Instead of waiting for it to come back up to me, I darted toward the door for the stairs and then took them two at a time. My arms pumped faster down the several flights, and once I was out of the building with Lottie next to me, I spotted Brody’s car moving toward the security gate. I didn’t have time to catch my breath as I rushed toward my car. Lottie was there, ready to get in, knowing we had to be quick.
I started the engine and peeled out of the lot, cursing the gate as it closed behind Brody. I watched him turn right and hoped I could catch up with him because I had no idea where exactly he was heading, but I had to be there. I had to know if the baby was mine, and one look at Belle would solve that.
The gate finally opened, and I sped out and to the right, not seeing Brody anywhere. I continued straight and then saw the back of his car at a set of lights. My hands shook as I gripped the steering wheel and followed him. Lottie barked a couple of times, almost as if she was telling me we found him in time.
For fifteen minutes, I followed him, and then finally he took a left and turned into a lot which had several buildings in front of it. I parked a few rows back from him and stared as he got out of the car and walked into the second building.
I swallowed, trying to calm myself down, and turned the engine off. “Stay here,” I told Lottie, leaving the passenger window partly open for her. I didn’t know how long I would be, and if I’d really thought about it, I should have asked one of the guys to watch her, but I hadn’t been thinking. Just like I hadn’t been yesterday.
I’d assumed the baby was someone else’s. I hadn’t even entertained the idea that it was mine, but now that I really thought about it as I walked toward the building, I realized how big the bump actually was.
Pulling in a breath, I opened the door and stepped inside. The small hallway led to another glass door, and I could see Belle, Brody, and Lola sitting toward the corner of the room. Belle’s head was down, her hand on her stomach, and Brody and Lola were talking. None of them knew I was here. They didn’t know what had happened between Belle and me, but that was about to change.
When I’d walked away from Belle, it wasn’t because I didn’t love her, it was because I was doing what I thought was right. But now…now I knew I’d walk through fire to get to her and the baby.
Baby. She was having my baby. My gut knew it. I just needed the confirmation.
I pulled open the door, causing a small bell to ring out, and then stepped into the waiting room. None of them looked up, not until I was about ten feet away. Then finally, Belle glanced at me. Her eye was still swollen shut, the bruising on her neck darker now than it had been yesterday. The anger bubbling inside me at what Curtis had done to her couldn’t be contained, but one look at her stomach and it faded away.
“Ford?” Lola’s voice penetrated my thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
I didn’t take my eyes off Belle. She knew why I was here. She knew I needed an answer to my unspoken question, and when she nodded and whispered, “It’s yours,” my entire body felt like jello. My legs shook, my heart skipped a beat, and I knew my life would never be the same again.
BELLE
“It’s yours.” The words weren’t much louder than a whisper, but it felt like a bomb had exploded in the small waiting room. The moment I’d looked up and saw him standing there, his hazel eyes focused on nothing but me and the bump, I knew he knew.
I’d intended to go to him today and tell him everything. Tell him why I’d run away in the first place. It was part of the reason why I hadn’t answered my mom when she’d asked about the baby’s dad on the way here. I knew the answer to her question, I just wasn’t ready to tell her until I’d spoken to him.
“What?” Dad asked, his voice deadly. “What do you mean, ‘it’s yours'?”
I swallowed, and before everything that had happened at the cabin, I would have been terrified to turn to my dad and tell him I’d been sleeping with Ford. But now it didn’t seem that big in the grand scheme of things.
“Belle Easton?” someone called, and I turned to face the nurse waiting inside the doorway on the other side of the room. I stood slowly, not sure what to do. Did I ask Ford to come in with me? Or did I go in alone, just like I’d been doing for the last six months?
Mom stood and hooked her arm through mine, pulling me toward the doorway, and at the last second, I turned. “Ford?” His gaze snapped to mine, hope flaring inside his eyes. “Will you come in with us?”
“Belle, what’s going on?” Mom whispered, her tone sharp.
I didn’t answer her, and Ford didn’t hesitate to move toward me, not even when Dad ground out, “Don’t you dare go in there, Ford.” He didn’t heed his warning, and it was the first sign that Ford would be there no matter what. I’d never doubted it. I just hadn’t been able to entertain it, not when I’d thought he was dead. But it was different now. He was here. He would always be here.
Mom didn’t let go of my arm as the nurse led us to a room. “We’ll get some information, and then the doctor will come in and do a scan to make sure everything is okay,” she told us. “If you get up onto the bed, I’ll be back to check your vitals.”
She closed the door behind us, leaving the three of us in the small room.
“If one of you would like to tell me what the hell is going on now, that would be great.” Mom’s voice was like whiplash, and I understood why. She had no idea what was going on, and I opened my mouth to tell her, but Ford beat me to it.
“I’m the father.”
Mom’s brows rose. “Say what now?”
Ford cleared his throat but didn’t look away from me. “When I was assigned to Belle at the college, we…I…” He pushed his hand through his short hair and blew out a breath. “We—”
“Were in a relationship,” I interrupted.
“What?” Mom whispered, but the door opening and the nurse re-entering stopped her from saying anything else.
The nurse smiled at me and pointed at the bed. “Take a seat.”
I moved toward the bed and winced as I tried to get up onto it, but Ford rushed forward and placed his hands on the side of my stomach. His face was inches from mine as he bent down, and I rested my hands on his shoulders to use him to steady myself as I got up onto the bed. “Thank you,” I whispered to him.
“You’re welcome, Baby Belle.” He smiled, the kind of smile I remembered he used to give me, and butterflies swarmed in my stomach. He still made me feel exactly the same as he had the first time he’d kissed me, only now there was so much more between us. More than either of us could talk about right then.
“We’ve requested your records from the doctor in Five Oaks,” the nurse said, sitting on a stool with wheels attached to the feet. She pushed closer to me and Ford stepped back, but kept his distance from my mom. “We should have them in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, I’ll get some history from you.” She pulled a pen out of her breast pocket and clicked it. “When is your due date?”
“December sixteenth,” I told her, knowing the date by heart. It was just over four weeks away.
“Okay.” She wrote it down on her pad. “And do you know if you’ve had any complications throughout your pregnancy?”
“No complications,” I told her. “I did have Braxton-Hicks a couple of days ago. Three in a row.”
The nurse nodded. “That’s normal at this stage. It’s your body getting ready for the birth.” She smiled at me and pushed some of her blond hair behind her ear. “Let’s take your blood pressure, and we’ll get a urine sample after the ultrasound scan.”
“Okay.” I sat up a little and pushed my sleeve up, showcasing the fingermark bruises Curtis had left me with. The nurse didn’t comment on the bruises she could see, but I’d heard Mom on the phone to them an hour before we got here, so I had no doubt she’d given them a rundown of what had happened and the state I was in.
The nurse took my blood pressure and then stood, telling me, “Blood pressure is normal.” She folded th
e cuff up. “The doctor will be in shortly, and then we can check the baby out.”
“Thank you,” I murmured as she walked out of the door and left the three of us alone again.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Mom burst out, “I can’t believe you’d take advantage of her like that, Ford.” I raised my brows and turned to face her. “You’ve been like an uncle to her, and then you go and do that? You’re more than twice her age.”
Ford laughed and scraped his hand down his face. “You really wanna go there, Lola?”
Mom’s nostrils flared, and she opened her mouth to reply, but the door opened again and in walked the doctor. I was starting to like this place because they knew exactly when to come in and break the tension. I couldn’t think about what my mom and dad would be thinking, not now, not when all I wanted was to make sure the baby was okay.
“I’m Doctor Lee,” the doctor said, holding his hand out to me, and I shook it. He was short, more like my height, but his rounded face seemed kind. Wrinkles dotted most of his face, but his eyes were sincere as he sat next to me on the same stool the nurse had been on. “The nurse tells me you’ve been in the wars.”
“Something like that,” I said, trying to sound easy, but I was anything but. I knew what I looked like. I knew the way the bruises were becoming darker with each passing second.
The doctor looked down at the clipboard the nurse had left behind and then pulled a huge machine closer to the bed. “I take it you’ve had an ultrasound before?”
“Yes. Two.” I paused and then continued, “I didn’t find out the sex, though. I want to keep it a secret.”
“Okay,” Doctor Lee said. “Not many people like to keep it secret nowadays. It’s refreshing, actually.” He picked up a bottle from the side of the machine and shook it. “This’ll be a little cold. Lie back and lift up your shirt.”
I gritted my teeth together as I laid my back against the bed and reached for the bottom of my T-shirt, knowing what they would all see. I was used to the bruises which were on my face, but the ones on my stomach made me feel physically sick when I’d seen them fully this morning.
“Motherfucker,” Ford gritted out.
I closed my eyes, scared to look at any of them while they were on display. I was ashamed of what I’d let Curtis do to me. Ashamed I hadn’t spotted anything wrong beforehand. I couldn’t turn back time, but I wished I could.
Doctor Lee pressed the instrument to my stomach, and I gasped from both the coldness and the pressure he applied to the bruised area. “I’ll try and be as quick as I can,” he told me, and I nodded, not sure if he was looking at me or not because I still had my eyes closed.
I desperately wanted to look at the screen and see the baby, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes, not until my T-shirt was covering my stomach again. Not until the evidence of what Curtis had done and the fight I’d put up with was partly concealed.
I counted in my head and got all the way to five hundred. The silence in the room was filled with clicking from the doctor as he pressed on the keyboard attached to the machine, and finally, he announced, “All done.” He swiped the jelly off my stomach, and I yanked my T-shirt back down, finally able to take a full breath again. “Baby’s measurements are fine.” I turned my head to face Doctor Lee. “And it’s active too.”
Grinning, I said, “I can feel that.”
Doctor Lee smiled and pressed a button on the side of the bed so it would be in a sitting position, and I rested my arm on the top of my bump. “I want you to come back next week for a checkup so we can keep a close eye on you and the baby, especially after the…assault.” He cringed on the last word, and I didn’t blame him. “Nurse Jaya will be back in to take a urine sample.” He stood and held his hand out to me, so I shook it. “Take care of yourself, Belle, you hear.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, and the nurse came back in just as he was about to open the door.
They exchanged a few words, and then the nurse handed me a small cup and said, “You probably know the drill by now.” She held her hand out to me to help me up, and I took hold of it gratefully. “The bathrooms are down the hall and to the left.” She stopped in the hallway and pointed toward it. “The nurses' station is right next to it, so you can hand it to me there.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
I didn’t look back as I moved down the hallway, but just as I was turning the corner, I spotted Mom coming out of the room with Ford behind her. He turned his head, met my gaze, and slowly, his lips spread into a smile.
My heart raced from the way he looked at me, but as soon as my gaze met my mom’s, I knew we had some explaining to do. I was intent on dragging out the amount of time it would take me to pee, but I couldn’t let Ford face it on his own. So I hurried and then gave the sample to the nurse and waited while she tested it.
“You’re good to go,” she told me. “I’ve booked you an appointment for next Wednesday at ten a.m.” She handed me a little card with the time and appointment on it. “We’ll see you then.”
“Thank you.” I gave her one last smile and then hurried down the hallway and back into the waiting room, but it was empty. I turned my head left and right, spotting part of my mom’s body through the two glass doors from outside.
I yanked open the first door and cursed from the twinge of pain it caused me, and then gritted my teeth as I opened the second door and came face to face with all three of them. Dad’s face was red, a thunderous expression etched into his features, and Mom was more livid than she had been in the exam room.
“Hi,” I greeted, not sure what else to say.
“Get in the car, Belle,” Mom demanded, and I almost spluttered at the way she spoke to me. I’d never heard her use that tone before.
“Mom—”
“No.” She cut her hand through the air and turned to face me. “We’re not doing this here, Belle.”
“Doing what here?” I asked, starting to get frustrated. They were shutting me down, not willing to let me talk.
“This.” She emphasized her word by waving her arm at me and then Ford. “He took advantage of you and the situation you were in, and now you’re pregnant and—”
“Are you serious?” Ford ground out, taking a step toward me.
“Yes, I’m serious,” Mom replied, planting her hands on her hips. “She’s twenty, and you’re forty-two. You’re more than twice her age.”
“Twenty-one,” I murmured, aware I’d spent my last birthday away from home, but it was as if she hadn’t even heard me.
Ford chuckled. “Are you forgetting you were only nineteen when you met Brody.”
“Don’t go there,” Dad warned, stepping closer to Mom.
“Why?” Ford asked. “Why don’t we go there? Are you forgetting that I was in and out of that house on the daily? Are you forgetting the shit I went through to protect my family? And then the shit you put me through?” I blinked at Ford, not sure what he was talking about. “I was the one who looked out for Lola. The one who tried to protect her from Hut and his beatings. Then along you came, undercover agent with a kid and wife to boot, but you didn’t care, did you?”
“Ford,” I whispered, but he didn’t hear me. I already knew everything he was saying, but the way he was talking sounded so different from the stories I’d been told. But he’d been there with them. He’d watched it all play out.
“She was nineteen, sixteen years younger than you, but that was okay, right? Do as I say, not as I do, huh?”
“That’s different,” Mom said to Ford, her voice lower now. “You know it’s different. She’s our daughter, and we trusted you.” She paused and flicked her gaze to me. “You took advantage of her.”
“No,” Ford growled out. He turned to face me, his eyes not guarded in the slightest. “I fell in love with her.” My breath caught in my throat at his words, but he didn’t give me the chance to say anything, because he continued, “I’m gonna go. Call me if you need me, okay?”
I nodded, not able to
get any words out, and watched as he sauntered across the lot and got into his car. I saw the shadow of something inside, and as he pulled out, I realized it was Lottie. And I wished he hadn’t left, at least not without me. He was trying to defuse the situation, I understood that, but the moment his car left the lot, I felt alone once again.
“Let’s go home,” Dad said. “You need to rest.”
I didn’t have the energy to tell him I didn’t want to rest, so I shuffled toward Mom’s car and started to make a plan of action. They knew now that Ford was the baby’s dad, and they’d made their feelings perfectly clear, but most of all, so had Ford.
Chapter Twenty-Five
FORD
I’d been wandering around my house with Lottie following me for several hours. The empty shell didn’t feel like a home, but I felt the need to make it into one after today. It had always been a place for me to stay between undercover jobs, so I’d never really looked at it as anything but that. But now I had to treat it like a home.
I’d started off with a small list in my head of things I wanted to do to it, but somewhere along the way, I’d ended up getting a notepad and making a list of things. The kitchen was fairly new, but the flooring and tiles needed to be updated. And some new sliding doors needed to be installed that led out into the backyard.
The hallway needed a fresh coat of paint, and so did the living room, as well as new furniture. But it was as I walked up the stairs and toward the three bedrooms that it really sank in. In a month, I’d be a dad. I’d have a living, breathing tiny human to help take care of. And although it was sudden and a shock, I couldn’t deny how happy it made me, which was why, as I stood in the doorway of the second largest bedroom, I knew this would be the baby’s room.
I’d start with a neutral tone and build a crib. I’d need furniture and possibly a chair when we were feeding the baby. The empty room was nothing but a square with four white walls and a window which looked out onto the street, but when I thought about the baby sleeping in here, I imagined Belle at my side staring into the crib while we watched it.
Bonded Duet: Ford & Belle: Torn Bond & Tied Bond (Easton Family Duet Boxsets Book 3) Page 30