No Longer Mine Read Online Free PDF Page B

drifted back into uneasy slumber. Wade insisted nothing was wrong, just that he was working too hard, busting his ass to save more money for the honeymoon.
    Her mind drifted around in circles, trying to pinpoint if she had done something or said something to make him act this way. There had been the fight but it wasn’t the worst they had ever had.
    Since then they hadn’t fought about anything. Wade, in fact, went out of his way to keep things quiet between them.
    She didn’t even realize he had woken until she heard him whisper, “C’mere, Nikki.” 24
    www.samhainpublishing.com

    No Longer Mine
    She smiled and rose from her chair. Stiffened muscles protested as Nikki stretched and forced them into action. She bent over at the waist to touch her toes briefly before she went to couch, perching on the edge.
    Watching her with burning eyes, Wade waited for her with an outstretched hand. As she settled against him, his arms closed around her and he pulled her down next to him. With a turn of his body, Wade neatly tucked her under him. “I love you,” he rasped, his voice intense. “I always will. If I ever lost you, I don’t know what I’d do.”
    She opened her mouth, determined to find out what was going on with him, but then he settled his mouth over hers, and the question, like all thought, flew out of her head.

    Things were good…for a while.
    Three more weeks to be exact.
    Her wedding dress, something that seemed too beautiful to be real, hung in her closet, minute adjustments made in the waistline. Satin ballet slippers dyed to match resided in a box close by.
    Everything was already set. Decorations were at the church. She had already mailed the thank-you cards for shower gifts and there wasn’t anything left to be done except the wedding itself.
    The wedding was to be small and simple, since they had to pay for everything themselves. Even the honeymoon was simple, a four-day weekend to Gatlinburg. A real honeymoon would have to wait.
    It was Tuesday, hot, humid. The air was so thick and muggy even breathing seemed like work. The rain started sometime after noon, a steady downpour that didn’t seem in any hurry to end.
    But she didn’t care about the rain, because she had just gotten the call.
    Nineteen years old, and she had just gotten The Call .
    She still couldn’t believe it. She’d written everything down just to make it feel real. But it didn’t feel real. Couldn’t feel real.
    Wade… She needed to tell Wade. Determined to do just that, she borrowed her dad’s truck, something she rarely did because she hated driving a stick shift, but she hardly noticed it as she drove over to Wade’s in a daze of excitement.
    Hands shaky, a smile a mile on wide on her face, she pulled into the driveway and danced up the porch.
    The deafening silence when she threw open the door should have warned her.
    How could silence sound so ominous?
    That silence… Yes, it should have warned her.
    Her excitement was gone. Forgotten as misery, shock and anger roiled inside her. She’d completely forgotten about the notes she had in her pocket. About the call. About everything.
    Nikki now stood on one side of the kitchen, staring out at the thunderstorm that had rolled in only minutes earlier.

    www.samhainpublishing.com
    25

    Shiloh Walker
    If asked why she had driven over, Nikki would have admitted she didn’t have a clue.
    Wade was across the room, on the floor, face buried in his hands, shoulders and hair wet with rain.
    When she’d first arrived a few minutes earlier, Nikki had found him sitting outside on the deck in back, oblivious to the rain that was pounding down.
    She’d thought something was wrong. Had thought it was one of his parents. But it wasn’t.
    He’d been holding a pregnancy test in his hand.
    A positive one.
    And Nikki hadn’t taken any pregnancy test.
    That damning bit of evidence now sat on the kitchen table, and she found herself staring at it again, acid burning in her throat.
    “I