“It is important, Dylan, or else I wouldn’t be here. We didn’t share phone numbers when I was passing through a couple of months ago, but I asked around town and then saw your police vehicle in the parking lot.”
Air left Hannah’s lungs in a whoosh, and she wasn’t sure she could drag in enough oxygen to keep from dropping to the ground. Her dinner threatened to come back up, and she fought the rising nausea. Oh, God… why is this woman here? She was an interloper in the middle of a personal conversation that she didn’t want to witness and yet wanted to scream at the interruption. She took another step back, but this time his hand snapped out and wrapped around her fingers.
“Hannah, stay, please. You and I have plans, and now that Melissa has said hello, I’m sure she’s ready to leave—”
“Dylan, I’m pregnant.”
Dylan stood, his heart in his throat pounding a rhythm that made it hard to breathe. Pregnant? Pregnant! Mine? No fuckin’ way.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Melissa asked, her eyes darting back to Hannah before moving to his again.
“I… I don’t know…” he stammered. He glanced to the side, the wide-eyed expression of anguish on Hannah’s face cutting straight through him.
“Look, I know what you’re going to ask. Is it yours? The answer is yes. I wasn’t with anyone else when you and I hooked up, and I haven’t been with anyone else since then.”
At those words, Hannah’s eyes widened even more, and he jerked his gaze back toward Melissa. “We hooked up months ago—”
“Yes, and I’m ten weeks along.”
“I used protection—”
“Yes, and it obviously didn’t work.”
His chest heaved as he exhaled, and he continued to stare toward the last one-night stand he’d had before going out with Hannah. “I don’t know what to say,” and it was the truth. He had no idea what to say as the nightmare unfolded before him.
“I’ll… um… I’ll just go… and leave you two to… um… talk.” Hannah’s quivering voice cut through the awkward silence, the stammering words filled with agony.
“No,” he blurted, turning to face her. Afraid if she left he’d lose any chance with her, his mind still not accepting Melissa’s declaration.
Hannah sucked in a ragged breath, and her tear-filled gaze lifted to his. Regret, disappointment, sadness, and God knows what else landed on him, and he wondered how he didn’t drop to his knees at the impact. She reached out, and for the first time in public, placed her hand on his arm, and he felt the familiar burn through his sleeves. “I have to go, Dylan. I can’t stay and hear… watch you… her… I have to go.” She blinked and his gaze snagged on the tears sliding down her cheeks. His heart squeezed as her hand left his arm and a deep coldness settled over him. Hannah’s gaze swept to Melissa before moving back to him, her last word barely choked out. “Goodbye, Dylan.”
He stood, his feet rooted to the gravel parking lot, and watched her hustle to her vehicle as she swiped at her tears. She was supposed to be following me home. She was supposed to be with me. This was supposed to be…
“I’m sorry, Dylan,” Melissa said, and he swung his gaze back to her, dragging his hand through his hair. “I know this is a lot to take in, but you deserve to know. We have decisions that need to be made and—”
“Decisions?”
“Yes,” she huffed, her voice rising.
He faced her fully, hands on his hips. “Look, you’ve just dumped this on me, so cut me some slack. You’ve had time to think about this, and I haven’t. You tell me that you're pregnant, but I have no proof. You tell me that the baby is mine, but I have no proof of that either. You show up here when I was obviously with someone else and blurt everything out instead of trying to talk to me privately. So pardon me if I’m not exactly jumping for joy.”
Her lips pinched together, she inhaled deeply through her nose, then let it out slowly. “You’re right. I’ve been to the doctor and have no problem showing you proof that I’m pregnant. I’m ten weeks along and you were the only man I was with. It’s not like I’m asking you to fall in love with me or marry me after one night—”
“Thank fuck for that,” he groused, still in disbelief at the change of circumstances.
Ignoring his outburst, she plowed ahead. “But I’ve decided to keep the baby, and we’ll need to come to some financial arrangement. I’d like you to be involved in our baby’s life. One way or another, we need to talk.”
As his world continued to tilt on its axis, he was barely aware she had stepped forward until she placed her hand on his arm. Unlike Hannah’s touch, he felt nothing but her cold, grasping fingers. He looked past her shoulder, but Hannah’s red taillights had long since disappeared, and his heart ached.
3
As soon as Hannah turned onto the main road of Seaside, she wished she’d taken one of the side streets to get to the police station. Going this way meant she would pass right by The Wharf Restaurant’s parking lot. It had been a month, but the memories of that night plagued her every second of each day. It was the last thing she thought of before finally falling into a fitful sleep and the first thing that hit her when her eyes blearily opened each morning.
She tried telling herself that it didn’t matter, that she and Dylan were so new that her heart couldn’t possibly have been involved. But that was a lie. They may have only dated for two months, but in that time, she’d fallen in love.
She had managed to avoid seeing him for the last month, not always an easy feat. Throwing herself into her work, she filled her days getting to know everyone in Easton as well as assisting Colt with some of the duties at the county jail. Desperate to not see Dylan and Melissa together, she never ate out and grocery shopped late at night.
She pulled extra shifts and attended every town meeting, even those where her presence wasn’t required. The mayor and town council were thrilled with her dedication, and while speared with guilt that her reasons were selfish, she reaped the benefit when the small local newspaper ran an article on her, singing her praises. As soon as it hit the mailboxes of the residents, her standing in the community rose from let’s see how the woman chief does to one where she was greeted fondly every time she was seen.
And the law enforcement leaders’ meeting had been postponed from last week, giving her another week’s reprieve before she had to be in Dylan’s presence.
Of course, it both helped and hurt that no one knew they’d been dating. It helped that no one cast sympathetic gazes her way. But it also hurt when no one hid anything. She had to smile when she heard Pearl and one of her officers talking about seeing Dylan and a pretty blonde together. She pretended disinterest when hearing him referred to as a player. After a while, the pain lessened, and she began to see that perhaps their breakup was for the best.
A real estate agent finally found a small cottage that was exactly what Hannah had envisioned, and she was ready to close the deal. That was the only thought that brought a smile to her face… knowing that in another week, she would be a homeowner.