Beneath a Southern Sky - By Deborah Raney Page 0,89
large wicker basket that served as a toy box and headed up the stairs to the room he and Daria shared—had shared. Would everything be in the past tense from this moment in his life? It was too much to comprehend.
He went into their room. The bed was neatly made, a row of pillows lined up on the headboard. He had always teased her about that. Who needed three pillows? He sat on the edge of Daria’s side of the bed and put his head in his hands. He was still sitting there twenty minutes later when he heard her car in the driveway. He forced himself to get up and go down to meet her.
As he came down the stairs, he called her name.
“Cole?” came her reply.
“I’m here.” He walked into the kitchen where she stood. He couldn’t stop himself from going to her and taking her in his arms. She burst into tears, clinging to him as though she would drown if she let go.
He wanted to stay like that forever, but after a while he pushed her gently away from him, took her hands, and looked into her eyes. Her lovely face was etched with misery. “You look like you had a night like I did.”
She gave him a sad smile.
“Where’s Natalie?”
“I took her back to my folks’. We’re going to stay there for a while. I can’t face this house. You can stay here, Cole. I just came to get some of our things.”
“No, Daria. I can’t face it any more than you can. Travis is going to put me up.” He looked down and scuffed the toe of his shoe on the floor. “We need to talk, okay?”
She nodded.
“I talked to Dennis Chastain again, and he’s pretty sure that our marriage is still valid. He’s still checking into the details, but he didn’t think that by law you are still married to Nate, too. Something about the law presuming a second marriage to be the valid one in a case like this.”
She let out a joyless laugh. “I can’t believe this has ever happened to anyone else.”
“I guess it happened some in wartime.”
“Oh.”
He hadn’t planned what he would say, but suddenly the words were pouring out of him. “Daria, I know you have to go see Nate. I know Natalie will have to see him. But you have to know that no matter what you decide, I can’t give her up. I love her as much as any father ever loved a daughter, and whatever happens I want to be able to see her. I know Nate probably has all the legal rights to his child, but I’m her father too, and I don’t intend to quit now just because this has happened.”
“Cole—” Daria started, but he cut her off.
“Maybe I’m being selfish, but I think it’s right for Natalie, too. She’s used to me. I’m the only one she’s ever called Daddy.”
“I know that, Cole,” Daria said. “I want you to see her. Always.” He didn’t recognize the strangled voice that came from her throat.
Always. The word seemed ripe with implications, and he suddenly felt uncomfortable with her. He let go of her hands and dropped his own hands to his side. “So you’ll take her to see him?”
She nodded, but said, “I want to go alone first…to see how he is. I don’t want this to frighten Nattie. But yes, then I’ll take her to see him.”
She sounded so strong. He didn’t like it. He wanted her to be weak, to need him the way he needed her.
Lying in the guest bed at Travis’s apartment that night he realized how much she had left unspoken, how much there was between the lines. I want you to see her. Always. He was sure then that Daria had made up her mind. She was going back to Nate. She was going to take Natalie and go back to the man she had loved first, the man who had given her Natalie.
And for the first time in his life, Colson Hunter began to understand the despair that had driven Bridgette to take her own life.
Twenty-Six
It rained on her all the way to Kansas City. She was glad for it.
The rain was fitting. The reason for this trip was excruciatingly difficult, and it would have been obscene under a bright spring sun.
Her parents had offered to come with her, but she was thankful now that she had declined their offer. This was something she had to do