Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(4)

Her journalism career was the last thing she wanted to talk about, especially with him, but she recognized he was trying to be polite. And knowing he was probably feeling the same disappointment she was, she told herself to suck up her crappy day and deal with it. “It’s not a regular gig. I was just filling in at the anchor table.”

“Yeah, well, you did good. I liked the human-interest piece on the Little League coach encouraging handicapped kids to play sports.”

“Really?” Knowing he’d watched the whole newscast sent a pitiful thrill through her. “That was my piece.”

“I could tell.”

Of course he could. He knew the things that were dear to her heart.

She pulled her gaze from his and looked back at the floor because staring into his fathomless blue eyes, remembering all the times he’d kissed her and held her and told her she was his everything, was just too painful.

She struggled for something to fill the uncomfortable silence. “I’m a little surprised you’re in-country. I thought you’d be overseas somewhere.”

He was an incredible photojournalist. The best she’d ever seen. He had a way of capturing the human element in a crisis that made a person see conflict from a completely different perspective. It was one of the reasons she’d been so drawn to him when they’d met six years before. That and the fact that she’d felt as if she’d come alive the moment he’d looked at her.

She’d been a new beat reporter then, covering a colorful local election rally for her station. He’d been photographing not the politician but the faces of the spectators for the Associated Press. She’d caught him watching her through the crowd, and that had been it. She’d been entranced with just one look. Then she’d learned about his work and gotten to know the gentle heart he kept hidden beneath all those ruggedly handsome good looks, and she’d fallen headfirst into something that, even now with all the misery they’d lived through, was still the sweetest thing she’d ever known.

He shrugged. “I probably would be. Family stuff going on now, though.”

Her heart pinched all over again at the thought of his family. What had been her family until the divorce. More of a family to her than her own distant relatives. “I heard Ethan’s engaged. That’s great.”

“Yeah. For him.”

That pinch turned into a quick stab, and the urge to run, to flee, to get out of this painful conversation, consumed her. “Well, I—”

Voices echoed from the lobby down the hall. Raegan glanced past Alec to see what was going on. Alec turned to look. A disheveled woman in her thirties with a jacket hanging halfway off her shoulder rushed toward them, flanked by a man in slacks, a white button-down rolled up at the sleeves, and a skewed tie.

The couple hustled past them, bypassed the doctors, and drew to an abrupt stop near the officer at the end of the hall. Even from this distance, Raegan could hear the woman’s excited words.

“Where is she? Where’s Maggie?”

“Ma’am,” the officer said, “you have to calm down. We can’t let you in until you’re calm.”

The woman didn’t seem to hear the officer’s words. She stepped past him and looked through the window into the small room. A gasp sounded down the hall as the woman reached for the man’s arm. “Gary, it’s her. Oh my God, it’s her.”

The two pushed past the officer and rushed into the room. Their joyous voices drifted out into the hall as they were reunited with their daughter. The happy sounds swirled around Raegan, reminding her of everything she didn’t have, and might not ever find.

“Shit,” Alec muttered. “You didn’t need to see that.”

“I’m fine, Alec.” Raegan swiped at the stupid tears already spilling over her lashes. “Happy for them, is all.”

He stepped close and reached for her elbow, and as his familiar body heat surrounded her and his fingers grazed her arm, a thousand memories bombarded her. Lazy Saturdays curled on the couch with him. Candlelit dinners at midnight when she’d worked the late shift and stumbled in exhausted and in need of only him. The night he’d come home from an assignment in Afghanistan and she’d told him she was pregnant.

Her gaze lifted, landed on his. Sparks shot between them. Sparks that warmed the coldest places deep inside her. Her heart beat faster as his gaze raked her features. And all the things she should have said to him long ago stumbled on her tongue.

“Raegan?”

Raegan startled when she heard Jeremy Norris’s voice, and a new wave of discomfort rolled through her blood as she caught sight of him striding down the hall toward her.

“Darling.” Jeremy walked right up to her as if Alec weren’t even there, stepped between them so Alec was forced to let her go, and pulled her against him. “I came as soon as I heard the news.”

The breath left Raegan on a shocked gasp, and she looked over Jeremy’s shoulder toward Alec. Alec’s jaw clenched and his shoulders tightened, but he didn’t say anything, and Raegan found herself both relieved and disappointed by that fact.

Jeremy drew back but still held her at the elbows as he stared down at her with dark eyes. “What did they say?”

“It’s not her.” Prickles of heat rushed all over Raegan’s skin. Not the good heat, though. The kind that made her itch.