Motive: Secret Baby. Debra Webb
Camille had told him everything. And he’d forgiven her. Even more incredible he’d still wanted to marry her. Camille had recognized the second chance and pulled herself back together. She would be Mrs. Grant Bridges. Her child would be raised by two parents and no one would ever know the truth.
Then, in one unexpected gust of gale force wind, everything had changed.
She had lost months of her life…her baby…the future she had planned.
Everything.
“But you were going to marry Bridges,” Nicholas argued as if that was a logical reason the child couldn’t be his. “Did you know…?”
She nodded, shuddered at the chill that had bored deep into her bones. “I found out a few days before the wedding.”
Suspicion reared its ugly head in his startlingly blue eyes. “But you were going to marry Bridges anyway.”
Not a question. An accusation. She squared her shoulders. “Yes. I told him about the baby. He was willing to marry me anyway.” She glared into those piercing eyes. “In fact, he insisted that it was the only right thing to do.”
Her words hit the mark. She saw the sting in Nicholas’s eyes. Good. He deserved it.
“When I wouldn’t have,” he suggested, fierce indifference pumped into his tone.
“Have you ever?” She hugged the blanket closer against the quivering she couldn’t quite conquer. “Think about it, Nicholas—you never were exactly reliable. You didn’t have the courage to stand up to your parents when it came to us. And then, when your grandfather died in the lighthouse fire, you deserted all of us.”
Fury tightened his jaw, sent a muscle there jumping rhythmically. “I had my reasons.”
That was the part that frosted her the most. “Oh, yes.” She angled her head and glowered at him. “It was for my own good. For the good of all of Raven’s Cliff. How could I forget?” Yet another logical excuse spawned by selfish, illogical reasoning.
“You don’t understand,” he snarled, that beastly side showing in his voice and in his eyes as he stared straight at her.
Camille didn’t flinch. It wasn’t easy. The left side of his face was disfigured from the lighthouse fire. The damage extended down his throat, along his left arm and the upper portion of that side of his torso. Camille had 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