Letters Home by Rebecca Brooke Read Free Book Online Page B

day finally broke free. I’d gotten some sleep the night before—well, as much I could with Nate sleeping next to me. Tina must have seen it out of the corner of her eye because she turned toward me. “Look, we’ve been at this all day. Let’s take a break and look at everything again on Monday. I know there’s something in here that will help us win full custody, but we’ll never find it with tired eyes.”
    “All right, I think my brain has absorbed all it can for the day,” I said, standing up to stretch. We’d been working on the case for two weeks straight. Tina figured the divorce would be the easier of the two problems so after the first two days we’d moved onto the custody of the children, which was an entirely different scenario. Where our client and his soon-to-be ex-wife had invested equally in the monetary portion of the case, when it came to the children that wasn’t the case because their mother was almost never home, and didn’t really seem to care about her children—only about the status they provided her. This was the reason I became a lawyer in the first place. I loathed a system that placed children with their mothers simply because they were “the mother,” even if there was overwhelming evidence that they were not the better parent. Someone had to stand up for those kids.
    “You’ve been great these past two weeks. I think we both need a couple of days to process all of the information. What are your plans for the weekend?”
    “Probably more wedding stuff. Nate’s on duty this weekend so I’m gonna take advantage and get my dress shopping done. What about you?” We collected the paperwork and placed it in the correct files.
    “Oh, that’ll be fun. The kids and I are spending the weekend at my sister’s in Atlanta.”
    “I’m sure your nieces are getting so big by now.”
    “Yeah. I can’t wait to see them.”
    Once everything had been put away we collected our bags and made our way to the door. It was long past quitting time but the end of summer sun was still in the sky, turning the clouds beautiful hues of pinks and oranges. “Have a great weekend, Tina. I’ll see you Monday,” I said, before turning off and heading in the direction of my car.
    “You too, Danielle.” Tina smiled and unlocked her door.
    When I pulled into the parking lot I noticed Nate’s car immediately. It was late, but it was still early for how much Nate had been working the last week. It was a little crazy how many hours he’d put in, and that was the main reason I’d stayed at work so late on a Friday. The apartment could get kind of lonely at night.
    Opening the door, I noticed that something just wasn’t right. The lights were on, but the house was silent, Nate nowhere to be seen. My mind raced as put my keys down, trying to figure out what was going on. I listened for the running of the shower, thinking maybe Nate had come home and jumped right in, but the place was eerily quiet. When I walked farther into the living room, I looked down the hall and noticed the light underneath the door to our bedroom. Reaching out to the doorknob, my muscles tightened, a little wary of what I might find on the other side. But I pushed it open anyway, bracing for what was on the other side.
    Nate was sitting on the edge of the bed, his arms resting on his legs, his head in his hands. The silence was deafening and I was shocked he hadn’t heard me open the door.
    “Nate?”
    He sighed and let his shoulders drop, but when his head lifted up to meet my gaze I ran over and dropped to my knees in front of him, the redness around his eyes telling me he’d been crying.
    “What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked in a state of panic.
    “Dani…” He pulled me into his arms and buried his face in my hair.
    In an attempt to comfort him and get him to tell me what was wrong, I rubbed my hands up and down his back, but after a few minutes like this and he still hadn’t said anything my stomach began to