“Why do you call her Bonnie?” Phillip asked. It was proba-
bly an odd question at a time like that. Based on the way Adam
paused mid drag, he obviously thought so. He proceeded to in-
hale again deeply and passed his flask to Phillip who took an
obnoxiously large swig.
“I wanted to name her Bonnie. It’s a family name. Her
mother wanted Stephanie-after Stevie Nicks. So we compro-
mised like all good married couples. She got her way. Bonnie
became her middle name.”
Phillip nodded and took another swig of whisky, letting the
burn cauterize his narrowed throat.
“Can I see her?” He sounded like a frightened child and
didn’t care. Adam fixed him with a hard look. Whatever he saw
while looking Phillip over seemed to soften him. He nodded.
“They are about to move her from recovery to her room.
Then you can see her.”
He barely had the last word out before Phillip took off for
the entrance.
32
RAGE
“I’m still pissed at you, you little bastard!” Adam called af-
ter him.
Steph stared at the crooked picture on the wall. It was ugly
as hell, and she wanted to chuck her pitcher of ice water at it, but even blinking hurt. So she had nothing to do but study the shitty picture and think about what the surgeon had just told them.
They’d cut her open and taken her right fallopian tube. It had
ruptured and she’d had profuse internal bleeding. By the time
they figured out it wasn’t her appendix, they’d had to give her
two pints of blood. She was currently getting a third, along with antibiotics, fluids, and enough pain meds to fuck up even Uncle
Keith.
She hadn’t had a clue she was pregnant. Taking birth con-
trol pills usually prevents shit like that—at least for normal folks.
As usual, she had to be the statistical anomaly. Eight weeks
pregnant, they estimated based on the size of the fetus. The doctor said she might still be able to have children, but it would be riskier for her than other women. He said the other tube looked
normal, so it was unlikely that an STD that had caused the ectop-ic pregnancy. A fairly impressive factoid, considering her last
two boyfriends were a philandering movie star and a British rock god. Just another statistical anomaly, she supposed. Doc said
they had run additional tests to be 100% sure.
Super.
All this joyful news was delivered in the surgeon’s oddly
cheerful Irish brogue. “Your baby wasn’t viable and ye were in
hypovolemic shock. Do ya have me Lucky Charms?” Steph
chuckled at her own crazy thoughts and pressed her pillow firm-
ly to her abdomen when the pain reminded her to. Yep—no
doubt about it. She was indeed tripping balls.
But then the doctor mentioned that her father had consented
33
TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE
to have the fetus sent off for genetic testing while she was still under sedation. The results would be back in a week to ten days.
This was a sobering mental image. She wondered if her baby
was in a jar of formaldehyde somewhere waiting for Fed Ex. She
wanted very badly to see it and wondered if this pressing desire was morbid or normal. It was all too much to think about. She
squeezed the button and felt a small burning rush as more pain
meds flooded her bloodstream. She could feel Cedric’s eyes on
her, and with herculean effort she turned her head an inch to look at him.
“What?” She croaked, momentarily distracted by the beep-
ing of her heart monitor. The blood pressure cuff squeezed her
arm so hard that she winced.
He hobbled across the room to sit at her bedside. “I’m here
when you’re ready to talk, Sis.”
“There’s nothing to say, Ced.” She started to shrug and
groaned at the unpleasant sensation of tugging in her lower ab-
domen.
“You nearly died. They asked dad if you were an organ donor. I thought he was going to have a coronary.” Her brother,
who was typically cool to the core, looked visibly shaken. She
had the overwhelming urge to comfort him, but a wave of nausea
hit her. She dry heaved, and he raced to hand her an emesis ba-
sin. She breathed through it and managed not to vomit. Probably
for the best, since that would have definitely popped a stitch or two.
“You know only the good die young. So I’m basically im-
mortal.” She managed to curl her lips in a piss-poor imitation of a smile.
His typically bright eyes looked overcast and forlorn. “Your
baby is dead, Stephanie.”
His words sliced through her bravado with surgical preci-
sion. His frankness wiped the smirk from her face, and the un-
characteristic cold delivery of his message stunned her.
34
RAGE
“Screw you, Cedric!” she hissed, glaring up at him. He re-
fused to flinch away from her or blink during their impromptu
staring contest. And Steph’s expertly constructed walls collapsed with such force her monitor began to alarm. A choked sob erupted from her, and Cedric gently took her hand in both of his.
Within moments her cheeks were drenched with tears. Her nurse
came into the room and silenced the alarm after one look at
Stephanie. The nurse and Cedric exchanged knowing glances,
and then she left the room without a word.
Her child. Phillip’s child. Gone before she even had a
chance to feel it move.
Steph’s creative mind had immediately constructed an im-
age of what it might have looked like. A devious little blonde
boy with a Harry Potter accent…a sassy redheaded princess
whose daddy bought her a pony. Her next words came out in a
staccato rhythm between desperate gasps. “I didn’t even know
about the baby.”
For thirty minutes Cedric sat with her as she released every
jagged emotion warring within her. Neither of them spoke. Fi-
nally she’d exhausted herself. She glanced at her cell phone for the time and saw a missed call from Cheyenne. The thought of
Baby Liam’s little chubby legs set her off again. Finally, after she’d used a half a box of tissues, her crying ended and she hurt all over from the physical effort. She pressed her PCA button
and felt the sting of relief again.
“Phillip’s waiting outside. Shall I let him in?”
Phillip.
