Forever Promised (21 page)

“So, I think the clammies destroyed my uterus,” Kimmy said, her voice huskier than it should have been. “This visit is to get an ultrasound and see if there’s a chance I can have a baby.”

Jeff couldn’t even think of a
sound
to make in response to that. The quiet in the car actually seemed to make it hotter, although the air conditioner was top rate.

“Have you been trying?” he asked quietly, and although it was a logical question, he hated himself when she wiped under her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Yeah,” she said simply, and he didn’t even want to know how long.

Jeff’s specialty had always been to crack a joke, to make someone laugh, to take a shitty moment and make it lighter so the pain could have a chance to spread out and therefore not kill whomever it was aimed at.

“Well,” he said now, looking at her knitting and wishing he’d thought to bring his own, “I hope you remembered to bring a sock for me. If I’d known we were going for tests, I would have brought my project bag.”

He saw it out of the corner of his eye then: a smile. “Of course,” she said with the ghost of a head bob that usually would have been filled with attitude. “It’s never too early to start your Christmas knitting.”

“Charming,” Mikhail muttered from the back. “Next thing you know, we shall break out the pocket looms and become a family of textile workers like they have at the Faire.”

“Those people seem really fuckin’ happy,” Kimmy said, and Mikhail’s answer was classic Russian diva.

“How happy can they be? It is not like they dance.”

“True that,” Kimmy muttered.

Jeff had never done ballet, but he
had
been a club bunny once upon a time. Sometimes he would pull one of his favorite songs up on iTunes and dance in his kitchen when he was cleaning house. Sometimes Collin would join him.

“Word,” he said dryly, and the incongruous slang lightened things up just a little bit more, and they could all breathe just long enough to get to the doctor’s.

T
HEY
all pretended Kimmy wasn’t half-naked, getting her insides probed during the ultrasound, and the tech was very accommodating with a sheet at her middle while Mikhail and Jeff stood by her head, one on either side of her, holding her hand.

They all heard the tech’s caught breath, and Jeff didn’t need a specialist to tell him what the woman saw.

He saw it too.

The scarring was brutally extensive, twisting the surface of the uterus, making it impossible for any egg to implant, provided one could get past the swollen exit of either fallopian tube. It was not a picture of a womb that would give purchase to an embryo, much less nourish a fetus, and Jeff felt like the next fifteen minutes were a study in holding his breath.

The tech had to do her job too. She had a series of stations to photograph, each one a different horror show of what could happen when an untreated STD destroyed a once-healthy organ. Jeff could have stopped the procedure right then—he wanted to, because it was uncomfortable, and Kimmy was too embarrassed and irritated even to crack a sarcastic joke—but he didn’t.

God, he didn’t want to be the one to tell her.

One of the perks of physical therapy was that he got to be the cheerleader. He got to be the one telling people what they could do if only they tried.

He very, very rarely had to deliver bad news.

He didn’t want to be the one to give her the bad news.

He let the doctor come in and do that for him.

Kimmy was dressed by then, and the fact that she hadn’t kicked either of them out but had let Mikhail fasten her bra for her and hold her pants like he would for a child was enough to break Jeff’s heart. But it was also enough to make him question: Kimmy was a strong woman. He didn’t know particulars, but he got the feeling she and Shane hadn’t grown up in the warmest of circumstances. It had left them vulnerable, he’d often thought. The two of them had both suffered through a series of dismal relationship failures before they found their mates. Shane had reacted by pursuing Mikhail with a single-mindedness that left all of his friends dizzy. Kimmy had reacted by pushing Lucas away. Jeff honestly believed if she hadn’t finally found a place where she was happy and had family, she would have packed her bags and taken off for the hills when Lucas first arrived. But she had finally accepted his love. It had been precious, actually—Lucas, the earnest country boy, and Kimmy, the hardened woman of experience. Jeff and Collin had watched it eagerly, like teenagers at a movie and the best part had been that she’d been really happy.

Jeff wondered how that could have left her with no reserves now.

Because the woman who sat on the table seemed to have spent all her chutzpah on having the courage to fall in love, with nothing left for the ups and downs that followed.

“Yes,” the doctor said, looking clinically sympathetic, “as you can see here, and here, and here, the scarification is too extensive to allow embryonic implantation….”

Jeff looked sharply at the doctor—a dry middle-aged man with crowded teeth, sparse blond hair, and a leathery tan—and then at Kimmy. Kimmy was so confused, he almost couldn’t stand it. Her brown eyes were unfocused and her jaw was so tense he was amazed her teeth didn’t crack. The white hand in his was clammy enough to make him shudder and squeezing enough to hurt.

“Look, Dr. Johnson….” He stopped. “Seriously. Johnson. It’s like God was giving you a sign.” He shook himself. “Look—tell her straight up. You don’t need to shield her with the big words, we all know where this is heading, and she needs to grieve.”

Dr. Johnson glared at him and snapped, “Her uterus is too scarred. She can’t have children. Is that what you wanted me to say? People think that they can just screw around and have no consequences but—hey!”

The man was midsize, which was good because Mikhail didn’t have to reach too far up to grab the back of his jacket, steer him around, and shove him toward the door.

“You’ve done your job. Now go,” he said shortly.

For the first time, they saw some humanity in the doctor.

“But I have options!” he said a little desperately. “There’s adoption agencies and surrogates—her ovaries are fine, there’s still a chance for—”

“Good to know,” Mikhail grudged. “Perhaps you could have told her that straight off before calling her a stupid slut. Here.” He reached out and grabbed the chart out of the startled doctor’s hand. “We have our own man who can speak this to her. You need to go.”

And with that, he slammed the door in Dr. Johnson’s face.

For a moment Jeff and Kimmy just stared at him, but Jeff had to hand it to the guy—he knew his Kimmy.

“Come here, cow-woman,” he said softly. “You don’t need to be brave for us.”

And Kimmy threw herself into Mikhail’s arms and cried. The room wasn’t very big—Jeff was standing awkwardly when Mikhail thrust the charts at him around Kimmy’s shoulders. “Put these down.”

Jeff did, and then he found his own shirt yanked on as Mikhail pulled him into the hug. Oh. Oh yeah. This was what he was there for. He was taller than Mikhail and Kimmy by a good six inches, and he used them to drape his body over Kimmy’s back and sandwich her in the only comfort he and Mikhail could offer.

T
HEY
made it out of the doctor’s office eventually, after stopping at the nurse’s station so Jeff could ask for copies of everything so
he
could present the options to Kimmy when she was feeling less vulnerable. He had to grimace—God knew there were assholes in every profession, but he couldn’t help contrasting this so-called Dr. Johnson with his own mentor and bestest adopted grand-uncle, Doc Herbert. Doc Herbert would have done this better, he thought wretchedly. Doc Herbert wouldn’t have made her feel quite so awful. Some doctors made the rest of them look bad, and that was just the truth.

Nobody gave him directions when they got in the car, so he took some directions himself.

“Where are we going?” Kimmy asked, looking around with confusion. Normally he would have gotten back on the freeway, one way or another, to take them to Levee Oaks.

“Baskin Robbins,” Jeff told her. “Or Starbucks, take your choice.”

“Baskin Robbins,” Mikhail ordered, his tone adamant. “She has not slept in days. Caffeine, we do not need.”

“Kimmy!” Jeff grabbed her hand. “Honey. This is bad. I mean, I know you’re sad, and it looks like you’ve been dwelling on this for a long time, but you’re stronger than this! What does Lucas have to say?”

She didn’t wail or fall apart—that would have been better. She just curled up in the front seat of the car, knees under her cheek, arms wrapped around her legs, making herself as small as she possibly could.

Jeff met Mikhail’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he stopped at Eastern. He was thinking,
Oh shit! How can the GBFF fix this?
But that’s not what Mikhail’s eyes were saying.

No. It was perfectly clear from Mikhail’s squared jaw and narrowed blue eyes that while Jeff was wondering how to fix things,
he
had decided that something had to be done. And because he was Mikhail, he had a plan.

Jeff pulled into the parking lot at BR and left Mikhail broiling in the back seat while he ran around the front, opened the door, and pulled Kimmy out. She went pliantly, and Mikhail scrambled after her. The fact that he didn’t give Jeff the raw edge of his tongue was enough to tell Jeff how utterly fucked this whole situation was.

The line at Baskin Robbins was formidable, and Jeff tried not to whine with impatience. Nobody was staying to eat their ice cream, so once this cleared out, it would be them and their knitting, and maybe Kimmy would open up a little. He could wait that long. He could. The dejected slump of her shoulders and her thousand-yard stare didn’t need him pummeling at her with his irritation, it needed gentleness, patience, love—

“Dammit, Kimmy,” Jeff snapped. “You had better be studying the menu like it was the word of God, or I will order you diet fucking
everything.
”

The shock on her face was gratifying. “I actually have an excuse to break my diet and you wouldn’t order me something with fudge brownie in it?”

Mikhail was standing to her right, and he gave a visceral shudder. “Oh God, I don’t need to see this,” he said, looking truly horrified. “Jeff, you know not what you do.” He looked at Kimmy then and seemed to take in her rolled eyes and the obvious disgust on her face and came to some sort of internal decision. “I am going next door to the grocery store,” he announced out of the blue. “Order me a….” He narrowed his eyes and looked Kimmy full on, like this was significant. “Order me a full-fat large caramel Turtle cappuccino freeze.”

Jeff felt himself recoil, and Kimmy’s expression was pure horror.

“Mikhail! You
never
order big! Not even on your birthday!”

Mikhail drew himself up to his full five feet six inches and gave her a level glare that actually intimidated the snot out of Jeff, much less the emotionally fragile Kimmy. “Yes, but in this instance I will
trust
that Shane will not mind seeing the worst of me when I am bloated like a pig.”

And with that, he turned around and flounced off, ignoring Jeff’s open mouth and Kimmy’s furiously extended middle finger.

Jeff recovered himself first. “Put that away,” he hissed. “There’s kids in front of us.”

“Fuck,” she muttered and tucked her hand back under the arm holding the knitting.

Jeff smiled, because swearing was another good sign. “Excellent. That’s my Kimmy-love. Now, do you have any idea what he was just talking about?”

Kimmy groaned. “God, yeah—but let’s wait until I’ve got chocolate and carbs in front of me, okay?”

She was good to her word—three scoops of ice cream on a brownie coated with fudge and caramel and doused with nuts. Jeff looked at it while he was eating his two scoops of milk-free sorbet and actually felt cramps of lactose intolerance just from sitting at the same green Formica table.

“So…,” he said, enjoying his diet not-ice-cream for once. Thinking about how long he’d have to work out to get rid of that monstrosity Kimmy was eating made him appreciate the fact that if he actually
did
eat it, Collin would have to wheel the television into the bathroom for the next five days, because he’d be stuck there and bored anything but shitless.

“So….” Kimmy rolled her eyes and took a huge bite of brownie and ice cream. It seemed to work—her entire body melted into the seat, and the tension Jeff had seen riding her jaw and shoulders since she’d gotten into the car at Promise House eased up. He waited for her to savor and swallow, and then heard her sigh.

“It’s stupid,” she muttered. “I just… you know, Lucas would be such a great father, right? I just… I hate to….” Her chin wobbled for a minute. “I hate that he’s the one being screwed over because I was a fucking whore—
hey!
”

Jeff didn’t realize Mikhail was back until he literally smacked her upside the head.

“Shut up and take it back,” he muttered. His gigantic calorie-geddon was sitting in front of Kimmy. Mikhail grabbed it and pulled a mouthful through the straw with enough force to make Jeff a little jealous of Shane before he pulled his attention back to real life. “Scoot over,” he ordered, and she glowered at him.

“Sit next to Jeff! You hit me!”

“Yes, yes I did, and I have not hit a woman since I was going into withdrawals and my mother tied me to the bed. Now scoot over or I will regale you with more stories of my youth.”

Kimmy did, scowling at him warily, and he slid in next to her.

“I said take it back,” he snapped, and both Jeff and Kimmy blinked.

“You were
serious
?” Jeff said, surprised, and then he cringed and wondered if Mikhail’s glare had set the gel in his hair on fire.

“Did you understand what I said?”

“Yes—”

“Then I was serious. The only person who gets my jokes is Shane.” He turned his body and his temper on Kimmy. “Now take it back.”

Abruptly Kimmy’s expression softened. “Mikhail, I know you think I’m being hard on myself—”