Marriage in Jeopardy. Anna Adams

squeezed her hand but turned to the nurse. “My daughter-in-law’s lips are cracking. Can you get her something?” Her voice rasped as if she’d been yelling.

      “How long have you been here?” Lydia had assumed this was the same day, but her mother-in-law looked tired and worn.

      “I’ll bring you both something to drink.” The nurse gave the machines a last look as she backed toward the door. “Mrs. Quincy, you’re in good shape. Your doctor will be in to see you—well, I can’t say for sure when—but you don’t need to worry.”

      Not worry? She had to be nuts.

      “What happened after she hit me, Evelyn?”

      Josh’s mother splayed her fingers into short red curls that were flat on one side from her long stint in the chair. “I’ll tell you what we know.” Weariness veined her eyes. She stole a glance at her watch. “Unless you want me to find Josh,” she said again.

      This woman who never cried on the principle that tears were weakness had cried a lot. Lydia brushed a teardrop off her own cheek.

      “He’s not here. Explain what happened to my baby. I remember being at the courthouse.” An architect, she’d been hired to help restore it to eighteenth-century splendor. She’d visited that day only to discuss a change with the contractor. “I was leaving.” At a new wave of sorrow, she pressed her palms to her stomach again. “How long have I been here?” How many days had she been alive instead of her son, who’d never had a chance to live?

      “Three days.” Evelyn wiped her face with the hem of her cotton shirt. “You’ve been awake now and then.”

      “I don’t remember.” But bursts of pain and light and that damn machine bleating ran through her mind. “Who was she?”

      “Vivian Durance. I lost her husband’s case.” Josh’s voice, thick with sorrow, made Lydia and Evelyn look toward the doorway. He stood, frozen.

      His words didn’t register. She drank him in, desperate, because he was the only one who could really understand. Tall and aloof-looking—as always, when he felt most emotional—he stared at her, guilt in his brown-black eyes. Tight dark curls stood on end as if he’d yanked at his hair to punish himself.

      “I’ll wait outside,” Evelyn said, and she passed Josh without looking at him.

      He stepped aside to avoid his mother’s touch.

      After the door closed, he crossed to the bed, unsure of his welcome. Lydia held out her arms. With a sigh, his eyes beginning to redden, he caught her, his arms rough. She flinched.

      “I’m sorry.” He eased up a little, but when he buried his face in her shoulder, his breathing was jagged. “I’m sorry.”

      His remorse forced the truth to sink in. “Vivian Durance is married to one of your clients?”

      She’d been afraid of this, a low-grade fear, like a fever she’d never managed to get over. About two weeks after their wedding, the first threat from an unsatisfied client had arrived in the form of red paint thrown across their town house’s door. The client’s father had also slipped a red-stained note through the letter box. “If my son goes to prison, you die,” it read, and it was written with so much rage, the words almost ripped the paper.

      Josh had repainted the door, chucked the note away and reassured her that all attorneys, even public defenders, occasionally received threats. Two years later another client had met him on the courthouse steps. Everyone who’d seen the man on the stand knew his own testimony had sealed a guilty verdict. Nevertheless, the man had blamed Josh, screaming until the cops had dragged him away.

      Three more years had passed, but Lydia had never again felt entirely safe.

      “Did you know she was coming after us? What did she say to you?” Lydia tried not to blame him, but the words begged to be said.

      “Nothing.” He leaned back. “She screamed at the court in general.”

      “What aren’t you telling me?”

      He shook his head, but his eyes were blank. He was hiding something.

      Furiously, she bit down on the words, but she couldn’t help herself. “Third time’s the charm, I guess. Someone finally got to us.”

      “That’s what I was afraid of,” he said, his calm dignified—and infuriating. “That you’d blame me.”

      “Our baby didn’t have to die.”

      “I am sorry.” His lips barely moved. She’d loved his mouth, full, moist, capable of giving her pleasure that was almost pain. That was the physical part of their marriage. Nothing else about living together had come easy. “I’m not hiding anything,” he said. “The truth was bad enough.”

      She stared, unable to speak. He was in shock, too, which exaggerated his guilt. It couldn’t be all his fault.

      “I lost Carter Durance’s capital case. After the police caught her, Vivian said she felt someone I loved needed to die, too.” Josh stated the facts without defending himself. “I tried everything I could think of to save the man, but he wasn’t crazy or innocent enough.”

      Lydia pushed her fists into her eyes. His flat tone hurt most of all.

      “Lydia?” He’d said her name a million times, but never before had it sounded like begging.

      “I have nothing more to give.” This Vivian had taken everything. “Why do you have to defend guilty people?”

      Pain rippled across his face. “You know why. Almost everyone I defend grew up the way I did. I made better choices, but do you know how many times I see myself and my parents in my clients?”

      She didn’t answer. He hadn’t mentioned his sister. Clara was the one he couldn’t stop trying to save. She’d drowned in the family’s filthy swimming pool while his parents had lain unconscious, too drunk to know they were alive, much less that their daughter had died.

      Josh couldn’t forgive his parents or himself, though he’d been at school when it had happened. Now he was compelled to rescue all the poor, defenseless Claras.

      “You aren’t like them,” she said. “You’ll never drink the way your parents did. You can stop serving penance.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I deserved better and so did our baby.”

      “Wait.” He tried to cradle her chin, but she turned her head, and he flinched as if she’d hit him. “Some of my clients are innocent. Even the guilty ones have rights, but I’d have dumped Carter Durance if I’d known this might happen.” Emotion flooded his voice. “I’d never risk our child.”

      Her own anguish, reflected in his broken tone, confused her.

      He reached for her hand this time, but she couldn’t stand his touch. “Don’t. I only want to feel my baby.” She laid her hand on her stomach, aching to feel the sensation of their unborn son, lazily twisting inside her. “I miss him.”

      Josh’s expression went blank again. He folded his hands, white-knuckled, in his lap.

      She could end it now, put a stop to the loneliness and fear. Once they’d married, he’d considered their relationship complete, nothing more to worry about. He’d turned his attention to his priorities—his clients. Feeling left out and unneeded, more hurt than she’d ever admitted, she’d tried arguing, explaining, and finally, she’d found poor comfort in her own work. But the baby had made them both try.

      “I’m sorry.”

      She had two choices. Tear him to shreds or try to save their marriage. Could hurting him ever be revenge enough? And how could she ignore his grief, as harrowing as her own?

      “I couldn’t save him, either,” she said, choosing marriage. “Moms are supposed to protect their babies.”

      He flexed his hands. “I’d