Deadly Secrets (20 page)

No, they were over. She’d wanted it over, or she’d thought she had. Would he really want her back? She’d ended it, and if she missed them, then . . . then what?

Work it out?

No, they were over. He hadn’t even mentioned to anyone in his family about their marriage. Did she need more proof than that?

But he’d come to her, how many times? Had tried to talk her into coming to D.C. a couple of times, but so what?

No, they were over. She’d made that decision. As her mother used to say, she’d made her bed, so she had to lie in it.

God, it hurt more than she thought it would. But it was for the best, wasn’t it? She’d been down that road and there was no way she was going to go down it again, wanting a man, a life, while he hid that life they were building from a prominent family.

Her sessions at the Retreat were working out great. Weather was perfect. Her new house was just her size, her landlords were wonderful.

And her realtor from New Orleans had called to tell her someone wanted her house for the asking price.

She’d be dumb not to take it, so she’d told the man to sell it and gave him her lawyer’s contact information to finish the sale. She didn’t want to mess with any of it.

One more stress to worry about.

One more.

The house.

Her failed marriage—again.

And now?

Now she’d passed out during the evening session of yoga. One of the girls had hurried to get a nurse—Lisa.

Lisa’s questions had tumbled over each other as she’d helped Ella to a chair. The women had all been worried. Ella had a time of it convincing them she was okay. They’d all wanted her to stay tonight.

But one question Lisa had asked her rolled in her brain, over and over.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Of course not!” she’d told Lisa.

“Dr. Radcliffe can run a blood test tomorrow if you want.”

She’d shaken her head. “My eating habits have been off. Stress.” She’d waved them all off and apologized for having to cut the class short. Laughing, she’d told them, “And that’s why it’s very, very important that your head is the last thing to come up. If you stand too quickly from a couple of the poses, you could end up sprawled on the ground like me.”

Several of the women laughed. Lisa merely leveled a look at her and walked her to her car.

“I’m staying out here tonight. Call me if you need anything. And I’m telling the docs on you.”

“I’m fine.”

“We take care of our own. We all like you, Ella. Call me when you get home.”

Just as she’d climbed into her car, Lisa added, “Go buy a pregnancy test. If you’ve had sex in the last couple of months you could be pregnant. Nothing is one hundred percent, you know, says so on all the damned boxes.”

She’d rolled her eyes.

She wasn’t rolling them now.

Now she was standing in the aisle of the local Albertsons Market in Taos wondering what to do.

Could she be?

No.

They’d used protection just about every time they’d made love—well, there were those totally blank hours of Vegas.

Just about
were probably the operative words here.

Her appetite had been all over the board, hungry and starving or just flat-out sick to her stomach. But mostly, she was hungry. She turned down another aisle. Feminine products lined the shelves. Ella jerked. When was the last time . . . ?

She hadn’t felt very good for weeks but figured it was stress. It
had
to be stress. Just stress. Stress of her and Quinlan, not sleeping well, being tired anyway, moving, a new job, selling the house . . .

But then last week she started to get her appetite back without the nausea so much, which made no sense, but she felt like she was eating all the time. At least when she wasn’t working. She made a tub of trail mix earlier in the week and it was almost gone. She normally only had to make it a couple of times a month.

When was the last time . . .

Really? Before Vegas . . . Before Quin. And her doctor had started her on those new pills, which she hadn’t refilled right away. So her periods were a bit stretched and off, so what? That was nothing new and the whole reason she’d gotten on the things to begin with years ago.

She wasn’t . . .

She couldn’t be . . .

Stress. It was just stress. Her hands shook.

She stood there staring at tampons and pads, her heart thundering in her ears. Slowly, she pushed the cart farther down the aisle. Condoms.

Yeah, hadn’t used those a couple of times.

Oh no, her pills would be fine.

She should have started soon after Vegas like the next week or so. She had spotted, she remembered that, but nothing major, and she wrote it off as the new pills. The doctor had even warned her that the switch in pills could lead to irregular periods the first few months. She’d started the new pack the next month. God knew her and Quin did it enough when he came to see her. And she didn’t remember what all they did in Vegas. That weekend was still a blur.

Oh God.

And then she’d taken this job and moved and . . .

And . . .

There wasn’t anything else.

Oh God.

Pregnancy tests seemed to wave at her from the shelf.

No.

No.

No.

But she took a deep breath and reached a trembling hand out and picked one up.

Which one? The blue one? The pink one? The cheap one?

Ella just grabbed one and then reached back and grabbed another. And then two others.

She didn’t remember finishing her shopping or how exactly she got home. Thank God she didn’t have to teach any other classes tonight.

She was late.

She couldn’t be late. She was never late. You couldn’t technically be late if your hormones were so screwed up that you weren’t even regular on the damned pill.

Oh God.

Somehow she made it into the house. She left the groceries on the counter and dug out the bag with the tests.

Taking a deep breath, she simply stared at them.

Her phone rang. She started to let it go to voice mail but then noticed it was her elderly landlords across the street.

“Hello?”

“Hi, dear, it’s Carmine. Herb and I wanted to see if you’d eaten, and if not, we have plenty. Come on over.”

Ella smiled. “I’d love to, Mrs. Richardson, but I’m really wiped tonight. I think I’m just going to take a bath and then hit the bed. I have a sunup class out at the Nursery tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, I forget you got that other job too. Honey, you need a man, not another job.”

“Mrs. Richardson, in my experience, men are basically three other jobs.” And the root of much stress.

They hung up laughing.

Reality crashed back down.

“Can’t hide from the truth.” She took the boxes and went back to her bathroom.

Now what that truth would be . . . well, she was about to find out.

Chapter 14

Taos, May

Pregnant. She was pregnant.

Two pink lines. Actually eight, as there were two little sticks in each box and she took them all, stretched out over one weekend. Sure that the one before had to be wrong. Positive that there must be a mistake and the next morning or evening the new one would give her a different answer.

Nope. No such luck.

Dr. Radcliffe had confirmed it. They were currently waiting on blood work to make sure that everything was fine. She had been terrified that her taking her pills would have an adverse effect on the baby.

The doctor assured her that her low dose of estrogen would not harm the baby.

Maybe he just told her that.

Almost three months along.

She’d heard her baby’s heartbeat.

Oh God. That fast little swish-wish sound echoed in her soul. She’d been terrified, shocked and . . . and . . . thrilled. Utterly thrilled.

“You had no idea?” Dr. Radcliffe had asked with raised bushy gray brows and a grin.

She’d shaken her head, looking again at the monitor to the little blob on there. “No. None. I’m not the most regular person. I spotted and thought it was just a short period. The new pills I started late and with everything, the move and what all not, I just . . . No.” Wow.

“Well, from measurements and your best guess, I’d say you’re about three months along.” His eyes leveled at her. “You need to eat more and we’ll get you started on prenatal vitamins.”

She could only shake her head and reach for Lisa’s hand. Lisa squeezed it. “Congratulations, Mom.”

Then Ella frowned at the screen and said softly, “I had a miscarriage before. Years ago.”

The doctor put the little sonogram wand away and wiped the clear gel off her lower abdomen. “How many years ago and how far along were you?”

She thought back. “Oh, back when I was in college, about seven years ago, and I wasn’t this far along.”

He lifted one big shoulder. “These things happen. There’s nothing I can see that you should be worried about.”

They’d talked more, he’d answered the questions she’d had that day, Lisa had answered others, and Dr. Merchant had answered yet more when he’d told her congratulations a few days later.

A few days ago, when yet another issue arose in her life before she’d figured out what the hell to do about her current mess.

So here she sat in the courtyard of this coffee shop. Waiting.

Ella sat back, hoping she appeared more relaxed than she felt. Her legs were crossed and she couldn’t stop her right foot from swinging. A habit her mother had tried to break her of, telling her ladies sat still.

Whatever.

Like she could sit still. A local FBI agent had contacted her and wanted to meet with her.

Ella waited and thought,
As if I don’t have enough problems right now?

The FBI? Why did they want to talk to her? What had she done? Sure she’d downloaded a couple of songs from that one website and then her freaking computer died. She figured that was karma for her. Her mother taught her not to steal, and the one time she had, though everyone probably did it at least once, her computer died. No more after that. A song cost less than a dollar—a new laptop, considerably more. Hell, even trying to get the thing fixed cost more than the stupid songs would have.

So what did the feds want with her?

She hadn’t done anything, at least nothing that she knew of.

The smells of coffee wafted from inside the coffee shop out into the little courtyard.

The man who’d spoken to her yesterday knew she liked to come here and wanted to meet her here to discuss something.

Considering it was a public place, and the fact he was a federal agent, she supposed she should.

Her hands trembled. Did everyone always feel this nervous around cops? Were FBI agents technically cops? Law enforcement, so yeah, they probably were cops. Super cops! God, her mind could not stay on track these days.

She put her hands over her thickening stomach. How could she not know she was pregnant? Granted, she’d heard of women going into labor and claiming not to have known they were pregnant. She’d always known they were nut jobs. But for her?

She thought she knew her body pretty damned well.

Apparently not.

So here she sat. In a new place, with her new job, about to talk to the feds about God only knew what, and she was pregnant.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Time to focus on what was around her before she stressed herself out to the point she puked.

Taos was slushy today. Cars splashed by on the street. There had been a late snow. Who would have thought? Wrapped in her jacket and scarf she was fine. The locals—one of which she was not yet, or didn’t consider herself—sat in shorts, hiking shoes, and a fleece jacket. She’d be frozen. Her body was still used to New Orleans weather and mild winters. This was cold by any of her standards. The day was still overcast and it had been drizzly this morning.

Checking her watch, she bounced her foot. When was he going to get here? Agent Jareaux. Like off that crime show she’d seen a couple of times until she had nightmares. Bad things in the brain left bad nights for her. So she tended to steer clear of things that would bother her.

Like commitment? Marriage? Calling the father of her baby and letting him know?

A foot scuffed along the flagstone and she turned.

There he stood, had to be. He was serious, and his eyes scanned the entire place.

Dark hair, not too tall, not too short. Just normal. Well, normal with the exception that even though he had on jeans he still had a button-down on with a jacket. But she supposed he couldn’t just walk around with a gun strapped on. This was New Mexico, but it wasn’t the old west. She took a sip of her chai. Then again, she knew ranchers around here had rifles in their trucks and plenty of people had their concealed licenses. Hell, they ran ads for the latter in the paper. She shook her head.