On Wednesday, since she didn’t want to leave Vernon while she was behind in her work, Ambria drove her own car to work so she could stay late to catch up on some of her work. Dustin told her he would run to the hardware store to get some supplies to work on a project for the house.

She was nervous about telling Vernon about her leaving, but planned to tell him before she left today. She worked through her lunch and by five-thirty, she felt she’d accomplished enough work for one day. She saved the computer file she’d been working on, turned off her computer, then grabbed her purse. She left her office and knocked on Vernon’s door to tell him about taking the other job, but there wasn’t any answer. She surprised he hadn’t told her goodnight before he’d left and was disappointed he was gone, as she wanted to give her notice today.

She started for home without any problems; stopping at a couple of stop signs and one stop light before getting onto the highway. She was driving between sixty and sixty-five when the person in the next lane honked, and when she glanced over, she saw Susie. The woman gave her a wicked grin, then pulled over into Ambria’s lane. To prevent Susie’s car from hitting her, Ambria slammed on her brakes, but when her car didn’t respond, she quickly grabbed hold of her emergency brake and pulled hard on it. The next thing she knew, she was hitting the vehicle on the other side of her. Her air bag exploded, and her head collided with the door, causing her to lose consciousness. When she finally woke, she was in the hospital and a nurse was next to her taking her blood pressure.

“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked her.

“I hurt, especially my head.” Her throat felt thick and she tried to swallow. “Could I have some water?”

“Yes, of course. Before I can give you any pain medicine I need to know if there’s a possibility you could be pregnant.”

Ambria tried to focus on her question. Could she be pregnant? She’d had unprotected sex several times this week, but she didn’t see how the test could show positive this soon. “I guess so.”

“It doesn’t matter, we still have to do a pregnancy test on all childbearing age women before we can do any sort of tests or give out prescriptions. I’ll let you know the results as soon as I have them.”

“Thank you,” she replied numbly.

“You can use the bathroom around the corner. When you’re done, put the specimen cup in the cabinet. Do you think you can do this by yourself?”

Ambria got out a bed, and found she was a bit shaky. “I don’t think so,” she said, giving the nurse an apologetic grin.

The nurse took hold of her arm and helped her to the bathroom. She did as she requested, and then the nurse helped Ambria to return to bed. Ten minutes later, the nurse returned to her room.

“The pregnancy test was positive.”

“Wonderful,” she responded without any exhilaration. Amanda had told Dustin, she was on the pill, so how was she going to tell Dustin about this new development?

“I take this isn’t good news.” The nurse looked at her with concern.

“I just got married last weekend. I don’t think my husband wanted to have a baby quite this soon.”

The nurse smiled at her. “Take some advice from an older woman and tell your husband about the baby as soon as possible. Believe me, this isn’t something you can hide for very long. If at first he isn’t thrilled, give him some time to accept your news, as he may surprise you.”

“Thank you.” It was too late now to do anything about it, but she should have told Dustin she wasn’t on the pill that first morning when she found herself in his bed.

“I’ll go get you something for pain.” A few minutes later, she returned. “I brought you some Tylenol. The doctor will be in shortly to see you.” She gave her the pills, then left.

At first, the medicine helped, then suddenly, the pain in her head got worse and just as the doctor stepped into the room, she lost consciousness. The next time she woke, Dustin was sitting in a chair next to her and the doctor was gone.

“Dustin,” she called to him.

“Sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

“My head hurt.”

“Doctor Howard has ordered a MRI to check out your head. He needs to know if he should release you or admit you into the hospital. My guess is you’ll be admitted.”

“I see.”

An orderly entered the room to take her for her procedure, and after he helped her into a wheel chair, they left the room. While Dustin waited for her to return, he went outside to get better phone reception to call Vernon. He had to inform him about Ambria’s accident, that and to the fact she wouldn’t be in to work tomorrow. Vernon wasn’t happy Ambria was going to be out of the office so soon after being gone all last week and threatened to have her fired if she missed any more days. Dustin didn’t let the threat worried him since Vernon wouldn’t be her boss too much longer, but he didn’t say anything about that to him. Dustin called her mother and his parent to let them know about Ambria and had just hung up when his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Crenshaw, this is Detective Martin Maxwell. I need to talk to you in person. Are you still at the hospital?”

“Yes, I’m standing outside the emergency room making a few phone calls.”

“I’m here at the hospital. Wait where you are for me.”

Dustin looked across the parking lot and noticed a man in a suit on the phone coming towards him. The man didn’t look like he was a detective, but then the man stopped in front of Dustin.

“Mr. Crenshaw?”

“Yes,” he replied into the phone.

“You can hang up now,” the man said as he smiled at him.

Dustin grinned back. “I guess you found me.”

“That isn’t the only thing I’ve found. When we were inspecting your wife’s vehicle, we found out her brake line had been deliberately cut.”

“Oh, my God! Someone tried to kill her!” he exclaimed.

“Do you know of anyone who would want to do her harm?”

“The only person I can think of would be Susie Wright, but I don’t think she would go as far as to try to kill Ambria.”

“Why do you think she may want to harm your wife?”

Dustin went into a long explanation, not leaving out anything referring to Susie and his relationship with her.

“Jealousy can make a sane person go a bit crazy and do something they wouldn’t normally do.”

“I hope she wasn’t the one who cut the line, but if it wasn’t her, I hate to think who else could have tampered with her brake line.”

“What about you?” he asked, watching Dustin’s expression closely.

“Me?” he squeaked. “You think I had something to do with cutting Ambria’s brake line.”

“Did you?” he asked, his cold eyes watched Dustin carefully.

“Why would I want to kill my wife?”

“You tell me,” he replied, his eyes focus on Dustin’s eyes.

“For one, we just recently got married, but besides that, I happen to love her. I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t want her in my life.”

“Does she have any life insurance?”

“I don’t know,” he said, giving the detective a hard glare. “We had a fast courtship and haven’t talked about insurance or other financial issues. I don’t even know how much money she has in the bank or even if she has a bank account.”

“How is Mrs. Crenshaw doing?”

“She has a severe headache, so the doctor orders some tests. She’s having a MRI done right now.”

“When do you think she’d be up to being questioned?” Martin wanted to close this as soon as possible as he hated cases where the husband could be a possible suspect.

“I really don’t know,” he said a bit too sharply, as he didn’t like the way the man was staring at him.

“Are you stalling?” Martin’s eyes darkened as he studied the man in front of him closely.

“Why would I be doing that?” Dustin stared at the detective, unsure why he thought he could be guilty of the crime.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said forcefully.

“No, I’m not stalling. If you want to talk to her, go ask the doctor if she’s up to being questioned by you. If he says it’s okay, go ahead and talk to her, don’t let me stop you.”

“I would want to talk to her alone,” he said, implying he was going to question her about him.

Dustin’s eyes turned cold. “I don’t have a problem with that,” he replied, his lips taut, as he tried to keep a tight rein on his temper.

“You’re sure?” he asked, unsure whether to believe the man’s words.

Dustin’s eyes filled with fury. “I didn’t have anything to do with her brake line being cut,” he shouted at him.

“We’ll see. We found fingerprints on the brake line and we’ll have to check them with yours so we can rule you out as a suspect. Can you come down to the station later so we can check your prints against them?”

“Yes,” he replied, not at all happy with how this conversation was going.

The two men entered the doors to the emergency room, then Detective Maxwell followed Dustin back to Ambria’s room. She was back from her test, resting with the lights dimmed down low and her eyes closed.

He went to her and touched her hand. “Ambria, this is Detective Martin Maxwell and he needs to talk to you. I’ll be out in the waiting room until he’s done.”

“Dustin, don’t leave me,” she said, reaching out to take hold of his hand.

“Mrs. Crenshaw, I want to talk to you without your husband being present.”

“Why would you need to do that?” she asked, looking deeply into the detective’s eyes, wondering why he wanted to talk to her without her husband being present. “I want my husband to stay.”

“It’s all right.” Dustin squeezed her hand, bent down, and kissed her cheek. “You talk to the detective alone. I’ll come back in when he leaves and then you and I can talk.” Ambria simply nodded at him as tears began to form. “I love you,” he said, then he left.

“Mrs. Crenshaw, the reason for your accident is because someone tampered with your brake line.”

“No!” she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears as she stared at him. “Someone tried to kill me?”

“Yes,” he stated, giving her a look that told her who he thought that someone was.

Ambria frowned at him. “You think my husband tried to kill me?” The idea was so ludicrous, she laughed. “I’m sure my husband told you we just got married.”

“He did, but doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to see you dead.”

“I don’t see why he would want to kill me just a few days after the wedding. I’m sure I’m not that hard to live with,” she said trying to make a joke. “Besides, there isn’t a reason for him to kill me.”

“It’s just a possibility we have to check into. What about your life insurance? Do you have a large policy?”

“No, but even if I did, I haven’t had time to change the beneficiary. If anything should happen to me, my mother would receive the money, not Dustin.”

“What about your mother? Would she want to kill you?” he asked, hoping he was barking up the wrong tree.

“No, of course not,” she replied angrily. “My mother has plenty of her own money and doesn’t have any other reasons to harm me.”

“Your husband mentioned a Susie Wright. What can you tell me about her?”

Ambria told him everything she could think of about Susie, which wasn’t much, but did tell him about seeing her just before the accident. He gave her his business card, telling her to call him if anything came up, and then he left.

Dustin returned shortly afterward the detective left. When he walked into the room and saw his wife was crying, he assumed the worst and rushed to her. “I swear I didn’t have anything to do with your accident,” he said, his hand quickly grabbing hold of hers.

She looked up at him, giving him a weak smile. “It never even entered my mind you did,” she said softly. “What would you gain from doing me in? Why would you marry me one week and then try to kill me the next? I thought you’ve been enjoying yourself in our bed,” she said giving him an asinine grin.

He smiled back at her. “Then why are you crying?”

“Just the thought of someone trying to kill me has me scared.”

“The police have the fingerprints of the person who sabotaged your car. I’m sure they arrest whoever it was. In the meantime, you need to rest.”

The thought entered her mind this would be a good time to tell him about the baby. She had just opened her mouth to do so, but before she could speak, the door opened and the moment was lost as Dr. Howard came into the room. He introduced himself to Ambria before telling her about her test.

“The test did show there’s something resting on the lowest section of the brain. I want to admit you into the hospital and run a few more tests since we don’t want to take any chances because of . . .,” Tim Howard stopped suddenly when he saw Ambria slightly shake her head at him, and he quickly construed it to mean she hadn’t told her husband about the baby yet, “your health,” he finished abruptly.

Ambria tightened her grip on Dustin’s hand. “Am I going to die?” If she was going to die, would she live long enough to give birth or would she die before she ever saw their child?

“Let’s run some test before we get too worked up about this. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for this dilemma.”

Ambria was admitted into the hospital and taken to a room where a nurse helped her get settled in bed, and after she’d taken Ambria’s vitals, she left the room. Ambria knew it was time to tell Dustin about the baby.

“Dustin, come sit next to me.”

He moved to the bed, sat down, and took hold of her hand. “We’ll get through this.”

She smiled at him. “Dustin, I need to tell you something,” she said nervously.

“I knew it. I just knew there was something going on by the way the doctor stopped with what he was going to say. What is it?” His grip on her hand tightened.

She closed her eyes, trying to get the courage to tell him. She jumped and quickly opened her eyes when she felt Dustin give her hand a hard squeeze. She took in a deep breath, gradually letting it out, and then looked into his eyes. “Dustin, you aren’t going to believe this, but I’m pregnant.”

“What?” he exclaimed, shock by her announcement.

“When I came into the ER, they did a routine pregnancy test and it came back positive.”

“How could they know so soon?” So many thoughts were bombarding his mind, but the main thought was how could she be pregnant? She told him she was on the pill.

“The nurse said we can thank modern technology for the fast results. Are you upset with this?” Her eyes never left his as she waited for his response.

“You told me you were on the pill,” he stated harshly, as if she had lied to him.

“Amanda told you she was, I never did,” she said quickly, defending herself from his cold words.

“What are you talking about?” He didn’t understand why she was talking about Amanda again.

“You remember the morning after our wedding when I said you wouldn’t believe me?”

“Yes,” he replied slowly, unsure where this conversation was headed.

“The night before, I was in my bed reading about you and Amanda going to Las Vegas to get married. When I woke up the next morning, I was in Las Vegas, in your bed and according to your marriage certificate, I was married to you.”

“Ambria, none of this makes any sense, let alone be possible.”

“You remember when we came home to my apartment and you found me with book in my hand?”

“Yes,” he replied unsure what a book had to do with any of this.

“That was the book I’d been reading and it was about you and Amanda.” She took a deep breath. “When I came home after our honeymoon, it had the same title, cover, and characters, but it wasn’t the same story I’d been reading.”

“Sweetheart, all that must be part of a dream you had, none of it could be real.”

“You remember when we were at the airport going to your car and I asked if I would know how to do my job?”

“Yes.” His eyes watched her intently, wondering where she was going with this question.

“I asked because I thought that now I was in Amanda’s life, I would be doing her job at the company she worked for instead of mine.”

“Whose job did you have when you went back to work?” he asked softly. After he asked the question, he realized he sounded as if he believed her story about her changing places with Amanda, and he couldn’t believe he’d asked it.

“My own.”

“See, it’s like I said, it was all just a dream.”

Ambria was frustrated. How could she make him believe her? “Just forget the whole thing,” she said, as tears began running down her face. “You probably think I’m crazy anyway.”

“No, I don’t think you’re crazy. It’s that thing in your head causing you think this way.”

“You think so?” Her expression filled with hope as she stared at him. “That could explain a lot.”

“Honey, think about it. How could I have been in a book you were reading and yet be with you now?”

“I guess you’re right,” she said, but part of her mind didn’t truly believe it. In her heart, she knew being with him didn’t it have anything to do with the growth in her head, that somehow her life had been transported into the book. “Are you sorry about the baby?”

“I love you and I’ll love our baby. Did the doctor tell you when the little one is due?”

“No, but I can’t be too far along. Most pregnancies are about forty weeks, so say about nine months from now.” At that thought, her face went white and she closed her eyes to prevent looking at Dustin.

“Ambria, what’s wrong? Are you in pain?” he fired at her, grabbing hold of her hand. “Ambria, please open your eyes and look at me.”

She opened her eyes and gazed at him. “Dustin, if I have a brain tumor and it’s cancerous, I won’t be able to have any cancer treatments until after the baby’s born, and by then it might be too late to save me,” she said, fighting back the anguish at the thought of dying and leaving the man she loved.

Dustin moved his arms and quickly embraced her as she cried. After her tears were spent, Dustin forced himself to smile for her sake, then moved away from her and took hold of her hands. “You and I are jumping to conclusions, and our assumptions maybe wrong. The doctor hasn’t mentioned cancer, has he?”

“No,” she said.

“In fact, who’s to say you haven’t had this thing in your head for years and they’re just now finding it.”

She looked hopefully at him. “You think so?”

“I’m hoping it’s so. I don’t want to lose you after just finding you.”

“Will you lie next to me?”

“It will be my pleasure.” Dustin got in bed with her, pulled her into his arms, and stayed there until the phone rang. He sat up and reached for the phone.

“Hello?”

“It’s Vernon, may I speak with Ambria.”

“Yes, of course.” He handed the phone to her. “It’s Vernon.”

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry about your accident. I’m hope you weren’t injured too bad.”

“I hit my head, but I don’t have any internal injuries.”

“With you being gone all last week, we’re really behind in work. I need to know when you’ll be coming back to work.”

“Vernon, the doctors have found a brain tumor. I’m having headaches so they’re going to run a few more tests, so I won’t be in until after I’ve been released from the hospital.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Forgive me for getting so upset with you.”

“The police said the reason I had the accident was because someone cut my brake line. I saw Susie just before I crashed, and the police think she may have had something to do with tampering with my brakes.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t realize that’s what happened. You get to feeling better and don’t worry this place.”

His reply had confused her, making her wondered why his suddenly change of attitude. “Thanks.” She took a deep breath. “Vernon, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you, but I think you should know I’m going to go work for Chad Driver.”

He’d been afraid this would happen. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked, realizing he’d scared her away by his attraction to her.

“No, I’m not.”

“Am I the reason you’re leaving?”

“Yes and no. I simply couldn’t pass up this promotion, but even if it weren’t a promotion, I still would have accepted the job. Ever since I refused to go out with you, you have been unpleasant to me. But since I’ve gotten married, it’s gotten worst, and because of that, I don’t want to work for you any longer than necessary. I’m sorry.”

“When will you start working for Chad?”

“As soon as you can hire someone new, get a temp to come in, or in two weeks, whichever happens first.”

“I’ll start looking for a replacement. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye Vernon.” After she hung up, she looked over at Dustin. “I’m glad that is over with.”

“Now maybe you can forget about work and concentrate on your health.”

Dustin crawled back in bed with her, staying there until visiting hours were over, then he left to go home.

She was unsure if she could go to sleep without him, as her bed felt so empty without her husband lying next to her. Since her head was still hurting, she called the nurse and requested some pain medicine. Shortly after taking it, she fell asleep, and the dreaming began.

Ambria woke from a nightmare and quickly sat up in bed. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest and she was drenched in sweat. She turned on the television for a distraction, hoping it would keep her mind off the nightmare so she could forget it. As the remnants of the dream began to fade away, she slowly began to calm down, and went back to sleep.