She’d sent him to work, telling him she needed to sleep, but he hadn’t felt right about leaving her.

He crawled onto the bed and snuggled up to her.

“What are you doing home?”

“Couldn’t keep my head in it. I told Sam what happened, and she sent me home to be with you.”

“That was nice of her.”

“I hope you don’t mind that I told her.”

She shrugged. “What does it matter?”

“I wanted to tell her because I knew she’d understand how we’re feeling, and she does. She said to call her if you need to talk to someone who’s been through it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Even with me?”

“At all. It happened. We’ll deal with it and go on.”

“How do we deal with it if we don’t talk about it?”

She turned onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “What do you want me to say, Freddie?” Her stunning blue eyes flooded with tears that gutted him. “That I feel like a failure because I couldn’t have our baby?”

“Don’t say that, sweetheart. You know as well as I do how often pregnancies end in miscarriage. This baby wasn’t meant to be. That doesn’t mean the next one won’t be.”

“What if I’m like Sam? What if I can’t ever have a baby?”

“Then we’ll adopt like they did. One way or another, we’ll have a family.”

“I want you to have a baby that’s ours,” she said, sobbing. “I want to give you that.”

“You’ve given me everything, Elin. Every single thing that I could ever want. If it was only you and me forever, I’d be more than satisfied. Please don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself. This terrible, sad thing happened to us, but we’ll be okay because we have each other.” He reached for her and was relieved when she moved into his embrace and let him hold her. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

He held her for a long time, until he felt her finally relax into sleep.

Freddie hurt like he never had before, for her, for him, for the child they’d wanted so badly who was gone now. For as long as he’d worked with and been friends with Sam, he’d been aware of her ongoing fertility struggles, but until it had happened to him, he hadn’t really understood how painful her journey must’ve been.

Exhaustion tugged at him after the sleepless night and emotional firestorm. As he gave in to the pull to sleep, he vowed to do whatever he could to get Elin through this and to try again as soon as possible.

Jake Malone pulled up to Tom Rosa’s home right at two o’clock. He’d watched enough HGTV with his wife to recognize the house as a craftsman style. The cozy porch was decorated with white wicker furniture and red floral pads on the chairs. He walked up the stairs and was about to knock when the inside door opened.