The Baby Bombshell (Shadow Creek, Montana)

by Victoria James

  She knew she should tell him about the miscarriage five years ago, but a part of her was scared of his reaction. Would he come through for her? What if it sent him packing again? How would she get over him leaving again? Or worse, what if she lost this baby, too?

  All of this made her very anxious for her first pre-natal visit with her OBGYN. She wanted to be certain the baby was fine and that there wasn’t anything to worry about. She knew miscarriages were common, but she also knew it could be a sign that there was something wrong with her.

  “Oh, Lily,” Jack’s mom said, putting her arm around her shoulder. “I’m so happy to have you here again.” She pulled her into a hug and Lily fought back tears as she hugged her back. Cassy had always been like a second mother to her, but after Jack left, Lily had distanced herself from them. For about a year she’d even pushed Gwen away, needing to deal with her own loss on her own. No one had needed to know what she’d been through.

  “I’m happy to be here,” she said.

  They moved to the side while Gwen and Julia bustled around, cutting slices of cake and pouring coffees. Lily smiled, her heart squeezing as she spotted Jack giving Maggie a piggyback ride and then pretending to fall. Cassy followed her gaze, her eyes sparkling with warmth. “It’s good to see him laugh again and good to have him home.”

  Lily squeezed her hand, feeling for her. They had all missed him so much. “I’m happy for you and Edward. For all of you, and Chase and Julia.”

  “That little Maggie became like a grandchild to us. That’s how we see her. It’s funny because after…the accident and Jack and Julia left, the house had never felt so empty. It was a black, dark season in our lives, and we were trying our hardest to have faith. Chase needed help after Sandy walked out…and it was…he thought we helped him but the truth was that he and Maggie helped us. That little girl was just what we needed. She was a toddler then, and she lapped up all the love and affection we gave her. But she healed out hearts. She was a baby to love and snuggle when we were missing our own grandbaby so much,” Cassy said, her eyes filled with tears and love as she stared across the room at Maggie, who was currently entertaining Jack and Chase by doing karate chops.

  “Oh, Cassy,” was all she could manage to say, because she was being bombarded by emotions and memories and fear. She’d had one of Cassy’s grandbabies in her own womb for almost three months and had lost her. This family had been through so much; they all had. They deserved a happy ending. They deserved another grandchild to love.

  “You were meant to be with, Jack,” Cassy whispered.

  “Cassy—”

  “I know you love my son, Lily. I know I don’t have a right to say this and I know he hurt you…but the way he looks at you.”

  “I love him, too, Cassy.”

  “But?”

  She looked down at her feet for a second, then back up at Cassy. “We’re taking things slow, that’s all.”

  Cassy looked relieved, and Lily swallowed her guilt, telling herself she was doing this to protect all of them.

  “And you, my dear, I didn’t have a chance to tell you earlier, but you look radiant.”

  “I do?”

  Cassy nodded repeatedly, and Lily broke out into a sweat. Did she know? Was Cassy hinting at something? She didn’t look radiant at all, and she wasn’t being modest; she looked like a wreck. Clearly, early pregnancy didn’t agree with her. There was no way anyone would describe her pale features with circles under her eyes as radiant.

  “Yes, you’re glowing. A special glow.”

  Lily inhaled sharply. Now she knew where Gwen got her skills. “Cassy—”

  “I know Jack should have been here through thick and thin, he never should have left, but I also think he wasn’t the same man. He’s grown. He was always my boy who felt the deepest. What is it they say about still waters?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I remember when they were kids, Jack ran over Gwen’s hamster with his bike one day. He pretended like it wasn’t a big deal. He apologized to his sister. But every night for a week when I went to tuck him in, I found him wiping tears from his face. Of course, he denied it,” she said with a sigh and a shake of her head. “But I knew, I knew what a kind heart he had. He loves with everything he’s got. Don’t deny what you mean to him, Lily. I’ve been pestering him about that beard, and he did nothing. I have a feeling you had a hand in him finally getting rid of it, didn’t you?”

  Lily fought the blush she knew was working her way up her neck. How could she think of that night without thinking of the entire experience? Lily glanced over at Jack, who was now wearing a Hello Kitty hat that Maggie was putting on Jack’s head and laughing.

  “Is that my husband taking a second piece of cake?” Cassy asked, a ferocious look transforming her face.

  Lily swallowed her laugh. Edward had a notorious sweet tooth. “Excuse me while I deal with this situation,” she said, marching off.

  Jack had made eye contact with her and was working his way across the room.

  “You okay?” he asked in her ear. She leaned into him slightly and nodded. She had thought the baby inside her was their secret. Although maybe what Cassy was saying was just a coincidence. Maybe Lily was being paranoid.

  As she looked around the room, though, she knew all these people were waiting for a baby they didn’t know about. They deserved a baby. Another chance at a new beginning, a new phase in their lives.

  As she and Jack went back to her apartment that night, the uncomfortable feeling that she was going to have to tell Jack the truth at some point became harder to ignore. Tonight, she’d keep things as they were. She wanted to enjoy having him back, pretending they could be the family they thought they could be five years ago.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lily made the drive out to the ranch as quickly as she could with the falling snow. They were in for a storm, and it probably wasn’t the brightest move coming out here. Jack had tried texting and calling, telling her that he’d meet her in town, but she hadn’t picked up because they’d been so busy at work.

  Her hands trembled on the steering wheel and she forced herself to concentrate on the road, not on the impending doom in her chest. She was in love with him, and his family was ecstatic. But no one knew how much could go wrong and what was at stake. She had tossed and turned all night. When she did finally manage to drift into sleep she’d wake up in a cold sweat, nightmares about the miscarriage, and another one.

  As she pulled into the long driveway at the ranch a few minutes later, she spotted Jack right away. He was salting and shoveling the front walkway. He paused and waved, walking over to her. Her stomach flipped repeatedly at the sight of him. It always did. Despite everything she knew she needed to do, she knew she loved him.

  He was at the door, holding it open for her before she even turned off the ignition. She swallowed her tears at his obvious happiness.

  “Hey babe, I was worried about you driving out here.”

  “It wasn’t too bad,” she said, joining him, frowning as the pulling sensation in her abdomen worsened with walking. He kissed her, but she pulled back before she got drawn into the Jack-abyss.

  “You okay?” he asked as they walked into the warm house.

  Lily slowly turned from the attractive and endearing image of Jack looking all vulnerable and tough at the same time, to the candlelit room. There were dozens of candles, and dozens of pink roses. Wine. Food on the table. Crystal. Soft music playing in the background. She took a deep breath and turned back to look at him, remembering how much effort it had taken her to get back to a decent place in her life. “What is this?”

  “This is my attempt at making up for all the Valentine’s Days I’ve missed.”

  “Jack, this—” She waved her arms around sniffled, not able to continue.

  This time the vulnerability left his face, and that badass slow grin that always lit a fire inside her from the first time she’d met him appeared, and oh boy, did it have the exact same effect as it had ten years ag
o. Sometimes she wasn’t used to this Jack. This Jack was all hard lines now. The T-shirt he was wearing highlighted his broad shoulders, clinging to his solid chest, loose at his narrow waist. He wore jeans like no other man she knew. They were worn and hugging lean hips and long legs. She swallowed the darned saliva that threatened drool if she didn’t get herself together and remember she needed to tell him the truth.

  He took a step towards her and her heart rate escalated. “What’s wrong, Lil?”

  Her heart ached in her chest. “Your mom knows about the baby.”

  He frowned. “I didn’t tell her. How could she know?”

  Lily shook her head. “It was something she said after the grand opening. She hinted that she knows something.”

  “Okay, well that’s not that big of a deal,” he said, taking her hand.

  “There are things I haven’t told you about, things that happened to me after you left. And I don’t…I don’t want there to be any secrets between us anymore,” she said, swallowing past the lump in her throat.

  “Okay. You can tell me anything. Nothing will change the fact that I’m here for good, Lil. If you’re worried about me leaving, I’m not leaving.” Hearing the words out of his mouth, his deep voice thick with emotion, his eyes intense as he stared at her, made it impossible to breathe.

  A part of her wanted to jump into his arms and spend the night here, with him, in bed with him. She wanted to spend forever with him, but the part of her that remembered the feeling of abandonment, the double loss of him and their baby won out. He became blurry as tears filled her eyes. God, she wished they could go back. Would he have left if he’d known the truth? Everything could have been so different for them.

  She was twenty-three again, safe, secure, with only the future to look forward to again. For the next minute she let herself believe that. Until that void that had been inside her the last five years resurfaced and she knew she’d never be that girl again.

  She pulled out of his arms before she got lured in. Jack was a dangerous game.

  She folded her arms in front of herself to try and hide the tremors that were beginning. God, how badly did she want him to know? A part of her wanted him to know. In the beginning, she’d wanted only him. She’d dream of him bursting through her door, declaring his love for her, promising to take the pain away.

  “Tell me. Talk to me.”

  Her stomach churned and she forced herself to look him in the eye. He needed to know. “We made a baby, Jack,” she finally said.

  The agony in his face made it almost unbearable to stand. She wanted to sink to the ground.

  “Lily,” he rasped, his hands clenching her arms.

  She waited for it to register on his face, but it never did. The silence between them was eerie and he still didn’t say anything, so she got out the words that she’d held onto for so long, all of the resentment. “I didn’t know until after you’d left. Weeks after. You left me. Pregnant. With no way to reach you. And I was so scared and so alone, and I tried to find you!”

  She was starting to talk loudly and quickly, like a crazy person, and she knew she was crying, but she couldn’t stop the words as they poured out from somewhere buried so deep inside, for so long. “I was a mess and I needed you, and then the baby was gone,” she said, sobbing. “I woke up in the bed we shared. I woke up covered in blood, and the only thing that I had left of you was the ring you gave me. I called you before I had the common sense to call 911. How stupid. How incredibly stupid was I to call you before the paramedics? I went to the hospital, but it was too late.” She couldn’t breathe as pain swept through her body, as fear carved a hole inside.

  Jack didn’t walk out. He tugged her into him roughly. He closed the remaining gap between them and she crawled into his arms and wept with him as though it had been the night of their loss. Her nails dug into his shoulders, but he still held on. He still held her as she sank to the ground.

  He held her the way he should have held her when they lost their baby. Her hands dug into the back of his shoulders and she sobbed. She felt his lips against her hair, her neck, as she stayed buried in the safety of his strong arms. She felt his tears, the tremors that ran through his strong body. She felt his pain.

  “I’m so damn sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry I didn’t come back when I found out.”

  Everything inside her shut down and the impact of his words hit her with a force that she wasn’t prepared for. “What did you say?”

  But the moment she made eye contact, she knew. It was clear in the emotion in his brown eyes. She slowly tried to scramble away from him, but he held onto her arms.

  “Lily,” he said, his voice ragged and raw. “Wait.”

  She was shaking and crying. “You knew our baby died and you didn’t say anything? You didn’t come back.” She pushed him away from her with a force she didn’t know she had in her. A strength she’d never thought she’d have to use against him. “I was alone. I was so alone and I wanted you here. I needed you so badly, Jack. How could you have stayed away from us?”

  She clutched her stomach, wrapping her arms around herself in a pathetic attempt at self-comfort.

  “By the time I found out, it was over. I didn’t think you’d want me here. There was nothing I could have done.”

  She shook her head back and forth, not able to look at him anymore, feeling bone tired. Her entire body ached with a new pain, a fresh loss. “The Jack I knew never would have left me like that.”

  “Lily. The baby was already gone when I found out. I grieved the loss, too.”

  “No. No. Not like me. I had to keep that pregnancy a secret. I had to keep the loss a secret. I had no choice. You had all the choices.”

  “Lily—”

  “Leave.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Yes. You will. You will leave me like you left me five years ago. You’ll leave your baby like you left your baby five years ago.” She did watch him when she said that. It looked as though she’d slapped him. His face contorted, turned white.

  ...

  Jack tried his hardest to hold it together, but nothing had humbled him more, had shamed him more in his life, than having Lily, pregnant, telling him she had no faith in him. She wanted him out of her life, she expected him to just walk out of here and leave her. But in her mind he had done it before, and would do it again. Panic poured through his veins as she sat there, clearly hating that he would actually have to leave. He searched for something, anything to make her understand. “Lily, I didn’t know. When I left here I had no idea that you were pregnant.”

  She put her head in her hands and her shoulders shook. The sound of her crying ripped a hole through him. He knew what all this meant; he knew this was payback for him. Being responsible for her pain, her agony was what he deserved. “Lily, you have to believe me.”

  “I believe you. You didn’t know I was pregnant. But when you did, it didn’t change anything.”

  He gripped her shoulders gently, realizing this was all futile, because no matter what, there was no justification for what he’d done. What she’d endured when she lost their baby would always be an open wound. He would never understand the kind of pain she had been in. “I’m sorry,” he choked, feeling emotion constrict his throat, blur his vision.

  She didn’t look up at him. “Just go. I’m too tired to leave tonight and I don’t think I can drive. Just leave me here and come back tomorrow. I’ll be gone. Out of your house, out of your life for good.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but he didn’t let go. He thought back to those early days, which was something he tried not to do often. He had contacted Chase the day after he left, because he knew his friend would have his back and not demand any more from him. He’d told him to keep an eye on Lily, to tell him how she was doing.

  The night the phone call had come in, he’d been working an overnight shift. He’d been exhausted, filthy, and at the end of his rope. He heard Chase’s voice filled with static
on the other end of the line, telling him what he’d found out. He’d stood there, surrounded by men, still strangers, and he’d fallen to his knees and didn’t know if he’d ever be able to stand up again. He hadn’t wanted to live in a world that continuously robbed him of people he loved. He’d remained on the ground, in agony, until the only friend he’d ever made out there dragged him back to his feet. That was the night he swore everyone was better off without him, including Lily.

  “Lily,” he tried again, his voice raw. “I didn’t think I could help you. It was too late when I found out. I stayed away because I thought it was best for all of us.” All hope at getting through to her left as she refused to make eye contact with him. He stood slowly, searching for a way to make this right, to ease her hurt. She leaned against the wall, watching him move around the house. He grabbed his jacket, keys, wallet. He was about to leave when he remembered the box. He had never wanted to share it with her or anyone. He never looked at the contents of it anymore because it reminded him of a very dark version of himself. But it was his last shot at getting through to her. None of it had to do with her not being enough, or him not loving her enough; it all had to do with him not being enough.

  He walked into his room, opened the closet and felt around on the top shelf. His hand clamped down on the metal box. He ignored the churning in his gut as he thought of the contents, of what he was revealing about himself, and went back to Lily. He crouched down until they were at eye level.

  “I know you hate me, but know I did the best I could at the time. I thought I was doing the right thing for all of us. Know that no matter what, I’d take you back. However you screwed up, I’d take you back in a heartbeat, Lily.” He leaned over and kissed her on top of the head. She didn’t move or look up at him.