Aced

Interview number five finished. I roll my shoulders, take a sip of Gatorade, and prepare myself to answer the same questions again for the next in line.

But when I look up and see the look on my dad’s face, the next in line is forgotten. The victory not so sweet. My heart leaps in my throat. My mind spins. My feet move on autopilot as I make my way to him.

“Dad,” I say. The dread and worry in my tone match the expression on his face.

“It’s Rylee.”

I’M LOST TO DREAMS.

To darkness and warmth and a little girl with cherubic curls and a heart-shaped mouth. To her pudgy hand holding my pinky on my left hand. My eyes are mesmerized by her as she giggles, the sound warming my soul, filling my heart, and making them ache all at the same time.

There’s a tug on my right hand that startles me. I’m so transfixed on my lost baby girl I never realized someone else was beside me. I look down to the top of a dark head of hair just as he looks up to me. I’m greeted with a row of freckles, a lopsided grin, and green eyes that look so familiar.

“Are you lost?”

“Nope,” he says as he swings our joined hands back and forth some, a dimple flashing as his grin widens. “Not anymore.”

Arms slip around my waist. The welcome warmth of a body pulling me from the dream I already can’t remember. I snuggle into him, the scent of my husband unmistakable—a mixture of soap and cologne—and a calm falls back over me.

Then I hear the monitor beep, the whoosh of the baby’s heartbeat filling the room, and I’m shocked awake to the here and now. I’m in a hospital bed being monitored rather than in the comfort of our home.

“It’s just me,” he murmurs into the back of my head. My hair heats from his breath as he pulls me tighter against him. Our bodies spoon and our hearts beat against each other’s in a lazy rhythm.

“You’re here,” I say, voice groggy.

“Special delivery,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “All the way from victory lane.”

“Congratulations. I’m so proud of you and so sorry you had to leave your celebration.” All those years chasing the win at the Grand Prix and of course, because of me, the one time he does, he doesn’t get to revel in the glory of it all.

“Hmm.” He presses another kiss to my head as his fingers lace with mine. “I’d rather be here. It wasn’t the same without you. I missed you, Ryles.”

How easy it is for him to make me smile and chase away the fear.

“I missed you too . . .” I wait for him to start the questions and as if on cue, the sigh falls from his mouth in resignation of ruining this moment.

“You two trying to give me a heart attack?” he asks, so many emotions overlapping in his voice in the single sentence.

“No. Everything is fine now. Just a few contractions they were able to stop. An ultrasound. Some fetal monitors. All routine things to make sure everything is okay,” I explain, attempting to hide how freaked out I was when being hooked up to machines to monitor the two of us. How the room was filled with a sea of scrubs, and even though Haddie held my hand and kept my anxiety at bay, all I wanted was Colton.

“Common things?” he asks, skepticism in his voice. “You’re still having issues with your blood pressure. That’s far from fucking common when we’re talking about you and the baby.”

Shit. I close my eyes momentarily, sucking up my cowardice, and prepare to tell him the truth.

“Want to fill me in here, Ry?”

My mind flickers to the many warnings we’ve been given about my pregnancy: The high risk, the damaged arteries from the accident and the miscarriage that could pose a problem with heavy bleeding during labor, the stress on my uterus that will increase the bigger the baby gets.

“You have every right to be mad at me,” I whisper, because for some reason it’s easier to say it that way. “I had the stress under control, attempting to keep my blood pressure in the range it’s supposed to be in . . . and then between the race and . . .” My words fall off as I replace them with a sigh representative of the heaviness in my heart about Zander.

“And what?” he prompts. “What else happened to push you too far?” The minute the words are out of his mouth I know he regrets them by the quick tensing of his body against mine.

Should I count the ways multiple things are causing stress right now?

“Zander called before the race started. He was scared, confused. A wreck. His uncle is trying to foster him.” My words are so quiet. I try to keep my emotions in check since the constant rhythm of my heartbeat is visible on the monitor beside us.

“Okay,” he says slowly, and I can sense his mind working, trying to figure out where I’m going with this. “You gotta give me more than that to make me understand why it put you in the hospital.“

“It’s his uncle.” I swallow over the anger in my throat and continue. “The druggie asshole who wanted nothing to do with him when he first came to us.”

“Why come forward now?” His simple question, and the confusion in which he says it, expresses exactly how I feel. I breathe a sigh of relief, thankful for his identical response, because it adds validation to my gut reaction over this.

“Why do you think?” Disgust laces my tone and even though it’s not directed at him, I know he takes it that way.

“The video. Your work promo pictures splashed all over the fucking place,” he says as everything clearly clicks into place for him.

“Mm-hmm.” Because there is nothing else I can say without making it sound like I blame him in part for this turn of events.