Page 19 of Healed Heart

“Fuck…”

“Yeah.I guess I should have told you.”

“Then why didn’t you?”I demand, more harshly than I mean to.The world around us seems to spin as reality sets in.

“I didn’t think…” Her eyes fill with tears.

Fuck.I can take anything but tears.I’ve had my fill of women’s tears.

I pull out of her, roll onto my back, and stare at the ceiling.How could I have been so careless?I’m a doctor, for God’s sake.

She shifts next to me on the bed, pulling the sheets up to cover her naked body.I reach out and pull her into me, wrapping my arms tightly around her.

“It’s okay, Angie,” I whisper into her ear, my own fear seeping into my voice.“No need to worry until we have to.”

“It’s probably okay,” she says.“I’m expecting my period in a couple of days.”

“Good!”I say a little too enthusiastically.“Then you’re probably not fertile.”

“Right,” she says.

Even though neither of us needs an additional thing to worry about, the thought kind of disappoints me.

When I lost Julia, I didn’t think I ever wanted another child.I mean, why put myself through that risk again?To love something that much and then lose it… It’s just too hard.

But the thought of Angie carrying my child…

A strange warmth fills me at the prospect.An unwelcome yet unavoidable yearning.A little boy with dark hair and eyes, or a little girl?—

I push the thoughts away.Little girls only remind me of Julia.

Besides, I’m a mess, and I’m in no condition to be a father.

And the truth of it is that I’m a man caught between the past and the present, my heart divided between two women.

One living, and one dead.

I wasn’t lying in the throes of passion.

Idolove Angie.

I think I’ve loved her since that first kiss.

But Lindsay…

Perhaps we didn’t have the raw passion that Angie and I share, but we had something deep and amazing, and I would have been happy with her for a lifetime.

And now that I know she may not have killed herself…

God, I can’t.

Can’t go there with Angie.

Not yet.

She’s young and vibrant, her life just beginning, her future bright.Do I really want to drag her into this mess?

I’ve already asked her to go to Switzerland with me, and now it seems that won’t happen.I can’t leave town with this mystery about Lindsay hanging over my head.