Better Left Unsaid: Alternate Ending

By Misty Reigenborn

When Kimber Stone shared a night of passion with Paul Brooks, she never thought that she'd face the possibility that her one night man may be the father of her child instead of her husband Luke. But when Halden is born, the truth seems to stare them straight in the face. Will Kimber's marriage survive when the results come back that Paul is indeed the father of her child? Can she be woman enough to co-parent a child with a man she barely knows?

When Luke Stone heard the news that he was not the father of his wife's child, he felt like his world was crumbling. How will he trust a woman again after his wife's life changing indiscretion? Will his relationship with his daughter be able to survive intact?

Paul Brooks never thought he'd have to face the reality of a DNA test to determine if he was the father of a woman's child, especially a married woman that he had a one-night stand with. But when the results come back proving him as the father of Kimber's child he must learn to live with the skeleton he'd hoped would stay buried in his closet. Can he be a good father to Halden, or will he spend the rest of his life wishing that he could take back his night of passion with Kimber?

Sierra Brooks knew her marriage was over as soon as she got the news that Kimber's child belonged to her husband Paul. But how will she learn to live with the consequences of Paul's affair, especially knowing that she was in part the cause of it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Misty Reigenborn
• Release date: Mar 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310540905

Misty Reigenborn

Misty Reigenborn has been writing poetry, short stories and novel length work since she was nine years old. She is the author of twenty titles: romance novels A Twist of Fate, Better Left Unsaid, Run to You, Better Left Unsaid: Alternate Ending, Crestview Academy: Tory, Crestview Academy: Molli, Crestview Academy: Mellenda, Girls of Gabe's Place 1: Brandy, Girls of Gabe's Place 2: Robyn,Girls of Gabe's Place 3: Ami, Run From You, Key to My Heart: Stay, Key to My Heart: Only You and Temptations, fantasy novel Mind over Matter, short story collections Second Chance, This Song Reminds Me of You and Love and Other Tales, poetry collection From the Heart, and non fiction title A Broken System: Examining the Clark County Department of Family Services. She loves to connect with her readers and appreciates an honest review.

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Better Left Unsaid: Alternate Ending

Misty Reigenborn

Copyright 2016 By Misty Reigenborn

Smashwords Edition

Cover Images Courtesy of stockimages Serge Bertasius Photography and patrisyu freedigitalphotos.net

Kimber

Kimber was lying down and trying to take a nap when the first contraction hit. Her labor with Alexis had been relatively short, and she was still a couple weeks from her due date, so she got out of bed immediately. She used the restroom and washed her hands. She placed her hand over her belly.

You think it’s time to meet the world kiddo? Mama is hoping that your daddy is the only daddy there should have ever been a chance of it being, but she promises to love you either way okay?

Tears pricked her eyes as she thought of the pain it would cause Luke if her son wasn’t his. Another contraction hit her and she hurried to the stairs, or hurried as much as she could in her current very pregnant condition.

Luke looked up at her. I thought you were taking a nap babe.

I’m in labor.

Oh. Well, Alexis is with Juliana already so she can stay since that’s where we were going to be taking her anyway. I’ll call her and let her know and then I’ll get your bag and we’re outta here.

He jumped up and helped her the rest of the way down the stairs and led her to the couch. He placed a brief phone call to Juliana and then retrieved her bag from their bedroom closet. Another contraction hit her by the time he made it down the stairs. She was beginning to think that this labor was going to be short but intense.

Luke gave her a brief careful embrace and a quick kiss, and then he helped her up from the couch. He looked happy and she tried to put the fact that the baby might not be his out of her mind yet again.

They took her car since his Mustang was definitely not as easy for her to get in and out of. The drive to the hospital was blessedly short and they had her back in a delivery room shortly after they arrived at the hospital.

Labor was short. She dilated so quickly that they weren’t able to administer an epidural which she sometimes believed had been the only thing that had gotten her through the last part of her labor with Alexis with her sanity intact.

Halden Elijah was delivered at 4:54 p.m. on July 15. He weighed 7 pounds five ounces and was 20 inches long. Kimber thought he was beautiful from across the room and knew that he would be beautiful to her no matter who his father was, but she wanted to look into her son’s eyes.

The nurse finished the after birth activities, diapered and dressed Halden, wrapped him snugly in a receiving blanket and handed him to Luke.

Luke’s expression was hard to read as he scanned their son’s face, taking in the fine light blonde hair on his head and the light blue eyes that looked out from his face.

She knew that her husband was wondering the same thing she was, and it was killing her to think such thoughts, to think of what the future might hold if her beautiful son hadn’t been fathered by the man she loved. Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them back.

She had to be strong. Even if the days seemed endless between now and when they had the results of the paternity test, she still had to live them like everything was normal, to live them with the hope that Halden might still belong to Luke.

But a nagging voice at the back of her mind insisted that her son’s eyes were not the same shade of blue as hers, endlessly reminding her of her night with Paul.

Kimber held back a sigh, knowing that she had a phone call to make, but not knowing when she would have the strength to actually pick up the phone. How could she have done such a thing she wondered for what felt like the thousandth time? What Luke had done was bad enough and their families has barely weathered the storm. She was afraid to think of the shit storm that would come from Paul’s wife if he had indeed fathered Kimber’s child.

Though Sierra would be the least of her worries if what felt like her worst nightmare were to come true. She didn’t envy Paul having to deal with his wife’s sense of betrayal, but worse to her was the possibility of what she had done to her daughter.

Alexis adored Luke and if her parents split permanently, Kimber was afraid that her daughter wouldn’t retain her cheerful disposition, especially when she was old enough to understand what had happened to cause it. She was afraid her daughter would grow to hate her, and in all honesty, Kimber wouldn’t blame her if she did.

Luke was looking at her expectantly, concern in his eyes. She’d been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t realized he’d been speaking to her.

She sighed. I’m sorry Luke.

He took her hand. Kimber are you okay? He gave her a crooked smile. Probably a dumb question to ask someone who just went through labor I know, but babe you don’t look well. What’s wrong?

They were alone for the moment since a nurse had taken Halden somewhere down the hall for the usual after birth tests.

Kimber looked up at Luke, tears again standing in her eyes. Luke I . . .

Hush, baby. I know what you’re thinking. You’re going to drive yourself crazy. Don’t worry about that right now. Right now it doesn’t matter. Right now all that matters is that beautiful boy was born healthy and strong. The rest can wait until later.

But Luke. . .

I know baby. I know. But we knew that this uh possibility existed and it does neither one of us any good to drive ourselves crazy thinking about it. We will know soon enough, and until then we go on the assumption that all is well. Okay?

He gave her hand another gentle squeeze, lifting it to his lips to brush a kiss against her knuckles before letting it go.

She tried not to let it get to her as the days passed, but the worry and guilt were eating her up inside. Luke was acting as if it were business as usual, the doting and happy father of a newborn, but she had seen a look in his eyes more than once as he’d held Halden that she’d never seen when they’d had Alexis. It was almost as if he were afraid to love the boy until he knew for sure that he was his father.

It killed Kimber to think that she might have to love her son enough for two parents, but as the days passed the thought circled her head relentlessly, making her wonder how any of them would survive the consequences if Paul was indeed Halden’s father.

Luke

When Luke held his son is his arms for the first time, he wanted to cry, but it was for an entirely different reason than it had been when he’d first held his daughter. The thought that the boy wasn’t his made him want to scream, made him want to break something. The thought that Halden was not his flesh and blood made him want to walk away from Kimber and never look back.

But he loved his daughter too damned much to just walk away, and he was going to be the bigger person even if it killed him, at least until the results of the paternity test were in. He knew now that he couldn’t raise Halden as his own if Paul was his father. He’d told himself over and over again that he loved Kimber, loved his family enough that he could. But he had been wrong, and in the back of his head he was already planning for the future.

His future looked bleak, stretching on endlessly, almost pointless. He half thought sometimes that if he didn’t have Alexis, he might just kill himself if the results were to come back naming Paul as the father of his wife’s child. But he knew he had to be strong. Alexis was going to need him and he would always need his baby girl, the light of his life.

He wondered sometimes if it was just punishment, if he deserved this, not just because he had had an affair with Sierra, but because he has taken so many women’s hearts for granted in his younger years. He had spent what felt like most of his life screwing things up and he wondered why it should be different now.

He’d tried to do the right thing, first in his disastrous attempt with Sierra and then later with Kimber, but he had been the one that had started their lives on a crash course with disaster, and deep down sometimes he did think that he deserved the mess they’d all gotten into.

It was hard to look at Halden sometimes. On the outside everything was normal, and he tried so hard to ignore the signs that his son was not his own, pretending to be the doting family man when he was dying inside.

But the truth was that he was dying inside. Late at night when everyone else was asleep he cried. Sometimes he cried while he rocked the baby, praying to a God he’d long ago lost faith in to have mercy on his family.

Sometimes he wanted to say screw the paternity test, I don’t want to know. But he knew that the truth would still haunt him, even more so if he didn’t really know, and that it was fair to none of them not to know.

He felt like he was living on borrowed time as the days passed, fearing that even if the results of the test were in their favor that his family may still not survive intact.

Paul

Paul’s heart started to pound when he saw that it was Kimber calling. He was glad that Sierra had Nathan for the evening, and had been anticipating the call, but the truth was that he was scared to death and he almost didn’t want to answer the phone.

He pushed the button to answer right before the call went to voicemail, not liking the fact that his voice sounded shaky even to him when he said Hello.

Her voice was so quiet he could hardly hear her. Hello Paul.

They sat in silence for several minutes and nightmare scenarios started to play out in his head. What if Kimber’s baby had been born looking just like him, a painfully obvious reminder of their indiscretion? Could he be man enough to do the right thing if the baby was his, raise a child with a woman he barely knew? How could he face his family?

How could he have been so stupid and selfish he wondered again as dread settled in the pit of his stomach.

Kimber cleared her throat. I had the baby. He uh. . . He. . . Oh God Paul. Her voice broke and for a moment all he could hear was the sound of her quiet sobs. Finally she seemed to regain her composure and she swallowed hard. I don’t want to. . . She sighed. Screw it. Doesn’t do any good to pussy foot around. My son has light blonde hair and blue eyes. Blue eyes that are not the shade of mine.

He couldn’t speak, had no idea what to say. It was as if his heart sank to somewhere around his feet, the perfect place for it to be stomped on. And he had no one to blame but himself. He had gone back to see Kimber. He had looked at that beautiful face and wondered how any man could betray her. He had wanted to heal her while at the same time healing himself. As if doing something wrong could ever make something right. And now their lives had been changed forever.

Sierra would never forgive him. He would be lucky if she didn’t kill him. And Nathan. His son was young now, but there would come a time when he would have to explain what he had done. And how could he explain something to his boy that he had no good explanation for himself?

He could hear her breathing on the other end of the phone. He wondered what she was thinking. He wondered what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He wondered how in the hell he was going to tell Sierra, or if he should even bother.

Paul are you still there?

Yes Kimber. I’m sorry. I don’t quite know what to say.

She let out an uncomfortable laugh. I dialed your number at least twenty times before I had the courage to let the call go through. I don’t even know what to think any more. I’ve tried to tell myself that we won’t know, that we don’t know for sure until the paternity test, but I . . .

Her voice broke and he was afraid she was going to start crying again. Oh Paul. When I look at my son, I see you.

I’m so sorry Kimber.

He wanted to cry himself, felt trapped and very alone. He knew he’d get no sympathy from his wife, nor his friends or family. He had made his bed and now he would have to lie in it.

I can’t talk to Luke. It’s like he wants to ignore it. I guess I don’t really blame him, but I . . . Oh how I wish we could go back and do it all over again.

He sighed. I know. But we can’t and we have to do the right thing. No matter how hard it might be.

Why did it have to be us? That was the first time I ever cheated. Do we really deserve this? I never wondered if I was a good person before this, but now I do. I wonder if we don’t deserve this.

Even if we deserve this, the kids don’t. Your daughter is a little older too. Nathan is just a baby.

I know. And she’s a daddy’s girl too. It’s going to break her heart if Luke leaves. More like when Luke leaves. I can see it in his eyes. Even if Halden is his, I’m afraid he’s still going to end up leaving. And it’s going to be all our faults, even if they’re the ones that started the whole thing.

Sierra half hates me already, and I know that she’ll never forgive me if the baby is mine. If she was a different type of woman I’d be afraid she’d take my son away from me.

Are you sure she won’t?

Sierra is a bitch, no doubt about it. But she is hands down one of the best mothers I’ve ever seen and I can’t believe that she would harm our son to punish me.

Women do it all the time, but I hope that you’re right. I guess we go along with the test as planned and then we go from there huh? Unless you uh want to talk about it now.

No. It sounds bad, but I’d rather go on now as if everything is normal. I don’t want to think about it. Though it’s going to be hard to think about anything else.

She sighed. I know. I feel like I’m going crazy already.

Well, if you want to talk to someone, you can call me anytime.

Are you sure? I mean, I don’t want to cause any more trouble between you and Sierra.

Sierra was lost to me the minute we found out you were pregnant and the baby could be mine. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. Maybe it’s for the best. We were never a good match in the first place.

Yeah, I guess Luke and I weren’t a good match either. I’d just hoped that I might be able to get it right you know? My parents certainly never did.

Oh, mine are still together, but sometimes I’m convinced they hate each other. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s worse to stay together for the sake of the family, or to just give up like everyone else.

I don’t know either Paul. Well, I just wanted you to know. You can call me if you have any questions or want to talk. Other than that I guess I’ll get in touch with you when we have the results.

Thanks Kimber.

You’re welcome. Um I wasn’t sure whether or not to ask this, but I’m going to. Would you like to see a picture of the baby?

Paul didn’t know what to say. If he said no, he would feel heartless, like he didn’t even care enough to see a child that might be his. On the other hand though, he was afraid to see Kimber’s suspicions confirmed, and to look upon the face of a child that was the picture of him. What would he do then, how would he feel?

What if he couldn’t love his own son?

He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly before he answered. Yes, I would. Thank you.

You can receive pictures to your phone I assume?

Yes.

Okay. I’ll send them. It was nice talking to you Paul.

You too Kimber. Uh, I guess I’ll talk to you again soon.

Yeah. Goodbye Paul.

Bye Kimber.

Paul hung up the phone, threw it across the room, hung his head and cried.

Sierra

She knew something was wrong the minute Paul answered the door. Holding back a sigh as she juggled Nathan and the diaper bag, she said "What is it Paul? Spit it