Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine NK Literary Cafe Magazine - April 2018 Issue | Page 73

clanked against each other as they dangled on his fingertip in front of Kurt’s face.
Kurt folded his arms across his chest and angrily slammed his back against the
wall.
Officer Buchanan was now standing in front of Val, holding a pen and notepad.
“Go ahead, ma’am. What happened tonight?”
Val looked down at the officer’s spit-shined shoes, heaved a deep breath,
then looked up at her ivory face. “Like I was saying, we were arguing about my
pregnancy.”
The officer frowned, jotting something on her notepad. “Why would your
pregnancy be an issue?”
Val wrapped her arms tightly around her midsection. Three years of being
unable to conceive in her first marriage, followed by the unexpected death of her
first husband Hunter during a medical mission in Indonesia, had embalmed her
heart and given it a closed-casket funeral. She met Kurt eight years later. Many
men had tried to date her after she was widowed. But Kurt was different. He
understood the anguish she’d been through, and he wanted to come into her
world to fulfill all her dreams. Or so she thought.
“Kurt surprised me with this house a month before our wedding,” she said,
gesturing like she was a game show host and the house was the next prize up
for grabs. “He said he wanted plenty of room for our family.” That promise had
resuscitated her heart back then. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes,
trying to remember that moment of happiness. “So I sold my house and we moved
here after the wedding. But as soon as we got back from our honeymoon, he sang
a different tune.” Val shot an accusatory glare at him. “That’s when he told me
that his business was struggling and he wanted to put off having children until he
was sure he could support our family by himself.”
“That doesn’t sound like an unreasonable request,” the handsome, beefy
policeman piped in.
Kurt clenched his fists at his sides. “Finally somebody’s starting to see my side
of this mess.” His eyes lowered to the man’s name badge. “When I met my wife,
Officer Dell, her psychiatric practice was growing and the medical office building
she owned was almost at full occupancy. All of her profit was going into her
business, and I was fine with that because, hell, I wasn’t some gigolo looking to
sponge off of some woman.”
“That’s not the point,” Val said, jumping to her feet but sitting back down after
Officer Buchanan shot a warning glance at her. “You made a promise, knowing full
well that you weren’t going to go through with it.” Finding out about his business
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