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Her eyes focused on the doorway from the kitchen that led to the foyer. Daniel’s heavy tread sounded and soon she heard the men greeting each other.
Soon the footsteps headed toward the kitchen and Mason and Daniel stood there. For a brief moment an awkward silence descended until Mason shot a smile and said, “Good morning, ladies.”
Lacey’s pulse pounded. He was so handsome—even though he looked like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since she’d knocked on his door. He probably hadn’t. “Good morning, Mason.” She frowned. “What do you think you’re going to find in those pictures that we haven’t already discovered?”
“Thank you,” Daniel said. “I asked him the same thing.”
Mason’s eyes glittered for a moment then he shrugged. “I don’t know, but it never hurts to be too careful.”
“Well, I’ll agree with that one,” Janice murmured.
“I’ll tell you if I find anything, Lacey.”
He must have seen her agitation. Her desire to ask to come with them. She shifted and nodded. She wouldn’t be rude to Janice.
Mason and Daniel left, and Lacey simply stared after them, thinking. Would Mason confront Daniel about the past while he had him downstairs? Would Daniel come clean about it and admit everything?
Her heart trembled at the thought of Daniel vehemently denying that he was the one that had come on to her back in high school. That he’d set her and Mason up. And at this point, why would Mason all of a sudden decide to believe her and not his friend?
Please, God,she whispered silently.
“Lacey?”
She blinked. “Oh, sorry. Right.” She took a deep breath. “The man threatened to kill me if Bethany tried to contact me. I think she’s staying hidden in order to protect me. And yet it appears that I’ve done something to make someone really mad so they’re coming after me, anyway.”
“Oh, you poor thing. I’m so sorry.”
“So,” Lacey said with a forced brightness, “what’s been going on with you since we last stayed up all night talking about boys and eating pizza?”
Janice gave a small laugh. “Well, let’s see. Daniel and I got married about two years after you left town.” She took a sip of coffee. After she set the cup back on the table she said, “It took me that long to convince him you weren’t coming back. He was crazy about you in high school, but you only had eyes for Mason.”
Lacey felt her cheeks flush. Daniel had caused her a lot of grief back then and even if she had come back home before now, she would have avoided him like the plague.
But she didn’t tell Janice that. She wasn’t sure Janice knew the whole story or quite possibly thetruestory of what went on between her and Daniel.
And she wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. “You’ve been married a long time. Did you decide not to have children? I remember we used to look at baby stuff in the stores. You had names all picked out. Megan for a girl and Cody for a boy.”
Grief flashed in Janice’s eyes, and Lacey immediately wished she could take the question back.
Janice blinked against the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “Oh, I wanted children, make no mistake about that. And we almost made it, but…” She sighed and traced a finger around the edge of her cup. “I was pregnant about six years ago. Around Christmastime, we had a big ice storm. I was leaving the house when I fell down the front porch steps. I was seven months along.”
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry.”
The woman nodded. “I lost the baby, a little girl, and had to have an emergency hysterectomy.” She shuddered and closed her eyes. “My little Megan,” she whispered. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “It was horrible. I’m still not over it.” Drawing in a deep breath, Janice cocked her head and looked unseeing out the window. “I think if I hadn’t had to have the hysterectomy, I might have had hope that I could conceive again, but—” she shrugged “—that didn’t happen. I had no hope.” This time a tear trickled down her cheek, and Lacey reached a hand across to grasp Janice’s fingers.
“What about adoption?” she asked. “Obviously money’s not a problem for you….”
“It may sound selfish, but I didn’t want someone else’s baby. I wanted mine.” She tapped a finger to her chest and sniffed. Lacey couldn’t stand it anymore and rounded the table to wrap her arms around Janice’s shoulders.
The woman let her hug her for a minute then patted her hand and pulled away. “Enough of this stuff. It’s in the past. Let’s brainstorm what we can do to find Bethany. I want to meet her.”
Lacey pulled in a deep breath and took a sip of her coffee. It needed more sugar. She reached for the bowl. “I would love for you to meet her. Hopefully one day soon, you can.”
The phone on the wall rang. Janice glanced at it and sighed. “I’ll have to get that since Daniel’s downstairs. He has a separate line for his office.”
“That’s fine.”
Janice answered the phone and Lacey heard her say, “All right, I’ll be right there.”
