felt the raised, calloused skin that night they’d made love. But it hadn’t been until the clouds had cleared from the moon that she’d gotten a good look at his face. The sight had stunned her, sent anguish searing through her. Her reaction had hurt him. She’d tried to explain, to apologize, but he refused to listen. He’d pushed her away, deserted her, as surely as he had four years prior.
He hadn’t given her a chance to tell him that what she really saw was the lines and angles of the handsome face he’d always had. The broad shoulders and powerful arms. The lean waist and the masculine contours of his chest.
As sorry as she was for all that he had lost, for the suffering he had endured from the burns, she would not feel sympathy for him. That soft feeling had vanished the night he made love to her and then walked away.
For a second time.
“I understand perfectly.” She reeled in her emotions. They were still wasting time. What happened between them made no difference. All that mattered was finding her child. “And frankly, I don’t care. I need to find my baby. Nothing else matters.”
He turned his profile to her once more, concealing the left side from view. The rigid set of his shoulders and the fists his fingers had balled into told her he was considering how to handle this situation.
No matter that she had never once been able to depend on Nicholas, no matter that until his sudden so-called death he had been viewed by all of Raven’s Cliff as a self-centered rich boy, Camille knew she could depend on him to help her.
Nicholas had learned something about responsibility in the past five years. At first she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, but during the better part of the past two weeks as she had lain in that hospital room under guard, she had come to terms with many things.
She had suspected that the recluse living in the cottage was responsible for a number of anonymous gifts to the village. Everyone had talked about how some philanthropic soul had heard of Raven’s Cliff’s tribulations and had decided to help. But Camille had recognized a pattern. As the then mayor’s daughter, she spent a lot of her time doing charitable work with her mother. On the few occasions when she had heard of the recluse’s presence in town, she had begun to mentally chart what she heard about his visits along with the unexpected donations that oddly coincided with those rare appearances. Like how badly Miss Louise Patterson had needed a new playground for her day-care center. There were numerous other instances she could think of, but now wasn’t the time to bring up her suspicions.
Still, those instances were solid evidence, in her opinion, that Nicholas had changed. He needed to assuage his guilt with good deeds. If playing upon that guilt was wrong, so be it.
She had to find her baby.
Anguish tore through her. “Are you going to help me?” She didn’t add the “or not” that filtered through her head. He couldn’t refuse her. She wouldn’t let him. He could help her. She was certain. A man who had been to such dark places could no doubt reason out the thinking of someone evil enough to steal a newborn baby.
As if she’d said the last aloud, Nicholas’s gaze drifted to the rough plank floors. Her heart thumped harder in her chest. Please, please say yes.
“What do you want me to do?”
Though he didn’t look at her, his voice told her he had resigned himself to the obligation. Part of her wanted to be angry that it had taken such prodding to secure his help, but the reality was she didn’t care. As long as he helped her it didn’t matter why.
Another harsh reality shook her with an impact that would surely register on the Richter scale. Where did they start?
“I…” She swallowed at the lump of emotion lodged in her throat. “I don’t know.”
Blue eyes tangled with her own of a paler shade. Her mind immediately considered the idea that their baby would likely have blue eyes as well.
She shook her head. Absolute focus was essential. “I was found abandoned and alone.” And half dead, she didn’t bother adding. “No one discovered the fact that I’d recently given birth until right before I regained consciousness.” The truth was the hospital staff had been so focused on keeping her alive that nothing else had mattered at first. Eventually when all other possibilities had been exhausted in an attempt to trace down the source of the near-lethal staph infection, the indications that she had recently given birth were discovered.
“Have they uncovered the cause of your amnesia?” At her questioning expression, he went on. “Raven’s Cliff is a small village. I heard through my housekeeper that when you awoke you remembered nothing since falling from the cliffs.”
Funny, nothing went without discussion in this small village and yet her child was missing. Someone had held her for months, delivered her baby, and then disappeared without anyone noticing. Evidently right here in Raven’s Cliff.
Her legs wouldn’t hold her anymore. She shuffled to the nearest chair and collapsed there. “The experts believe the amnesia is drug related. At first it was assumed that I’d suffered head trauma from the fall, but there was no indication of major or permanent damage.” She closed her eyes a moment before she continued. “The theory is that I was drugged for the duration. Then, before the drugs wore off, the staph infection worsened. Between that, dehydration and God only knows what else, I slipped into a coma. My last memories are of my wedding day.” She took a bolstering breath. “Then of waking up in the hospital.”
The psychologist working on her case theorized that perhaps the missing time was too painful to remember. Since she was physically recovered with no apparent reason for the lapse in memory, the cause had to be psychosomatic. She couldn’t rule out that theory, and quite frankly she didn’t care why she couldn’t remember. She only wanted to find her child.
Nicholas remained silent for an endless minute as he obviously considered all that she had told him and whatever he had heard since she was found.
“We have no way of knowing where you were held,” he began, his tone somber.
Her chest tightened as she nodded her agreement.
“We have no idea who held you or why.”
Another nod of concurrence wasn’t necessary, and that was just as well. If she moved she might very well throw up. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten, but the nagging desire to empty her stomach persisted, gained force with each passing second.
“And—” his gaze leveled fully on hers “—we don’t know if the baby survived beyond birth.”
Ice slid along every nerve ending, hardened in her blood. “There’s no reason to think otherwise,” she argued.
Was that pity in his eyes? Or regret?
“You said yourself that the experts believe you were drugged for all those months…”
He didn’t have to say more.
He was right.
Maybe someone at the hospital had even mentioned that possibility to her but she had wiped it out. Denied the potential.
No. She refused to consider it now. “Lots of babies survive prolonged drug use by their mothers.” Mothers hooked on illegal drugs delivered living babies all the time. There were problems, but at least the child
