Kiss in the Dark by Jenna Mills

Unusually hot weather was melting the snowcaps off the mountains at a faster than normal pace. The runoff literally raced down the mountainside.
    And Beth didn’t know how to swim.
    Panic welled within her. She remembered opening her mouth to call out, but numbness took over with brutal quickness, and the words froze in her throat. The water turned rougher. White water, they called it. Perfect for rafting.
    Deadly for anything else.
    Her body started shutting down with terrifying speed, and darkness pushed closer. Her arms and legs grew leaden. The effort to breathe choked her.
    Much as she felt now. Shock crashed in from all directions, paralyzing as it went. Irony tortured. She could barely move a muscle, not even her heart.
    You’re pregnant.
    The words reverberated through her with the punishing force of the raging mountain river. She’d heard them before. Once. A long time ago. For years she’d dreamed of hearing them again, rejoicing in them. To hear the words now, and know they weren’t true, amounted to cruelty.
    She started to shake, from the inside out. “That’s not funny,” she whispered.
    Dr. Lyons frowned. “Pardon?”
    “I can’t have children,” Beth said, grasping on to a rock and bracing herself against the current. “I’m … infertile.”
    “Not according to these tests,” the physician said, looking at the file in her hands. “You’re most definitely pregnant.”
    The current knocked her free and slammed her further downstream. Debris cut into her. Coldness permeated her heart.
    But then she saw him. Dylan. Running along the riverbank, shouting out her name. The roar of the water stole his words, but in the ferocity of his eyes, she found strength, and calm.
    He towered over her now, tall and strong and uncompromising. But he didn’t touch. “How far along is she?”
    The doctor cut him a curious look, then glanced at Beth, clearly seeking permission to discuss her condition with a man other than her husband.
    “I can’t be pregnant,” she whispered. “I would have felt something.” But then it hit her, the dizziness she’d attributed to fatigue, the nausea she’d attributed to shock. The light, irregular period she’d blamed on stress.
    “Why did she faint?” Dylan asked, diving into the boiling stream and swimming toward her. A hand, on her shoulder. Steady. Strong. “Is everything okay?”
    Beth looked up abruptly, saw the doctor nod. “Everything’s fine. It’s not uncommon for pregnant women to black out, particularly if they’ve not been sleeping or eating properly.”
    “My God.” Beth whispered, but then Dylan was there, wrapping an arm around her waist and swimming against the current, bringing her with him. She quit fighting and wrapped her arms around him, let him pull her from the water. They collapsed on the muddy bank, soaking wet and breathing heavy. But alive. The sun fought with the wind, one to warm, the other to chill.
    Reality overrode both.
    Dylan filled her line of vision now, dominating the cubicle and obscuring her view of the doctor. His eyes were dark and more than a little wild. His breathing was as hard as it had been that day by the rapids. And his expression … the intensity glittering in his eyes.
    It was as though she’d betrayed him all over again.
    She felt the stab of pain deep, the regret, but knew history could not be rewritten.
    “Lance moved out months ago,” he said. His normally commanding voice was so tight she barely recognized it. “Has there been someone else since then? Has someone else been in your bed?”
    Beth struggled to breathe. Jagged emotion jostled around inside her. Once, she would have thrilled to the possessiveness underlying his questions. Once, she would have hurt at the pain. Now, she could only find confusion.
    “Nobody,” she whispered. “Nobody.”
    Dylan swore softly. He looked like he wanted to touch her, put his hands to her shoulders. But he didn’t move. She wasn’t sure he could.
    “Lance?