Sinners On Tour 06.1 Take Me to Paradise (Encores #1) (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

Myrna dropped her purchases in the foyer before locking the door behind her and activating her new and elaborate alarm system. She did this not because she was afraid to be in her apartment by herself, but because she had promised her unduly concerned husband that she would always,
always
engage all the locks and set the alarm as soon as she arrived home.

According to her calendar, she should have started her period the day before. But she hadn’t! So considering herself officially late, she’d stopped by the pharmacy on her way home from work and picked up an early detection pregnancy kit.

She pulled the box from her sack, which also contained her usual monthly supply of tampons and sanitary napkins—she hadn’t wanted to be
too
optimistic—and sat on the sofa to read the instructions. Seemed easy enough. Pee on the tip, see how many lines show up after several minutes, and be consumed with joy or utter devastation, depending on your particular situation. She could do this. No problem.

In the bathroom she was careful to follow the instructions to the letter. She set the completed test on the edge of the sink and stared down at it, her heart trying to strangle her, her eyes strangely achy, and her stomach doing backflips in anticipation.

One blue line appeared, indicating that the test had worked properly.

“Come on line number two,” she said, her hands curling into fists on the cold edge of the porcelain sink as she stared down at the white stick. “Come on line number two. Come on. Come on.”

Her vision blurred with tears when no amount of coaxing made the second line appear.

She wasn’t pregnant.

She sat on the edge of the bathtub taking slow calming breaths. It will happen, she told herself. Just be patient. There’s always next month.

Or the month after that.

Or the month after that.

She wrapped her arms around her clenching stomach and leaned forward. She had to tell Brian. He would want to know, even though the news wasn’t what they’d been hoping for. She wished he was with her so she could tell him face to face. No, that wasn’t why. She wished he was with her so he could hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. But he was on the road with his band. And she was here. Alone.

She scraped the failed pregnancy test into the wastebasket next to the toilet and retrieved her phone from her purse. She checked the time to make sure he wasn’t onstage and then called his number.

Trey—of all people—answered on the third ring. “Hi, Myrna. Watcha doin’?” he said in a teasing tone.

“Hi, Trey. Can I speak to Brian please?” There. She sounded perfectly normal. Not like she was dying inside.

“Oh, he’s much too busy to talk right now,” Trey told her.

“Give me the phone,” she heard Brian say in the background.

“Are you knocked up yet?” Trey asked.

Myrna’s heart shattered into a million pieces and she tried to speak, but the only sound that escaped her was a strangled sob. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks, and she sniffed loudly, gulping for air.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” Brian said into her ear.

“My period was late . . . and I thought maybe . . . so I took a pregnancy test.” She took a steadying breath that was anything but steadying. “It was negative.”

“We have plenty of time,” he said gently. “We’ll keep trying.”

“How am I supposed to get pregnant with you gone all the time?” She hated herself for saying it the moment the words left her lips. It wasn’t his fault that she was thirty-five and all of her eggs were dried-up, faulty husks incapable of producing the son he wanted.

“When will you be ovulating again?” he asked.

“Ten days or so.” If her stupid,
ancient
ovaries were even capable of ovulating.

“I’ll get on a plane and I’ll be there to take full advantage of you. I promise.”

She sighed and wiped the tears from her eyes on her suit jacket sleeve. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just got my hopes up too high.” And had crashed and burned over the lack of a simple blue line.

He was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “Myrna, we have to come to terms with the idea that we may never have a baby.”

“Don’t say that,” she blurted out.

“Sweetheart, I know you don’t want to hear it and I can only think of one thing more wonderful than making a baby with you.”

She couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than holding a child she’d made with the love of her life. “There is nothing more wonderful than that.”

“There is,” he said.

“What?” If he said “playing live in front of fans,” she was going to reach through the phone and throttle him.

“Loving you for the rest of my life.”

Her eyes flooded with fresh tears, and the only response she could manage was a sniff.

“You’re my heart, Myrna. I’m sure having a baby will add to my love for you, but nothing will ever take away from it. With you in my life, I’m already blessed beyond reason, so if a baby is meant to happen for us, it will happen and if it doesn’t, we still have us. You are more than enough to make me happy.”

She nodded, so glad her husband was good at this emotional stuff.

“Myrna?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Will you love me less if I can’t give you a baby?”

“Of course not!” How could he even ask her that?

“Then quit beating yourself up.”

“Okay,” she said, a feeling of serenity washing over her. Everything would work out for them whether they were gifted with a child or not, because they had each other. She wondered why that hadn’t occurred to her until he’d said it. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Brian. I love you.”

“I love you too. Now you better get all rested up, because in less than two weeks I’ll be back in your bed, fucking you senseless and trying my damnedest to make a mother out of you.”

She laughed. “I look forward to it.”

“Did you remember to lock your door and set the alarm?”

“Yes.”

“And are you smiling now?”

She was. He always made her smile. “Yes.”

“Good. I might be able to sleep tonight.”

She sighed, thinking ahead to spending the next ten nights alone in her bed. “I miss you already.”

“I miss you too. Call me before you go to bed.”

“I will.”

They said their I-love-yous and their goodbyes, and she hung up. She cradled the phone against her chest and smiled to herself. It wouldn’t be long before he came home and took her back to paradise. And they wouldn’t even have to leave her bed to find it together.

Epilogue

One month later...

Myrna could barely see the screen of her phone through her happy tears as she typed in a text to her husband.

The rabbit died.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to thank Wendy Christy and Cyndi McGowen for continuing to do such an excellent job of beta reading for me. I’d also like to thank the amazing Beth Hill for her fabulous editing work. And I can’t forget my devoted fans, who will hopefully continue to read my books as I attempt to juggle writing and publishing books in three different series. I love you all!

WHAT’S NEXT

The next Sinners in Paradise novella will be announced soon. In the meantime, I’ll be releasing the first Exodus End book, entitled
Insider
. When? Um… soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock 'n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians. Raised on hard rock music from the cradle, she attended her first Styx concert at age six and fell instantly in love with live music. She's been known to travel over a thousand miles just to see a favorite band in concert. As a teen, she discovered her second love, romantic fiction -- first, voraciously reading steamy romance novels and then penning her own. She currently resides in Illinois.