Graham stretched one muscled arm to the sky. “I couldn’t sleep, so me and buddy went for a drive to the trail. I’m just so excited.” He grinned sheepishly. It was his big day, the first day of an episode shoot that was on location and would take him out of town for one night. Don’t look too thrilled, Lauren thought bitterly. Was this going to be a love nest with him and Gracie? She thought of the one time she’d asked him if they’d hooked up . . . and what had happened because of it.

Graham cocked his head at her. “You okay? You look tired.”

Lauren tamped down her annoyance. “I’m fine.”

Unbidden, her gaze drifted to the pink, U-shaped scar over Graham’s eye. It hurt to look at it. Perhaps on instinct, Graham’s fingers flew there, too. Then he turned away to lift Matthew from the stroller. “Anyway,” he said. “We need to head out in less than an hour.”

Lauren shut her eyes. Her insomnia wasn’t even due to Matthew—just garden-variety anxiety. Aside from some fussiness at around 2:00 a.m., the kid had slept the whole night through. Hell, Graham had been the one to get up with him this morning. And—this made her feel even worse—Lauren hadn’t even checked for Matthew when she woke up. She’d just assumed he was in his crib. Was she ever going to get it together?

But she was so tired. She’d lain awake last night, tortured by her thoughts. Tuesday, Lauren had left Piper a very detailed, very passionate voicemail about postpartum rage. An hour later, she’d followed it up with an email saying more or less the same thing, adding in her phone number. Later, she’d considered calling again, apologizing for giving her phone number because of course Piper already had her phone number in Matthew’s records. She’d restrained. Piper might think that overbearing and weird once she heard all the messages.

But Piper hadn’t called back yesterday. Or emailed. So then her thoughts had returned to the note in Matthew’s backpack. Was Piper linked to it? But if she was, wouldn’t she have written back, apologizing for her error? Maybe Lauren should have mentioned the note in her messages to Piper—only, it was just so embarrassing.

And she hadn’t told Graham, either. Again, she worried he’d . . . blame her, somehow.

The house phone rang. Lauren moved to answer it, but she heard Graham get it first, likely cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear as he changed the baby. “Mm-hmm,” he said. “Mm-hmm.” His voice dropped then, and was swallowed up altogether as the baby started to squawk.

Graham reappeared with a changed, freshly clothed, smiling baby in his arms. “This guy’s all ready for Mommy!”

“Who was on the phone?” Lauren asked.