Krista hadn’t even been paying attention to the days or weeks or how quickly they were ticking by. One minute, it was the November long weekend and the entire police station was taking part in the annual Remembrance Day ceremony downtown, and then the next they were getting their schedules at work for the Christmas holiday season, which was only two weeks away.

Despite being ordered to disclose her pregnancy at work by her overbearing and bossy-ass roommate, she still hadn’t. She didn’t want to jeopardize her career by going on light duty too early. She knew what she was doing wasn’t right, and she’d probably catch shit for it when she finally started to show and had to disclose her pregnancy, but for now she felt fine and needed the experience, despite how exhausted it left her each day.

On top of the pregnancy, back-to-back night shifts and the stress of being a rookie cop wore her down even more. The nausea was mostly gone, but now the hip and back pain were showing up, and that was almost worse than the puking.

Normally night shift sucked. Even on a good day, it sucked. You’d think it’d be quiet, what with most people sleeping, but no. Ruffians and hooligans of the most despicable kind tended to be nocturnal, preying on the weak and weary as they slept. And these last two night shifts had been particularly awful.

They’d brought in a man who had not only fled from the scene after breaking and entering a woman’s home and trying to force himself on her as she slept, but he was also drunk and hostile. He nearly head-butted Krista when she finally managed to cuff him as they escorted him to the SUV. After she and Myles had booked him, he attempted to trip Krista and then kneed Myles in the crotch as they hauled him through the station. For a drunk guy, he was still surprisingly agile.

It was too bloody early in the morning/late in their shift for leniency, so for once, Krista didn’t begrudge the force Myles used when he tossed the douchebag into the holding cell.

“Sleep it off, motherfucker,” Myles grumbled, knuckling fatigue out of his eyes.

Krista nodded, stifling a yawn but failing miserably. They were just walking out of the cell when the man started to cough, like seriously, might-hack-up-a-lung cough. Both Myles and Krista paused. She lifted one eyebrow at him, which he returned with his own skeptical smirk.

“You okay there, asshole?” Myles asked the man dry-heaving in the corner. After his initial assaults, they hadn’t bothered to remove his cuffs, mostly for their own safety.

“Should we take off his cuffs?” she asked. “What if he needs to pee?”

“Smells like he’s already pissed himself,” Myles replied with a scoff.

“He might need some water.”

Myles let out an exhausted and exasperated huff. “Fucking bleeding heart, Matthews,” he murmured, getting his keys out of his pocket and walking over to the man, who was at the moment bent on his knees with his hands behind his back, his face a mere inch from the disgusting jail cell floor.

“Here, let me get those cuffs off you so you can go grab some water.”

Krista had to hand it to Myles. For a jerk and a man who had nearly lost his ability to have children just an hour ago, thanks to this drunken attempted rapist, his tone wasn’t entirely unpleasant. There was a hint, just a smidgen of compassion.

Maybe he did have a heart?

He walked around behind the coughing prisoner and went to unlock his cuffs. But as soon as the cuffs were off and Myles was tucking them into his belt, the prisoner leaped up from his knees and grabbed Myles around the neck, putting him in a headlock. Myles fought the guy pretty well, thrashing around and elbowing him, but the man had at least fifty if not seventy-five pounds on the cop, and he was also drunk and desperate.

A very dangerous combination.

Krista watched as the prisoner’s hand started patting around Myles’s duty belt in search of his gun. He was only inches away from grabbing it, but it was his left hand, and the way Myles was struggling, the man couldn’t maintain a purchase on the weapon.

“Help, Matthews. Help me!” Myles grunted as he struggled to get out of the choke hold, his feet flying around. His fingers were near white as they tried to pry the man’s arm from his neck.

Cop instinct trumping mother’s instinct for just a moment caused her to fly into action and run to the aid of her partner, despite how often she’d thought about choking him out herself over the last few months. Krista wrapped an arm around the drunk’s neck, applying enough pressure to cut off his air. His grip on Myles seemed to loosen, but not enough. She couldn’t pry his hand from around Myles’s neck, and the prisoner still hadn’t managed to un-holster Myles’s gun, so deciding disabling him was her best bet, she tightened her grip around his neck and reached for her taser. She was just about to free it when the man’s desperation for air caused him to rear back and head-butt her in the face. The elbow of his free hand came back and nailed her hard in the belly. On instinct she released him, recoiling back against the wall and cradling her abdomen as blood gushed out of her nose and stars spun behind her eyes.

“Matthews!” Myles bellowed. “Call for fucking backup!”

But she just sat there, stunned. Her head was no longer in the moment—it was in her belly, and after that elbow, she couldn’t in good conscience put her baby in jeopardy again. No. Mother’s instinct now trumped any instinct or training she may have received as a cop. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t risk it.

“Help!” Myles screamed, just as he managed to swat the assailant’s hand away from his gun, pull out his expandable baton and start whacking the drunk over the head. Finally, the drunk let go, and Myles scrambled away, pulling his gun out and fixing it on the man.

Fury flooded the room as Myles pushed himself up to standing. He fixed his gaze on the perp before flicking it to Krista. “You’ll pay for that.”

Just then two more cops, Marlise and Allie, came rushing forward and into the holding cell.

“Everything okay?” Marlise asked. Her eyes roamed the scene, taking in Krista lying there on the floor covered in her own blood.

Allie rushed forward and helped Krista up. “You all right?”

Krista nodded, using her shirtsleeve to wipe up her face. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Come on, let’s go get you cleaned up before we write up the report,” Allie said, fishing some tissues out of her pocket and handing them to Krista.

Myles was busy handcuffing the prisoner, who was now being held at gunpoint by Marlise.

“This isn’t over,” Myles said as Krista walked past him, his onyx eyes saying so much that a chill colder than any winter storm sprinted down her spine.

She was stuck in court the following day, all day, and thankfully without Myles beside her. She had to lay charges and participate in the prosecution of the man who had beaten his wife to a bloody pulp, inevitably causing her to miscarry. It had been a trying day, an exhausting and emotionally draining day. More than once, Krista caught herself rubbing her stomach as they went through the gruesome details of that horrific night.

She watched as the poor woman recounted each punch, each kick, her whole body quivering with a mix of rage and overwhelming sadness and loss. Krista ached to get up from her seat and go wrap an arm around her, comfort her and tell her that it would be okay; she was free of him and could start a new life, one free of harm and heartbreak, and the doctors said she would still be able to have children. But Krista couldn’t. That was not her job while in court.

Her job was to present the facts and recount her participation in what had happened that night. But what she could do, and what she did do, with cutthroat clarity and vitriol-laden eloquence, was nail the bastard to the wall with every single detail she could—every scratch, every blood drop, every sexist slur he’d muttered to her and to his wife when they’d knocked on their door that day. She painted him to be the most disgusting, deplorable excuse for a human being imaginable, because he was. She couldn’t sit and wipe away the tears of his wife, but she could sit on the stand and do everything in her power to make sure he never laid on a hand on anyone ever again.

Brock had been away for the past two days for some high-profile personal security job on the mainland, so she had the house to herself. Which, despite the lack of orgasms and stir-fry when she walked through the door after work, had been nice. He was a bossy, pushy, demanding bugger and, even though they were slowly developing a friendship as the weeks ticked by, it was nice to not have someone cramming a pre-natal vitamin and spinach-infused smoothie down her throat every morning. A person can only eat so much spinach before they start a revolt.

And it was probably a good thing he didn’t see her the night following the court appearance, because after a dinner of french fries and roasted red pepper soup, she lay on the couch, spooned Penelope and cried. Cried for the woman on the stand, for all women who were abused and assaulted, harassed and beaten. Cried for the baby that would never be, for her baby safely nestled in her belly and the terrible world she was bringing it into. She cried for herself and the fact that as much as she tried not to be, she was a screwup. She’d gotten knocked up on a one-night stand, nearly got her mentor killed and, in the process, could have lost the baby. She was a total screwup.

It wasn’t until she was fresh out of tears and sadness that the rage finally took over. And the guilt. She’s been stupid to go this long at work and not disclose her pregnancy. The woman on the stand had lost her baby because of her husband’s anger, not her job as a secretary; meanwhile Krista was recklessly endangering her child every day by going to work.

Brock was right.

Damn him.

She needed to switch to light duty, needed to be responsible and think about more than just her career. It used to mean everything to her, but now, there was something bigger, something more important. She cradled her abdomen with her hands and vowed to her unborn child that tomorrow she was going to march into Staff Sergeant Wicks’ office and request the change. She needed to start being responsible. She needed to start thinking about someone besides herself.

Unsure of the time, but exhausted from the day and mental toll it had taken, Krista passed out on the couch sometime between the house-flipping show and the garden renovation show only to wake up the next morning at 5 a.m. to the sound of someone coming in the front door.

Disoriented and exhausted, Krista sprang up from her spot on the couch, aware of the drool puddle beneath her chin but not caring enough about it at the moment.

“Who’s there?” she called out, her eyes adjusting to the light in the living room as they scanned the area for a weapon of sorts.

“Me.” Followed by a grunt and then heavy footsteps on the stairs. Seconds later, his head popped up behind the wall separating the living room from the stairs. Unable to control herself or the magnitude of emotions of the last few days, Krista leaped up off the couch and hurled herself into his arms.

“Oof,” was all he said as his arms made their way around her.

Brock was bagged from the last few days of following around the high-profile celebrity in Vancouver, but all that vanished when a look of pure defeat and terror met him at the top of the stairs. His nose fell to her hair, and he inhaled before he knew what he was doing. Fuck, she smelled good. She always smelled good.

Felt good in his arms, too.

“You okay?” he asked. She was crying against his shirt, and the man was at a loss. He’d never really been in a relationship long enough to have to deal with the emotional roller coaster that was a woman. Sure, he’d dealt with PMS, but this seemed way more than that. And then it hit him. The baby.

Panic flooded him at the thought that Krista might have miscarried while he was away. Grabbing her by the elbows, he pushed her away from him, stepping down one stair so that they could be eye-to-eye. “Krista!” He shook her gently. “What’s wrong? Is the baby okay?”

She was staring at her purple and yellow striped socks, her hair an untameable halo around her head and hanging in her face. But he saw her nod, and he exhaled. The baby was okay.

Swallowing past the hard lump of dread in his throat, he nodded with her and stepped up, leaving his bag at the top of the stairs and pulling her around and into the living room where they could sit down. “What’s wrong?” That’s when he noticed that her nose and around her eyes was a mottled blue and purple. What the fuck?

Her slight body trembled and breath hitched as she fought the sobs, still unable to look at him.

Moving his hands up to her shoulders, he shook her again. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong. Who did this to you? Is the baby okay?”

It was several agonizing seconds later before she finally lifted her head, her beautiful blue eyes glassy and red-rimmed from all the tears. “You were right,” she whispered. “I need to switch to light duty.”

Brock’s eyes went wide, and emotions he wasn’t even able to label hit him like a dam breaking. “What happened?”

Averting her gaze, she studied the floor just behind his shoulder. “There was an incident at work with a man we had in custody. He attacked Slade and then me when I tried to help. I could have lost the baby with how hard he hit me. I went to the ER after work and double-checked everything was okay, and it is. The baby is fine. And then yesterday I had to go to court for that domestic assault, the one where she did lose the baby … ” Her bottom lip jutted out, but she quickly tucked it behind her teeth to keep her composure. Her gaze shifted, and she met his eyes once again. “I’m sorry. You were right. You win. I’m going to go in today and request light duty. I don’t want to endanger our baby any longer. I’m sorry I’ve been so stubborn.” Then she crumpled against him, and the tears were back.

He carried her over to the couch and plopped her onto his lap, doing the only thing he could think of, and that was hold her.

It seemed to be enough.

Roughly forty-five minutes later, Brock watched Krista head to work. She’d rattled him this morning. More than any woman, possibly any person ever had. He’d begun to admire and enjoy her stubbornness—for the most part. It showed her strength, and damn if his woman wasn’t as strong as they came. But it also pissed him off that she still hadn’t switched to light duty at work. He’d thought about putting Rex on her detail and having him follow Krista while she was on shift just in case she got into any trouble. But his brother didn’t know about the pregnancy yet, and he didn’t want Rex to think he was some psycho stalker guy who didn’t trust the woman he was currently sleeping with.

But to see her so broken, so defeated and deflated, hadn’t made him feel good. He hadn’t won anything, as she’d said, besides maybe peace of mind. Even that didn’t do much to ease the turmoil and confusion roiling inside him. He wanted her and the baby safe. Their safety, their lives were his number one priority.

What had it cost her? The spark was gone from her eyes. The fight and feistiness seemed to have vanished in those two days he was gone. She’d barely been able to get herself ready for work once she’d stopped crying and all but choked back the smoothie he made her for breakfast. And it’d all been done with sullen eyes and robotic movements. Had he broken her? Had Slade? He’d never be able to forgive himself if it was the former, and Slade wouldn’t be breathing much longer if it turned out to be the latter.