LITMIR.BIZ

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      She raised an eyebrow. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Honestly, you never know what you’ll find at Treasures.”

      Like dust? Falling apart old junk even its owner didn’t want? The painting had to be an exception. “Well, why don’t we head over there? We can talk there or not talk there and just keep each other occupied until the call comes from the hospital lab. I could use a few cups of coffee. At some point later I’ll drive you back to the clinic to pick up your car.”

      Forty-five minutes later Liam pulled into a spot in front of Treasures. As they got out of the car, Shelby taking out Shane, and Liam taking out Alexander, he saw Shelby craning her neck to look down Main Street.

      “I can just make out the Minnow sisters heading into the library,” she said. “They’re easy to spot since they always walk three across the sidewalk. They must have waited all this time for me and gave up.”

      As she opened the door with an ornate gold key, he realized he actually had been in the shop once before with Clara. His cousin had insisted on dragging him along to find a present for her mother, who despite being Liam’s dear aunt, was the biggest snob alive. Liam hadn’t thought his aunt would want anything from a secondhand shop, but the next time he’d seen her, she’d been wearing the brooch that Clara had insisted she’d love. It’s antique, it’s history, it has a story, Clara had insisted. Who knows where the brooch has been, what love story it was part of. It’s so romantic!

      It’s so...used, was what Liam had thought. He appreciated the shiny and new. But hey, if it worked for his cousin and aunt, all the better for Shelby, now that he actually knew the shop’s owner.

      “I’ll keep the shade drawn on the door and the closed sign hanging,” she said as they stepped inside. “I hate to disappoint my customers or keep new ones away, but I can’t open the store. Not in my frame of mind.”

      “I know what you mean,” he said, scooting Alexander a bit higher in his arms. The baby snuggled against his leather jacket. “I had a day full of meetings, including a very important one. I canceled everything and delegated what I could.” His cousin had been incredulous when he let her know he was counting on her to seal the deal on the Kenyon Corp acquisition, that he had full faith in her. Incredulous that he was skipping the meeting and that he believed in her so much; that part of their relationship had never really been tested before.

      “What the hell could be so important that you’d miss the negotiation?” Clara had asked when he’d called her after dropping off Shelby and Shane at the hospital entrance. He’d let Shelby know he’d park and meet her after alerting his office he’d be out for the day.

      “I can’t talk about it right now, Clara. Just knock them dead.”

      “Oh, I will. Hope everything’s okay.”

      “Talk to you in a few hours,” he’d said and ended the call, which he knew would worry her, but his very focused cousin would set her mind to the negotiating and nothing else and she’d do great. She’d burn up his phone later and ring his doorbell until he answered later, though. Of that he had no doubt. To both tell him about the meeting and to hear what had kept him from it. But he had no idea when he’d be ready to talk about what was going on. If he’d talk about it.

      He turned his attention to the stuffed shop, every table, every bit of space, taken up by things, from lamps to flower pots and vases to cases of jewelry to paintings and knickknacks of every kind imaginable. There was a bookcase of old, leather-bound classics and an entire table full of various teapots with little cups and saucers.

      He glanced up at the wall near the shop’s entrance. “Look, Alexander, it’s a cuckoo clock. The little bird is about to come out because it’s almost the half hour.” He walked a bit closer and as the clock chimed that it was 1:30 p.m., a gold bird with a red beak popped out.

      Alexander giggled and pointed.

      “Cuckoo,” Liam said. “Cuckoo!” Yup, this whole thing was cuckoo, all right.

      Alexander giggled, and Liam smiled, snuggling his little boy close.

      She smiled. “Fatherhood agrees with you.”

      He looked at Alexander, the little boy he loved more than anything on earth. “Alexander changed my life. For the good.”

      “Must have been hard, though, going from Wedlock Creek’s most prized eligible bachelor to the father of an infant. On your own.”

      “It was. I guess I was too shocked to pay attention to how hard it was and just went day by day. But every night, when I’d be up with Alexander at two and four a.m., the house dead quiet except for his tiny burp after having his bottle, I was just overtaken by devotion. By a sense of responsibility to this little life I helped create.”

      She bit her lip and looked at him, then set Shane down in a bouncy seat behind the counter and handed him a teething ring in the shape of a rabbit. “With this...new information, I hate to put him down, for him to be out of arm’s reach for even a moment, but honestly, he’s getting big. He’s eighteen pounds now.”

      Liam smiled. “So’s Alexander.” He glanced at Shane, watching the little stuffed animals twirl around on the mobile attached to the bouncer. “This is some mess, huh? Everything we thought we know about our lives is suddenly turned upside down.”

      She was staring at Shane, and he could see tears glistening in her eyes. He wanted to hold her, to tell her they’d get through this, somehow, that they’d get through it together. But what comfort would that be? They were practically strangers.

      The light shining through the windows caught on her blond hair and the side of her delicate face, and she looked so alone and lost that he reached out and took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. I’m not the enemy, the squeeze was supposed to say. But yeah, this sucks.

      She looked up at him, surprise crossing her pretty face, and she squeezed back.

      “I have another bouncer if you want a breather yourself,” she said.

      “Sure.”

      She disappeared into a back room and returned with a yellow bouncer with a stars and moon mobile. Alexander pointed at it.

      “You like it?” Liam asked the baby. “Let’s get you settled in it next to your buddy, Shane.”

      He put Alexander in the bouncer, buckling the little harness, and turned the reclining seat so that the boys could see each other. He stood and came back around the counter when Shelby’s phone rang.

      She glanced at the cuckoo clock. “It’s only one forty-five. Could that be the hospital lab?” Her phone rang again, but she seemed frozen in place. On the third ring she grabbed it from her tote bag. “Shelby Ingalls speaking.”

      “It’s them,” she mouthed to him, the phone against her ear. He watched her listen, her eyes full of hope. Tell me what I want to hear, those eyes beseeched. But then the light went out of the green depths, and she clearly couldn’t contain the sob that rose from inside her.

      She croaked out a “Thank you for calling,” then put the phone down on a table next to a teapot, her eyes welling, anguish dropping her to her knees on the circular rug.

      “Oh, no,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. Oh, no. No.

      She burst into tears. “It’s official. Shane is not my son.”

       Chapter Three

      Liam rushed over and knelt down beside her. He put his arm around her. “I’m so sorry, Shelby.”

      “It has to be true, then,” she said. “The hospital switched the babies. How else could this have happened?”

      Intellectually, he was beginning to believe it. In his heart, though, Alexander West Mercer was his son. Plain and simple.

      Except

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