The Doctor's Secret Son

And Trace.

CHAPTER NINE

CHRISSIE DIDN’T KNOW what she wanted.

She didn’t want the traditional happily-ever-after. She didn’t fool herself that she’d ever have that and, honestly, she wasn’t in a rush to search for it. She was content to raise Joss and after he left to forge his own life, then she’d worry about her personal life, or lack thereof.

Overall, she was pretty happy with her life as it was.

At least, she had been.

Before her weekend in Atlanta with Trace.

Now, there was a restlessness that moved through her.

A week had gone by.

He’d probably already left Atlanta for some deprived part of the world where he was selflessly helping others.

She couldn’t berate him for that.

What he was doing was admirable, heroic even.

He didn’t know he was missing the precious youth of his son.

Because he didn’t know he had a son.

Because she hadn’t told him. What kind of horribly selfish person was she?

One who had been kidnapped by her father, an inner voice defended.

Somehow the defense kept falling flat and never resolving Chrissie’s growing guilt.

“Why are you crying, Mommy?”

Chrissie blinked at Joss. She’d spread a blanket in their backyard to read a nursing magazine while he played in his sandbox with a shovel, pail, and myriad toy cars and trucks. Apparently, he’d noticed his mother’s tears.

Which was more than she could say for herself.

She hadn’t realized she was crying. Again. She’d cried way

too often over the past week.

Over guilt, she told herself, not because she was missing Trace, not because of the ache in her chest at the thought of never seeing him again.

“Are you sad?” he asked, wiping his gritty fingers across her cheek to clear her tears.

“A little,” she answered him, bending to press a kiss to the top of his blond head. “Mommy was thinking about a friend.”

Who wasn’t really a friend at all, but a lover.

An amazing lover whom she missed.

She missed Trace. Which made no sense. She’d known she wouldn’t see him beyond the event weekend. But she missed him.

Not because of his out-of-this-world bedroom skills, but because of his quick smile and wit, the way his eyes lit up when they met hers, the intelligent conversations they’d shared.

Okay, so she missed his bedroom skills, too.