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He wanted to shout at her. She shouldn’t be drinking. Anyone knew alcohol was bad for unborn babies. But this didn’t seem the time-not yet. He came closer still and gently lifted her chin. “You don’t know what, Kel?” He saw fear and confusion on her face, and for the first time since hearing the news about the baby, Dayne felt truly sorry for her. Even though she’d promised to be ready to make a decision by now, clearly she was still scared to death. This couldn’t be easy for her either. He softened his tone. “What don’t you know?”

She was quiet, and her hands began to tremble.

“Kelly, listen. You won’t have to have this baby alone. I want to try again.

That’s what tonight is about for me.” His heart rate doubled. Katy Hart’s face tried to come to mind, but he refused it. His lips were suddenly dry. “We were friends first, and maybe this … the baby will help us give things more of a chance.”

For the first time tonight, he didn’t see fear or confusion or coyness or uncertainty in Kelly’s eyes. He saw guilt. Guilt and regret.

“I don’t know how to tell you, Dayne.”

It was his turn to feel confused. “Tell me what?”

She looked at him a long time, and her eyes gave him a window to all she was feeling. First the guilt, then remorse, and finally something that mixed love with regret. -Jhe emotions took turns with her expression and made her appear vulnerable. Something Dayne hadn’t seen in Kelly since they first moved in together.

She reached up and brushed her fingertips against his cheek. “Do you know how much I loved you, Dayne?”

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He covered her hand with his own. “I care about you too. I always have.”

A sad laugh sounded in her throat. “See? Even now you can’t tell me you love me.”

“Kelly …” What was he supposed to say? “I did love you … you know I did.” But even as he said the words, he felt like a liar. Love-the sort of love she was talking about-would take weeks, months. As they spent more time together, as they made plans for their baby, he was bound to feel love for her.

But Kelly was shaking her head. “You never loved me, Dayne.” There were tears in her eyes. “Not like you loved her.”

For the slightest instant he was going to ask, “Who?” Whom had he loved more than Kelly? But the answer was as obvious as the brick wall surrounding them.

And it was an answer Kelly already knew. Dayne looked at the ground near his shoes. But Katy was gone. He and Kelly were about to be parents, so there simply was no Katy Hart. Now he needed to convince Kelly. He lifted his eyes and tried to look convincing. “I haven’t talked to her since the day you told me about the baby.” He moved his hands to her shoulders. “I want to do the right thing here, Kelly.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “There is no right thing.” She looked weak, as if her knees could buckle at any moment. “I’ve loved you for years, Dayne. Only after I moved out did I finally make myself understand that you would never-not ever-love me the way I loved you. Don’t you see? I don’t want you to work at loving me.” Anger crept into her tone. “You want to do the right thing? Can you hear yourself?” She jerked away from him. “This isn’t 1950. You don’t have to stay around and try to make it work just because you got me pregnant.” She wheeled around, stormed across the courtyard, and faced the wall on the other side.

Why was she acting like this? They both had to see that the situation wasn’t ideal. What was wrong with agreeing to try, to look for whatever love might be created between them?

He crossed the patio, glancing at the door as he passed it. Ten 134

minutes had slipped by; they didn’t have much longer. The others must have sensed that he and Kelly needed time to talk. But if they didn’t hurry, Hawk was bound to come looking for them. Dayne came up behind her and once more placed his hands on her shoulders. “Kelly, don’t do this. Not now.” He kept his voice low, his mouth a few inches from her ear. “I care about you or I wouldn’t be here.”

“You don’t care about me!” She whipped around and glared at him, the tears on her cheeks little more than reflections of her anger. Then she seemed to remember where she was and who she was. The lines on her forehead eased, and she gathered herself into a more composed, upright position. “You care about the baby. That’s what this is all about.”

Dayne opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find the words to refute her. “What’s wrong with that?” He didn’t raise his voice, but he was more frustrated than before. “We wouldn’t be the first couple who found a way to love each other because of a child, right? I mean, right?”

She studied him. “Dayne …” The vulnerability from a moment ago was gone, and in its place was a look that screamed vindication. She ran her hands over her flat abdomen and narrow waist. “There is no baby, okay? Can’t you figure it out?”

“No baby?” Dayne’s head began to spin. What was she saying? How could she let him believe there was a baby all this time if… “You weren’t… you weren’t really pregnant?”

She groaned, and the sound of it was riddled with pain. A fresh layer of tears began pooling in her eyes. “I had an abortion, okay?” She took a step back and ran her hands down her sides. “Women six months pregnant don’t look like this,”

Dayne couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. He staggered back a few steps and grabbed hold of the railing around the tree. “Without… without telling me?”

The shock was suffocating him, coming at him from every side. The baby … the one he’d been planning for these past few months … was dead? He felt 135

horrified, numb, and nauseous all at the same time. “Are you serious?”

She came to him with fury in her steps. “Yes, I’m serious.” She glared at him, but her heart must’ve been breaking also because tears streamed down her face.

“You didn’t-” a sob stopped her sentence short-“you didn’t love me, Dayne! Why in the world would I want to have your baby?”

He felt furious and faint. She was telling him the truth; sometime since their last conversation she’d had an abortion without so much as a phone call to let him know. He grabbed a quick breath and doubled over, his hands on his knees.

The loss grew and swelled in his heart until the enormity of it threatened to suffocate him.

Slowly, he straightened and studied her features. Whatever she had become, he no longer knew her. She was cold and callous and cruel. “You never even … you never called.”

“Look.” Her expression told him she was scared to death, that she regretted what she’d done. But her tone told an entirely different story. “I didn’t have to call you.” She pressed her hand over her heart. “It’s my body, my pregnancy. It was my choice to end it-mine alone.”

“Sure, Kelly …” Dayne’s heart was breaking for the child they’d lost. It was all he could do to keep his composure. “Sure, tell yourself that.” He motioned to the door and the party beyond it. “You’ve got the right lingo; that’s for sure. All that garbage sounds neat and tidy, the way everyone in Hollywood sounds. Your body … your choice … your right to have an abortion.”

“I don’t need to hear this.” She spat the words at him and moved toward the door.

“Wait!”

She hesitated and looked as if she was trying to hold on to her anger. That way she couldn’t give in to the regret he’d seen earlier. “Hurry, Dayne. I told you … I have plans.”

“Okay.” Tears choked his voice now, tears of anger and hurt.

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“You can tell me about your rights. But deep inside you know the truth.” His chin was quivering, and a lifetime of sorrow welled in his heart. “Our baby was growing inside you, the first child for both of us.” He jabbed himself in the chest. “My child, Kelly.” The reality of what had happened was still hitting him, still tearing into him like shrapnel from a lethal roadside bomb. “I had nothing to say about it, and now that child is dead.”

She crossed her arms and drilled her eyes into him. “Please, Dayne… don’t be so dramatic. We had sex. I got pregnant. I had an abortion.” She tilted her chin, once again the proud, controlled actress-the one she’d been on Hawk Daniels’s arm earlier. She took one more step toward the door. “I wasn’t even five months along when I had it. So there never was a child.”

Dayne let his hands fall to his sides, defeated. “You can tell yourself whatever you want, Kelly.” Images came to his mind, photos of aborted babies he’d seen in science class. He shuddered and struggled to find his voice. “But don’t-not for one minute-tell yourself there was never a child.”

Her expression was harder than it had been all night. She looked like a bored teenager, tired of a lecture from Dad. She put her hand on the doorknob and shot him one more dagger. Then without saying goodbye, she reentered the party, shutting the door behind her.

Dayne was still reeling. He held on to the railing with both hands and let his head hang. Dear God, how can this be happening? He squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn’t talked to God since hearing the news about the baby back in January. He wasn’t even sure he believed in God anymore-not if He had allowed Kelly to get pregnant, even though Dayne didn’t love hej.

But now his thinking seemed to border on insanity.

“God …” The word was a desperate cry, a strained whisper. “It wasn’t You; it was me. All along it’s been me.” The tears came, and he did nothing to stop them. He was the one who had asked Kelly to move in with him, the one who had been stung by Katy’s

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rejection after the crazy knife-wielding fan’s attack, the one who had then allowed lust to take the place of love.

The fact that Kelly got pregnant wasn’t God’s way of abandoning him. Rather it was the natural consequence of sleeping with Kelly, of acting in direct opposition to everything his adoptive parents had ever tried to teach him. All of it had been his fault, and he deserved to have it change his life forever.

Only now the worst thing of all-the baby was dead. Just yesterday he’d stopped at a Wild Oats grocery store and seen a mother cradling her newborn. Beside her, a man wearing a wedding ring pushed their cart. For a moment-until the first fan came up asking for an autograph-Dayne just watched. That would be him in a few months, pushing a cart, supporting Kelly, and taking turns holding a tiny infant. As he watched, he could almost feel the weight of the child in his arms, almost hear the little cries of the baby that was about to be his.

His tears came harder. Now there would be no child, no baby to hold. “Was it a girl or a boy, God?” His question rattled around in his mind and echoed across his soul. Whatever their baby was, the child was in heaven now.

Dayne believed that as surely as he believed in oxygen.

And if he believed that, then he had to believe in God as well-the God who was listening to him, weeping with him even now. His lifestyle, his choices had led to this. Kelly truly believed the lies she’d been told: that abortion was a choice, an option. Her body, her call.

Of course the people who fought for such a travesty never really looked in a woman’s eyes, never saw the regret and pain like what he had seen deep in Kelly’s expression. She was hurting. No matter what lies she told herself, she knew deep down that he was right. There most certainly had been a child, an unborn baby.

And now there wasn’t.

“God … help me.” He squeezed the words through clenched 138

teeth. Last fall he had done what his birth mother had asked, what she had written to him in the letter on the back of her photograph. He had forgiven.

Forgiven his birth parents for giving him up, for not fighting harder to keep him. Forgiven his adoptive parents for choosing the mission field over giving him a normal childhood.

And he had asked forgiveness from Kelly for how he had treated her.

But this … how could God ever forgive him for taking part in the death of a child? For that matter, he must’ve been crazy to sleep with a woman when he didn’t know her opinions on something as crucial as the right to life. And what did he think she’d been doing this past month? Had he really thought she was making plans for a nursery between nights of partying and flaunting her relationship with Hawk Daniels?

He should’ve seen this coming weeks ago.

The truth was, he was every bit as guilty as Kelly. “I’m sorry, God … I’m so sorry.”

My son, come to Me …let Me find you while you still may be found.

Dayne straightened and looked over his shoulder, turning one direction and then the other. Who had said that? The words felt like they had been whispered, carried on the night breeze that sifted across the small, private patio. A chill ran down his spine. God … was that You?

There was no audible response, but now he had a new sense of strength, of peace.

He dragged his hands across his cheeks and looked inside. It was dark enough in the party room that he covjld make it through the place without anyone asking what was wrong. People at movie premieres were concerned with making connections and looking good for the cameras. Every one of the gossip rags and even People magazine would run a full spread on this premier event-so impressions were everything.

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The photographers had gotten hundreds of shots of him earlier, so he could smile big and leave the party without causing a stampede. He leaned against the iron railing and gazed into the sky. He felt stronger, yes, but the hurt was no less overwhelming. He’d thought about his baby every day since Kelly had first told him. Boy or girl? His dark blond hair or Kelly’s? Blue eyes or brown? Would the child have been interested in drama and the arts or crazy for sports? He would never know now, not this side of heaven. Never hear his child’s voice or see his baby’s smile. The loss was so great it took his breath.

No, it wasn’t the right timing, and no, Kelly wasn’t the right person. But none of that was the baby’s fault. Dayne pressed his fists into his middle. His first child was dead. The tragedy hurt deeply. As he stood there, as he let the breeze dry the remaining dampness in his eyes, there was only one place he wanted to be now, one person who could help him take the next step toward finding God-if God truly was calling him.

A woman with pale blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes, who at the very least would point him in the right direction. And something else … something no one he knew in Hollywood could ever do. She would grieve with him and ache with him for a hurt that would stay until he drew his last breath. She would understand how great his pains were and that his regret would last for a lifetime. She would feel his sadness because of a series of bad decisions he could never, ever take back.