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tests on Gabriel. From the blood we drew, the lab reported his white cell count is unusually high.”
    “ What does that mean?” Andy asked. Laura’s eyes widened, and she looked to him for help. He could tell the doctor had not only pushed all her buttons but now had her teetering on the edge of a breakdown.
    “It means there could be some infection ,” the doctor said. “Until I get all the tests back, I won’t know for sure. I don’t like to just hand out prescriptions for antibiotics. If there’s an infection, I want to know why and what’s causing it, whether it’s viral or bacterial. If it’s more serious, I also need the father’s medical history, as well. That’s why I asked, because neither of you shared the fact that Gabriel is not Andy’s biological child.” He looked at each of them in turn.
    Andy hadn’t thought too much about the boy who had fathered Gabriel, and as Gabriel snuggled in closer and gripped his shirt, he liked it even less that Gabriel wasn’t his. “He’s not in the picture, so what about in the meantime?” Andy asked.
    The doctor slid the paperwork across the desk. His expression was concerned enough that Andy felt all kinds of alarm bells going off. “Well, until I get Gabriel’s records, I need to know from you what has been prescribed in the past. Would you be able to find out the father’s medical history?”
    He looked to Andy for the answers, though Andy had only come into the picture a year ago, when Gabriel was four . Andy had never spoken to Laura about the father. All he knew was that the boy had wanted nothing to do with Laura after finding out she was pregnant, and her parents had asked her to leave. Maybe Andy had left her past alone for too long. He was pretty sure Gabriel had missed out on medical care, dental appointments. Andy had just assumed everything had been taken care of, but Laura wouldn’t have had any health insurance. She and Gabriel had barely been getting by.
    “I don’t think he’s ever taken anything , has he, Laura?” Andy said. He hadn’t meant to put her on the spot, but Laura just shook her head, and he didn’t miss the shadow that fell over her as she slouched a bit, trying to hide. She swallowed and looked to Andy, and now she was wringing her hands. Andy wondered what that was about. What he did know, though, was that he and Laura needed to sit down and have a heart-to-heart. Maybe it was time he found out everything that had happened to his wife and Gabriel before he knew them, before she ended up a maid in the Friessen mansion.
    Andy reached for the orders for blood work, glancing at all the boxes checked off. It was a lot of tests for his little boy, and Andy worried now about whether it was even the flu.
    “ Oh, I put a rush on the tests, so if you could go to the lab downstairs right now, they’ll have the results back to me today,” the doctor said. He closed up the file and scooted back his chair, giving them a practiced smile before he left.

Chapter 8
    “I know we’ve never talked about it , Laura, and I didn’t ask, because it didn’t matter, but I’m asking now. I need you to tell me everything,” Andy said. He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, looking down at Laura as she scrubbed the skillet she had used to brown the chicken before setting it in the oven. She scrubbed vigorously over a spot he could see was already clean, and he could tell by how hard she went at it that she didn’t want to talk about a past he knew was painful, though it had shaped her into who she was today.
    “Hey.” He set his hand on her shoulder and rubbed until she looked up at him , and he could see just how much she still hurt over those lost teenage years.
    She blinked for a second, fighting against the memory. When she opened her amazing green eyes, even the gold flecks that always sparkled to life in them had dimmed with sadness. “I never took Gabriel to the doctor before because I couldn’t afford it. There