Page 66 of Embattled Ever After

“Really?” Shannon’s hazel eyes were wide. “Man, I hope you find him. It kind of sounds like he’s been trying to hide.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “But that case nagged me for a long time. If I can resolve it, I will.”

“And Duncan?” the other woman asked gently.

Alex took a deep breath, avoiding her eyes. “Duncan and I have very different plans for our lives. I wish it would have worked out, but it didn’t.”

Shannon looked sadder than she had the entire time Alex had been there. “I’m sorry, Shannon. I know you guys put a lot of planning and hope into bringing me out here, but we’ve got an issue we just can’t get past. And though we had fun at the beginning, we had to break it off before we became too invested and couldn’t.”

“Sounds like a bullshit excuse,” John said, turning from the window.

“Excuse me?”

“You two could make it work.”

Sighing, she leaned back against the chair, tired. “Perhaps. Duncan has to believe it though. You heard him at the house, John. He doesn’t want to be a father, and I very much want to be a mother. That is avery bigdividing point.”

“It will change though.” He rolled closer to her. “If you had told me six months ago I was going to be happy about being a father, I would have laughed in your face.” His eyes drifted to Shannon, and Alex’s heart ached at the love she saw between them. “But now that I know, it’s a very different situation. Yes, I’m paralyzed, but that doesn’t mean I will love them any less.”

Alex swiped at her eyes, unaccountably weepy, and wished she could tell them everything that had gone on over the past week. She needed people in her corner to root for her. It was so hard being alone. Her father was the only family she talked to, and that was usually only when he was stateside. The call the other night had been the first in two months.

Breathing deeply, she set her hurt aside and tried to focus on something else. “Is your paralysis complete?”

John narrowed his eyes at her. “No. It’s an incomplete injury. I still have occasional, spasmodic leg movements. Why?”

Frowning, she debated whether or not to even tell him about what she’d read. If she were in his place she would want to have as much information as possible. “I was on the Denver, Colorado Eastern VA system’s website and one of the research programs are looking for volunteers. It’s a program testing virtual reality training on paralysis patients. Just thought you might want to know.”

John’s face closed down and for just the barest moment she saw a moment of raw need spasm across his expression, but it was gone almost immediately. Without saying anything he wheeled around and returned to the window.

Shannon had tears in her eyes, and Alex could tell she wanted to know more, but perhaps now wasn’t the time.

Tiredness began to drag on Alex, and she had more to do. “Well, I better go. I just wanted to check on you. If you need anything tonight, just give my cell phone a call.”

Leaning forward, she gave Shannon a big hug and was gratified to feel it returned.

“Thank you so much for coming, Alex. They should be releasing me tomorrow. Assumingsomebodylets me go home.” She looked pointedly at John, but he never moved from the window or even looked up.

“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow then. Night.”

Alex let herself out of the room, expecting to see the big guard outside, but he was nowhere to be seen. She headed to the elevator, waving to a few nurses. She pressed the button, wondering if she should drive through and get something to eat before she drove over toward Harmony House. The doors of the elevator slid open, and there stood Duncan.

He had shifted as if to walk out of the elevator, but he stopped when he saw her, his eyes widening. “Alex, what are you doing here?”

All of the pain of the last week… hell, the last month… bubbled up and she wanted to walk into his arms and cry. Instead, she forced herself to take a deep breath. “Hi Duncan. I, uh, came in to see Shannon.”

He glanced down the hallway. “Yeah, I did too. Wait, you came all the way out here to check on her?”

She shifted on her feet. “Well, not just her. Earlier this afternoon I got a call from one of the Harmony House guys. He said he’d seen Aiden.”

Scowling, Duncan stepped out of the elevator to step against the wall. “Who called you?”

“A guy by the name of Chuck,” she told him. “Said he’d seen Aiden on the street this morning, rushing somewhere. I was going to drive around a little and see if anything jumped out at me.”

Duncan frowned, his dark eyes scanning her face. “Did he give you an address?”

“He gave me a general location,” she clarified.

“Okay, let’s go.”

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