Her stomach cramped at the thought.
When he reached the top of the stairs, JJ turned and froze.
His eyes looked haunted.
“What’s wrong?” She bolted up from her chair. “Is the baby okay?”
He shook his head as he stepped closer.
Oh, no.
“Were there…” JJ wasn’t sure the right word for it, something that wouldn’t sound too morose. “Complications?”
His pretty blue eyes met hers and he frowned. “No. I’m sorry. No complications.” He shrugged. “Not that I know of anyway. I left.”
Wait. Huh? “So she didn’t have the baby?”
“The baby’s not mine, JJ.”
JJ was tempted to stick her fingers in her ears to clear them out. Had she heard him right? “What?”
“The baby … she’s not mine.”
She? JJ was almost positive Baz was having a boy. He’d talked about it, about having a son, teaching him to play baseball, going to football games.
“I don’t understand.” JJ reached for his hand, pulled him toward an empty chair, and urged him to sit down. “What’s goin’ on?”
He eased into the chair as though he was ninety-two years old, not thirty-two.
“Molly…” He swallowed hard, looked at her when she pulled her chair over and sat in front of him. “I didn’t have sex with Molly.”
Her heart galloped in her chest even though she didn’t understand.
Baz shook his head, his eyes lowering quickly. “I guess we tried, but I was drunk. I couldn’t…” He cleared his throat. “Molly was already pregnant by then.”
“Oh, my God,” she muttered. “So she what? She trapped you?”
It made perfect sense considering all JJ had learned about the woman.
He nodded. “I guess. She’s nineteen, JJ.”
JJ sat back, inhaled deeply. “I know.”
“She told me she was twenty— Wait. What do you mean, you know?”
For a second there, she’d wondered if she could get away with not telling him what she’d learned.
She took a deep breath. “Luca … he, um, he did some research.”
“Into Molly?”
JJ nodded, holding his gaze, wondering if he would be pissed.
“What did he learn?”
That wasn’t the question she had expected. Her first question would’ve been why?
Baz shook his head, held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Hell, I don’t need to know.”
JJ didn’t offer it up. If he honestly didn’t want to know, she had no problem keeping the details to herself. She would warn Luca to do the same.
So that meant the next question was… “What happens now, Baz?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. I left her at the hospital with her parents.” A small smile formed. “Apparently they thought I was Kevin, the baby’s father.”
“Kevin?”
Okay, so seriously, this girl really was whacked.
They sat there, staring at one another for what felt like an eternity. So much hope had built up in her chest that she could hardly breathe with it all. The last nine months had been brutal, mentally, emotionally. And here Baz was telling her that it was all a mistake, that he wasn’t going to be a father.
“JJ?”
She kept her eyes locked with his. “I love you,” she blurted.
Baz’s dark eyebrows slowly rose as though he couldn’t quite understand her.
“I love you, Baz,” she whispered, feeling the emotion building in her sinuses. The last thing she wanted was to cry, but she was overwhelmed with relief.
As though he’d been hit with a live wire, Baz jerked forward, moving toward her. He was on his feet in an instant, pulling her up, crushing his mouth to hers. JJ went willingly, trying to get closer, letting the emotions free as she held on for dear life.
She couldn’t believe this was happening. JJ couldn’t count how many times she’d prayed that it was all a mistake, that the universe or God or whatever higher power there was couldn’t be that cruel.
When Baz backed her against her desk, JJ hopped up on it, let him settle between her thighs as he pushed her skirt up to her hips. While his mouth moved over hers, she fumbled with the button on his jeans, working them open. She needed to feel him, needed to know that this was real, that she wasn’t dreaming.
“Baz…”
“Fuck,” he growled, pulling her toward the edge of the desk as his hand slipped between her legs. “I need to be inside you.”
Chills danced down her spine from the promise in those words.
“Yes,” she insisted. “Now.”
He tugged her panties to the side and guided himself home, and for the first time in months, JJ felt pure, overwhelming relief. There was no fear of the future, no impending sense of loss. She felt like the pieces of her life had worked themselves back together.
“Baz!” JJ’s arms wreathed his neck as she held on tightly, letting the sensations pull her into that erotic abyss that numbed the mind and sated the body. “Oh, God, Baz.”
“Tell me again, JJ,” Baz demanded, his hand on her hip as he thrust his hips forward, burying himself deep. “Tell me you love me.”
“I love you,” she breathed into his neck, holding on tight.
“I love you, too,” he growled, fucking her roughly, as though he couldn’t get enough of her.
When she came a few minutes later, it was with his name on her lips and tears falling from her eyes.
Never in her life had she felt this content, this … whole.
She would hold on to the feeling for as long as possible, she decided. After all, whenever something good happened in her life, it was usually followed by something epically bad.
*
Brantley’s eyes were on the road, his attention on anything other than the man sitting in the passenger seat of the truck.
They’d made it to Dallas in good time, managed to check in to the hotel, and were on their way to the training facility to meet up with RT and the rest of the team. This weekend they were undergoing simulation training regarding hostage situations. Considering he and Reese had already encountered one during their short tenure with the task force, there was a good chance they’d come face-to-face with one again, and he wanted to ensure the entire team had the know-how to deal.
For the first time, he considered calling off the mission, such that it was. He got the feeling these efforts were not going to calm the waters between them. Adding tension to an already stressful situation never worked out well.
Brantley’s phone buzzed in the cupholder.
“It’s JJ,” Reese noted, as though it was completely natural for him to be reading the text alerts.
Funny considering the text messages he suspected Reese was hiding from him. He’d only seen the one from Madison that one time, but he couldn’t help think there were more.
“What does it say?” he asked, curious but not enough to take his eyes off the road.
Reese picked up the phone, typed in Brantley’s password, and it was then Brantley realized how much of an open book he was to this man, but the same could not be said in reverse. Somewhere along the way, Brantley had invited Reese into his life in every way, but somehow, Reese had managed to keep Brantley on the periphery of his own.