Restoring Hope Read Free

and tried not to look back at her anguished face, but he had, and it killed him to see her that way.
    “It was for the best,” the doctors had said. “Private facility, one of the best in the country,” they’d told him, but his angel was smart, so smart. She’d found a way out, called a friend who had drugs and then she’d taken too much. After one week at the clinic, they’d called to say she’d escaped. Six hours of searching had ended with a knock at his door from the parish police, confirming his worst fears. His baby was gone. 
    Breathing hard from the memories, his baby’s ashen face, relaxed in death, was forever etched in his mind. It drove pain, like a hot, sharp knife, into his chest with the faintest memory. He could see her lying on that cold metal table, and he’d wanted to fold her into a blanket, and wrap her in his arms like he did when she was a baby. Nic brought his fists to his eyes and tried to rub the vision away. “Jesus, how did this happen? How the fuck did I let this happen?” he asked the room. But, just like every night he laid in the dark, since his daughter’s death, the only answer he ever had was the same. He’d been working when he should have been watching.

Chapter Two
     
    Nic’s eyes opened as the sun broke across his face, shining like a spotlight behind his lids. The memory that his daughter was gone from this world always took a few moments to penetrate when he first woke. In those few precious moments, all was right in his world. The knot that coiled like a snake, and was his constant companion, slowly knitted its way into his chest the instant he remembered. There were days, if not for his son that he might have gone mad with the guilt.
    Looking at the clock, he knew he needed to get up, get Nicky up, and ready for school. Rolling to his side, sitting on the edge of the bed, he turned his eyes to his daughter’s picture and then whispered to her sweet face, “Papa’s sorry, ma ange , more than you’ll ever know.” Then he rose from the bed, exhausted as he had been for the last year and headed to wake his son.

    “Dad, I have soccer practice after school, so you need to have mom pick me up at five,” Nicky, full of energy and so much like his father in looks, reminded Nic. He was big for his twelve years, turning into a man-child already. He was tall, with black hair and dark brown eyes like his father’s and their French ancestors before them. Chelsea had gotten her blonde hair from his ex-wife Katherine. She wasn’t Louisiana French; she was a Southern Belle from South Georgia when he’d met her in college. She’d been a beauty queen, and he’d been her prince charming. Married fifteen years before they divorced, they’d been happy once, but Kat had grown restless in New Orleans.
    With her family back home in Georgia, and her friends scattered all over, she’d had a hard time adjusting to a new city. Kat was from a small town, and used to being the center of attention he’d finally deduced. Her southern charm, that Georgia Peach she’d portrayed herself as seemed too wither for some reason in the big city. Neither of them was from New Orleans, but Nic had been offered a job after graduation with one of the largest architectural firms in the city. Since Nic was from Baton Rouge, he’d traveled to the New Orleans many times, so it seemed as natural as breathing to fit in here. He’d been a year ahead of Kat, and she’d had to finish her studies before they could be married. So, Nic had moved here to New Orleans and set up house for his future wife, but they’d waited for her to graduate to plan their wedding and start their lives together.
    He should have known then; the evidence was there from the beginning. Kat had made one excuse after another why the wedding needed to be delayed, but Nic was too damn busy working, to give it much thought. After a year and a half of delays, he put his foot down. “Sugar, marry me now or walk away, it's that