Found by Love (6 page)

"In my defense... It was Cash that told Caleb. Some sort of pay back prank that I told him better not blow up in my face. I've never had a discussion with Caleb about this topic at all." I shook my head at her letting her know that I didn't believe her. "I promise! As far as Amelia goes? Well... You can blame that on both Mom AND Amelia for cornering me and asking me point blank if it was true and all I did was look at them and I didn't even have to say a word so yeah... I guess you could say that your secret is out." She scrunched up her brow and gave me her I'm so sorry smile.  "Um... Sorry??"

"Sorry? That's all you have to say for yourself? Sorry? How long has Caleb known?"

"Um... Since... Um... Well... The beginning? Yes... Since the beginning. Wow! It's so good to get that out! Man! What a relief that was to tell you. I swear my shoulders don't seem to weigh as much now. Whew! So glad that's out there now and I don’t have to lie or change the subject anymore."

I shook my head at her and started banging my head against the steering wheel. I accidentally made the horn go off a couple of times so I leaned back and sighed.

"I cannot believe this! I really can't wrap my head around this wealth of information right now. Right now I want to make sure that Grayson is okay."

"Grayson?" She looked down at the pictures she was still holding and really looked at him. "Grayson... He looks like a Grayson. What a cool name. Ya know... He favors Jeremiah and Jenna quite a bit. He has yours and Jenna's eyes but his facial features are a lot like Jeremiah's so much that they could have passed for brothers instead of cousins."

"Yeah... I know. Not that Jeremiah was my favorite but he was born after I had Grayson and I often wondered if he had his temperament as well. Man I miss him. All of them, but especially Jeremiah. I hope you get that and understand now why I was closest to him." She reached over and patted me on the hand.

"I do... It actually makes sense now at how close you two were." She pulled her cell phone out of her purse. "Give me the parents’ names and where they live and I'll have Cash look into it for you okay? I'm sure that everything is fine."

Should I just leave it alone and accept the fact that the adoptive parents have decided that I'm not worthy of seeing my son grow up even if it’s in pictures? Or should I go ahead and just let Cash give me the peace of mind that I so desperately need? I just want to know that he's okay. This feeling I have isn't going to go away until I know for sure. I can accept them not sending me any pictures anymore as long as I know that he's okay.

"Okay... I'll shoot you an email with what information I have and go ahead and give it to him, but please O. I don't want this going any further than Cash." I looked at her to make sure that she got my meaning which would be not telling the rest of the family.

"Not a word of it to anyone other than Cash. I promise. Will you tell me one thing though? Who's the father? You never mentioned him other than him throwing money at your feet."

I sighed and let it all out and told her everything that I hadn't already told her. By the time I looked up I realized that somehow I had managed to take a two hour lunch. Great! Just great! Way to act like the professional that I've tried to tell Caleb we had to be. When I realized that not only am I supposed to impress Caleb but Amelia as well I wanted to just bawl all over again. Way to go Claud! Way to go!

****************

"Geez Claud! Do you plan on eating all of the noodles or are you going to share?"

I looked up and I hadn't been paying attention to what I was doing, and had kept spooning out more noodles onto my plate, of take out from the Chinese place, we got dinner from, and brought home. I put half of my plate of food back into the box and grabbed a bottle of wine and filled my glass to the rim. I ignored the shocked look on his face when he noticed how much wine I put in my glass and never offered him any.

"Sorry. I guess I zoned out for a minute there." The last thing that I'm in the mood for is a fight so I reached for my wine glass and downed it and filled it up to the rim again.

"A minute? Try all afternoon. Remind me to have a two hour lunch and leave you at the office not knowing what to do. I'm glad you came back because I wouldn't have known the code to lock the door when I left or a ride home for that matter." I slammed my fork down onto my plate and got up and grabbed my extra set of keys off of the hook where I leave them and pulled a key off the ring and shoved it in front of him.

"Here ya go you big baby! Here's an extra key to the office and the code to the alarm is 7103. So, if I decide to skip again, maybe you won't feel so helpless!"

I sat back down in front of my plate and realized that I've lost whatever appetite I had. I never ate lunch because I had planned on getting something to eat after I left from visiting Vanessa but Olivia delayed me on that opportunity. By the time I left the cemetery I felt so bad about being gone from the office for so long that I decided to wait until dinner to eat. I could feel him staring at me so I looked up and stared him down.

"What?" I wanted to slap the condescending look off of his face but instead I picked my glass up and emptied it and poured myself another glass.

"What? After that outburst that's all that you have to say is what? What in the hell was that Claudia and why are you drinking so much tonight? Do you want to talk about whatever it is that's crawled up your ass? Something obviously happened today." He smiled and leaned closer towards me and winked at me. "Is it because of that girl Amy that I was flirting with? Geez! I won't call her. Did you want to call her yourself? I'm not sure that she swings that way but I surrender. You can have her for yourself."

Oh he would say something like that! Take another dig at me and knowing that he knew that I've been lying this whole time and going along with it pisses me off even more!

"I'm not interested. You can date her if you want for all I care. What did I miss during the EXTRA hour that I was gone?" The last thing that I want to talk about is his infatuation with AMY so I tried to change the subject.

"Do you really want to know or are you just saying that? I did happen to get a new client today and it just so happens that he's in my alphabet and you're never going to guess who it is."

Well that piqued my curiosity because obviously it is someone that we both know and it is work related. I have got to calm down. He hasn't done anything to me, really, and all I'm doing is taking my stress and worry out on him which isn't even close to fair.

"Okay... I'll bite. Who was it?" He grinned at me which let me know that all is forgiven. Thank God he's used to my crazy outbursts or he would have left a long time ago.

"Come on... Don't take all of the fun out of it. You have to guess. I'll give you a hint though. We both took his class in college."

Hmmm... So it has to be a professor. I think back to what classes we had together and I feel a hollow feeling all of a sudden in the pit of my stomach. No freaking way! It can't be him! No, no, no, no, NO!

"Oh come on... Just tell me who it is. I don't want to guess." Oh please let me have forgotten a class that we had together and it not be HIM!

"Seriously? He came in and asked specifically for you and he was surprised to even see me there. He had assumed that…. Oh you're going to get a laugh out of this... He had assumed that we had gotten married because we worked together now and he knew how crazy I was about you back in the day."

Oh my God! It is him! We used to stay up late at night laughing about Caleb's crush that he had on me. I tried to stay calm because I didn't want to give anything away so I emptied my glass and filled it up again emptying the bottle. He got a worried look on his face but shook his head and didn't say anything about me drinking a whole bottle of wine within minutes.

"Professor Anderson? Jason Anderson? Haha... That's funny... What does he need a lawyer for? Is he getting sued?" Whoever it is I hope they take him for everything he has!

"Ding, ding, ding!! You are correct! Professor Anderson. Did you know that he was my favorite professor? He always seemed too young for the job if you ask me though. I loved his lectures that he would have with the class." I motioned for him to get to the point. “Anyway, he's getting a divorce and it looks like it's going to be an easy case. He said he wants to let his ex-wife have everything and he doesn't want to fight her for visitation regarding their kids. He only requested a couple of weeks in the summer with them. I was kind of shocked by that because I kind of pegged him as a family guy that would be a great father but I guess not." Family guy? Great father? Yeah... That would be a big no!

"How many kids does he have?" I had to know... I just had to know so that I could add even more salt to the gaping wound that I had in my heart.

"5! Can you believe that? The oldest is 14 and the youngest is 2 and he said that since they had such an amazing mother he didn't want to ruin their relationship by fighting over custody and was happy with only a few weeks in the summer. I couldn't imagine being the kind of father that only spent a couple of weeks out of the year with my kids. It would be awful actually so I guess you could say he's a pretty lousy father but oh well... It's not for me to judge but I will take his money."

I suddenly felt the urge to throw up. What a day this has been and I cannot handle anything else today. I got up and picked my plate up and threw all of the food that was left on my plate in the trash and put my plate in the dishwasher. I finished what wine I had left in my glass and put it in the dishwasher. I had forgotten that I had left him at the table until he said something.

"Claud? Are you okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost. Did I say something or do something wrong again?" I turned around and looked at him and shook my head holding back the tears that threatened to fall.

"No... You didn't do anything wrong, but I'm really tired. I'm going to go brush my teeth and go to bed okay? I'll see you in the morning." I didn't even wait for him to say anything so I took off for my bedroom as fast as I could. Of all of the people in the whole world to come into MY office it just had to be him. Him! He specifically asked for me?!

I feel like the walls are closing in on me and getting smaller and smaller every day. There's no way that I can keep this from Caleb for much longer. I could try to make him not take his business, but then he'd ask why and I'd definitely have to tell him why he couldn't. Oh what am I going to do?

Breathe in Claud... In and out….. In and out….. Ugh! Not WORKING!

I picked up my cell phone to call Olivia to see if Cash had found anything out yet. Something good has to come out of this awful day. She answered on the second ring.

"Hello my best friend... How's it going?"

"Just awful! Please tell me that Cash has found something out by now." I heard a muffled voice in the background which made me think that she had covered the speaker on her phone for some reason.

"Uh not yet Claud... He said that with a last name like theirs it is going to take him a little bit longer. Brown is a common last name ya know... He said that he might have gotten somewhere but he's not sure yet. Don't worry... By tomorrow he should have something and I'm sure that it'll be what we thought. That he's fine and they just wanted to cut off all communication. You try to get some sleep okay? I need to go check on Hank because he was fussy earlier and I want to make sure he's sleeping alright. I love you!"

"Uh... Okay... I love you too?! Um... Well... Okay. I guess I'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Um... Goodnight? I think…." She didn't let me finish what I was about to say because she cut me off.

"Goodnight... And don't worry." She hung up and there's one thing that I know about Olivia and it is that when she's worried about something she talks too fast and avoids conversation of any kind.

He found something! I just know it! The only reason I let her tell Cash is because he's definitely good at his job and he can find out anything that he wants to know and he found something but doesn't want to tell me until he's positive.

I jumped up and felt a little woozy from the whole bottle of wine that I just drank. I hurried up and took off my clothes and left them lying on the floor and grabbed a tank top to sleep in and turned the light off and crawled into bed and started bawling as soon as my head hit the pillow. I reached over and grabbed a pillow to muffle my sobs so that Caleb couldn't hear me through the walls.

My baby boy. I know that Cash had to have found something bad and that he and Olivia didn't have the heart to tell me. I heard a knock on my door and I ignored it by ducking my head under the covers while still sobbing into the pillow. I can't talk right now, does he not understand that?

"Claud? Are you okay in here? I thought I heard you crying. Can I turn the light on?" I tried to compose myself enough to sound normal when I answered him.

"No... Just leave me alone Caleb. I'm... I'm fine. I'm just tired is all."

I heard the door open and he went ahead and came in and walked around to my side of the bed and sat down. His huge body caused me to roll a little towards him and I start crying again knowing that comfort is within my reach but I can’t bring myself to give in and accept it.

"Scoot over, Cru. I don't know what's going on and you don't have to tell me but what you will do is scoot over so that I can hold you and let you get it all out. You can cry all night, I don't care but there's no way that I'm going to be able to sleep in my bed tonight knowing that you're in here bawling your eyes out. So... Scoot over."