Dr. Do-Or-Die. Lara Lacombe

definitely changed his world.

      “Can I go on the slide now?”

      She let her feet trail along the ground, slowing the arc of the swing with each pass. Without waiting for his response, she launched herself from the seat as the swing made another upward trek, her long, lean body flying through the air, hair trailing behind her like a golden kite. His heart shot into his throat as he watched her come down, his arms already reaching for her, though he was too far away.

      He needn’t have worried. She landed on her feet, graceful as a cat. She shot him a triumphant grin he recognized all too well, then took off for the slide, confident he would follow.

      “Grant!”

      He turned to find Avery standing at the fence. He waved, and she gestured for him to come to her. The slide was only a few feet away, so he walked over to meet Avery, wondering why she didn’t just come into the playground to talk to him.

      He was halfway to the fence when he heard his daughter’s cry. “Daddy!”

      The panic in her voice froze his blood and he whirled around, his eyes scanning the area for her. Gray mist rose from the ground, shrouding the playground and turning the once-bright day into a realm of shadows.

      She screamed again, this time in pain. Grant ran over to the slide, but she wasn’t there. She began to sob, the wrenching cries filling his ears and tearing out his guts. He searched the playground, trying to wave away the fog as he moved from one station to the next. But there was no sign of her. Desperation clawed up his spine as he explored, and he had the sudden, horrible thought that she was gone.

      Still, her words echoed all around, calling out to him as he moved. Where was she? Why couldn’t he see her?

      “Grant!”

      Avery’s voice cut through their daughter’s cries. He turned back to the fence to find Avery clutching the little girl to her chest, one hand on her head, the other supporting her body. Avery’s eyes bored into him, bright and accusing. What had he done? He took a step toward them, but she jerked back, taking their daughter with her.

      “No,” he said, reaching out for them. “Please, let me see her.”

      But his words fell on deaf ears. For every step he took, Avery retreated, carrying the little girl farther and farther away. He stopped moving, but Avery didn’t. She held his gaze as she continued to back up, her pace measured and unhurried. Grant could only stand there, helpless, as the two people he loved most in the world were swallowed up by the swirling fog.

      Just before they vanished from sight, his daughter turned to look at him. Even from a distance, he could see the tear tracks on her cheeks, and his heart clenched with the need to touch her, to soothe her worries and make everything okay again. The look she gave him was one of confusion, as if she was trying to figure out who he was and why he was standing there. She opened her mouth, and the wind carried her whispered question back to him.

      “Daddy?”

      * * *

      Grant shot up in bed with a gasp, his arms outstretched, reaching for the little girl who wasn’t there.

      Had never been there.

      His breath gusted out in a loud sigh and he lay down again, the pillow damp against the skin of his neck. He kicked the covers off, welcoming the relief of the cool air on his sweaty body. The dream lingered like a greasy film on his skin, a coating that covered him from head to toe in a claustrophobic embrace.

      This wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed about Avery and their child. Sometimes he saw her holding a baby. Other times, the child was older, like tonight’s encounter. But he always pictured a girl.

      There was no way to tell if the baby had been a girl or a boy—the miscarriage had happened too early in the pregnancy for them to know the sex. But deep in his heart, Grant thought it was a daughter they had lost.

      And it was their loss.

      He didn’t pretend to know what it had been like for Avery. He could imagine how she had felt: the pain, both physical and emotional, knowing the life inside her was dying. At the time, he’d still been adjusting to the news that she was pregnant. He hadn’t yet formed any kind of attachment. But she had. And he’d known from the look in her eyes that she’d lost a piece of her soul along with the baby.

      It had taken him longer to feel the ache. At first, he’d been so overcome with the pain of losing Avery that he hadn’t really thought about the miscarriage. But the knowledge of it had stayed with him, quietly eating away at his heart like water dripping on a stone.

      In his darker moments, he liked to torture himself with thoughts of what their daughter would have been like. It would have been her tenth birthday this year. There would have been a party, of course, complete with cake and balloons. He could picture it now, Avery carrying in the frosted confection, topped with two rows of glowing candles. Mary—he’d always liked the name Mary—would lean forward, closing her eyes tight to make a wish before blowing out the candles. It would have been a wonderful day, full of laughter and love. The kind of day he hadn’t had in...well, forever, it seemed.

      Did Avery ever think about the what-ifs? Of course she did, he realized immediately, shaking his head at the absurdity of the question. How could she not? But did the road not taken haunt her like it did him, or had she made her peace with the future they’d never have?

      Part of him wished he could make the dreams stop. They weren’t regular enough to be considered recurring, but every time he had one it stayed with him for weeks, casting his life in shadow. It didn’t take a shrink to figure out why he’d had one tonight. Should he tell Avery? Would she forgive him if she knew he hadn’t just walked away and forgotten about the baby? How would she respond if she knew he regretted the loss of their child every day?

      I’ll tell her tomorrow. He didn’t want to upset her by bringing up painful memories, but his pride demanded he try to make her understand that he wasn’t the callous bastard she’d thought him to be all these years. Perhaps it was selfish of him, but he wanted her to acknowledge his pain, to consider that maybe, just maybe, she’d underestimated him then.

      It wouldn’t change the past, but it might help him sleep better at night.