His Touch by Patty Blount Read Free Book Online

wouldn’t cry. He couldn’t . He never had. It was like he just…switched off or something since the day he’d lost Erin. He’d never visited her grave. He’d never looked at her picture. He couldn’t bear it.
    Showing you.
    “Well, stop. I can’t .”
    You won’t.
    The image faded and took with it his brother’s comforting presence. His lips trembled but he put his sunglasses on and left the park.
    *
    Late that night, Kara prowled her apartment, cell phone pressed to her face. “Laney, it was like losing Mom all over again…only worse . Impossibly worse. I’m supposed to protect her and I—”
    “Stop, honey. Nadia’s fine and worrying about all the what-ifs will make you crazy.”
    “I can’t!” Kara stood in the hall where the wall was scarred from the toy Nadia had thrown, and peeked in on her sleeping daughter for what had to have been the hundredth time, staring at the steady rise and fall of her tiny chest. Her breathing was noisy and Kara’s stomach dropped. As if today hadn’t been eventful enough.
    “Kara, you’re a wonderful mother—”
    “I’m not, Laney!” Kara flopped on the living room sofa. “I never saw her leave that stroller…God!” A sob cracked her voice. “And now she’s coming down with something.”
    With a bone-deep yearning, Kara wished her mother were there. Mom had been so accurate it was scary. Kara had been nineteen years old, away at college, when her mom had called her the day after she’d lost her virginity. Kara would have blamed Elena for squealing to their mother except she’d never told her sister. Mom had just known.
    “How is she now?”
    Kara wiped away tears. “Asleep but her breathing is loud. She’s almost snoring.”
    “I’m coming over.”
    Through the phone, Kara heard Lucas, her sister’s husband, murmur something. “No, no, Laney, we’re fine. Stay with Luke.”
    “You sure? I can be there in twenty minutes or so.”
    “Yes. I’m sure. It’s almost midnight. I don’t want you riding the PATH train at this hour.”
    “Okay. Call if you need us.”
    Kara tossed her cell phone to the coffee table in front of her sofa and sighed. She’d thought she could do this. She’d really believed she could be a good mother, just like her own mother had been. When Steve bailed after she’d told him she was pregnant, she’d naively thought she could love their baby enough for both of them. But nobody told her that babies came pre-installed with their own little personalities. Even Bree, whose own daughter was now twelve years old, never mentioned how mind-blowing, stomach-churning hard motherhood could be.
    Mom had made it look so easy. She’d worked outside the house, had four children, kept the house and filled their lives with all sorts of enrichment opportunities. Kara had fond memories of dance classes and music lessons, museum trips and scouts. Mom had never lost Elena or one of the boys in a busy department store.
    God, she missed her mother. She stared at her phone and on a whim, tapped the contact still stored but of course, Mom’s number had long since been disconnected or reassigned or retired or whatever the wireless companies did with dead numbers.
    Dead . The word almost choked her. She was about to toss the phone down, when the list of alerts caught her attention. She scrolled through the reminders and cursed out loud.
    She’d forgotten all about Ronald T. Saxon. He’d called earlier.
    Twice.
    “Oh, Mom,” she said on a sob. Kara covered her face and let the tears fall.
    She must have dozed. She jolted back to awareness, found herself curled on one end of the sofa, heart pounding and head full. Something had awakened her. She listened, heard only the hum of the building. She shifted, deciding her bed was more comfortable than the sofa. She took one more peek at her daughter and heard it. A bark. Her baby was gasping for air, every breath whistling in the quiet night.
    Kara grabbed her from the crib, strode to the bathroom,