Page 108 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

I did my business on the toilet, emptying my bladder and sighing with relief as the pressure eased. I had a smile on my face as I stood to pull up my pants. But then it dropped, and I stumbled against the wall as I looked down to the porcelain bowl filled with red.

“Kaine!” I shouted, then I started to cry as panic set in. “I’m bleeding.”

Piper shook her doctor’s hand. “Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure.” The doctor smiled. “I’ll let you get changed. If you have any other concerns, just call or come on in. Otherwise, I’ll see you at your checkup in two weeks.”

“Thank you again.” Piper waved as the doctor let herself out of the exam room. As soon as the door closed behind her, Piper rested back on the table, the paper crunching underneath her back. “Everything is okay.”

It sure as hell didn’t feel okay. As many times as the doctor had reassured us, what I was feeling right now was not okay. The image of Piper standing beside the toilet this morning was on a loop in my head.

Her face so white as she looked down at the water tinged red with blood.

The terror in her eyes, her unsteady hands as we hurried to get her dressed.

The sound of her panicked voice on the phone with the doctor.

Piper had been on hold with the doctor’s office as I’d thrown on some clothes, then loaded her into the car. The nurse had assured us that things were likely fine but to come in just in case. I’d already been racing down the highway at that point.

The thirty-minute drive to Kalispell had only taken twenty. If not for a few patches of early morning frost causing me to slow, I would have made it in fifteen.

A nurse had waited inside the door as we’d walked into the clinic. She’d taken us to an exam room where Piper had stripped off her clothes in a frenzy, donning an ugly, faded gown. As she’d climbed up on the table, I’d stuck my head out the door and hollered that we were ready.

The doctor had come in with a smile. It hadn’t helped steady my shaking hands. Neither had the good results from the exam, or the sound of the babies’ heartbeats on the monitor. My foot wouldn’t stop bouncing on the speckled linoleum, and the lump in the back of my throat wouldn’t stop choking me.

Things were definitely not okay.

The doctor suspected the blood was a normal side effect of sex. Piper had likely developed a polyp of sorts that had burst when we’d been together. It was normal. Everything was normal. The doctor had said normal about a hundred times.

Except this was un-fucking-normal. I couldn’t breathe. I stood from the stiff chair and went to the door.

“You’re leaving?” Piper’s head came off the table.

“Get dressed,” I ordered before escaping the room.

A nurse passed me in the hallway, smiling brightly. Most expectant fathers probably smiled back. She’d have to settle for a curt nod as I scanned the walls for an exit sign.

I found an arrow pointing to the left and followed it to another, making my way back to the waiting room. I let myself out of the clinic and jogged down the hallway that led me to the parking lot. Piper’s doctor’s office was attached to the hospital, and beyond the glass doors, an ambulance drove by.

The moment I pushed outside, the cold air assaulted my face. It froze the hairs in my nostrils and cooled the blood in my ears. The pressure in my chest was crushing, and the thin air wouldn’t fill my lungs. I spotted a bench on the sidewalk and stumbled toward it, collapsing on the icy boards.

Then I dropped my head into my hands and tried to breathe.

The darkness was coming back. The sun was rising, lighting a new day, but the black was creeping in on me. I could have lost it all again. Except it wasn’t someone else’s fault this time. There had been no accident. The person responsible was me.

I could have lost my boys. I could have lost Piper. And why? Because I’d wanted to have sex with her.

The entire reason we were here—why I was here, outside another hospital panicked and alone—was because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants.

“Sir?” A voice hovered above me. “Sir? Are you okay?”

In front of me, hot pink scrubs came in and out of focus. A nurse placed her hand on my shoulder, repeating her question.

The world was spinning too fast, and the air wouldn’t stay in my chest. The bench beneath me swayed like a ship riding out an ocean storm. I gripped the edge, holding on for dear life so I wouldn’t drown.

“I think he’s having a panic attack.”

“Oh my god.” Piper’s voice broke through the static buzz in my ears. “Kaine? Kaine, take a breath.”