Beth Cornelison - Baby Trouble

He pulled back sharply. So. The truth finally came out. She did resent his memory loss, and she didn’t forgive him for it. He’d long suspected she harbored hidden anger about it, but she was such a damned good actress, she’d never really let on how she felt.

He understood her perspective. Really. But it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it. He was what he was, like it or leave it. And recent mind-blowing sex notwithstanding, apparently she’d rather leave it. Leave him .

He went cold from the inside out. It was as if he froze, every cell and fiber of his being crystallizing in an agonizingly slow spread of needle-sharp pain. The muscles of his face froze, and he couldn’t make a meaningful facial expression in that moment if his life depended on it. Only his thoughts continued to function, spinning fruitlessly round and round like a car doing donuts on sheet ice.

How were they supposed to proceed from here? Either she trusted him or she didn’t. Forgave him or she didn’t. Accepted him—all of him, his past and his problems included—or she didn’t.

The verdict was in. His attempt to make a life with her and the kids was an epic failure.

His survival instinct kicked in. Must keep busy. Give himself small jobs to do. Count the ribs in the walls of his box. Check his food and water supply. Exercise and stretch. Press his eyes close to the small hole in one wall of the box. Keep his retinas acclimated to light. Think about the business plan for the new company he was going to start when he got out of here. Just. Keep. Moving.

Mechanically, he mumbled, “I wonder if our dinner’s here yet.” Take care of basic body needs first. Food. Water.

“I’m taking a shower,” she announced, revulsion plain in her voice.

She wanted to scrub the feel of him off of her . The frost surrounding his heart hardened a little more, constricting painfully. He’d lost his son, and now her. The blow was almost more than he could bear. An urge to crumple to the floor, to curl up in a ball, to close his eyes and slip into the black abyss in his mind nearly overwhelmed him. He almost wished for his box. Things had been simple in there. Clear. Survive one day at a time. One sunrise to the next.

But this—this he wasn’t sure he could stand.

He stood in the middle of the bedroom and stared at nothing until he heard the shower water cut off. The sudden silence spurred him to motion and he stumbled out into the living room.

Laura emerged from the bedroom a while later. He had no idea how long it took her to dress. He pulled a chair out for her at the table their dinner had been laid upon. She sat down, silent, and he moved around to sit across from her. The rounded stainless dome over his plate had actually kept his fillet mignon lukewarm. The meat was tender and juicy. It probably tasted wonderful, but he couldn’t tell. It all tasted like sawdust.

Laura ate quickly and then moved over to her computer to start cruising through the AbaCo documents. The search for Adam was all they had left between them.

He had files of his own to search. The ones he’d lifted from William Ward’s desk after the attorney had been murdered. Maybe they’d have information in them that might lead to his son. Even the idea of such a project overwhelmed him right now. He needed to think more simply than that. Move to desk. Open laptop. Turn it on. Insert flash drive into USB port.

“What’s that?” Laura asked suspiciously.

“The thumb drive I found in my lawyer’s desk.”

Her brows shot up in surprise. “I assumed you’d already looked through that and hadn’t found anything worth mentioning.”

He sighed. “I was avoiding it, actually. I expect there’ll be information in here about my past, and I wasn’t ready to face it until now.”

The dishonesty of his words tore at his tongue as if it were being ripped off a frozen well handle. He still wasn’t ready to face his past. But it wasn’t like he had any choice. Adam’s life hung in the balance, and he’d walk through the fires of Hell for his son.

Laura’s gaze was dark and accusing.

The directory of files on William’s secret storage device scrolled down the screen in front of him. It looked like a list of client names. Most of this stuff was probably highly confidential. He glanced through the list. Smith. Spangler. Spiros.

There he was. He clicked on his name.

A sub folder opened up and a list of files unfolded before him. He browsed the titles curiously. They mostly looked like business contracts. But on the third page of file names, one in particular caught his eye. It was a report from the same private investigator who’d been looking into the Nick Cass identity and found nothing. It was dated the day William had called and insisted Nick come to the Cape—the same day William had died. Nick abruptly felt as if he’d just been kicked in the stomach. Hard. Taking a deep breath, he clicked on the report and started to read.

“What did you find?” Laura asked from across the desk. Sometimes the degree to which she was observant made living with her damned hard. Or more to the point, made living with secrets around her damned hard.

He answered heavily, “I think I just found my prenuptial agreement with Meredith.”

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