I blink back tears. Anna mewls against my breast. I lift her off, this time not worrying if Jack sees my bare nipple. I clutch her against me. The labor was hard and I had to undergo an emergency C-section. The wound in my stomach still aches, but all the pain and sadness I’d experienced before she was born disappeared the first time I held her. She was a miracle with her ten toes and her ten fingers and her eyes, nose and mouth all in the right place.
He’d missed her birth. He’d missed her first sounds. He missed feeling her kick against my belly. He’d missed all of that. Perhaps I’d endured the better end of this terrible deal. I’d gotten Anna. Jack had nothing but ten months of pain that he couldn’t find a cure for.
“How is your heart now?” I ask softly.
“It’s healing.” His voice is equally soft but still so earnest.
“I looked for you,” I say, my throat hoarse. “I even went to talk to Leka Moore at the quarry and he’s a scary man.” Once I’d explained I was pregnant, Moore gave me the address of an office building in the city, an hour and a half away where Jack’s checks were sent every two weeks before he disappeared. “I went to your office. I tried to find you, but I was told to get lost.”
“Who? Not my family. They would’ve welcomed you.”
I shrug helplessly. “I don’t know who he was, but he told me that you didn’t want me or my ‘brat.’”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Jack’s voice is hushed, but the coldness in his tone sweeps over me. I clutch Anna closer. “Was he about five ten and a little thick around the waist? Blond hair shaved close to the head?”
“No.” I don’t know anyone like that. “He was tall and slender. He had brownish blond hair that looked like he had it styled at some fancy salon. And his hands. He had a perfect manicure.” I remember those hands well, thinking how different they were from Jack’s work-roughened hands.
“Clay?” Jack stands up.
Involuntarily, my gaze travels up his long legs, past his trim waist, over his broad shoulders to meet a furious set of brown eyes.
“Clay,” he repeats. “You’re sure.”
I think back to that windy day in March, marching up to that fancy office building dressed in a pair of jeans I’d bought at H&M and a shirt from Uniqlo with Anna percolating in my tummy. Around me were women dressed in Tory Burch, wearing Jimmy Choo shoes and carrying Dior bags. I’d never felt so unimpressive my entire life. It was bad enough to be blocked from going up to the floor where Jack supposedly worked, but it was worse when that trim, disdainful man came down and announced in a loud voice that I wasn’t wanted.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
There’s a cracking noise and I realize it’s from Jack squeezing the wood top so hard that it’s broken off at the edges.
“Sorry,” he says, but I don’t think that’s what he’s actually apologizing for.
“There’s a letter, too.” I want it all out. If we’re going to forgive and forget, then he needs to explain all of it.
His face turns to stone. “What do you mean?”
I lick my lips, feeling a little frightened even though I know rationally I’m not the target. “You sent me a letter and a check. It’s in my bedroom. I’ll get it,” I add in a hurry when I see him start toward the door. It’s in my underwear drawer and I don’t want him pawing around there.
“Here. Anna needs burping.” I drop the sleepy baby into Jack’s arms and throw the cloth diaper I use as a burping bib over his shoulder. I hustle out of the room before Jack can stop me. It takes only seconds to pull out the letter and the bank check. I never cashed it. Maybe that was stupid of me, but the number was insulting. Like, wasn’t Anna worth more than ten grand?
I present it to Jack with a scowl. “Here. See, I’m not lying.”
“Ms. Chandler.” He stops reading and looks down at me. “He knew your last name?”
“Yeah.” I reach for Anna, who Jack has cradled in one arm. The man side steps me easily and my hands fall to my side.
He holds the letter up and keeps reading. “Ms. Chandler, I regret to inform you that Mr. Harris does not wish to have further contact with you. Please accept this sum as recompense for any past grievances you may have. Very truly yours, Clayton Davis.” He crushes the letter in his hand. “I’m going to kill him.”
With that very real threat, Jack stalks out.
Chapter Five
I look at the clock. Jack said he’d be back by dinner. Hopefully, his words were hyperbole and he isn’t in jail for actually murdering someone. A small smile twitches my lips. I hope whoever that guy was got his ass beat. Jack’s anger was real and immediate, and it went a long way in convincing me that the whole story of his amnesia was true.