“My wife would never forgive me.” As he had the car keys, he couldn’t linger. “Thanks for anything you can do.”
“Call if you need me.”
“Will do. Thanks again.” Jared headed for the main door and joined Lizzie outside. “How is she?”
“Already asleep. The poor thing wore herself out.”
Jared unlocked the door and stood back to watch in awe as Lizzie buckled the sleeping baby into the car seat as if she’d been doing that sort of thing all her life.
They drove home in silence he’d never again take for granted. And while silence from the baby was welcome, silence between him and Lizzie was unusual and put him further on edge. “Are you okay?”
“Never better.”
Jared had no idea what to say to that. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but what was he sorry for? That her efforts to help someone else had landed them in an unfathomable situation?
“Just proves that no good deed goes unpunished,” Lizzie added with a bitter edge to her tone that was so not like her.
“You can’t stop trying to help people because this happened.”
“Yes, I can. This is too much. For both of us. Tomorrow, I’ll ask Blaine what our options are.”
“Please don’t do that because you think that’s what I want.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I want Jessie to come back and take her baby.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Yes, we do. She doesn’t want to be found, or your guy would’ve found her by now.”
“He’s only been looking a couple of days.”
“She’s gone.”
“People don’t just disappear off the face of the earth, Lizzie. We’ll find her.”
“And what’ll happen when we do? We can’t make her come back for her child.”
“No, but we could ask her if she wants to make this arrangement permanent.”
Lizzie gasped and turned in her seat to stare at him. “Are you serious?”
“It’s not as if we don’t want a baby. We just don’t want to fall in love with one we can’t keep.”
“Jared, don’t even go down this road if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it. If we can find Jessie, and she’s willing to make it legal—airtight legal—then maybe we could keep her.”
To his great dismay, she broke down into sobs that came from her very soul.
“Lizzie. What? What did I say?”
“I can’t allow myself to even think about that possibility,” she said between gut-wrenching sobs. “I already love her so much.”
“I know you do, which is why I’m thinking about how we might make this work for all of us.”
“We have to find her, Jared.”
“I know, sweetheart. And we will.”
“We have to find her before Blaine has no choice but to intervene. He knows we have an abandoned child living with us. Eventually, he’ll need to get more involved.”
“I know that, too.” Jared tightened his grip on the wheel as anxiety had him wishing for a magic wand that could quickly solve this difficult and confounding situation. He would take a million and one business challenges to deal with over one abandoned baby who was quickly wrapping herself around their fragile hearts. “Try not to worry, sweetheart. Blaine is a friend. He’ll work with us to the best of his ability. He knows she’s in a good and caring home while we try to find her mother.”
“I’ve got this knot of stress in my stomach that won’t let up no matter what I do.”
“Right there with you.”
“I’m sorry I did this to us. You told me not to, and I should’ve listened to you.”
“Don’t say that,” he said with a sigh. “The way you care for others in need is one of the things I love best about you.”
“That’s very kind of you to say, especially considering recent events, but I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to you.”
“No apology needed.”
“Do you really think it’s possible Jessie might let us keep her?”
“I don’t know, Lizzie, and I sorta wish I hadn’t mentioned that. I don’t want your hopes up when it might not happen. She could show up tomorrow and want her back, and we’d have no choice but to turn her over.”
“I wouldn’t do that without Blaine’s involvement.”
“What do you mean?”
“She abandoned her child with strangers, Jared. If she wants her back, she ought to have to jump through some hoops so we know the baby will be well cared for.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I won’t just hand her over.”
As this situation got ever more complicated, Jared could only hope it would end in a way that didn’t leave his precious Lizzie heartbroken.
When they got home, Lizzie transferred the sleeping baby to the carriage they’d bought the last time they were in New York and had hoped to quickly become parents. Nothing had gone according to plan, and now a baby who didn’t belong to them was sleeping in the carriage they’d bought for their own child.
What a fucked-up mess.
Lizzie rolled the carriage into the master suite and parked it next to her side of their bed while Jared took a hot shower, hoping it would help him cope with the stress that had him strung tighter than a drum. It didn’t.
He went to the kitchen to pour himself a drink and ran into Cooper, who stood shirtless at the sink, downing a piece of cold pizza. “Holy shit,” Jared said, shocked by the bruises on Cooper’s side. “That looks evil.”
“It doesn’t hurt as bad as it did at first,” Cooper said around a mouthful of pizza that he chased with a beer.
Ah, youth. Jared would be up all night with heartburn if he ate cold pizza at this hour. He poured some whiskey into a cocktail glass.
“How’s the baby?”
“She’s gassy.”
“That’s all it was?”
“Thankfully, yes.”
“Wow, who even knew that was a thing?” Cooper asked.
“Not me or Lizzie. We had no clue.”
“Anything new from the investigator?”
“Nope.”
“Jeez, Jared. What the hell?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to get some sleep while I can.” He started to walk away. “Forgot to ask how your night was.”
“Fine. Good time at the party.”
“Glad to hear it. See you in the morning.”
“Hope you get some sleep.”
“Me, too.”
Jared returned to his room and closed the door. Lizzie was in bed, on her side facing him. Her face was red and her eyes puffy from crying. He downed most of the drink in one swallow and removed his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor that she would’ve gotten on him about tomorrow if they hadn’t had a baby to care for.
Their former life already seemed like ages ago, and it’d been only a few days since Jared sat on the edge of the bed and pleaded with Lizzie to let someone else help the new mother.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he said, reaching for her when he got into bed.