to how gorgeous Kyndal had looked tonight. A fiery blue sapphire amidst an ocean of black. If the circumstances had been different, he would’ve stopped in his tracks as he approached her table and drunk her in. She’d never had cleavage like that before. He smiled, realizing the baby was the cause, but then thoughts of the baby being all the way up in St. Louis pinched his heart. He got out of the car and paced, hoping the cold would clear his mind—and his nose.
When she hadn’t shown up a half hour later, he started to worry.
Where in the hell was she?
Jaci’s.
Bart and Jaci’s house was in a new subdivision several miles away. He backed out of the driveway and started the drive to the other side of town.
* * *
KYNDAL TURNED OFF THE cell phone after declining Chance’s call.
She needed to think without interruption right then, and tonight there was only one place that would afford her that kind of privacy.
She drove down through the floodwall at the foot of Broadway and pulled into a parking space on the banks of the Ohio.
She wasn’t the only one who’d thought of it tonight. Paducahans loved their riverfront, and any time day or night, any season of the year, someone would be parked there just watching the river flow by. Tonight, there were people parked and people strolling—not a huge crowd, but enough to give her a safety-in-numbers security.
She let the car idle, cracked her window and put her seat back far enough to relax. The nausea had passed with the help of a cold bottle of water in her car, and although the embarrassment of throwing up on Chance still stung, she felt oddly calm about the entire situation. No, not calm exactly. Numb.
When the numbness wore off, the guilt of moving the baby away from Chance would eat at her, but in the clarity of the moment, she knew she’d made the right choice.
She was leaving Paducah for good this time. The Brennans could have their world to themselves.
They could go to their cocktail parties and dinners and charity events with society’s elite, and they could all convince themselves they’d found true happiness based on their monetary worth.
And how sad it would be for them at the end when they learned the true secret of life, the secret the baby had taught her.
Worth had nothing to do with money or success.
The child inside her didn’t have a penny, and yet he or she had more worth than everything else combined.
Magazine photographer or toenail fungus photographer—it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she, too, was a person of worth because she carried the most important thing in the world inside her.
She was tired. Mentally and physically exhausted. Tired of believing she wasn’t good enough. Tired of thinking if she’d done something differently she might be accepted. Tired of trying to please people. Tired of trying to force her way into the lives of people who didn’t want her there—and tired of wondering why.
She was a good person—a little on the hardheaded side—but fine the way she was. Her goodness outweighed her flaws by far. She had a deep capacity for love, and she had within her the ability to be a fabulous daughter…daughter-in-law…wife…if she’d been given the opportunity. The people who pushed her out of their lives? It was their loss.
Especially Chance. She loved him, had always loved him, in a way no other person on earth was capable of, yet he chose to not accept that gift because her politics were different or he couldn’t take her for who she truly was? How sad for him. She was worth so much more than he would ever know.
A wave of extreme fatigue washed over her. She had to get home before she fell asleep at the wheel.
And, of course, she would have to call Jaci.
Kyndal shifted her seat upright and buckled her seat belt.
Before driving off, she took one last look at the Ohio River.
Yep, it was still there.
Everything would be okay.
* * *
CHANCE WAS FRANTIC WITH WORRY. Had Kyndal had car trouble—or God forbid, a wreck?
No one was at home at Jaci and Bart’s, and he couldn’t imagine where else Kyndal might’ve gone.
He drove in circles to follow every path she might’ve taken as he headed back across town to her mom’s house, and even called the police station to make sure no collisions had been reported.
When he turned the corner of her street and saw her car