Chapter Thirty-Eight

Rory stood at the kitchen window, her hands wrapped around a mug of herbal tea as she watched Jim and Hector unload lumber from the back of Hector's pickup truck. The late afternoon sun slanted across the driveway, glinting off the sweat on the men's brows as they hefted the heavy boards onto their shoulders.

The lumber was for the crib Sam was making, the one he'd been pouring every spare minute into when he wasn't at the hospital. Rory's heart swelled with love at the thought, her hand drifting unconsciously to the barely-there swell of her belly.

Ten weeks. It still didn't feel real, the idea that there was a life growing inside her. She hadn't even had her first ultrasound yet, hadn't seen the grainy black-and-white image that would make it all feel concrete.

But the constant nausea and e……