EMBER - Part Three (The EMBER Series, #3) Read online

  "It was bad." His hand darts up to his face to cover his mouth. "There were two kids. Their mom left them alone and..."

  The audible gasp that escapes me stops him mid-sentence. I feel a rush of emotions as I remember the woman on the television who had been brought to her knees on the lush green lawn in front of one of the houses that was near the blaze. The wail that came from her had lingered with me and even this morning as I tried to catch a quick glimpse of the day's headlines on the muted television while I watched Zoe feed Vane his breakfast, I'd wondered about that woman and the loss she must have suffered.

  "We tried to help them." His shoulders pivot towards me. "They don't know if they'll make it. I stayed at the hospital all night. Ben says it's touch and go."

  "I'm sorry...I didn't...I had no idea that happened," I stammer, knowing that throwing a slew of questions at him about Maisy and his son will only add to the overwhelming emotional weight that he's already carrying on his shoulders. I don't want to feel compassion for him right now but I can't help it.

  "I wasn't working the fire," he says quickly. "I was at my house and saw the smoke. I ran over there."

  I know that the kindhearted thing to do is to ask about the children who were caught in the fire. I feel the tug at my heart as I think about small Vane and what it would do to Zoe, Beck and even myself if he were hurt. I want to stay in that place emotionally not only because it's the honorable place to be, but also because I despise myself right now for wanting to push his concern for those children aside to ask him why he was at the house he shares with the soon-to-be mother of his child.

  "I know those kids, Bridget."

  "You know them?" I whisper the question back, suddenly feeling guilty for not recognizing how completely torn up he is.

  He scrubs his hand over his face. It does nothing to settle his expression. "They live a block over from me. They set up a lemonade stand every Saturday afternoon during the summer. I always take them a few dollars, when I'm not working, to buy a glass and talk to them. They're great boys."

  I close my eyes against the flood of emotions I feel. My hand darts to my mouth. It's not because I feel a sob approaching. I need to physically stop myself from blurting out something about the little boy that him and Maisy are about to have.

  "I don't know what I would do if I had a kid of my own and they got hurt." His voice turns gruff and takes on a raspy tone. "I sat with their mother all night at the hospital. She could barely talk. It's got to be hell to watch your sons suffering like that."

  "Being a parent can't be easy." Taking a deep breath, I push all reason and compassion aside and say the one thing that has been there, tugging at me since last night. "You'll know that soon since you're going to be a dad."

  Chapter 4

  We stand on the crowded sidewalk with the weight of my words sitting in the air between us. Dane's lips part briefly and I steady myself waiting for him to say something. I want to hear confirmation about the baby. I need to listen as he tells me about why he's kept that hidden from me since we met. That doesn't happen. As a group of pedestrians weave their way between us, Dane motions towards the door that will take us to the refuge of the lobby of my building.

  During the elevator ride up to my floor, the scope of the conversation we are about to have is punctuated by the fact that a woman who lives in the same building as I, had called out to us to hold the lift as she raced through the lobby doors a few steps behind us, pushing a stroller where her bright eyed toddler sat. The little girl is happily pulling on two of Dane's fingers during the ride up, her mother apologizing the entire time for making us wait.

  I feel Dane's hand on the small of my back just as I turn the key to unlock my apartment door. My first instinct is to pull away, but the gentle warmth of his skin against mine is giving me something I didn't know I needed. It's a reminder of everything that's transpired between us since that first night at the restaurant when he saved me from Larry's overly zealous grasp.

  Dropping the items in my hands on a small table that's near the door of my apartment, I pull in a heavy breath. I hear the quiet click of the lock as Dane fastens it behind him.

  I pivot on my heel to catch his eyes skimming carefully over my face. I look down, not wanting to give in to the temptation to accuse him of lying to me. By mere definition, the fact that he's about to become a father is something that he willfully chose to keep from me.

  That might have made sense the night after his birthday when he came back to my apartment to fuck me. His past, and his future, didn't matter at all to me then. He was a man who I desperately wanted to share my bed with. I wanted to know the pleasure that he was capable of giving to a woman but once we started to share more of our lives, he made a conscious decision to not tell me about the baby. There's no excuse for that. You can't build a relationship on a foundation of lies, especially lies that will impact your life each and every day until you die.

  "You're having a son." I get right to the point. "You're going to be a dad."

  His gaze slides from my face down my body before his eyes level on mine. "Bridget."

  I wait for more but I'm only greeted with the sullen silence that envelopes the space between two people who don't know what to say to one another. I can't stand the tension. There are countless things sitting on the edge of my tongue that I want to say to him. "What are you going to do about it, Dane?"

  "Do about it? About my son?" he asks, his voice cracking with emotion. "That's simple."

  No, it's not simple. It's a living, breathing human being who is part of Dane and will always be. There's nothing simple or straightforward about that. It's not supposed to be. Everything that comes with being a parent can't be put in a small box with a perfectly tied ribbon on it. Sometimes our choices in life have consequences that reach beyond today, tomorrow or even next year. We have to accept the hand we've been dealt and in Dane's case that includes raising a child with a woman who he doesn't live with anymore. It may not be ideal, but it is real and ignoring it won't make it go away.

  "How is it simple?" I fight to control the anger in my tone. "Explain how any of this is simple?"

  His large hands dart to his brow. He covers his eyes briefly before he looks over my shoulder and into my apartment. "It's a baby, Bridget. That's not complicated. It just needs love and care."

  I smooth my hands over my hair, knowing that it must have taken on some curl from the humid air during my hike around the city earlier. "It just needs love and care? Do you think everything will just fall into place? You can't hide from something like this. You have to think about where the baby is going to live and who is going to have him during the week and who gets custody on the weekend."

  "Custody?" His brows shoot up. "What does that mean?"

  I don't need to define the word for him. He told me that Maisy's father is an attorney. It couldn't have taken more than a day or two after Dane ended the relationship before the issue of custody was tossed about. He's smarter than to play dumb with me. He's either trying to squirm his way out of our conversation because I've caught him so far off guard or he hasn't thought seriously about his own custody rights.

  "Where will the baby live?" I push because I want, and deserve, to know what's waiting for him once Maisy gives birth. Even though I know that I was falling in love with him, I can't be with a man who hides such important parts of his life away from me. Beyond that, I can't fathom loving a man who tries to push his pregnant girlfriend out of his home right before she's about to have his baby.

  His mouth thins. "I'll take care of it."

  "You'll take care of it?" I seethe as I point my finger in the air towards him. "Time is running out, Dane. You need to start taking care of this now."

  The air stills as he struggles to say something. He reaches out to touch me and just as his fingers brush against mine he drops to one knee in one swift, graceful movement. I don't have time to comprehend anything as I stare down into his tear filled eyes.

  "Marry me, Bri
dget," he whispers the words as his hand clutches mine. "I love you. I'll love our son forever. Marry me before you have the baby so we can be a family."

  Chapter 5

  I'm not one of those women who have sat for hours endlessly imagining the moment when the man I loved would drop to one knee and propose to me. I've never actually given it any thought. Marriage is something I definitely want but right now, the fact that Dane asked me to be his wife is only trumpeted by the reality that he told me he loved me and that he believes I'm having his baby. I'm not sure how I ran this conversation so far off the rails that he thinks I'm pregnant too but that ends now.

  "I'm not having a baby." I pull on his hands trying to get him back to his feet. "I was talking about Maisy's baby."

  He almost falls onto his jean covered ass as he scurries to his feet. "What? What did you just say?"

  I repeat it all because I'm not sure which part of the truth he didn't catch the first time around. "I'm not pregnant, Dane. I know that Maisy is. I know she's having your son."

  "You're not having our baby?"

  I don't look up. I can hear the raw emotion in his voice. I don't know how he jumped to that as a foregone conclusion considering the fact that his ex-girlfriend is already pregnant. "I was talking about Maisy. I found out last night that she's pregnant."

  "Wait." His voice is breathless. "Who told you she's pregnant?"

  It's not an outright admission, but it's not a denial either.

  "No one," I begin before I stop to adjust the hem of my sweater. "I met her weeks ago. Judging by how pregnant she was then, she may have already had the baby by now."

  He exhales slowly. "You've never met Maisy. There's no way you've ever met her."

  I fidget on my feet. "I met her the day before I met you. I mean I saw her. We never formally introduced ourselves."

  His arms cross over his chest. "What? Are you talking about the day before I saw you at the restaurant? That was the day before my birthday."

  It may be a stall tactic or it could be that he's genuinely looking for confirmation of the exact moment I laid eyes on his pregnant almost fiancé. "I saw the two of you at the museum that day. It was the MOMA. I was there drawing people. I drew her, but you already know that."

  "Slow down." His hands dart into the air between us. "You're not making any sense. You didn't draw Maisy. It couldn't have been her. I can't remember the last time I was at the MOMA and Maisy hates art."

  He's the one not making any sense. He'd held that pencil portrait in his hands when he'd been on my bed the first time I showed my work to him. I'd watched in silence as he'd studied that drawing in particular. It had struck a chord deep within me when I drew it and since his were the first eyes, besides mine, that saw it, I wanted to gauge his reaction. I'll never forget how his lips curled at the sides as his eyes slid over the paper. He'd lowered his head slightly as his gaze took in each fine line of the portrait.

  "You saw the drawing," I begin as I motion down the hallway towards the closed door of the spare bedroom. "I showed it to you."

  His eyes follow the path of my hand. "You didn't show it to me. I haven't seen it. Was it at the gallery?"

  I tug on the small pendant that's hanging from a thin silver chain around my neck. "I didn't take it to the gallery. It's here. You saw it right after we met. It was on that night when you asked to see my drawings in my old apartment."

  He scrubs his left hand over his forehead. "No. There wasn't a drawing of Maisy there."

  I've only ever assumed that Dane is honest with me. Before yesterday I may have questioned the legal merit of Maisy's refusal to leave his house, but I'd never actually believed that he was consciously withholding the truth from me. Maybe that means I'm naïve and unaware or perhaps it just means that I wanted whatever we had to continue into my future so I chose to ignore the obvious signs that he wasn't being completely transparent.

  I motion for him to follow me down the hallway. I don't look back as I take each step quickly until I reach the door of the spare bedroom. I push it open with a quick twist of my hand on the doorknob. I turn towards the easel where the pencil portrait is sitting near the window. "It's there. That's Maisy."

  His eyes scan my face before he turns his attention towards the drawing. He takes a step in that direction and as he stops, his hands drop to his sides. I watch from behind him as his head tilts slightly to the left, before it moves to the right. "Are you talking about that drawing right there? Is it the drawing of the woman with the long dark hair? The woman in the wheelchair?"

  I nod before I realize that he can't see the motion. "Yes. That's Maisy."

  He pivots on his heel until he's facing me directly again. His brow softens as he looks down at me. "That's not Maisy. I don't know who told you that was her, but they're wrong."

  Chapter 6

  "Vanessa saw the drawing." I gesture towards it with a dip of my chin. "She told me it was Maisy."

  He cranes his neck around so he can look directly at the pencil portrait again. "I have seen this. You showed it to me weeks ago."

  "Why didn't you tell me then that it was Maisy?"

  He turns back to eye me warily before he moves closer to the easel. His hands dart out to grab the paper, cradling it carefully. "I remember looking at this. You showed me other drawings that night. There was one of a woman outside a flower shop."

  There might have been. I can't recall exactly what each portrait looked like. The only clear memory I have of that night is the expression on his face when he was looking at my work. He was entranced and when he'd told me that he thought it was gallery quality, it hadn't mattered that he was a fireman who appreciated art from the vantage point of a frequent visitor to the city's museums. At that time, his words meant more to me than any that even the most educated art critic would have shared.

  My chest expands on a deep breath. "You looked at that portrait of Maisy back then and you didn't tell me it was her. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't tell you because it's not her." He holds the paper in the air so it catches the early afternoon light that is streaming in from the window. "This isn't Maisy."

  "Vanessa was sure it was Maisy."

  "She's never even met Maisy." He shakes his head so slightly that the motion is almost unnoticeable. "I never introduced Maisy to her. My mother knows Maisy. My brother does too, but that's it."

  His brother? The casual mention of a sibling I've never heard of only reiterates the reality that I know little about his life. I've never met any of his family beyond Garrett. I wouldn't know Dane's brother, or his mother, if I struck up a conversation with them on the subway. They're strangers to me, just as Maisy was until I saw her at the museum.

  "Your mother was at the hospital with Maisy a few weeks ago." I try not to let all of the self-righteous indignation I'm feeling seep into the words. "Vanessa met her then. She saw them there together again two days ago. Vanessa said you were there too."

  His jaw tightens. "My mother was with Maisy at the hospital? You're sure?"

  I'm not sure of anything other than the fact that I feel as though I've fallen off a ledge into a bottomless pit of confusion. I don't know who to believe but I do know that Vanessa has never led me astray. She may view Zoe as her closest friend, but we've forged a bond the past few months that feels solid and secure. I doubt she'd willfully deceive me about the portrait. She saw Maisy in the woman's face in the drawing. Apparently, Dane doesn’t see the same familiarity.

  I tap my shoe against the floor. "I'm sure. That's what Vanessa told me."

  His brow furrows for no more than a few seconds before he drops his gaze back down to the pencil portrait. He studies it intently as he mumbles something under his breath about the color of her hair and its length. "Did this woman have a mole under her eye?"

  "A what?"

  His fingers brush across the left side of his face. "Did the woman in the portrait have a mole under her left eye? A small mole? Was it there?"

  I pull my
hand to my lips as I lean forward to peer at the drawing. I hadn't included that detail. I had noticed it almost immediately but as I stood next to her and finished the drawing, I hadn't added the mole. Once I got home from the museum, I finessed the fine lines and then I'd slipped the paper into the cardboard box with the dozens of others I'd completed. I meant to add the mole, but I'd forgotten.

  His words are less a question than a confirmation. He wouldn't know about the mole unless he knew it was there, adding to the beauty of her face. "Yes."

  "She's pregnant?" he asks calmly. "You thought Maisy was pregnant because this woman is?"

  I dip my chin towards the paper. "That woman told me she was having a son. She was there with a man. I just saw his back. He kissed her belly."

  He swallows hard as he pulls in a deep, stuttered breath. "Was she happy? Did they look happy?"

  "I didn't see his face," I begin cautiously. "I thought...I thought last night it was you there with her."

  "It wasn't me." He eyes me carefully. "Did they look happy, Bridget?"

  I nod slowly. "She was really happy."

  His hand leaps to his chin as his gaze falls once again to the portrait. "She deserves to be happy. She deserves it all."

  "Who?" I ask tentatively.

  "Cleo," he says softly. "This has to be Cleo."

  "I don't understand." I reach for the edge of the portrait. "Who is Cleo?"

  "She's Maisy's sister." He slides the paper into my hands. "I've been looking for her for months."

  Chapter 7

  I stare down at the screen of my smartphone. I saw the resemblance between Maisy Trimble and her sister, Cleo, the moment Dane handed my phone back to me. He'd insisted on finding a picture of Maisy through an Internet search. It was a corporate headshot posted on the website of the financial firm she works at. I scan the details of her face before my gaze stops on her name. Mae Trimble. It's no wonder that Zoe and I couldn’t find her.