“Take your duties real seriously,” Adam muttered.
“When it comes to scumbags who take advantage of women,” the guard agreed, sneering.
Adam ignored him and yanked out his wallet to extract his driver’s license and the paper that Dr. Granger had given him. “Here.” He extended them toward the police officer. “Talk to her yourself.”
The officer took both. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside the room, Mr. Fortune—”
“I do mind.” He shoved the guard away and probably took too much pleasure from the way the guy stumbled slightly. He stepped around the police officer to crouch in front of Laurel. “Sweetheart.”
She lifted her head. Her eyes were swollen and red, her hair dangling over her face.
His hand shook slightly as he gently slid the strands out of her eyes. “Come on, baby. You don’t really want to sit here on the floor, do you? Be mad at me if you have to. I should have told you. I was going to. I just—” His throat was tight. “I didn’t know the right words. I’m sorry.”
She pressed her hand to her chest. “My heart—” she drew in a harsh, stuttering breath “—is breaking.”
So is mine.
He sat on the floor, his feet on either side of hers. He took her hands in his. “It’ll get better, Laurel. I promise.”
Her raw eyes searched his. “How?”
“Because Linus is going to be fine.” He had to believe it. “He’s going to grow up tall and strong and one day give you a hell of a time but he’s always going to love his mother.”
“Mr. Fortune.” The police officer stopped next to them, extending his driver’s license and the prescription paper. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I spoke with Dr. Granger. She requested that you phone her as soon as possible.”
He barely spared the officer a look. “Thank you.” He dropped the license and paper on the carpet next to him. Now get out. It took all of his self-control not to say it aloud.
Didn’t matter, though, because she walked to the door. “Come on, Frankie.”
“I’m not satisfied.”
“I am. Come on.” The door closed on them while they were still arguing.
“Do you really believe he will love me?” There was such longing in her shaking words that he hurt inside.
He brushed another lock of hair away from her face. He cupped her wet cheek. “I’m sure of it.” He rubbed his thumb over the trail of tears. “How could he not?”
Three hours later, Adam finally remembered to call Dr. Granger. Explaining the situation to her meant confessing a few more details than he’d offered in Seattle. Namely the way that Laurel had actually given up her child.
The connecting doors were open between his room and Laurel’s. He stood in the doorway between, his cell phone at his ear while the doctor talked.
Laurel was lying on the bed closest to the window. She was fully dressed but had still piled the covers up to her chin.
Adam couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not.
He figured not was more likely.
“It’s unfortunate that Laurel discovered something like that the way she did,” Dr. Granger was saying. She’d already given him what-for for not having been more forthright before. “Given the situation, I wouldn’t classify her reaction as entirely excessive. As long as she doesn’t exhibit increased signs of anxiety or depression, I think you should continue with your plans. The alternative would be to return to Seattle. Not here at Fresh Pine—the need for our services is too high and we’ve already filled her place here—but the shelter we’d found for her might be able to still accommodate—”
“She’d never agree.” Adam knew that much.
“As sudden as it was, Laurel now seems highly motivated to regain her life,” Dr. Granger said. “Or, at the very least, to find a new place for herself within that life. Progress rarely occurs without growing pains. But it is still progress.”
Adam was hard-pressed to classify what had happened as progress. Nightmarish, more like. What would Laurel do when she learned the truth about everything else?
“Nevertheless, it’s important not to place too much pressure on her.”
“Easy to say,” he muttered.
“Not so easy to do,” Dr. Granger finished sympathetically. “I can authorize a mild antianxiety—”
“She doesn’t want drugs, remember?”
“I was thinking more about you,” the doctor said wryly.
He stepped out of the doorway and into his own room, though he left the connecting doors fully open. “Think I’ll manage,” he told the doctor. “Sorry to disturb you.”
“I told you. Call me whenever you need. Laurel is a special girl. She’s lucky to have someone who loves her as much as you do.”
Adam jerked. “I’m just an old—”
“Friend?” Dr. Granger laughed skeptically. “We should all have old friends who care so deeply,” she said before disconnecting.
Adam tossed his phone on the bed and rubbed his face.
Caring about Laurel had never been the problem.
Keeping her had.
Chapter Ten
“Are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?”
Laurel looked up at Adam. Or rather, she directed her face in his direction.
Actually looking at him was proving increasingly difficult since she’d behaved so monstrously the previous evening at the hotel in Utah.
Now they were another several hundred miles down the road at yet another hotel. This time in Durango, Colorado.
But even after sitting beside him in the car for seven hours that day—maybe because of those hours spent beside him—she felt more awkward than ever.
He was still waiting for an answer and she glanced at her dinner plate. She’d managed to force down half of the Southwestern salad she’d ordered. “It was a huge salad,” she excused.
And she’d ordered it only to keep him from looking at her with that worried expression he’d been wearing for nearly twenty-four hours. If it had been up to her alone, she’d have skipped the meal altogether. He, on the other hand, had demolished a porterhouse and a baked potato with all the fixings.
She glanced toward the entrance of the restaurant to the hotel lobby. “Do you suppose the room
