by Holly Rayner
And yet…
He had been thinking about her quite a lot lately. This wasn’t the first time her name had entered his mind. This wasn’t the first time he had found himself wishing he could see her.
It didn’t make sense. He had only known her for a few days. Clay was a level-headed person, not at all the type to be swept up by romantic notions. He didn’t believe in love at first sight.
He sighed. Maybe I was wrong to cut things off with her the way I did. Maybe I should have gotten her number. It couldn’t have hurt anything for me to have her number.
Of course, it would have been hard to explain why he wanted her number but he didn’t want to give her his.
And giving her his…that would have been too risky. Clay knew that. She was a police officer, and he was guilty of a serious crime.
But he hadn’t even asked for her number. Maybe she would have said yes!
It was so frustrating that he couldn’t know.
I wouldn’t have called her anyway. How could he have? With everything else that was going on, it was the exact wrong time to pursue any kind of connection, romantic or otherwise, with a police officer.
Clay went to his computer and sat down, feeling as if he was moving on autopilot. He shouldn’t be doing what he was doing, he thought, and yet it was impossible to resist.
He would just look at the New Orleans Police Department website. There was no harm in that. He and Gwen had never even taken a selfie together. It would be nice to see her face again, since she was living rent-free in his imagination anyway.
Besides, seeing her on the website would establish beyond a doubt that she had been telling the truth about working in New Orleans. He would be able to set aside the lurking paranoia that she had somehow been there to gather information on him.
The website appeared. It was a bland government website, black text on a white background, featuring links to resources that New Orleans residents could use for things like reporting crimes or requesting police assistance with civil matters. He scrolled down and found a link for “Police Districts.”
There were several districts listed. He opened the first one. There was a photo of a smiling captain in uniform, followed by a list of the officers who worked in that district. He scanned the list. No Gwen.
He checked the second district, and the third. Nothing.
By the time he reached the fourth district, he was beginning to feel annoyed with himself. This was a foolish idea. It wasn’t as if there was contact information listed for the officers. What did he think he was going to do if he found her name? He was about to close the tab and forget the whole thing.
And then he saw it—Gwen Carrington.
He couldn’t remember whether Gwen had ever told him her last name, but this was her, right? It had to be.
He opened up his social media page and typed the name into the search bar.
Gwen popped up right away. She was the top search result, and sure enough, she was in New Orleans. Her page was locked to people she hadn’t listed as a friend, but that didn’t matter. All he needed to see was her profile picture.
It had been taken at the resort. Clay would have recognized that beach anywhere. That was Jahni’s tiki bar in the background. She must have changed her photo when she’d come home from vacation.
His finger hovered over the trackpad. Should he send her a friend request?
No. I can’t. Not yet.
He wanted to. He knew that she would accept it—she had wanted to remain friends from the start—and as soon as they were linked, he would be able to see the rest of her photos. He would be able to reach out and ask her how she was doing. It felt like forever since he’d had a genuine conversation with someone.
But he wouldn’t be able to have that with her. Not right now. There was no way Clay could have a conversation about what was going on in his life without bringing up the mess Dave had gotten him into. And he couldn’t tell Gwen about that.
He would have to lie to her if he spoke to her, and he wouldn’t be able to stand that.
So the best thing to do would be to just wait. Sooner or later, the mess his life had become over the past few weeks would sort itself out. Sooner or later, he would be free of all this.
And when that day came, he would know how to get in touch with Gwen.
He wrote her full name on a piece of scrap paper and tucked it into his junk drawer. If he had to look at it all the time, it would drive him crazy. But it would be there, waiting for him when the time was right. He would reach out to her and tell her he was sorry, that he had been wrong to push her away. He would tell her that he wanted to keep in touch after all, and he had been a fool to refuse her when she had offered.
And he would have to hope that it wouldn’t be too little, too late.
Chapter 11
Gwen
“Gwen. Hey, Gwen! Come and look at this!”
Gwen glanced across the room. Mike, one of her fellow police officers, was leaning back in his chair and chortling.
Her partner, Finn, caught her eye. “Don’t bother,” he said. “It’s just one of those memes about people pulling pranks on each other.”
“I hate those,” Gwen said. “People could get really hurt.”
“I know,” Finn said. “But they think it’s funny.”
“Because they are funny,” Mike said. “You don’t need to take ‘protect and serve’ so literally.”
“For God’s sake,” Gwen said. “Don’t you have any work to do?”
“I don’t know who you are to lecture me about work,” Mike said. “You’re the one who just got back from a two-week vacation.”
“I had the accrued time,” Gwen said. “And if you want a vacation, take one, but don’t spend it sitting here in the office distracting the rest of us.”
“Jeez,” Mike said. “Somebody’s hormonal.”
Gwen seethed, but she said nothing. Mike was a pig, but he might have a point. It was the right time of month for her period to start, and she had been feeling a little off for the past couple of days. Maybe her current moodiness was hormone-based.
“Don’t listen to him,” Finn said, passing her a file. “Seriously. He’s a child. One day he’ll turn twenty-five, and he’ll be embarrassed that he acted like this in a professional setting. Remember what we were like at his age?”
“Not like that,” Gwen said.
“No,” Finn agreed. “But we weren’t exactly the beacons of professionalism we are today, either. Remember the chicken nugget eating contest?”
She laughed. “Don’t remind me,” she said. “I feel sick just thinking about it.”
Mike had wandered over. “How many did you eat, anyway?” he asked.
“I don’t remember,” Gwen said. “But Finn won. I think he ate something like forty nuggets in a minute and a half.”
“My finest hour,” Finn said, laughing.
Mike grinned, and Gwen was reminded that, actually, he could be a decent kid when he wasn’t being obnoxious. This was his first year on the force; of course he wasn’t as settled in and professional as she and Finn were yet. He would grow into his role, just like they had.
“We should do another nugget contest,” she said. “See whether Mike can break your record.”
“I definitely can,” Mike boasted. “Once, in college, I drank an entire gallon of milk in less than a minute.”
“Good grief,” Finn said.
Gwen’s stomach lurched at the thought.
She held up a hand to the guys. “Can we stop talking about food challenges?” she asked. “You’re making me queasy.”
“Sure thing, Gwen, sorry,” Mike said, chastened.
“You’re not sick, are you?”
They all turned. The voice belonged to Sergeant Kepler, who had emerged from his office and was frowning disapprovingly in Gwen’s direction.
“You’re supposed to be working, Gwen,” he said.
Of course, none of the three of them had been working. They ha
d all been chatting. But Gwen knew there was no point in bringing that up.
It was just like Sergeant Kepler to focus on what she was doing wrong and to ignore everyone else. She had gotten used to the fact that she was often treated differently, but that didn’t make it any less obnoxious.
“Sorry, sir,” she said.
“If you’re sick,” he said, “you’re going to have to try to work through it. You just had a long vacation.”
“I realize that,” Gwen said.
“Then I don’t want to see you asking for any more time off. Don’t be thinking that just because you’re a woman, I’m going to take it easy on you.”
Gwen gritted her teeth. He had never once taken it easy on her, so why on earth would she think that he was going to start doing so now?
“I didn’t ask for any time off,” she pointed out. “And I’m not sick.” But thanks so much for the concern.
“You do look a little pale,” Finn pointed out.
“It’s the lighting in here,” she said. “The fluorescents are washing me out, that’s all.”
“Well, deal with it,” Sergeant Kepler said. “It’s a police station, not a photo shoot. We’re not here to make you look pretty.”
Again, Gwen wanted to shoot back that she hadn’t complained about the lighting—she had merely pointed it out as the cause of her pale complexion.
But she didn’t want an argument with the sergeant. She was too tired.
Maybe I am getting sick, she thought. Not that she was going to tell him that.
“Excuse me,” she said to the men, wanting to extricate herself from the conversation. “I’m going to visit the ladies’ room.”
She grabbed her purse and hurried off, wondering whether her period had started without her noticing. That would explain how drained she was feeling.
But once she was in the bathroom, she knew that wasn’t the case. She went to the sink, splashed some water on her face, and took a few deep breaths.
Finn was right. She did look pale.
And she had been pretty nauseous today…
Just how late was her period?
Hands shaking, she pulled out her phone and opened the app she used to track it. The pleasant purple screen informed her that she was eight days late.
I’m never eight days late.
She splashed more water on her face and went back out to the office, trembling and trying to hide it. What was going on? Could she be pregnant?
I can’t be.
But she had to acknowledge that, technically, she absolutely could. She and Clay had slept together more than once. They’d used protection, but that wasn’t any guarantee.
I need to get a test.
She wanted to go immediately, but she knew that wasn’t an option. Sergeant Kepler was watching her like a hawk, clearly hoping to see her duck out early so that he could make some comment to her about women not pulling their weight. And she couldn’t possibly explain to him the reason for her need to leave early. There was no way he would understand.
The rest of the day passed by at an absolute crawl. Gwen thought it would never be over. Finn cast curious glances her way a few times, and Gwen knew that he knew something was up with her—as her partner, he was highly attuned to her—but she couldn’t even bring herself to confide in him. Not until she knew the truth herself.
Finally, the workday came to an end. Exhausted, nerves frayed, Gwen grabbed her purse and hurried out to her car before Finn could ask her to go for a beer, or Sergeant Kepler could corner her to ask about all the paperwork she was behind on.
She was tempted to violate the speed limit as she drove to the drugstore, but she forced herself to take her time. The last thing she needed was to be pulled over by someone else from the NOPD. Even though traffic stops weren’t made by anyone in her department, she knew word would get back to the people she worked with. There would be questions about why she had been in such a hurry.
Of course, it would take a huge leap of logic to get from speeding ticket to pregnancy, but she didn’t want to be confronted with questions about why she had been driving so fast or where she had been trying to get to.
She pulled to a stop in front of the drugstore, got out, and went inside. She had only had to purchase pregnancy tests one other time in her life, and that had been years ago. It was stressful just to walk down the aisle. She snatched up one she recognized from TV ads, figuring it had to be of at least decent quality, without bothering to check the price.
She felt as if she was going to go up in flames of embarrassment standing at the counter, but the clerk hardly looked at her. He bagged up the test, told Gwen to swipe her card, and wished her a pleasant evening. By the time she had gotten back out to her car, Gwen was sure he’d forgotten about her.
She hurried home, let herself in, and went straight to the bathroom to take the test.
While she waited, she forced herself not to look at it. She left it on the bathroom sink, went out to the kitchen, and fixed herself a glass of ice water. She counted to sixty, then counted again. She took a long, slow drink and tried to calm her frantically racing heart.
Then, slowly, she walked back to the bathroom. Hand shaking, she picked up the test and looked at the strip.
Positive.
She was pregnant.
Strangely, the first thing she felt was relief. At least the wondering was over. At least she knew.
She set the test back down, took her water into the living room, and sat down on the couch to think.
What am I going to do?
It wasn’t a panicked question. It was an analytical one. She could practically feel her training kicking in. Assess the situation. Determine your next steps.
Well, she already knew who the father was. There was only one possibility. She had only been with one man in months. There was no one else it could have been besides Clay.
But that didn’t help, because she didn’t have a means of contacting him.
She buried her head in her hands, feeling foolish. She should have insisted that he give her a phone number.
But what could she have said? I need it in case it turns out I’m pregnant? It would have sounded insane to both of them, back in that resort suite. Gwen had never expected something like this to happen. If she had suggested it to him, it would have sounded like an excuse. Like a lie. It would have sounded like she was fabricating reasons why she might need his phone number.
She would have seemed desperate.
Well, aren’t I desperate?
She examined her feelings carefully. No. Not desperate. But aware. Aware of the responsibility she had, both to Clay and to their unborn child, to find him and make him aware of the situation.
He might not have wanted to continue their relationship, but surely this changed everything. It had to. This wasn’t just a fling on an island in the Bahamas anymore. They were going to have a child together. He deserved to know about that. He would want to know about that.
And the baby deserved to know his or her father. Gwen knew that she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she didn’t even try to find her child’s missing parent. After all, she herself had grown up with no parents. She would never know her mother or father, and she would have given anything to have parental figures in her life.
Having one parent was certainly better than having none at all, and her baby would always have her. But if both parents could be in the picture…well, that was ideal. That was what she wanted.
She rested her hand on her stomach. It felt as flat as it ever had, and it was difficult to believe that her child was already beginning to grow in there. The whole thing seemed abstract, like the idea of planets out in space—you knew they were there, you believed they were real, and yet it was hard to really wrap your mind around it.
She had been alone for a long time. She had never had any family of her own. But now…this baby would be her family. She would finally have someone to whom she was related. She would be able to look into her chil
d’s face and see her own features reflected there. They would create their own traditions, both for Christmas and for the rest of the year.
She wondered what Clay would say.
Their loneliness was their common trait. It was what had brought them together in the Bahamas. Surely he would feel the same way Gwen did. He would be thrilled at the prospect of starting a new family. He would want to be actively involved in raising this child.
Holding firmly to that belief, she turned her attention to the more practical question of how she was going to find him.
She had already been planning to try to track him down, on the pretense of getting that hat back to him. But a baby was a much more solid justification for trying to find him. She would feel no hesitation at all about using police resources to find Clay now.
She went to the kitchen, grabbed the notepad and pen that she usually used to make her grocery list, and quickly jotted down all the things she remembered about Clay. Cattle rancher. Lives in the Texas Panhandle. Father passed away earlier this year—alone now.
She tapped the pen against her teeth, trying to remember whether there was anything else he had told her that might be helpful, but nothing came to mind.
Well, it was enough to make a start. She could get a list of cattle ranches in Western Texas. She could check obituaries from the area and try to find men who might be Clay’s father—they would share a last name. That would give her plenty to work on.
It’ll give me too much to work on. This is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Going through all the obituaries in Western Texas over the past year! And he might not even have had a public obituary, depending on how Clay had handled the arrangements after his father’s death.
She would search social media for men in Texas called Clay—but that would probably be a dead end. She was sure there were millions of men in Texas called Clay.
She would call the resort on Green Turtle Cay Island and see if she could persuade them to give up the name of the gentleman who had been staying in room 108. It seemed unlikely that they’d give up information on one of their guests, though. She was a police officer, and that might carry some weight. But a New Orleans police officer didn’t have any jurisdiction in the Bahamas, and if the person answering phones at the resort knew that, she was going to be out of luck.