wave. “Let me know what happens with the social worker, or if there’s a problem during the night. I’m on call.”
She mouthed, “Thank you,” to him, still trying to wrap her head around the bombshell James had just dropped. Why on earth did he need an extra bed? Did he think she couldn’t handle one small child on her own?
As soon as the specialist was out of the room, she turned toward him. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t know this child or what he’s like. It’s just for one night, to make sure things run smoothly.”
Smoothly? He was making Leo sound like he was just another chart to be dealt with.
As if realizing he needed to clarify matters, he said, “If it’s true that his uncle dropped him off, the boy is bound to be frightened. He might even try to run away or the uncle could show up, which could cause legal problems for the clinic if the Department of Children and Family Services comes by tomorrow and the child has disappeared. I thought we could take shifts and watch him. See how he does.”
Okay, so that made sense. Although she wasn’t sure how he expected a three-year-old to sneak down the hallways unnoticed and make a daring escape. But he could get lost. Or hurt. Or someone could appear, claiming to be one of his parents.
At least James’s reasons for staying with them were now perfectly clear. It had everything to do with protecting the reputation of his precious medical center.
And nothing to do with her.
* * *
She heard something.
Cracking her eyelids, Mila found a dark, silent room.
Not her bedroom.
Lying there for a moment, she waited for her vision to adjust.
Another murmur of sound.
Leo! She was in a hospital suite. Rolling to the side, she almost tumbled off the narrow cot until the events of the previous evening came flooding back to her. The boy. His damaged feet. James’s insistence on spending the night with them.
She somehow managed to get her legs beneath her and staggered upright as a quiet sniffle and whisper slid past her.
Yanking down the T-shirt she’d retrieved from her apartment, she tiptoed toward the sounds, hoping she could get there before Leo woke up James. If she could do that and leave the lights off, she would.
More snuffling, and then a deep sigh.
She could finally see enough to make out the cot where James had been.
It was empty.
She relaxed. Maybe he’d decided not to stay after all. If he’d had as difficult a time getting to sleep as she had...
Well, her stupid insomnia was due to having James sleeping in the same room.
She made her way toward the hospital bed, almost reaching it before she realized there were two figures there.
Her heart squeezed so tight she almost couldn’t breathe. There in the bed was James, eyes closed, one arm loosely draped around Leo, keeping him from falling off the edge. The boy, dressed in the new set of superhero pajamas, was half-sprawled across her ex’s chest. Tears pricked her eyes.
Their future could have looked exactly like this, only she would have been in the bed beside James, and Leo would have been their son.
She had to blink several times to get the chaos swirling within her to settle down enough to move closer. Leo must have woken sometime during the night. James had evidently heard him and she hadn’t and he had gone to him.
Since it looked like one of Leo’s hands was clutching James’s shirt, rather than his ratty blanket, he probably couldn’t ease away from him.
How long had they been here like this?
From James’s posture, it had been a while. His right arm was curled beneath his head, as if using it for a pillow, since the actual pillow was on the boy’s side of the bed. Except Leo wasn’t using it. He was using James’s chest instead.
She crept closer, fascinated, just as she’d always been, by how her ex’s face looked as he slept. His lashes made slight shadows beneath his eyes. The furrow of concentration he normally had between his brows was softened in sleep, and just the slightest hint of a depression remained.
She should go back to bed and leave them alone, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to let him shoulder the burden when she had been the one to insist on staying with him in the room.
So she leaned down, close to his ear. “James,” she whispered.
His lids flicked open in an instant, all traces of sleep gone. Blue eyes sought out hers and the arm holding Leo to him tightened slightly.
The frown was back. “You okay?”
“Yes.” She nodded to the sleeping boy. “Did he wake up?”
“He had a nightmare.”
There was something about whispering with James in the dark that made her swallow. How easy things had once been between them, and how simple they’d seemed.
In reality, nothing had been simple. They’d known each other for too short a period of time to commit to staying with each other forever. She’d known almost nothing about him and yet she’d planned on spending the rest of her life with him.
An ocean of hurt welled up inside her, making its way to her eyes once again.
James didn’t miss it. Then again, he didn’t miss much of anything. His arm came from beneath his head and he snagged her wrist. “Hey. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.” Her voice betrayed her, though, even at a whisper.
“Mi.” He eased out of the bed, leaving Leo asleep, and his hand moved from her wrist to the hair falling over the left side of her face, coaxing it behind her ear. The soft touch made her shudder. Before she could move away, though, his fingers continued from her ear, curling around until they reached her nape. He paused.
Then his head came down, lips brushing against hers in a soft kiss that broke her heart.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “For everything.”
Sorry.
An admission of guilt but nothing else.
A word rolled through her, bouncing around like a giant ball that had been trapped in a small room for far too long. There was no exit unless she made one. But, try as she might, her pride wouldn’t allow her to ask the one question that had haunted her for six long years: why?
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