Page 59 of Seeking Happily Ever After

Without overthinking it, Charlotte wrenched away from him and lunged for the ax. She raised it up quickly over her head. Adrenaline flowed through her veins, making the ax weightless in her grip as she turned around to face him.

And the gun he had pointed at her.

She didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t. She took a step and swung.

The gunshot blasted through the air, deafening her, and a white-hot pain sliced through her abdomen.

Her arms reverberated from the contact the ax made before it fell to the ground and her entire body went numb, the pain gone as she, too, fell to the ground.

Nick had spent the last twenty minutes calling Charlotte’s phone continuously as he drove through the streets of Glacier Falls, but he couldn’t find her or her car anywhere. He’d driven past her parents’ home, before stopping at Jeremy’s apartment, and even the fire hall.

No Charlotte.

He told them the truth, that they’d had an argument and she wasn’t answering her phone, but he refused to get into any more details than that.

Where could she be?

The town wasn’t that big. She couldn’t have gone far.

Unless she went to the city?

But that didn’t feel right. Charlotte was upset with him, certainly. And he deserved it. But she wouldn’t have gone far. She would have gone somewhere where she could be alone. But—

His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his phone. He pulled over and reached for the phone. “Charlotte? Where are—”

“Nick? It’s Susan,” the caller interrupted him. “Susan Johnson. I’m returning your call.”

It took him a moment to refocus his thoughts. “Right. Thank you.”

“I was in a home visit, and I don’t usually have my phone on during visits.”

“I understand.” He didn’t mean to sound impatient, but there was a lot going on. “I was hoping that—”

“Right.” She cut him off. “I wouldn’t normally return your call so late, but when I got your message, I was concerned.”

“Concerned?” He sat up in his seat.

“Yes,” she continued. “Your lawyer also called and explained that Jessica had come for the baby.”

Just hearing her say the words out loud caused a fresh wave of pain to wash through him.The baby.His baby. “She did.” He could hear the defeat in his own voice. “And Chris told me that I needed to play nice and do things by the book. She’s been clean and since she is Amelia’s biological mother—”

“Right. That’s why I’m calling.”

Nick was on high alert.

“She had filed all of the appropriate information with child services, including recent drug tests and her sponsor’s information. The follow-up is…well, I’ll get to the point. There was a note in her file that her sponsor had some concerns.”

Concerns?

“What kind of concerns?” He worked hard to stay calm. But he was quickly losing the battle. “Susan, talk to me. What kind of concerns are there about Jessica? ShehasAmelia.”

“She does?”

Fuck.

“I would have recommended against returning the child to her biological mother at this point.”

“What the—we were told she checked out. My lawyer checked it out. How could this happen?” He inhaled sharply.

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