Page 98 of Mended Fences

Chapter Thirty-Four

CHASE

Now, December 2024

I’d madethis woman so many promises, but none as important as promising to be here for this baby.

So when she asked me to go to her doctor’s appointment this afternoon?

I left Dad to finish the steps on his own.

It was hard to believe that this time last year, all I had of Elena were a few text message exchanges. Now, despite all the hell she’d lived through and the harm I’d caused, I was sitting next to the most beautiful woman in the world in a sterile doctor’s office with her rounded belly exposed. My hands itched to run my fingers along her soft skin, to kiss her stomach, lower.

Staying away from booze and drugs was proving far easier than staying away from Elena.

Dad showing up with the miter saw interrupted us, not that it was a bad thing. Our moment in the kitchen had gotten… intense—but in the best way.

Still, we needed to move slow.Ineeded to move slow. To make sure I didn’t hurt her again.

Never again.

“A little cold coming,” the sonographer said as she squirted goop on Elena’s stomach.

I leaned in close, whispering, “What’s that?”

“It’s just ultrasound gel,” Elena said. “Water-based. Helps transmit the sound waves from the transducer into your body.”

Fuck, she’s smart.“I love it when you talk doctor to me.”

The sonographer laughed as she picked up this wand-looking thing and started pressing it into Elena’s belly like she was looking for buried treasure.

I narrowed my eyes at the screen. It looked like static. Like when your TV has no signal but still thinks it has signal? Yeah. That.

“Is it… in there?”

Elena rolled her eyes. “Yes,she’sin there.”

“Where? All I see are blobs.”

“There. That’s the head.”

The tech smiled like she’d heard this a hundred times and clicked something on her keyboard. The blob moved. Wiggled, kind of. Waved, maybe. Or flailed.

My eyes went wide. “Oh shit, she’s moving! Is that normal?”

“Yes,” the sonographer said patiently. “She’s a very healthy baby.”

I grinned and looked at Elena, who was smirking but also kinda teary-eyed. She reached for my hand, and I gave it to herreal quick. My heart was hammering like I’d just run sprints up the hill behind the orchard.

The sonographer tried not to laugh as she clicked through more angles.

A sound filled the room. Loud, thumping, fast.

I jolted. “Is something broken?”

“That’s her heartbeat,” Elena said, a little softer now.

The whoosh-whoosh-whooshechoed through the room like a drumline in a stadium. It was the loudest, strongest thing I’d ever heard—and it was coming fromher.