“I just wish he wouldn’t keep pushing us all away.”
Ryan stood from where he had knelt in front of the grave and after a minute, turned and then froze in his tracks. I wasn’t sure if he was going to be angry we were there or indifferent. He walked toward us and to my surprise, walked up to Logan and gave him a hug. When he pulled back, relief spread across his face and I wondered if we had stayed away too long. Maybe he needed us all this time and we weren’t there for him.
When he walked up to me, he gave me a side hug and then smiled when he saw Maggie’s large belly. “Finally got her barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, huh?”
“Not really, more like barefoot and pregnant and constantly on the run. You know Maggie. She never could be tied down.”
“Hey, I am a lot better about things now.”
Ryan leaned in and gave her a hug and whispered something in her ear that I couldn’t hear. When they pulled apart, Maggie had tears in her eyes and gave Ryan a nod. I really wanted to know what he said to her, but there was no way I was going to ask.
“You guys should all come back to the house. We’re going to drink to Cassie. I could actually use your help with something,” he said to all of us. Then he turned and got into the car with James.
“This is going to be hell,” Maggie said.
“He’s finally asking for help. We can’t let him down,” Logan said as he walked up to us. I cast a worried glance Maggie’s way. She looked tired already and I wasn’t sure this was a good idea for her.
“Do you want to go home and lie down? You look tired.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to be there. I’ll be fine.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the occasion or because she was lying about how she was feeling. Either way, we got in the car and headed to Ryan’s house.
After we toasted to Cassie’s memory and drank our beer, Ryan asked us to come into the living room with him. He stood in front of the window and I noticed that everyone was here except for James and his grandparents.
“I’m sorry that I’ve been pushing you all away. I didn’t really want you to go that night, but I just..” Ryan shook his head and blew out a breath as he stared at the ground. “I wasn’t ready to do it, to live life and try to move on.”
When he looked back up at us, it almost gutted me. Here was my friend that I had known almost my whole life and he was still just as broken as he was a year ago. His eyes were red as he looked at all of us.
“I can’t move on without her, but I can’t keep living like this either. It’s not fair to James.”
Maggie shook in my arms as she tried to hold back her tears. Even I had to fight to not break down right now. It was hard to see a friend going through such a hard time.
“I need..I need for you girls to go through her stuff and get rid of her things. I’ve pretty much already set aside what I want to keep of hers, so it’s basically packing up her bathroom stuff and her clothes.” He sniffed and looked at the girls, who all nodded. “I need, hell I don’t exactly know what I need from you guys. I guess I need you to pull me out of this hole. I can’t do it anymore,” he whispered.
He turned back to the window to compose himself and we all motioned for the girls to leave the room. It was hard enough for Ryan to let them see that much, but he was on the verge of losing it and he didn’t need everyone to see. Logan walked up behind him and gripped his shoulder.
“We’re here. We always were. You just have to tell us what you need because we don’t have a fucking clue.”
“I need to not feel this anymore. I want to just forget for one night.”
“Is James staying with Cal and James?” Logan asked. Ryan nodded. “Alright, time to get drunk, boys. Call off work tomorrow because there’s no way in hell you’ll be walking straight.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Maggie
MY BACK WAS killing me and I had just started having contractions, but there was no way in hell I could tell anyone. We were here for Ryan and he needed us to do this for him. The contractions had just started and were pretty far apart, so I was confident that I would be fine for the rest of the time we were here.
We had Cassie’s closet all packed up and in the back of one of the trucks to take to Goodwill. We were going around the house, collecting things that were still sitting out that Ryan had never moved. It was so sad to see and it must have been very painful for Ryan and James. I stepped over by the fire and grabbed a book on the table. It was a contemporary romance and she had a little bookmark in it. There was dust covering the table except for where the book sat. I brushed off the book and remembered how Cassie used to love to read romance novels and would tell us about all the sexy men she had read about.
“She never finished that one,” Ryan said from behind me. I turned to see him staring at the book with a drink in his hand. “I sit in that chair every damn night and picture her curled up reading a book.”
“I remember she used to tell us about the men in the book and we all insisted that men like that didn’t really exist. I think we were wrong though. Every one of us is so lucky and Cassie was the luckiest. What you did for her, not just helping her keep custody of James, but the way you loved both of them and kept James after she was gone..”
I couldn’t finish my thought. Ryan truly was one of the best men ever and my heart broke knowing that he would never get what Sebastian and I had.
“The thing is, I’d do it all again. If I had known that I would only have that year with her, I’d still have chased after her just so I would know what it was like to have her be mine. I know I haven’t been around this past year, but Logan told me that you and Sebastian were having problems.”
“We did, but we got past them.”
“Good. Life’s too short to waste without the people you love.”
“Says the man that pushed all his friends away for half a year.”
He smiled and looked down at my belly. “I wish I could have had that with her,” he nodded toward my stomach. “I wish a lot of things and I need to stop that.”
“You might still have it someday. She might not be Cassie and she may not be the one you want, but you never know, you may find a woman one day that makes everything feel..not so terrible.”
He shook his head and his eyes filled with tears. “Cassie was it for me. She was-” he cut off abruptly when he couldn’t speak anymore without crying. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms as far around him as I could. His body shook in my arms, but I knew he was trying his hardest to hold back.
“I know it feels like that now, but you’ll see, every day will get a little easier.” A contraction hit and my body tensed slightly. It was still pretty mild, more like bad period cramps. Ryan must have sensed the change because he looked back at me in concern. I smiled as it passed and pretended that everything was fine.
“You should probably keep this,” I said as I held up to book. “You don’t want to get rid of everything that reminds you of Cassandra.”
He nodded and took the book from me and ran his hand over the cover and then fingered the bookmark.
“Do me a favor?”
“Sure, anything you need.”
“Take Sebastian home before you have that kid in my house.”
I burst out laughing. “I thought I was hiding it so well.”
“You were. I honestly didn’t have a clue, but Harper asked me to come talk you into leaving. She knew you would stay until the last possible moment.”
“I didn’t want everyone to start worrying about me.”
I could tell he knew what I hadn’t said, that I hadn’t wanted to take away what this day was really about.
“I would say the day would be a whole lot worse if Sebastian found out that you were in labor and didn’t say anything. Really, you should be thinking about how that would affect the rest of us,” he said jokingly. “Now, go get Sebastian and leave before I go tell him that you’re in labor myself.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You know I would.”
I gave him a hug and waddled off to find Sebastian. He was drinking in the kitchen with the guys and judging by the empty bottle of whiskey on the counter, they had skipped the beer and gone straight to the hard stuff.
“Freckles! Come here baby mama. I want to kiss you.”
Sebastian always got really happy when he got drunk, which I was grateful for since his dad was a lousy drunk. Sebastian didn’t give in to temptation often, but when he did, he was usually pretty funny to watch.
“I need to go home, so how about you say goodbye to your friends and tell them you had fun,” I said as if he were a five year old boy.
“Aww, but Freckles, I want to stay and have fun. Can’t we stay the night?” he whined.
“I hate to tell you this, but if we stay here until the morning, we’re going to have another visitor.”
He looked at me in confusion. “Who else is coming? We’re all here.”
“She’s talking about the baby, you dumbass. She’s in labor.” Ryan walked into the kitchen behind me and I had to laugh because he was the only one of them still sober.
“What?” Sebastian stood up a little taller and he looked shocked. “Baby? The baby? Our baby? You’re..I’m..We’re having,” he swallowed hard and swayed on his feet. “Oh, shit,” he mumbled, right before he face planted onto the floor. We all stood there watching to see if he would get up, but he didn’t. I sighed and turned to Ryan.
“Would you mind getting him into the truck? I’ll take him home and wait for him to sober up.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’re in labor.”
“Early stages. From what I’ve read, I have at least twelve hours to go and the contractions aren’t even close yet.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he had Logan help him drag Sebastian out to the truck. It was times like this that I wished Sebastian didn’t insist on driving a truck. It was hard enough to get into his huge ass truck on a normal day, but doing it while pregnant and twice the size I normally was, was a little difficult. After shoving Sebastian into the driver’s side, Ryan came around to my side.
“If you need anything, call us. Let us know when the baby is born. James will be so excited to meet the baby.”
“I will. It was good to see you, Ryan.”
He backed away from the truck and I drove home with Sebastian still passed out next to me. When I pulled in the driveway, there was another car there. I decided to leave Sebastian in the truck. It wasn’t like I could haul him inside by myself.
A woman stepped out of a car with sunglasses on. I couldn’t make out who she was, but when she pulled off the sunglasses, I immediately recognized her face. Well, the part that wasn’t all black and blue.
“I’m sorry to come here, but I didn’t know who else to go to.” Amelia Sanford stood in front of me, but she didn’t look like herself. Her hair was dyed an ugly, dull brown that made her look like a very dour woman. Her beautiful smile was gone, in place a split lip, with blood that was dried where it appeared to have reopened.
“Amelia, what happened?”
She had tears in her eyes, but stood tall and refused to let them fall. “You were right about my husband. I turned a blind eye to many of his faults for years, but that was the last straw. I finally got the evidence I needed against him, but he found out. I need to get away.”
“Does he know that you’ve come to me? Does he know about me at all?”
She shook her head. “That’s why I came here. I never told him about our visit and my staff works for my family. They would never say anything.”
“I don’t mean to be unfeeling, but do you have the evidence?” She flinched like I had slapped her. “I’m going to help you, but you need that evidence if you’re going to get away from him. It’s your insurance policy. He needs to be put away or you’ll always be a threat to him, especially considering how much money he’s stolen.”
“I have it in my car.”
“Okay, let me make a phone call. Why don’t we go inside?”
I forgot about Sebastian in the truck. When he woke up, he would at least know we were at home. I brought her inside and grabbed some ice from the freezer and a towel and gave it to her for her face.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
I had noticed that she was limping slightly, but she didn’t look like she was going to pass out. “Just bumps and bruises. I’ll be fine.”
When I had her settled on the couch, I got my phone and made a call to Sinner.
“Freckles, is it time yet?”
“Yes,” I said as another contraction hit. They were getting a little closer, but I was certain that I would be fine until I could get this done.
“Holy shit, really?”
“Yes, really, and I have a bit of a problem.”
“Shoot.”
“I have a woman here in trouble and she needs someplace to go while I get her story to a friend of mine.”
“Why aren’t you having Cap take care of this?”
“He’s passed out in the truck.”
“What?”
“He drank with his buddies and when I told him that I was in labor, he freaked out and passed out.”
“Christ, you’d think Sebastian would have his shit under control.”
“Well, the problem is, since he’s been drinking, I don’t know when he’s going to wake up or what condition he’ll be in.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“I need you to drive us into the city so I can meet my friend and then keep Amelia safe.”
“You want to go into the city to meet a contact while you’re in labor? Are you fucking crazy? Cap will have my ass if I do that.”
“Please, Mark. I have plenty of time. If you get here fast, we can be on the road and get back before it gets too bad.”
“This is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever done.”
“That’s debatable. Come on. You know if you don’t take me, I’m going to drive to the city by myself and then you’ll be finding yourself another job for sure.”
“That’s playing dirty, Freckles.”
“I’ll see you in ten minutes.”
“Fine.”
He hung up and I paced the living room as I waited for Mark. I was trying to rub my back while I breathed through the contractions that were getting a little closer together. I timed them, but they were still fifteen minutes apart. I had plenty of time.
“Maybe you should get to the hospital.”
I waved off Amelia’s concern and thought about where I needed to go and who I needed to see.
“Do you have your bag? Because I can guarantee you won’t have time to come back and get it.”
“Where are your kids?” I stopped to ask. She had mentioned that she had kids of her own, but wouldn’t a woman take her kids with her?
“They’re with my parents on vacation. I knew I was going to do this, so I asked them to take the kids out of town. They’re traveling Europe, so they should be safe.”
“That’s good.” I sent off a message to Keith, that I used to work with at The Pittsburgh Press. He was the only friend I really still had in Pittsburgh and he had connections to different journalists now that he worked for a different paper. I wouldn’t trust anyone that worked at The Pittsburgh Press.
Mark showed up at the door five minutes later. “Holy shit, Freckles, you’re huge.”
I smacked him on the arm and glared at him. “Ouch, shit, you didn’t have to slap me.”
“You didn’t have to be an ass.”
“So, where are we going?”
“I need to meet a friend at a newspaper in Pittsburgh. And we have to take my truck because Sebastian is still passed out.”
“Still?”
“I’m guessing it’s all the alcohol. He should wake up soon.”
“You know, I just got my job back less than a year ago. Why couldn’t you have c
alled someone else to help you with your shenanigans?”
“Because no one understands me like you do.”
“You mean, you knew you could manipulate me into helping you.”
“Whatever works. Come meet Amelia.”
We walked in and I introduced Amelia to Mark. “Thank you for helping me. Maybe I should just send the information to your contact so you can get to the hospital.”
I shook my head as another contraction hit. When it passed, I took a deep breath and hustled to the door. “No, this isn’t his area. He won’t get involved for just anyone.”
I climbed into the back seat with Amelia and Sinner got in the front with Sebastian.
“I feel like I’m sitting next to a rabid dog that’s going to attack me at any moment,” Sinner grumbled.
“He’ll only bite if I have the baby in the car.”
“Then let’s get this shit done.”
We were about halfway to Pittsburgh when Sebastian finally woke up with a start.
“Freckles!” He shouted as he sat upright. He looked over to see Mark smiling at him. “What the hell is going on?”
“We’re going to Pittsburgh so Maggie can drop off evidence to a contact while trying to not have a baby in the back seat,” Mark said nonchalantly.
Sebastian spun around and then groaned, holding his head. “Holy shit. How much did I drink?”
“I’m not sure, but you’d better sober up real fast because I’m not listening to you complain about your head while I’m trying to push a baby out of my vagina.”
He nodded and then noticed Amelia in the back seat next to me.
“Who’s this?”
“This is Amelia. Mark is going to take her to a safe house.”
“How long was I out?” obviously confused by everything that was going on.
I shrugged. “It actually hasn’t been that long.”
“You know Maggie, never a dull moment,” Mark said. “Look on the bright side, no one is shooting at us and if worst comes to worst, there are plenty of hospitals in Pittsburgh.”
“I don’t get it. What possessed you to think now was the time to take a road trip?”
“I don’t know. What possessed you to get drunk off your ass knowing I was so close to my due date?”
Cap_A Reed Security Romance Page 23
