Free Destined to Love (Starting Over Trilogy Book 3) by Brenda Kennedy

do know that I am going to do everything I can to make him happy. I am so in love with him; all I want to do is marry him and be his.
    After dinner and another movie, I doze off to sleep. I wake up to severe cramping. I feel wetness between my legs. I already know without looking. I yell for Mason because he isn’t in bed with me. It is only a matter of seconds before he is by my side. I lie in a fetal position unable to acknowledge him in the room. He kneels down beside me.
    “Beauty, are you cramping?”  
    “I’m bleeding.” I can barely say the words through the pain.  
    Mason lifts the covers without saying anything. He lowers the covers and asks, “How bad is your pain?”  
    I can’t say anything. I just rock back and forth. “We have to go to the hospital — just give me one minute.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer him before he walks away.
    Mason makes a phone call, walks into the bathroom, and then digs into my dresser. He walks over to me and removes the covers. I am suddenly chilled. I keep my eyes closed, thinking it somehow helps with the pain.  
    “Angel, we need to get you cleaned up and to the hospital. Can you walk to the bathroom?”
    I shake my head and ball into a fetal position even more. The pain is excruciating. Mason wraps his arms under my legs and back and lifts me up while saying, “Hold on.”  
    He carries me into the bathroom and removes my blood-soaked panties. I sit on the toilet and he hands me a soapy washcloth. I bend over to wipe the wetness from my body and I am in shock at the amount of blood. Mason throws the washcloth in a trash bag, along with my panties, and hands me another soapy washcloth. Once I am cleaned up, he helps me get dressed and carries me to my SUV. He already has a towel on the seat and fastens my seat belt over me. He makes a phone call and tells someone we are on our way.  
    “Don’t tell anyone.”  
    “I won’t, it was your doctor.”  
    “Ok, are we almost there?” I grimace.
    “Right around the corner, just a few more minutes. Hang on, Beauty.”  
    Mason’s phone rings and he answers it quickly. He says only a few words before hanging up.
    “The hospital is expecting you. We won’t have to wait in the reception area. Your doctor is also there waiting on you. She was already there seeing another patient when I called her.”  
    “Oh, God, I think I’m bleeding through,” I say, trying to gather the towel beneath me to thicken it.
    We pull up at the hospital and Mason doesn’t park. He pulls up along the curb near the E.R. entrance. Hospital staff are already waiting with a gurney and a wheelchair. I close my eyes tightly to try to ease the pain. Mason tells me to hang on and then I hear the car door close. He picks me up and lays me on the gurney. They tell Mason he needs to park the car and that he can’t leave it there blocking the entrance. I hear Mason mumble something before I am taken inside. The doctor quickly examines me and Mason is by my side. He holds my hand and whispers in my ear how much he loves me.
    Mason  
    I sit beside Angel in the recovery room. She lost the baby and has just had a D&C — dilation and curettage — done. It’s a simple procedure where they go in and clean out her cervix. They remove anything that wasn’t expelled through the miscarriage. I hold Angel’s hand as she sleeps; I stroke her knuckles but she doesn’t move.
    I haven’t cried or mourned the loss. I know it was God’s will. I also know the baby would have been a reminder of Jim’s attack. I would have loved that baby no matter what, but I also know that night would always be in the back of my head. I will never admit that or say it aloud. I am only human, and my feelings of hatred for Jim go very deep. I would do anything in my power to protect Angel.
    She moans in her sleep and I stroke her hair and cheek. I used to do that to calm her, but I think I do it now because touching her calms me. It scares me, the effect this