The Day She Carried My Husband’s Child, I Left That Family Chapter 03

The Day She Carried My Husband’s Child, I Left That Family Chapter 03

Seeing the shock on my face, Dana quickly fell silent.

My eyes landed on the thick stack of reassignment requests on the desk, and I laughed through my tears. For six years, while Graham and I lived apart, I had poured everything I had into trying to get reassigned to Capital Region Command, where he was stationed.

I had filed one request after another.

Every single one had been denied.

Our postings were so far apart that I hadn’t made it home in time to see my mother before she died, and I couldn’t even visit my mother’s grave at the Army cemetery every year.

I’d always assumed I didn’t have enough seniority or that my chances for promotion were simply too slim.

Instead, Graham had used his authority as a senior officer at regional command to keep me stationed hundreds of miles away.

With her pen poised over the approval line, Dana asked me one last time, “Are you sure you want to join the peacekeeping medical team? You need to understand that you won’t be coming back for at least five years.”

I nodded, finally at peace with my decision.

If nearly a thousand miles still wasn’t far enough, then I would go farther.

I had just stepped out of the personnel office when I heard two nurses talking in the hallway.

“Isn’t that Colonel Mercer? Who’s the soldier he’s helping?”

I followed their gaze.

Graham was supporting Tessa with one arm, holding pregnancy test results from the regional Army medical center in his other hand.

When he saw me, he made no attempt to hide anything.

“Tessa just found out she’s pregnant.”

I froze as a chill swept through me.

Graham softened his voice as if he were trying to calm a nervous new recruit.

“You know about your condition. Since you can’t have children anymore, Tessa will have this baby. She’s your sister. Her baby can be yours, too.”

Somehow, hearing those words now, I was remarkably calm.

I looked at the slight curve of Tessa’s stomach. “How far along are you?”

Tessa turned her face away, too embarrassed to meet my eyes.

Graham answered for her. “Three months.”

“Three months…” I repeated quietly.

Three months earlier, I had been pregnant when our troop transport rolled over during a field training exercise.

I lay there in the pouring rain, covered in blood, calling Graham again and again on the secure line.

When he answered, he was crying with guilt.

“I’m tied up commanding a joint exercise. Even if I left now, I wouldn’t make it in time. I’ll get a medevac team to you…”

That was when the doctors told me I would never be able to get pregnant again.

And that was when Graham and Tessa conceived this child.

I pressed a hand to my flat stomach, over the injury there. The pain hit so hard that I could barely straighten up.

Tessa hurried over to support me, tears streaming down her face.

“Mara, what happened between Graham and me was an accident. He’d had too much to drink after the celebration and mistook me for you…”

“Please don’t divorce him because of this baby.”

Bracing myself against the hallway wall, I jerked my arm away from her.

I barely used any force, but Graham immediately panicked and grabbed my wrist.

“Mara, why are you taking your anger out on her? She’s pregnant!”

He glared at me, furious.

In six years, Graham had never once lost his temper with me.

Now he was doing it for the person I hated most.

I gave a bitter smile and pulled a printed divorce agreement from my bag.

“If you care about her that much, then divorce me.”

Graham froze, his brow drawing tight as he opened his mouth to respond.

At some point, Tessa had gotten hold of a pair of surgical scissors from a nearby table. She dropped to her knees, sobbing.

“Mara, if you don’t want me or my baby around, then go ahead.”

She gripped my hand so tightly that I couldn’t pull free.

“Let go! Are you out of your mind?”

In the next instant, she forced my hand around the scissors and drove them into her own abdomen.