No,” Gert panted, halting on the sidewalk. “No, not the baby.”

Jenna moved toward her, reaching out as she drew closer to her aunt. “What is it?”

“It’s Mark.” Gertie drew a hand to her throat, her eyes wild and fearful. “He’s been shot.”

Adam blinked, fighting to process the words. “ Shot? ”

“Shot,” Gert repeated, nodding. “By his ex-wife.”

Jenna drove in a trance to the hospital with Mia beside her looking pale and stunned. She held her phone in her lap, but she wasn’t looking at it. She stared out the window, wordless and stiff, with her red hair falling over her face like a curtain.

“How did it happen?” Jenna asked, braking at a red light she wished she could run right through.

“They don’t know. The police are still at the house trying to sort through the details.” She fell silent, and for a moment, Jenna thought that’s all she intended to offer. Jenna nodded, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

Mia cleared her throat. “Apparently she had a handgun in her purse. She was arguing with him about something and dropped it on the floor, and somehow?—”

She broke off sobbing, her face crumpling into a mess of tears and terror. Jenna reached over and touched her arm. “Mia, I’m so sorry. For everything. I don’t even know where to begin?—”

“Don’t,” Mia whispered. “Not now. I just want to get to the hospital and see Mark. That’s what matters right now.”

Jenna nodded, withdrawing her hand. She took a sharp right turn onto the road leading to Belmont, thankful at least that the ambulance had brought Mark to this hospital.

She knew the exact location of the ER, the spot in back where she was sure to find parking.

“Do you want me to drop you in front or come in with you?”

Mia seemed to hesitate. “Come in with me.”

Jenna nodded, not sure whether to take it as a positive sign or a practical one. Did it matter at this point? Mark had been shot. Her best friend’s husband—for better or worse, even if right now things fell solidly in the worse camp. Jesus, what was Mia feeling?

She turned into the parking lot, trying not to picture the look on Mia’s face the moment she’d realized Jenna’s betrayal. The moment Jenna had stood and fled, leaving her behind without answers or explanations.

She looked at Mia now and her gut twisted. The only thing worse than seeing this much pain on her best friend’s face was knowing she’d caused it. Some of it, anyway.

“Here,” Jenna said, pulling into a spot tucked off to the side near the ER entrance.

Mia had the car door open before Jenna had even pulled her keys out of the ignition, and she was halfway to the hospital door by the time Jenna caught up with her.

“Careful, Mia,” Jenna cautioned, reaching for her elbow. “The ground gets slick here.”

“I know, I’m okay.” Mia hurried ahead, one hand on her belly.

The automatic doors whooshed open, and they found themselves blinking in the brightly lit lobby of the ER. A nurse rushed over with a wheelchair. “Ma’am? Let’s get you to the birthing center right away.”

“No,” Mia said, throwing her arm out as though stopping the nurse from forcibly taking her. “I’m not in labor. I’m here to see my husband. Mark Dawson? He’s been shot. I’m Mia—Amelia Dawson. Please, someone tell me what’s happening.”

The nurse’s expression changed from all business to sympathy, and Jenna tried not to think the worst.

“Come with me,” the nurse said, shoving the wheelchair aside. She looked at Jenna. “Are you a relative?”

“No, I?—”

“Family only, you wait here.” She pointed to a hard plastic chair in the waiting area, and Jenna sat automatically, too terrified to argue. She watched as the nurse led Mia away. Through the florescent haze, she saw the slump of her friend’s shoulders and the slow, awkward gait of her movement.

The doors leading outside whooshed open again, and Gertie rushed in with Adam on her heels. Gert looked around, her white hair frizzy and wild as she scanned the waiting area. Spotting Jenna, she hustled over with her handbag banging against her hip.

“What did they say?” Gertie demanded. “How’s Mark?”

“I don’t know. They whisked Mia away before I could ask anything. I’m not even sure if he’s alive or?—”

“Don’t say that,” Gertie said, dropping into a chair beside her. “We have to think positive. I’m certain the doctors have everything under control.”

Jenna blinked at her aunt. A horrible wave of sickening memory flooded her senses.

The day her mom died, they’d found her crumpled on the floor of her writing room. The space she’d carved out to work on the children’s book she’d desperately wanted to finish.

She was barely conscious, but stirred as the medics loaded her into the ambulance.

“I’ll be okay,” she told Jenna, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“Everything’s under control.” Up until then, she’d been telling them all that it wasn’t that serious.

That the cancer had already gone into remission.

“Don’t worry about anything, sweetheart. ”

Those were the last words her mother ever spoke.

Gert touched her hand, pulling her back to the present. To this hospital waiting room in the Belmont ER. “Do we know where the bullet hit?”

Jenna shook her head as Adam dropped silently into the chair to her left. “I don’t know anything. Just that the gun was in Ellen’s purse when it went off. They think it was an accident, but no one knows at this point.”

“Thank God Katie wasn’t there,” Gertie said. “That’s the first thing Mia said when the police called. I guess the roof repair was taking longer than expected, so Ellen let Katie have one last sleepover at a friend’s house before school starts. She didn’t see her daddy get shot.”