Out of the Depths

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

HE HAD TO TALK TO HER. Talk some sense into her. Moving to St. Louis was unacceptable. He had to make her see that.

Chance turned on his heels and broke into a jog down Second Street, nearly flattening his parents in his haste.

“Chance!” His dad grabbed for him, missing. “What the hell are you doing?”

Chance paused. “Gotta catch Kyndal.” He wanted to explain his actions to the unspoken question in his mom’s eyes, but it would have to wait.

“Where’s Alexis? Damn it, Chance, if you’ve blown things with her so soon—”

“She’s in Max’s with Rick and Denise.” Chance started to jog again. His dad yelled something after him, but he let it go.

He retraced the few blocks back to his office quickly and veered into the parking lot, which was empty except for his SUV.

The drive took less than ten minutes, so when he turned onto Kyndal’s street he still was unsure of what to say. A job was of utmost importance to her, and he racked his brain for ideas of where he could help her get one in

Paducah. He knew of nothing that could do justice to her talent, but if they put their heads together, maybe they could come up with something.

He slowed the car as he approached the house. No lights on. No car in the driveway.

Damn it! She hadn’t come home.

Pulling into her driveway, he convinced himself to wait for a little while. Maybe she’d stopped to pick up something on the way. He called her cell phone which went immediately to voice mail. No surprise there.

He waited, the heater warming the car and causing his coat to reek so badly he had to crack his windows.

He tried to ignore it by turning his mind to how gorgeous Kyndal had looked tonight. A fiery blue sapphire amidst an ocean of black. If the circumstances had been different, he would’ve stopped in his tracks as he approached her table and drunk her in. She’d never had cleavage like that before. He smiled, realizing the baby was the cause, but then thoughts of the baby being all the way up in St. Louis pinched his heart. He got out of the car and paced, hoping the cold would clear his mind—and his nose.

When she hadn’t shown up a half hour later, he started to worry.

Where in the hell was she?

Jaci’s.

Bart and Jaci’s house was in a new subdivision several miles away. He backed out of the driveway and started the drive to the other side of town.

* * *

KYNDAL TURNED OFF THE cell phone after declining Chance’s call.

She needed to think without interruption right then, and tonight there was only one place that would afford her that kind of privacy.

She drove down through the floodwall at the foot of Broadway and pulled into a parking space on the banks of the Ohio.

She wasn’t the only one who’d thought of it tonight. Paducahans loved their riverfront, and any time day or night, any season of the year, someone would be parked there just watching the river flow by. Tonight, there were people parked and people strolling—not a huge crowd, but enough to give her a safety-in-numbers security.

She let the car idle, cracked her window and put her seat back far enough to relax. The nausea had passed with the help of a cold bottle of water in her car, and although the embarrassment of throwing up on Chance still stung, she felt oddly calm about the entire situation. No, not calm exactly. Numb.

When the numbness wore off, the guilt of moving the baby away from Chance would eat at her, but in the clarity of the moment, she knew she’d made the right choice.

She was leaving Paducah for good this time. The Brennans could have their world to themselves.

They could go to their cocktail parties and dinners and charity events with society’s elite, and they could all convince themselves they’d found true happiness based on their monetary worth.

And how sad it would be for them at the end when they learned the true secret of life, the secret the baby had taught her.

Worth had nothing to do with money or success.

The child inside her didn’t have a penny, and yet he or she had more worth than everything else combined.

Magazine photographer or toenail fungus photographer—it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she, too, was a person of worth because she carried the most important thing in the world inside her.

She was tired. Mentally and physically exhausted. Tired of believing she wasn’t good enough. Tired of thinking if she’d done something differently she might be accepted. Tired of trying to please people. Tired of trying to force her way into the lives of people who didn’t want her there—and tired of wondering why.

She was a good person—a little on the hardheaded side—but fine the way she was. Her goodness outweighed her flaws by far. She had a deep capacity for love, and she had within her the ability to be a fabulous daughter…daughter-in-law…wife…if she’d been given the opportunity. The people who pushed her out of their lives? It was their loss.

Especially Chance. She loved him, had always loved him, in a way no other person on earth was capable of, yet he chose to not accept that gift because her politics were different or he couldn’t take her for who she truly was? How sad for him. She was worth so much more than he would ever know.

A wave of extreme fatigue washed over her. She had to get home before she fell asleep at the wheel.

And, of course, she would have to call Jaci.

Kyndal shifted her seat upright and buckled her seat belt.

Before driving off, she took one last look at the Ohio River.

Yep, it was still there.

Everything would be okay.

* * *

CHANCE WAS FRANTIC WITH WORRY. Had Kyndal had car trouble—or God forbid, a wreck?

No one was at home at Jaci and Bart’s, and he couldn’t imagine where else Kyndal might’ve gone.

He drove in circles to follow every path she might’ve taken as he headed back across town to her mom’s house, and even called the police station to make sure no collisions had been reported.

When he turned the corner of her street and saw her car in her driveway, his hands trembled in relief and he sent up a quick prayer of thanks.

His intention was to go in and try and talk some sense into her, but all the lights were off, and he hated to disturb her after such a traumatic night. Her stubborn ways wouldn’t allow her to listen to the same old arguments.

He needed a new strategy.

And he needed a shower and a change of clothes because he still reeked of the vomit that clung to his suit.

Most of all, he needed to brush up on Missouri law concerning unwed fathers before he confronted her.

He headed back to his office where he would be able to do all three.

* * *

SITTING AT HIS DESK SOMETIME in the middle of the night, Chance came to a realization that made everything he’d been going through seem ridiculous.

Nothing else meant anything if he lost Kyndal Rawlings. Kyndal was his life.

He’d been trying to convince his brain she wasn’t the woman for him when all along his heart had known she was the only woman for him.

He stared at the plaque on his desk, then read it aloud, his voice echoing through the quiet office. “‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’”

He moved from his desk to the couch and lay down, drifting off to sleep almost instantly with the quote still on his mind.

Kyndal was within his reach. Tomorrow, if he could get her within his grasp, he would know for certain what heaven was for.