Free I Know Who Holds Tomorrow by Francis Ray Page A

the waiting room. A man pushing a big metal cart with multiple compartments came out directly behind him. So did two other people.
    â€œWhat are they doing?” Madison cried. “They have to go back in there and help Wes!”
    Zachary placed his hand gently on her arm, felt the shivers that raced over her slim body. “Come on, Madison. Let’s get out of here.”
    â€œNo, I’m not leaving.” She stared up at him with dazed eyes. “I have to talk with Wes.”
    His other hand closed around her other forearm. “Wes is gone, Madison. You can’t talk with him,” he told her, speaking the most difficult words in his life.
    She shook her head from side to side. “You’re wrong! He has to tell me the truth.”
    â€œHe already has, Madison. Wes was Manda’s father.”

SIX
    M ADISON RECOILED. ZACHARY’S WORDS were like a punch to the gut. She wanted to deny Wes’s confession, but couldn’t. No man so gravely injured would claim a child that wasn’t his. Her eyes shut tightly. The extent of Wes’s betrayal clawed its way through the disbelief and grief. While they were married, Wes had slept with another woman and had a child.
    â€œMadison.”
    Her eyes snapped open. They blazed with anger. “Let me go!”
    Zachary gazed down into her features ravaged with shock and anguish, then slowly uncurled his fingers from around her arms. As soon as she was free, she turned to walk away.
    â€œWhat about Manda?”
    Madison flinched, but kept walking, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other. She took another step, then swayed as a piercing cry came from beyond the door to the waiting area. Vanessa.
    Madison shut her eyes, wishing she could shut out the grief pouring from Wes’s mother. Shut out Wes’s last words to her.
    â€œManda’s mine.”
    When she opened her eyes, Zachary stood in front of her.
    â€œWhat about Manda?” he repeated.
    She tried to go around him, but he stepped in her path. Rage ripped though her grief. “How can you ask me that?”
    â€œManda lost, too. She lost a mother and a father.”
    The reminder almost caused Madison’s trembling knees to buckle. “She’s not my responsibility.”

    â€œWhat about your promise?” he pushed.
    Her hands clenched. “Wes promised something, too,” she said referring to their marriage vows. “Now, please let me pass.”
    Zachary hated that he had to push her, but he didn’t have a choice. Somehow he had to get through to her. “I know you’re hurting and angry, but you heard the nurse. If you don’t take her, she’ll go into foster care. You’re not that heartless.”
    His words pricked her, but not in the way he’d intended. “Yes. Good old Madison. She’ll take anything.” How could Wes have done this to her?
    â€œMad—”
    â€œNo!” she shouted, cutting him off, unaware that the nurses and visitors who had given them privacy were all watching and listening. “I don’t want anything to do with her. She’s not my responsibility and nothing you can say will change my mind.”
    She was near the breaking point, Zachary noted. She was hanging by her fingernails. If he pushed any further, she’d crack. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
    â€œI—”
    â€œI’m just driving you home,” he assured her calmly. “You don’t have your car, remember?”
    She remembered. Too much. She was tired. So tired.
    Gently, his arm curved around her shoulder, drawing her closer to him as he led her out of the room, aware that he was leaving Wes. His throat ached. He wasn’t ashamed to cry. There would be time enough for tears later. Now, Madison and Manda needed him. He had made a promise, too.
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    Zachary located his truck exactly where the security guard, Ronald Jones, had said he parked it. After