Tell Me a Secret (The Story Series Book 4) Read online

  Of course, I was still hoping for the happy ending: that Caleb would return before the baby was born.

  But it was Colin who was the realist. He instinctively knew our planet had shifted off its axis without Caleb. He’d become brooding and silent over the weeks, no longer the self-satisfied, cocky man I’d gotten to know while married to his brother. Oh, sure, he still spoke in a slightly pretentious way and was a touch elitist, having gone to graduate school at an Ivy League and all, a fact he never ceased to remind me of. But now I teased him about everything, gently, and he’d responded with grace.

  “Do you want the herbal tea, too? I remembered to order the kind you like, the caffeine-free vanilla. And would you like me to put on some National Public Radio?” His deep, measured baritone sounded so much like Caleb’s lately, and it alternately saddened and soothed me.

  “It’s a cliché but thanks, yes. I would like the tea and the NPR. I would’ve thought you were already listening to it and answering every question correctly on that hipster-public radio game show.”

  “No. I was too busy reading the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.”

  “Always such a conservative,” I tossed back.

  He smirked, then left the room. I pushed out a breath, wondering if he could somehow feel I’d been dreaming about him. That, of course, was silly, but my emotions and perceptions were so skewed these days. My only task was to stay healthy. Sanity was optional.

  Colin popped his head back through the door, his wry grin replaced with an earnest look. “You want your coloring books? Or the new scrapbook stuff?”

  Everyone had tried to distract me with all possible busy work: books, music, movies on a giant, new flat screen, you name it. From the bed, I’d spent hours putting together photo albums of Caleb and me, because I’d had hundreds of photos printed and delivered. I’d finished one book of our wedding and was planning to work on a new scrapbook of the honeymoon next.

  “No, not yet.” I’d ordered the Italian leather scrapbook online, and it had cost more than I’d made some weeks in my bookstore. I couldn’t wait to show it to Caleb. I needed to do something during the long days in bed. It was two weeks until the baby was due, and my doctor had told me we’d try to hold on for full-term. It was better for the baby, each day it was inside me.

  My hands went to my swollen stomach and rubbed, then I rolled over clumsily to the nightstand, where I’d set my journal. Because I was all but trapped in my bedroom, I’d taken to writing notes to Caleb throughout the day. When he returned, I wanted him to have a record of what had happened while he was gone.

  I was telling myself he would return, someday. Deep down, I refused to believe he was gone forever.

  So I wrote, mostly in free-form. Most of it was likely rambling and nonsensical, but I hoped it would be helpful, informative, a record of our collective sadness for when he returned.

  Caleb would eventually know Sarah didn’t take the job at the public library because she’d assumed the management of my bookstore in my absence. He’d know his brother and sister wept often, in private. That his mom had started taking antidepressants, and that his dad was even more silent than before. Laura and Sarah had put their own quest to have a baby on hold, and their wedding, too.

  He’d know I’d given up my second bookstore because I couldn’t handle the responsibility of a new business. Or anything, really.

  All life had come to a halt, it seemed. Except the one growing inside of me.

  Sometimes my words flowed, and I described everything I was thinking and feeling. I wrote how I wanted to kiss him and once explained in great detail how I’d make love to him. It might have been the best erotic scene I’d ever written, one that would never be published.

  I’d given up all hope of a writing career.

  In the tedious days of my bed rest, it was easy to convince myself he’d just walk into the condo and everything would be the same as before. When it happened, I would show him the journal, and he’d read it, a grave look on his handsome face. Maybe he’d laugh softly in parts, and then he’d kiss me.

  Today I opened the book and scrawled the date at the top of the page. My handwriting was shaky, my insides still rattled from the dream. The back of my throat was scratchy and raw with tears. For the millionth time, I felt mortally wounded and abandoned, left wondering how I was going to have this baby without him and doubting how good of a parent I’d be without the man I loved.

  Caleb, sweetie, I’m having more horrible dreams. Thankfully, none are about The Baby. (Oh, the baby’s doing really well, the doctor says, and my blood pressure has evened out. I still haven’t found out if it’s a boy or girl, but we can do that if you want when you come back. If you don’t want to know until the day The Baby is born, that’s okay, too.)

  Anyway, back to the dreams. I don’t want to get into too much detail because they upset me quite a bit and I don’t want to relive them. They’re really nightmares, and sometimes it seems like they last all night. Some are darkly erotic, but not in a good way. Some are downright frightening and I wake up, crying and wanting to vomit.

  You’re in them all.

  Chapter 2

  Two weeks later, one day shy of The Baby’s due date, my water broke one morning when I was brushing my teeth. I thought I’d peed myself, but nope. I was in labor. I tried to clean up, but couldn’t stop the fluid seeping from me. I was officially no longer in control of my body.

  “You must be a King,” I murmured to my midsection, stroking my stomach. “They’re so punctual.”

  Wearing just my cotton, blue-striped maternity sleep shirt, I powered into the living room to tell Laura, who had stayed over and was reading the paper and drinking coffee, her short platinum-blonde hair rumpled and going in all directions.

  “Morning. I think my water just broke. I feel this weird gushing—” I looked down. “—and, yeah. So let’s do this.”

  “Oh, shit.” She lunged for her phone. “Get dressed now.”

  She snapped into action to call everyone in the family, gather the prepared suitcases, and feed the cat, while I waddled quickly to my bedroom to change. The contractions hadn’t started yet, but I figured I could handle those. From the dozens of books I’d read, I knew the baby probably wasn’t coming out immediately. Still, my heart battered nervously. How long would it take? When would the contractions start?

  But because I wasn’t punctual or efficient like the King family, I wanted to do one thing before leaving for the hospital. I wanted to tell Caleb what was going on, so I opened my journal on the nightstand and scribbled the date and time.

  8:22 a.m.: This is it, my love. I’m in labor. The Baby is about to make his/her grand entrance. She’s like you—early for an important event. I’m not feeling any pain yet, but I’m sure I will soon.

  I thought you’d be back by today. There’s still part of me that thinks you’re going to swoop into the hospital at the last minute, like something out of a fairytale, right before I give birth. God, I hope you do. Please come back this afternoon because I need you here. Don’t you sense what I’m going through? Wherever you are, you should somehow know instinctually what’s happening.

  Don’t you want to be here for this?

  I paused, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  I miss you, Caleb. I wish you were here to tell me everything is going to be okay.

  Unable to think of anything else, I slammed the journal shut and threw it into my purse.

  * * *

  “Are we sure her blood pressure isn’t too high for her to deliver naturally?”

  I looked at Sarah with pleading eyes. This was some scary shit, labor.

  Sarah was standing at the foot of my hospital bed, grilling my doctor with a dozen questions, while I was lying like a pregnant manatee, having another contraction. I’d been having contractions for two hours. It felt like my insides were being pulled, squeezed, and wrung out all at once. Like an alien and a zombie were fighting to the death for the rights to my uteru
s.

  “Fuck.” I ground my molars. My earlier resolve to ride out the contractions was fading by the nanosecond. “How long is this going to last?”

  The doctor and Sarah ignored me, probably because I’d asked the question about a dozen times. “Right now, she’s doing well. Her pressures are good today. The bed rest worked well. So let’s just keep her breathing and pushing through the pain. I think we’ll have a baby soon. Within a couple of hours.”

  “Okay.” Sarah turned away from the doctor and rubbed my arm. “It’s time, Em.”

  I nodded, then groaned again. The pain was coming fast and quick now, like menstrual pain times a billion. Like my body was trying to squeeze everything out, and not just the baby. Like my organs and very soul.

  And truthfully, it felt horribly perfect because it made me forget everything that had gone so wrong. The physical pain had replaced the darkness of Caleb’s absence, and now I was living, breathing, and existing moment-to-moment, thinking only of my body.

  Of the baby.

  I could only concentrate on one thing: surrendering to the pain, allowing it to wash over me, to wait until the latest contraction released me from its grip.

  Laura was on the other side of the bed and pressed a hand to my forehead. “You’re doing great. Caleb would be proud of you.”

  I nodded, then scrunched up my face. This was no time to cry over my missing husband. I reminded myself I was strong enough to face this alone. Was I? I was about to find out. The baby wasn’t waiting around for Caleb to return or for me to be happy and content again.

  “Remember how I thought I was going to write in my journal to Caleb between contractions?” I panted to no one in particular. “Remember when I first got pregnant and I told Caleb and everyone I’d like to try for a home birth?”

  Sarah moved toward my purse. “Yeah, well, things have changed. You want to try writing now? Would it help calm you?”

  “No. The idea seems really fucking stupid now. Every idea I’ve ever had in my entire life seems really fucking idiotic right now.”

  A searing pain, wilder than any before, ripped through my abdomen. I swore, loud, a filthy phrase. Colin looked up from his phone, wincing.

  “I’m going out in the waiting room to sit with your dad,” Colin mumbled and rose. I ignored him. My dad was too nervous to be in the room while I gave birth, and truthfully, I didn’t want any men in the room.

  The one man I’d wanted at the birth of my baby hadn’t arrived yet. And it sure didn’t look like he would.

  There would be no last-minute fairytale ending.

  Colin came to my side and squeezed my shoulder. As always, I smelled his signature mandarin and cedar cologne, and my hand reached for his muscular forearm, which was bare because he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves.

  “Just let your body do the work, Emma. You’re strong.”

  I nodded. “Thanks. Now get out of here. Go flirt with a nurse or something.” I cracked a smile, and he did, too.

  Then he kissed me on the forehead. “You’ve got this,” he whispered.

  Another pain tore through me, this one nearly blinding me with intensity.

  “Epidural. I want one now!” I shouted, forgetting about my earlier resolve to ride the waves of pain. Fuck. That.

  My doctor, who was staring at a chart, nodded. Why was she so nonchalant when my body was being ripped apart?

  “I’m okay with it. Let’s get everything ready for a low-dose epidural.”

  I gave up on trying to form thoughts or words and just let out long strings of bovine-like sounds. I sobbed, gurgled, and screamed, as if all of the anger and sadness I’d held inside the past two months could be shoved out of my body.

  The next hours were blurry, because time had become warped and slippery. Adding to my confusion: the hospital seemed bright and chaotic. It was the first time I’d been outside of the penthouse in two months, and the effect was jarring. Even though I was in a birthing center with its pale green walls and family-friendly, overstuffed chairs that looked like they wanted to give hugs, it wasn’t my cocoon of Art Deco safety. I was used to diffuse light and cream-colored, plush pillows, sleek lines and food brought to me on gilded trays by people with worry in their eyes.

  But having the baby at home wasn’t an option for me, not with the blood pressure problems, so I had to make peace with the new surroundings. Peace wasn’t easy when I felt like I was about to explode from pain, though.

  There was the shot in my lower back, more pain, and then immediate relief. I was still sweating and my hips felt like they were being pulled apart, but the physical sensation vanished. Truthfully, I missed it a little, the jagged edge of pain keeping me rooted in the present. I could still feel my legs a little, and there was a weird feeling of pressure in my abdomen so I concentrated on that instead.

  The doctor urged me to push. And push. And breathe. And push.

  And then, suddenly, relief from the pressure. Sweet smoothness followed by the sound of a baby’s cries. After hours of labor, it seemed like it had all happened so fast.

  “It’s a girl,” the doctor said, and Sarah and Laura put their cool palms on my face.

  “Charlotte,” I whispered.

  I stared at the baby in the doctor’s arms. Sweat-drenched and hazy, I watched as a nurse gently opened my gown and placed her on my bare chest. For the first time in months, I felt searing, uncontrollable joy. I kissed her little bald head. Her expression was serene, as if she had no idea what I’d just been through to birth her. She looked at me with old-soul, blue-gray eyes, and I melted all over the place.

  “We made a human,” I whispered.

  Her warm skin felt perfectly in sync next to mine, and for several long minutes, I stared at her, until a nurse cleaned her up and checked her heart rate. I pulled the gown across my bare chest, not because I was feeling modest but because my skin felt cold without Charlotte. They handed her back to me, and the doctor mentioned something about repairing a tear that happened during delivery, but because I’d had an epidural, I didn’t feel anything below my waist.

  “Let someone else hold the baby for a few moments while I put a couple of stitches in, just to be safe,” she said. I nodded and looked up, searching for Sarah. At some point—I wasn’t sure when because I’d been so focused on my beautiful Charlotte—Colin had slipped into the room and was next to me.

  “She’s perfect. Can I hold her?” His normally smooth voice was strained and shaky.

  I handed my child to him. His large hand spanned her entire back. When I saw him clasp the swaddled Charlotte to his chest, a sob tore through me.

  Colin wasn’t supposed to be the first man to hold my baby.

  Chapter 3

  Sleep tugged my eyelids downward. I was more exhausted each day that passed, and in a moment of lucidity—probably after I’d had my first cup of post-pregnancy coffee when Charlotte was a month old—I grasped that this was my new normal. I knew motherhood would be difficult, but I had no idea it would be this tiring.

  From the moment Charlotte was born, I was hypervigilant, watching her tiny face. Checking to see if she was breathing. Looking into her diaper. Straining to hear if those were panicked cries or satisfied coos coming from her mouth.

  All of the things I’d reveled in prior to becoming a mother—cocktails on terraces at sunset, long hours of uninterrupted reading, twenty-minute showers—were no more. They were as elusive as sleep and sanity.

  And yet, I was hopelessly in love. Like nothing I’d ever experienced or thought possible. Charlotte’s milky smell, her toothless grins, and the way she grasped my fingers with her chubby hand were the outward signals of her love. The subtle signals were more elusive but infinitely more precious, like how she’d sigh against my breast as we rocked in the nursery. Or how I’d sing a song and she’d look at me with enormous blue eyes identical to her father’s.

  Those first exhausted weeks slipped into exhausted months. Everything seemed monumental, yet the details were tedio
us. I tried to breastfeed and failed, so I switched to formula. Which left me feeling like a bigger failure. Charlotte was colicky and cried often, at least those first few months.

  Caleb’s absence only magnified everything. I second-guessed myself constantly.

  What would Caleb do in this situation? I’d ask myself when Charlotte cried for her third hour. Or, I wish Caleb was here to see this, when our daughter, for the first time, beamed ear-to-ear as I waved a stuffed University of Florida gator in front of her face.

  And then, just as the sun was setting one spring evening, my phone rang. Seeing the name on the caller ID, I fumbled to answer it.

  “Detective Dos Santos, how are you?” I was breathless.

  “Mrs. King, we might have found an important clue in your husband’s case. It’s a wallet with only a business card from Orlando inside,” the Sao Paulo detective said in my ear.

  My heart nearly came to a stop.

  “Send me photos of both,” I pleaded to the detective. It had been found outside a Sao Paulo nightclub, behind a trash can, he added.

  Shaking, I secured Charlotte in her pack-and-play in the living room so I could wait for the email. The sterile, white condo living room had been overtaken with plush toys and colorful baby gear, making the entire space seem like a modernist kindergarten. I loved the vibrancy.

  My phone buzzed with the email’s arrival, and I tapped on the image of the business card first. It was a woman’s name, Ashley Cooley, and she was a public relations manager at Universal Studios theme park. I scowled. We didn’t know an Ashley, and I scanned my brain, trying to remember if Caleb had ever mentioned anyone at Universal. He knew so many people.

  I turned next to the wallet photos. Save for the business card, the wallet itself was empty, but from the photos I thought it looked like Caleb’s. The brand was stamped in small, letters on the inside of the billfold. I remembered the name of the designer—Delvaux—because he’d bought three identical ones at $500 apiece on one trip to Barneys in New York when we were together.