Second Time's the Charm

Her husband, dressed impeccably in the gray suit he’d purchased the summer before and a deep maroon shirt she didn’t recognize, stood, hands in his pockets, just to her right. He walked to the window and over to the bar.

“Can I get you something to drink? A glass of wine?”

Glancing at her stomach, at the evidence of the baby Kirk had already written off, she said, “I can’t drink. You know that.”

He had the grace to look chagrined—and she had a feeling that his remorse, the regret that shadowed his eyes, was sincere. “I just figured...you know...with the way things are, it wouldn’t matter....”

Her chin ached with the effort it took to keep her expression placid. “His heart is malformed, Kirk. He isn’t dead. Alcohol consumption could cause brain damage.”

This time the pity was in his eyes. “The doctor gave him a ten percent chance of living through gestation. And no chance at all of surviving more than a year outside the womb.”

“He also said they won’t know for sure what we’re dealing with until he’s born and they can run more thorough tests.”

As a child life specialist, a trained and certified child development advocate who helped children and their families through times of crises, she’d witnessed medical miracles. Some things weren’t up to professionals.

And he hadn’t summoned her to this lunchtime meeting to discuss their son’s fate. “I’d like some cranberry juice, if you have it.”

Nodding, he filled a glass with ice from the bucket on the bar and, reaching underneath, pulled out an individual-size bottle of juice, opening it to fill the glass.

Pouring himself a shot of Scotch on the rocks, he brought both glasses over to set them on the table next to her and sat in the armchair on the opposite side. Taking a sip of his drink—a stiff one even for him—he leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, hands clasped, and turned toward her.

“You know about Leah.”

His mistress. “Yes.” She’d suspected, when Kirk had started coming home late, that he had a lover. She’d confronted him about it and he’d told her the truth. He’d also told her that the woman meant nothing to him and that he’d already ended the affair. He’d sworn that he loved Lillie. That she was his life. He’d agreed to go to counseling. He’d had tears in his eyes.

She’d just found out she was pregnant.

And she’d believed him.

“She’s pregnant, Lillie.”

Pain shot through Lillie’s lower stomach. She stared at Kirk, her mind completely blank.

“The baby’s mine.”

“How far along is she?” She should be feeling something.

“Three months.”

He hadn’t ended the affair.

“I wanted you to hear it from me.”

She nodded. Made sense.

Braydon Thomas—named for Lillie’s father, who, along with her mother, had been killed in a car accident when she was nineteen—kicked against her, the feeling faint, almost like air bubbles, in spite of the fact that she was at thirty-two weeks’ gestation.

“She asked me to move in with her.”

“She knows y

ou’re married.”

“Yes.”

The girl had no scruples. No ethics.

“I told her yes, Lillie.”