Page 43 of His Lucky Paige

“You think she left? Likeleftleft?”

“I wouldn’t know how. She doesn’t have a car and I didn’t hear the helicopter. She either walked somewhere or called a taxi to get her.”

“I’m guessing she won’t show, most women in her position probably wouldn’t.”

“What position is that, Sam?”

“Kendra told me Paige said she couldn’t have kids. We didn’t tell Dad. We’ll just have to hope she shows up at home sooner or later.”

“I’d prefer sooner, I can’t wait another ten years for her to come back,” Joel stated as Cord strolled down the hallway towards them.

“Checking out my grandchild there Joel?” he said with a huge smile. “I’d always thought the first one would come from you and Paige, but I suppose I could wait another nine to ten months for you two to catch up, granted you have to catch up to Paige first…”

“Dad, that’s not going to happen,” Sam said carefully.

“Of course, it is, she’ll come back around, it’s Paige.”

“Dad…Paige can’t have children.”

“What are you talking about?” Cord questioned. “We talked about it when I had my heart attack. I told her I wasn’t going anywhere until I held her child and she said she’d make sure I didn’t and made me promise. She wouldn’t have done that if she knew.”

“All we know is she had a miscarriage at some point, and she had complications,” Sam told him.

“No, Paige would have said something. She wouldn’t have kept a pregnancy from us,” Cord argued. “That girl has been talking about having babies since she was twenty.”

“Holy hell,” Joel muttered.

“Joel what is it?” Sam said turning to his now pale friend.

“Paige said we didn’t listen to her back then and maybe we didn’t.”

“What are you talking about Joel?” Cord stated.

“Paige had given me the equivalent of an ultimatum, tell you that we were together, or she was going to leave. I’d already bought the house and had the ring but then we had decided it’d be better for her to go and figure out something out there besides the mine. Before that Paige had been dropping hints about a future with children. I thought she meant distance future but what if she hadn’t?”

“You think Paige was pregnant when she left?” Sam asked. “No, she wouldn’t have left if she’d known, and it wouldn’t have been what caused her to not be able to have kids.”

“How would you know that?” Cord questioned.

“Paige told Kendra she’d lost two pregnancies when they were arguing over why they’ve been arguing for the past two years.”

“Two?” Joel questioned as his stomach dropped. A tiny piece of himself died as the fear that he was the one who’d caused both of those issues took hold and wouldn’t let go.

Over the last few days, he’d been stretched thin, between the mine and trying to figure out where and how Paige was disappearing every morning. Her story about hallucinating about the baby had seemed believable at first but now…now he didn’t know what to think. What if Paige had been pregnant when she left? When he and Cord had forced her to go.

Her words came back to haunt him.

Do you have any idea how much the two of you messed up my life?

That’s what she’d asked him after he’d told her the truth.

“What is it, Joel?” Sam questioned.

“Everything…I need to find Paige, now…”

“Well good luck boy,” Cord laughed. “When has anyone ever been able to find Paige when she didn’t want to be found? It took Neal five tries to get a number for the girl when the cave-in happened.”

“Yeah, well, it’s about time Paige and I had a full out and out discussion about the past.”

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