On the Line (3 page)

He held up a picture showing a police car in front of the house Janelle had shared
with him. Her heart slowed. Beside it he held up a photograph of a police car in
front of Kelsey’s house and Janelle’s heart stopped completely.

He wouldn’t.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Officer Nathan Harris, one of our trusted boys in blue has
been taking his job description a little too seriously. It seems he thought he needed
to protect and serve my wife, and he did it quite thoroughly. If I was a betting
man, I would put money on him being little Zoe’s father.”

He did.

And it was worse than Janelle had expected.

“What did he just say?” Nathan’s voice floated to her on a wave of nausea.

Janelle slowly turned her head to the thundercloud that was his face.

“Oh no,” she heard Kelsey mutter from across the room.

This wasn’t going to end well.

Two

Janelle stood frozen to the floor in the middle of her sister’s hospital room, trying
to ignore the rushing of blood from her head to her feet. It would figure that her
recently deceased, formerly soon-to-be-ex-husband would find one more way to throw
a monkey wrench into her life. She couldn’t believe she’d just heard him announce
to the world that she’d had an affair. She hadn’t been aware that he’d even known
about it.

“I think I need to sit down,” a voice sounding a lot like hers whispered into the
room.

“Patrick, give her a chair,” Kelsey said quietly, and he promptly rose from his seat
on the bed next to her.

Janelle looked up, met her sister’s emerald-green gaze, and slowly made her way around
the foot of Kelsey’s hospital bed. Patrick gently took her elbow and helped her toward
the chair, then sat back down on the edge of the bed next to Kelsey.

“Janelle, are you okay?” Kelsey asked.

Janelle nodded as she lowered herself onto the seat.

“Janelle,” Nathan said sternly from the foot of the bed, staring at Janelle with
his arms folded across his chest. “What did that bastard just say?”

“Nathan, I think we all heard him.” Patrick glanced warningly at Nathan as he put
his palms up. “Give her time.”

“Stay out of this. I want to know if what he said was true,” Nathan snapped and Janelle
looked at him. His hazel eyes held a mixture of rage and betrayal. His rounded jaw
was clenched tight and his thick, dark-brown eyebrows came together over his straight
nose.

Janelle felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She hadn’t wanted him to find out this
way, but until the divorce was finalized, she hadn’t wanted to tell
him the truth.
And it hadn’t been an easy thing to keep from him. After Richard attacked Kelsey
during Patrick’s visit in December, Patrick had all but hired Nathan to keep watch
over her family. He’d been around almost every day. She’d watched him play with and
interact with his daughter, not even knowing Zoe was his. But the opportunity to
tell him the truth had never presented itself.

“Yes,” Janelle whispered. “Zoe is yours.”

“Are you sure?” Nathan said.

“Hey,” Kelsey snapped. “If she tells you Zoe is yours, then Zoe is yours. How dare
you doubt her?”

“Kels, it’s okay.” Janelle squeezed her sister’s fingers.

When Kelsey had found herself pregnant in college, her boyfriend at the time, Tim,
had questioned the baby’s paternity. She knew Nathan’s reaction must remind Kelsey
of the way Tim had reacted to finding out about her pregnancy with Zach. And she
understood better now the disbelief and nausea her sister must have felt because
of Tim’s words.

“It’s not okay. That has to be one of the most hurtful things a man can ask a woman,”
Kelsey practically spat at Nathan.

“How could I not ask?” Nathan held his hands out to his side. “Zoe is almost three,
and this is the first I’ve heard about it.” He looked at Janelle again. “I asked
you point blank when you were pregnant if you were carrying my child. You lied to
me. How could you do that? How could you keep her from me?”

“Nathan, I was married to Richard, I had no other choice,” Janelle said.

“Really? No other choice? How about leaving him as soon as you found out we were
expecting a baby?” Nathan opened his mouth and promptly closed it again. Janelle
felt her stomach churn. “Did you know before you ended things with me?”

A tear fell down Janelle’s cheek before she dipped her head. Nathan stepped back
like she’d slapped him, his lip curling as his eyes widened.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Janelle’s bottom lip trembled as he turned away from her.
“Nathan, I wanted to tell you. I just never had the nerve.”

“In the past three years, you didn’t have the nerve to tell me? What about every
day for the past three months, Janelle? I guess you thought I hadn’t missed enough
time with
my daughter
? I guess you thought it was okay for
her to think that monster
husband of yours was her father?” Nathan growled as he came closer.

Patrick rose to stand between them.

Nathan’s angry stare never left Janelle’s face. “I thought I meant something to you.
I thought we finally had a chance, Janelle. How could you do this to me? To us?”

His words ripped through her, tearing into her chest as tears slid down her cheeks.
He made her sound so cruel and selfish.

Kelsey held her hand up to stop Nathan from coming any closer. “Patrick, I need to
talk to my sister,” she said sweetly. “Alone.”

Janelle laid her forehead on the mattress of the bed.

“Kelsey, you know I don’t want to leave this room,” Patrick said, almost pleadingly.

“I’m not going anywhere until I have answers,” Nathan argued.

Janelle heard the rattle of frustration in Kelsey’s exhale.

“Patrick,” Kelsey said slowly, “I’m not going anywhere. We just need to have some
girl time.”

“You hadn’t even told your sister about us, had you?” Nathan’s voice was taut with
his anger.

Janelle shook her head.

“Well, I guess that tells me how you really felt, thanks,” Nathan snapped and sounded
farther away.

A few more tears fell onto the bedsheet.

“Patrick, I need to talk to you anyway and get a statement about yesterday’s events.”

“Fine, let’s get this over with,” Patrick mumbled. Janelle felt the bed shift and
heard the quick little kiss Kelsey gave Patrick then listened as the men left the
room. She heard the door latch and felt Kelsey’s hand on the back of her head, stroking
it soothingly as they remained quiet.

After a while, Kelsey patted Janelle’s head twice and took her hand away. When Janelle
sat up, Kelsey looked at her hands in her lap, her brow furrowed. “Do you remember
when I told you about the script for the movie I was considering doing with Patrick?”

Janelle nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

“I told you that I hated the idea of my character, a married woman,
having an affair
with a married man.” Kelsey looked at Janelle and her head dipped again. “Do you
remember what you said to me about that?”

The corner of Janelle’s mouth lifted slightly. “I believe I said that sometimes life
doesn’t happen the way you expect it to, especially where love is concerned. And
that sometimes it gets messy and isn’t as perfect as you want it to be . . .”

“. . . and neither are people,” Kelsey finished for her, and they both nodded and
smiled. Kelsey quickly sobered. “All this time I thought you were talking about Richard,
but you weren’t, were you?”

Janelle moved her head from side to side and looked away.

“Oh, J,” Kelsey sighed as she held a tissue to her sister.

Janelle took it and dabbed at her eyes before blowing her runny nose. What did her
sister think of her now? She’d always tried to be a good role model for Kelsey while
being someone she would feel comfortable coming to whenever she had a problem. Would
this change Kelsey’s opinion of her?

“You know this is probably all my fault, right?” Kelsey said.

Janelle’s head snapped around to look at her sister. Kelsey’s expression was completely
serious, but there was a mischievous gleam in her eye. Janelle was reminded of their
brother, who had died when he was in college. “Your eyes sparkle like Sean’s used
to when he was up to something.”

Kelsey grinned widely. “You really think so?”

Janelle tried not to laugh at her sister’s obvious appreciation of the comparison.
“What do you mean this is probably all your fault? You weren’t here when I had the
affair.”

“Exactly.” Kelsey pointed her index finger at Janelle.

“Are you doped up?” Janelle asked. “You seem too easily amused by this.”

Kelsey’s head turned away and Janelle watched as her eyes followed the tube from
the needle in her arm and to the bag of saline solution. Janelle’s eyes narrowed
speculatively on the bag, and she studied it. It didn’t look like there were additional
meds attached to it, but Janelle had no idea what the nurse may have given Kelsey
before she’d entered the room.

Kelsey shrugged as she turned to face Janelle. “Possibly,” she stated. “And, no,
I don’t think this is funny.”

“Then how are you to blame for this? This has nothing to do with you.”

“My lack of presence or involvement has never stopped our mother from
blaming things
on me before, why would she stop now?” Kelsey raised an eyebrow.

Janelle stared at Kelsey as the room began to spin.
Oh goodness
, she had almost forgotten
about her mother.

“Exactly,” Kelsey said and laid her hand on Janelle’s arm. “So, I’d like to know
what I’m taking the credit, or blame, for.” Kelsey lay back against her pillow.

Janelle sighed and leaned into the back of the chair. She let her mind drift to the
time before the affair. After a bit of reflection, she looked at Kelsey and smiled.
“You know, if Mom wants to blame anyone for the affair, she should start with herself.”

“Why’s that?” Kelsey tried to roll to her side, grimaced, and stopped where she was.

“When Zach was about six months old, Richard started to stay at work later and later,
and I reached a breaking point. I called her and asked her if she could come over
so I could take a shower and clean the house a bit. Do you know what she said?”

Kelsey slowly shook her head.

“She said that I’d made the decision to take on the responsibility of your child
without asking for her advice, so now I could deal with it without her help.”

Kelsey’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding. I thought she’d gotten over that after Zach
was born?”

“Only when you were around. She wanted you to think that everything was just fine
without you here.” Janelle crossed her arms and slid into her seat a bit.

“Figures,” Kelsey mumbled. “So what happened next?”

“I dealt with it the best I could, but the house was still always a mess, Zach was
starting to get into everything, Richard was later and later coming home and starting
to smell like alcohol when he did, and I was exhausted. Just before Zach’s first
birthday, Nathan’s mom, Nancy, stopped by the house to see the baby and to chat.
The house was filthy, I hadn’t showered, and Zach was fighting a nap when she got
there, so I almost didn’t let her in.” Janelle looked up at the white ceiling tiles
and smiled a little. “And, as usual, she pushed her way in, without being pushy about
it. And when she saw the
house and my appearance, she gave me a hug, took Zach from
me, and told me to go take a shower.”

“I always liked her.”

Janelle nodded her agreement. Having grown up with Nathan and his two younger brothers,
Janelle, Kelsey, and their brother Sean had spent their fair share of time as children
with Nancy Harris. She didn’t have daughters and she’d always doted on the Morgan
girls. If she knew the girls were coming, she’d bake cookies for them, and if they
surprised her with a visit, they’d bake with her. Janelle could still remember occasionally
wishing Nancy were her mother and would sometimes escape to Nancy’s house for cookies
and tea without Mary’s knowledge.

“Do you know what I did first?” Janelle asked with a laugh. “I cried,” she answered
soberly. “I cried, and she wrapped me up in a big hug, let me get it out, then shooed
me away for my shower and told me to take as long as I wanted. When I got out, she
had Zach asleep on a blanket on the floor in the living room as she picked up around
him. While she did that, I cleaned up the kitchen, and when we were done we sat on
the couch, had coffee and cookies, and just talked. She reassured me that every first
baby is a difficult adjustment, but I’d get the hang of it.”

“That’s awesome,” Kelsey said. “So, how did that lead to an affair with Nathan? I’m
sure she didn’t just bring him over one day and say ‘Hey, let my son help fill your
needs while I babysit.’”

“You’re horrible!” Janelle said as she suppressed a slight smile and Kelsey simply
shrugged. “If I had a pillow, I’d throw it at you.”

Kelsey pulled a pillow from under her head and held it out to her sister. “Just be
careful, the nurse is really scary.”

Janelle took the pillow and swatted her with it as Kelsey re-settled herself, wincing
slightly.

“It was nothing like that. It’s hard to explain, really. It’s just that she began
to come over every two days or so, she’d help me straighten up and then we’d just
chat. She’d catch me up on local gossip and I’d keep her updated on you. Nathan and
Mason even started calling me if they were looking for her or stopping by on their
lunch break to see her if they knew she was there. Even when Dad would come over,
he’d chat with her like it was normal for her to be there.” Janelle placed the pillow
behind her head as she laid it on the back
of the chair. “One day, probably three
months later or so, I was in the middle of trying to fix the garbage disposal when
she showed up. It was something I’d been after Richard to do, so of course it hadn’t
gotten done. She called Nathan.”