With This Child.... Sally Carleen
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Название: With This Child...
Автор: Sally Carleen
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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They’d almost lost her the night she was born. He still remembered the agony when Dr. Franklin had told him she had a fatal heart defect and wouldn’t live through the night.
And he still remembered the incredible joy when she had survived the night, in defiance of the doctor’s death sentence.
Knowing they could have no more children, he and Lisa had spoiled Kyla shamelessly from that day forward. In fact, Lisa had devoted herself totally to Kyla, even to the extent of ignoring him. But he’d accepted that. He’d understood how much she hurt when the doctor told her about the hysterectomy, how frightened she was each day that the doctor’s prophecy about Kyla’s death would come true.
Kyla had been Lisa’s priority, and five years later, as she lay dying from the same heart disease the doctor had diagnosed in Kyla, she’d made Sam promise to take care of their child.
Not that such a promise was necessary. He’d gladly lay down his life for his daughter.
Whatever Marcie Turner was up to, he’d stop her. Whatever it took, he’d protect his daughter.
He carried the envelope inside, sat down at the kitchen table and dumped out the contents. The smaller envelope was a letter addressed to Marcie in Tulsa. So at least he had the woman’s address, he thought grimly. And he would take this to the police.
But then he noticed the return address—Elton Franklin, the doctor who’d delivered Kyla. Suffocating heat flushed his body, prickling his skin, making breathing difficult.
He’d worried about Kyla for the past twelve—almost thirteen—years, terrified every time she caught cold or had a childhood disease. And he’d berated himself for that worrying, telling himself it didn’t accomplish a blasted thing, but unable to stop doing it.
Now...today...into his life came Marcie Turner with her pictures of the two of them and a letter addressed to her from Lisa’s doctor. Were all his concerns being validated? Did this letter contain a death sentence for Kyla?
But if it did, why was it addressed to Marcie Turner?
He had to open that letter and read it.
Sam stared at the envelope for several minutes. He regularly bench-pressed two-hundred-pound weights, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to lift that little bit of paper weighing less than an ounce.
He wiped his sweaty palms on his cutoffs, then drew a shaky hand across his mouth and chin. His face was damp with perspiration.
Moving rapidly, so that he wouldn’t have a chance to chicken out, he yanked the letter from inside the envelope and unfolded the two pages.
Chapter Two
Marcie clutched the steering wheel with damp, sticky hands and made herself focus on the task of driving, on actions that normally came automatically. But not today. Today, leaving Sam’s house, she had to concentrate, to remind herself which pedal to use, to stop at red lights, go on green, turn the wheel at corners.
Her brain, her heart, her entire body, screamed in protest at the overload of emotions. She’d found her daughter alive, talked to her, met the man who’d inadvertently stolen her daughter. And then she’d had to walk quietly away.
Reaching the highway that led to the turnpike, she pulled into a convenience store and parked at the side. Out of the main traffic area, she finally let loose, laid her head in her hands and allowed earthquake tremors to shake her body, while tears spilled between her fingers.
In a minute she’d pull herself together, go into the store and get a cola, then get home as fast as she could. Once in her safe haven, she’d think about everything, about Kyla and what she ought to do next. Right now, she couldn’t face it, couldn’t deal with the huge explosions of happiness and anger and disbelief and sheer terror.
Finally, the tremors subsided, as some of the unbearable tension dissipated. She snatched a handful of tissues from the box in the back seat and dried her eyes.
This wasn’t like her, she thought, to completely lose control. But these were not usual circumstances.
She pushed her hair back from her face. She had to get home and figure out what to do next.
Needing to reassure herself that everything that had just happened was real, she looked around for the envelope containing her pictures of Kyla, along with the detective’s report and the letter from Dr. Franklin.
It wasn’t in her lap.
Or on the passenger seat beside her.
She slid out of the car and searched under the seats, in the back...everywhere. Her movements became more frantic with each empty space she encountered. Her hands trembled as she searched for the second time.
She stepped back from the car and looked at it in disbelieving horror.
The envelope was gone.
It could only have fallen from her lap when she got out at Sam’s house.
Either her pictures were lying in the street, being run over by cars, or Sam and Kyla had noticed them and picked them up.
In that quiet neighborhood, the latter seemed more likely.
By now, Sam and Kyla probably knew the truth.
This wasn’t the way she’d wanted her daughter to find out.
Her mind whirling with black despair and chaos, she sank into the car and closed the door behind her.
With one stupid act, she’d made a terrible situation worse. She needed to get home as fast as possible.
But her fingers refused to turn the key.
She had to face the consequences of her actions. She couldn’t blame her mother or Dr. Franklin for this latest disaster.
In fact, maybe she had to take some of the blame for everything. Would things be different if she’d paid more attention when her baby was born, if she’d asked more questions about the death?
She’d been in shock, stunned by the loss, overwhelmed by guilt, convinced that the death was somehow her fault, because she’d been so stubborn, because she’d refused to consider her mother’s plan of adoption. So she’d allowed Dr. Franklin and her mother to take charge.
She’d asked to hold her child once before they took her away forever, to bury her in the cold, impersonal earth, but Dr. Franklin and her mother had persuaded her not to. She’d had only one look at her baby...Sam and Lisa’s baby...and that look had been blurred by tears.
If she’d done what she knew in her heart she should, if she’d insisted on holding the child, she’d have known immediately it wasn’t hers, wasn’t the baby she’d given birth to.
Now she had to somehow rectify the wrong. She had to take some control over her life, over Kyla’s life. She had to take charge of circumstances, instead of waiting and hoping for the best...trying to hide from the worst. She had to fight for the best. She had to go back to Sam’s house.
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