by Tess Summers
Suddenly he felt a whole new wave of empathy for Dante and Bella. He’d known all of ten minutes that he was going to be a dad, and his baby was probably the size of a poppy seed, yet Jacob would already do whatever it took to protect him—or her. Always. He could only imagine how he was going to be when the baby finally arrived, or what he’d do if someone actually tried to take her—or him.
Did he want a boy or girl?
Fuck! Focus, man!
“Lose something in there?” Erik teased.
With a sigh, he grabbed a water bottle and closed the door, turning around to inquiring faces. They obviously weren’t going to let it go.
“Yes, Taren is pregnant. No, we didn’t plan it, but I’m excited as hell.” He looked pointedly at Edward, “And don’t ever fucking ask again if it’s mine.”
“Yeah, the second I said it, I realized it was kind of a dick question.” The blond man grinned. “Congratulations, man. And welcome to the club.”
****
Taren
She woke up late the next day; the guilt from sleeping so much subsided now that she understood why exactly she was feeling exhausted all the time. Managing to keep her breakfast of toast and juice down, she sat down at her computer to write her resignation letter. She gave the hospital a month’s notice, thinking that was fair considering how accommodating they’d been with her recent last minute vacation request.
Taren thought about when the cruise tickets showed up—how skeptical she’d been that it wasn’t a hoax, then when she found out they were real, allowing herself to be excited about it. It seemed like she’d been nothing but smiling ever since. She had been making baby steps before about being happy again in her life, but after reuniting with Jacob, it felt like those baby steps had turned into joyful leaps and bounds.
And now they were having a baby. A miracle baby, if you asked her. There’s no way she should be pregnant.
No. Way.
Then a thought made her clutch her chest. What if her store-bought test gave her a false positive? She knew that happened. What if she wasn’t really pregnant? What a cruel joke that would be, since she’d just allowed herself to feel excited about becoming a mother. And poor Jacob. He would be devastated.
She’d take a blood test tomorrow at work, just to be absolutely sure. But in her heart, Taren knew. Their baby was growing inside her—and she already loved him, or her, and would do anything to keep her little one safe.
****
Her Netflix binge came to an end right at ten o’clock, so she switched on the local news and walked into her closet to make sure she had clean scrubs for tomorrow.
The news anchor’s voice as she walked back into her bedroom stopped her heart.
…The child’s father had reportedly paid the ransom before authorities discovered her body in the Ensenada warehouse district. No arrests have been made.
Taren stood frozen, unable to process what she’d just heard. It wasn’t possible. Madi couldn’t be dead. Not that sweet little girl who’d held Jacob’s hand and sat on his lap while they played dolls. No. It had to be a mistake.
She rewound the story from the beginning, tears streaming down her face as she listened and started to shake uncontrollably. When the anchor ended the story, she promptly ran to the bathroom and threw up, her head resting on the toilet as she sobbed.
She somehow ended up curled in a ball in her bed, the burner phone next to her as she waited to hear something—anything from Jacob. She’d sent him a text begging him to call her, but nothing yet.
What if… what if the same thing happened to her child? If someone could get to Madi with the armed guards surrounding the estate where she’d lived, what made Taren think someone wanting revenge on Jacob couldn’t get to her baby? A sense of panic welled up inside her, and she had a sudden urge to hide in the closet. Her baby could be in real danger. Maybe Jacob had done the right thing in leaving her seven years ago. The moment those two pink lines had appeared, their entire future had changed. Dropping her hand to rub against her belly, she knew that from this point forward, she had to remember this was no longer just about her life. The safety of their baby was at stake.
Finally, a text from Jake.
Can’t talk. I’ll be in Houston by the morning. We’ll talk then. I love you, Tink.
The day that had started out like a dream had quickly become a nightmare.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jacob
Reading Taren’s text on the plane to Houston broke his heart.
Turned out to be a false positive. There’s no baby.
I’m so sorry, Tinkerbell. Are you okay? I’m in the air, on my way to Houston now.
The sense of disappointment was overwhelming; he’d been so excited about becoming a dad; couldn’t wait to see Taren’s belly become round with his baby inside her, or have a little mini-Tinkerbell running around his place like Dante had a mini-Bella.
Watching the stoic Mexican come undone last night when they’d finally brought his baby home brought everyone watching to tears, including himself—although he’d been quick to brush them away and pretend like his eyes were itchy.
Jake needed to hold Taren again; he’d missed her so much these last few weeks, and he wasn’t sure how she was handling the false positive news. Was she relieved? Or disappointed?
Maybe not having a baby right now was the best thing, after all. The mastermind behind Madi’s kidnapping was still at large. Madi’s disappearance had been hard enough on him—if it were his own child? He’d go insane.
I saw on the news about Madi. How are Bella and Dante holding up?
There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.
He wasn’t technically lying.
If Taren saw the news, then he knew their plan had been set in motion, and she thought Madi was dead. He needed to let her know the toddler was safe at John’s house in San Diego. He could only imagine how upset she was.
The group—consisting only of her parents, godparents, and the five men who’d played a role in rescuing her, decided leaking Madison’s ‘death’ was the best course of action at the moment. Dante wasn’t convinced it was the Zetas who took his daughter, despite the tattoos on the men from the warehouse seeming to prove otherwise. And the survivors weren’t talking—yet. Until the Sinaloans had absolute confirmation it was Los Zetas and not the Columbians, they weren’t taking any chances. Letting the world believe Madi was dead was the best option in keeping her safe. Jacob wasn’t going to risk telling Taren over the phone or via text that the little girl was alive and well, in case his phone had become compromised. The small group who knew she was returned home unharmed had taken an oath to only reveal it to those who absolutely needed to know—and never electronically. Jacob wouldn’t be the weakest link in that chain with something as avoidable as using a compromised phone.
See you soon, baby.
Please don’t come. I have some things I need to figure out.
Oh, no. That wasn’t going to work.
We need to talk, Tink.
Please, Jake. Just let me go. I’m not cut out for this.
He considered honoring her request for all of point zero two seconds. He knew she had to be upset about Madison, but she just needed to hear him out.
Baby, let me explain some things.
When she didn’t text back, he sent another.
Tinkerbell. I’ll be on the ground in ninety minutes. It’s going to be okay, baby. I promise.
Still, she didn’t respond.
****
Taren
She called in sick to work, still devastated over the news of Madison. But Jacob’s text of ‘See you soon,’ sent her into a panicked frenzy. She needed to leave before he got to her apartment.
Now, she just needed to figure out a place to go. Of her old friends in town, they’d either slept with her ex-husband or faded out of her life because they thought her ex was an asshole.
Taren blew out a deep breath. That left her parents or her Aunt Rachel, an
d of the two, only her aunt was in Houston. Rachel was her dad’s youngest sister; there was a sixteen-year difference between the two. Her grandparents had five children—her father was the oldest and Rachel was the youngest, which made her only ten years older than Taren.
“Of course you’re welcome, honey,” Rachel had said when she’d called and told her the Reader’s Digest version of her sob story.
She threw a week’s worth of clothes along with some toiletries into a suitcase and was out the door. Her aunt had hot tea and cookies waiting for her when she arrived, because ‘hot tea and sugar make everything better’.
Rachel was a beautiful woman, if not a little eccentric, but also one of the kindest Taren had ever met. She’d gone through a divorce after a brief marriage in her early twenties and hadn’t remarried or had children yet.
“I’m still waiting on the universe to bring my Mr. Right to me,” she’d said at Christmas a few years back. “In the meantime, Mr. Right Now will have to do.”
As Taren’s favorite aunt growing up, Rachel had a big influence on her. Her dad described his youngest sister as a hippie chick. It wasn’t meant to be disparaging, and Rachel certainly never took it that way. Some of her woo-woo beliefs, as Jacob calls them, rubbed off on her.
“You want to talk about it, sweets?” her aunt had asked once she settled in with her tea and cookies.
“Eventually, but not right now, if that’s okay?”
“That’s perfectly fine. Mi casa es su casa.”
“Thanks. I promise I won’t be in your hair long, maybe just a week or so.” When I’m sure the coast is clear, and I can go back to my apartment.
“Sweet girl, I’m happy to have you here. Stay as long as you want. Hell, I’d love to have a little one running around here.”
“Yeah? How come you don’t then?”
Rachel sighed and gave a sad smile. “It’s not something I’m interested in doing alone and since Mr. Right seems to have gotten lost… I guess I always thought I’d have more time. Then, bam! I turned forty this year and am thinking maybe it’s not meant to be.”
“You never know; he might show up when you least expect it. Have you asked the universe to bring him to you?”
“You know what, I haven’t explicitly asked. Maybe I should. But who’s to say… maybe he won’t want kids.”
“Or maybe he already has ones who need a mother.”
“Stranger things have happened,” the beautiful blonde woman with pink streaks in her hair said with a smile.
“Universe, bring Rachel her Mr. Right and her family.”
Her aunt laid her hands on Taren’s belly and said with a soft smile. “Universe, help Taren figure out what to do next.”
Taren knew it was going to be a long road ahead, but felt in her heart just then that everything would be okay. She’d have her happiness. Maybe it wouldn’t be with Jacob, but perhaps this baby was what she was supposed to get from him. He or she would be her joy, so she wouldn’t look at their brief reunion as anything but a blessing.
“I have my first doctor’s appointment tomorrow; wanna come with me to my appointment?”
“You bet your heart-shaped butt I do! What time?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
She was curled up on the bed in Rachel’s guest room reading her Kindle when her phone started dinging. She’d half been expecting this—Jacob must be in Houston.
At first, she decided she was just going to delete his messages without reading them, but her curiosity got the better of her. She was a glutton for punishment.
11:01 a.m. Tinkerbell, where are you. We need to talk. I need to explain some things, baby.
11:11 a.m. Just tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.
11:22 a.m. Tink, please, baby. Everything isn’t what you think.
11:36 a.m. Please, Taren. At least let me know you’re okay. You owe me that much.
He was right. She did owe him that much—considering everything he’d probably been through with Madison, she was sure he was worried about her, too.
11:37 a.m. I’m okay. Please, just let me go.
It wasn’t until she fired off the text that she realized she’d probably played right into his hand. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was already in the process of tracing her message, and any minute now, he’d know her exact location—right down to where she was sitting in Rachel’s house, and come pounding on her window.
Dammit! She quickly shut her phone off, not sure if that would make a difference or not, but it couldn’t hurt.
****
Jacob
Oh, sweet Tinkerbell.
He wasn’t sure why she’d shut her phone off suddenly. Maybe so she wouldn’t read any more of his texts, but he somehow doubted it. If she’d gone to the trouble of disappearing from her apartment, she probably realized he would track her phone.
Unfortunately for her, he knew where she was the minute he walked away from her apartment door after banging on it until a neighbor came out and yelled at him; shutting off her phone wasn’t going to change a thing. He had called up the app to find her phone before he even got back in his car and called his P.I. And just to be double sure, he clicked on the tracker that he’d forgotten to take out of her purse from the cruise.
Both came up to an address belonging to a Rachel Fairchild—a relative of hers, he assumed, judging by the last name.
The question that he now had to ponder—at least for the next day or so, was what he was going to do with that information. He’d left the airport half-cocked, but had since calmed down. He needed to play his cards right if he was going to get her to see him.
His bank had also notified him of a deposit made into his account. What Dante paid him for finding his little girl was enough to set him up for the rest of his life, had he not already been set. The ragtag team hadn’t even given him a price for the job—Erik and Raul had stayed behind without asking for a dime. Jacob would have done it for free, and he was sure the other men felt the same, so apparently Dante set one for them. And it wasn’t like they were going to send Dante’s money back to him after he paid it.
Besides, Dante would not want to feel indebted to them any more than he already did. The astronomical sum the Mexican paid was his way of trying to even the score. Jacob respected that, because he was much the same way. While owing favors to people was a way of life in this business, he never wanted the scales tipped too far in someone else’s favor. That’s when they started thinking they owned him, and that shit didn’t fly with men in Jacob and Dante’s world.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Congratulations, Mama… everything appears to be great. Looks like your due date is March twenty-fourth,” Dr. Bonet said as she moved the wand slightly along her stomach that now had goo all over it.
It was such a bittersweet moment. She was smiling brightly at Rachel, because she really was happy, but inside her heart was hurting because Jacob wasn’t here with her. He would have been over the moon.
“Any ideas for a name?” her aunt asked after the doctor left the room, leaving Taren to wipe the mess off her stomach before getting dressed.
“No. Not yet. I’m going to wait until I know the sex before I really start thinking about that.
“I’ve always been partial to names of places, like Austin or Dakota.”
Rachel kept talking the entire drive back to her place. Taren suspected she was trying to keep her from thinking too much. Her suspicions were confirmed, when they pulled into her aunt’s driveway, and Rachel grabbed her hand before getting out.
“It’s going to be okay. You’re smart, and you’re young, and you come from a long line of strong women. Not to mention you have a support system of badasses. The universe has your back, sweets. I promise.”
“I know,” Taren said with a genuine smile. “I think I just need a little time to grieve.”
“Take all the time you need.”
“Thank you. For everything. For letting me stay, and going with me today. I r
eally appreciate it. And for not pressuring me to talk about it.”
“You’ll talk about it when you’re ready. Or not. Either way, I’m here for you.”
“I know. I love you for that. And I’m always here for you, too.”
Rachel leaned over and kissed her niece on the cheek. “Have a good day at work. Maybe you should talk to them about reducing your hours.”
She shook her head. “No. I need all the money I can get.
Rachel cocked her head. “You aren’t going to ask for child support?”
“That would mean telling him about the baby…”
“And you don’t want to do that?”
“No,” Taren said softly, looking down at her lap.
“You don’t owe me an explanation, sweets,” her aunt said, opening the car door. “I trust you have your reasons. I’m here for you.”
Taren mouthed, Thank you with a meek smile before putting the car in reverse. She was humbled by her aunt’s support.
It’s going to be a good day, she thought as she put the Kia in drive. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Jake was going to show up at the hospital, and she was going to fall apart the second she saw him. She kept her phone shut off, just in case he really could track her.
She got through her shift without Jacob appearing and crawled into bed in her most comfortable pajamas. Maybe he was going to honor her wishes after all.
Why did a tiny bit of her heart feel disappointed about that?
She put a hand on her stomach It’s for the best.
That tiny bit of her heart that was feeling disappointed about him leaving her alone whispered, “Is it though?”
“Yes, it is!” she said out loud before punching her pillow and rolling onto her side. Thankfully, sleep came quickly, thanks in part to working a twelve-hour day.
Saturday morning Rachel suggested they go out for breakfast then do some retail therapy afterward.
“Let’s at least look at some baby things afterward. You don’t have to buy anything yet, but it will be fun to look.”
