Her Lost and Found Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Alistair had looked for the death certificate of a woman with the last name of Jamison who’d died a year ago, but had come up with nothing.

  Detective Bentley still hadn’t found a birth certificate for Jason.

  So they had a last name but, basically, were right back where they’d been without it. If they could find information on the man they could possibly prove that he was who he said he was. But not finding it didn’t mean he was living under an assumed identity. It just meant he’d done nothing in his life that involved easily searchable public records.

  Tabitha hadn’t said a word after Montgomery had hung up. Other than to thank him for keeping the investigator on and saying she’d make arrangements to pay his bill.

  Johnny had no intention of giving her the bill. But he hadn’t seen much point in saying so at the time.

  “Our list is good,” he told her as they exited the vehicle and walked across the parking lot toward their meeting. “Thorough. There’s every chance that if Mark is Matt, they’ll be able to use the list to identify him—or at least ask questions that will lead to evidence that’ll help us.”

  Hugging her folder with the printed pages to her purple shirt, she glanced at him. Nodded.

  “Jackson will have changed a lot in a year,” he said, keeping pace with her. “Don’t be disappointed if Mallory doesn’t immediately recognize something from that list.”

  Her gaze in front of her, she nodded again. Whatever she was thinking, she was keeping to herself. Which made him feel kind of pissed off.

  At himself, mostly, but...

  He touched her arm. She gave a start but kept walking. They were almost at the door. Mallory and Braden could be inside already, waiting for them. “Tabitha.”

  “Yeah?”

  With a hand at her lower spine, he guided her off the entry sidewalk. “We’re in this together.” He wasn’t sure what else to say to get them on track.

  “I know.”

  Her response just intensified his frustration. “Well, here’s something maybe you don’t know,” he blurted, having visions of Mallory noticing them out there and either wondering if they were having an argument or coming to the door to invite them in.

  The Harrises could also walk up at any second if Johnny and Tabitha were the first to arrive...

  “I care.” He finished his statement more slowly. There. It was out. Not a partnership conversation at all. But out there anyway.

  She was looking at him, so that, at least, was a good thing. Still not talking, though.

  “Please don’t shut me out.”

  The resolute expression that crossed her beautiful face was a surprise. For someone who read body language, who read people, fairly easily, he pretty much sucked where she was concerned. “On one condition,” she told him, and he felt a flicker of relief. He’d been preparing to hear her deny shutting him out. Preparing to have her pretend that things were fine between them.

  “What’s that?” Conditions he could handle. Every day. He’d make a list of them if she’d like. And stick to them.

  Had she noticed his growing attraction to her? Even as the thought hit him, he dismissed it. Her current mood was because of the text message. The fact that he’d left without a clear plan to return, that he’d actually considered not joining her in San Diego for the week.

  “Please be honest with me,” she said.

  “I’ve never lied to you.”

  “Not in words, no, but you need to communicate with me. Tell me what’s going on with you, too,” she clarified. “If you want out, you tell me—to my face, not in a text message, and before it’s reached the point that you have to hop on a plane and fly away.”

  He’d never had his face slapped, but he figured he now knew what it felt like.

  “That’s what you think yesterday was about?” he asked. “I wasn’t wanting out,” he told her, trying to sound his professional best while feeling like some wet-behind-the-ears college kid.

  Her expression told him she was on the verge of withdrawing from the conversation.

  “Listen,” he said, feeling an imminent loss closing in on him. One he had to avoid at all costs. “We can talk about my...lapse...yesterday when we’re done here tonight. I’ll explain, okay? For now, just lean on me, if and when you need to. Let’s get through this meeting and trust that we’ll work the rest of it out.”

  Her look was long, searching. He had no idea what she hoped to find in his face, but he tried his damnedest to make certain it was there.

  “I think I deserve a second chance,” he said next, feeling a return of the confidence that had been a quiet companion all his life. “I think I’ve earned it.” He pushed a little harder.

  He knew the second she capitulated. He felt it in that whoosh of released tension, the same one he’d felt while sitting beside her the night they’d first met the Harrises. Then he saw it in her smile.

  And, finally, he melted with it as she put her arm through his and they walked into the pub, almost as if they were a couple.

  In reality, he knew, she was just leaning on him, as he’d instructed. But for a moment, he let himself forget.

  * * *

  Tabitha was keyed up as she followed Johnny into their suite shortly before eleven Monday night. They’d checked in late that morning—a suite identical to the one they’d had the week before, but on a higher floor—and her things were already in her room. He’d said they were going to talk.

  She planned to hold him to it.

  There was no way she was going to hold him back if he was ready to resume his life. Clearly, he was an important man, a powerful man. He was wasting his time here with her.

  Mallory and Braden Harris were willing to keep their eyes open for any sign that Jason could be Jackson. They’d accepted the list with promises to give it their utmost attention, but neither of them read through the pages-long collection of details while they were together. Braden did offer that he would try to find out more about their friend Matt—to rule him out, he’d said. Other than that, they couldn’t do anything without the risk of endangering a child in Mallory’s care by exposing him to someone who could be a crazy woman or, in any case, perceived as a crazy woman who thought she was his mother. They’d suggested Tabitha stay away from The Bouncing Ball daycare altogether.

  They’d sought their own legal advice—no offense to Johnny—and had been told everything Johnny had already told them. But perhaps with a bit more doubt with regard to Tabitha. The Harrises had been kind in the delivery of their message—that they’d do what they could but were not, in any way, on Tabitha’s side in this matter. They weren’t taking sides at all. And they wouldn’t be passing along any information that could be considered confidential or of a personal nature.

  Once she got through the gist of it and had had a moment to think, Tabitha was okay with it. They weren’t backing out of their agreement of the week before; they were just proceeding with caution; which Johnny had advised they do to begin with.

  And it wasn’t as if she’d ever asked to even see Jackson. Or would ask to see him until they’d gone through the proper channels. She’d lost him once due to what felt like foolishness on her part. She wouldn’t let that happen again.

  But now that the Harrises had their own attorney, they didn’t need Johnny to protect them.

  And while she cried inside at the thought of losing his friendship, she would survive and get Jackson back without him. Starting that night, if he was done with the quest of honoring his wife’s dream. Maybe she was making more of the day before than she should, but as a woman who’d always stood on her own two feet, she figured she’d been given a heads up. She had to be able to go it alone. No one could fault Johnny for finishing his sabbatical early, if that was really what was going on. The dollar amount he’d chosen to arbitrarily determine success could be fluid. With the lineups they’d had aga
in that day, he couldn’t possibly see the venture as anything but a success.

  They’d known all along that there was no guarantee she’d find Jackson during the year he was helping her. Jackson back in her arms wasn’t part of their agreement.

  He opened a bottle of wine without asking her if she wanted any. She didn’t recognize the label and wondered if it was stuff he was used to drinking at home. Higher-end than the locally made bottles they’d purchased together the week before. Higher-end than anything she’d probably ever tasted.

  She thought of the number of times she’d suggested fast food to him during their travels, or an inexpensive diner, and he’d been a good sport and agreed. She’d wanted to ask if those had been the first times he’d ever had the stuff. In her mind, people with corporate jets didn’t settle for cheap fare when it came to their stomachs, either.

  Standing there, uncomfortable, sad and yet determined, too, Tabitha looked at the door of her room. Wishing this was just another trip on the road with Johnny. Hoping things would go back to what they’d been.

  He reached for a glass, his shoulders looking strong as they stretched the purple shirt. He was a single man with an entire life she knew nothing about. How could she possibly have begun to think he was hers?

  And that she was his?

  They’d been on loan to each other.

  She’d always known that.

  A second glass appeared beside the first one, still empty, on the bar. He was intending to pour one for her, too. She suppressed a sense of giddiness.

  When had Johnny ever poured for himself and not for her? He was a gentleman. Polite. Didn’t mean that they were a pair. That they were together.

  That they’d developed something between them on a more elemental level than a temporary partnership.

  She’d been planning to stand while they talked, to accept whatever he had to tell her and then excuse herself to go to bed. It was late. They had to be awake early in the morning if they were going to be prepped, parked and ready for the lunch crowd down by the beach. But as he poured that wine her knees started to feel weak again.

  She sank down on one end of the couch, sitting forward, still ready to take off to her room as soon as their business was completed.

  “I bought this yesterday,” Johnny said, bringing both glasses and the bottle over on a tray that he set down on the cherrywood coffee table in front of the couch. She’d mentally assigned him the seat on the other end. He took the middle. “Based on what we bought last week, I thought we’d both like it.”

  It was white. Not too sweet. And the smoothest wine she’d ever tasted. “It’s good.” She couldn’t help wondering how much he’d paid for it, suspecting it was more than her grocery bill for the week and feeling guilty even as she enjoyed her second sip.

  After a day in the food truck, she needed a shower. Felt far too ordinary in jeans, her food truck shirt and tennis shoes to be drinking fine wine in a plush hotel suite.

  Johnny was in jeans, too. With the same kind of shirt. And hadn’t showered, either. She liked him that way. And feared losing him—just as she knew she had to encourage him to go.

  “You said you’d explain...about yesterday.” She took another sip, holding her glass on her thigh when she was through.

  He leaned forward, his glass between his hands, head lowered. But he glanced at her. Her insides jolted—with gratitude for being lucky enough to have spent the past nine months with him. To have had him as a partner in what would surely be the most important quest of her life.

  She loved him.

  The thought was there. Just calmly fact. She loved Johnny.

  Her Johnny. Not the man who flew jets and hobnobbed with the rich and famous.

  Seemed like kind of a no-brainer, really. Who wouldn’t love him?

  And, like any friend, she had to be strong enough to let him go. Maybe if she kept telling herself that, kept repeating the admonition over and over, she’d be able to do it.

  She wanted to. Truly wanted what was best for him.

  But she couldn’t quite get a picture of her life without him.

  “Johnny?”

  “I’ve been struggling...with something for a while now.”

  She sipped some more wine. She held her glass, waiting, counting the beats of her heart pounding against her chest. Telling herself she wouldn’t cry in front of him. That wouldn’t be fair. She had another swallow of wine—welcoming the idea of a little alcohol taking the edge off, easing the pain she carried around inside her. She’d get through. She always did. What choice did she have?

  Hard lessons learned from her mother’s sudden death...and then Jackson’s disappearance. There’d been nobody to pick up the pieces but her.

  “I just...” He moved a little closer. She would’ve scooted over, but had nowhere to go. And then, because there was nothing she could do about it anyway, she was just plain glad of his closeness. He took her free hand. Ran his fingers along the back of it.

  His touch jostled the wine in Tabitha’s glass. Warmth spread through her body. He was...her Johnny.

  How could she bear to lose him? Not have him to call? To watch over her? To be there when she needed him even when she didn’t know she needed him?

  “I’ve come down with...a distressing...”

  Her heart lurched with alarm as her medical training kicked in. He was ill?

  “Situation,” he finished.

  Relieved that he wasn’t sick—and back to dreading that he was going to tell her he was ready to terminate the partnership, Tabitha took another drink of wine, embarrassing herself with a gulp rather than a sip.

  Distressing situation could only mean it was going to be bad.

  When Johnny suddenly dropped her hand to slide over and grab a throw pillow, then rest his arm on it on his lap, she was completely bereft. Felt as though he was already leaving her.

  He was obviously struggling to tell her. She should help him. Make it easier on him. But she wasn’t sure she could trust herself to speak without tears at the moment.

  Really, they’d done an incredible thing forming the partnership. They’d started and were running a successful food truck business. And they’d located and put in motion the means to bring Jackson home.

  How could anything else matter as much as either of those achievements?

  Things could still go wrong with Jackson. There was a slight chance Jason wasn’t him. Maybe she could ask Johnny to hang on just long enough for that confirmation...

  Hope was born and then quickly faded as she realized how selfish that would be.

  “I’ve been afflicted with this...apparently uncontrollable desire for your body.”

  She heard the words. Replayed them. Stared at Johnny the whole time, trembling. Adrenaline rushed through her body.

  Was he asking...suggesting...

  “Believe me, I’ve tried everything I know to distract myself. I think I’m doing well and then you lean out the window of the truck and there I am again, hard as a rock.”

  As soon as he said the words, her gaze went to the pillow he held. He’d grabbed it after having been close to her, touching her hand. Was it because...? Oh, my.

  She felt delicious. Completely outside herself.

  “Like now?” the wine made her ask.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Johnny tossed the pillow aside. There was a certain amount of embarrassment, sitting there with her looking at his extended fly. But his intense attraction had become a problem, and he wasn’t going to let it interfere with the great work they were doing. With the partnership.

  “How long has this been going on?” Tabitha still wasn’t looking at him. Or, rather, was not looking him in the eye.

  Emptying his glass, Johnny poured himself another. He held out the bottle to top up her drink and was a bit surprised, but not displeased,
when she tilted her glass toward him.

  So maybe the partnership would be able to deal with his...issue as successfully as they’d handled the rest of the obstacles in their path.

  “I first noticed it about a week ago,” he answered honestly, feeling better already with the problem out in the open. “It was those new jeans you had on, the ones with jewels...all that glittering. A guy can’t help noticing a great ass when it’s being so brightly adorned.”

  Wait, did that sound like he was blaming her for his inappropriate reaction? He wasn’t. He was about to tell her so when she asked, “So you think I have a nice butt?”

  Oh, Lordy. She was throwing him for a loop here. “Of course you have a nice butt.”

  She shrugged. “Well, thank you. I guess...”

  “I swear to you I have not been lusting after you for nine months.”

  “I didn’t think you had.”

  He took another sip. Might’ve done better to have picked up a fifth of something. The wine wasn’t doing enough to numb his senses. As it was, he saw an icy shower in his imminent future.

  “That’s why I left yesterday. I woke up with a hard-on. Thought about dinner with you, got hard again. Started to pack for the week, and there it was again. I needed one hell of a distraction. The jet was it.”

  “Did it work?”

  Motioning to his fly with the glass in his hand he asked, “What do you think?”

  She nodded, looking like she might smile, but she didn’t.

  “You intended to come back all along.”

  “I didn’t know if it would be in time to leave in the morning, but yes.” The fact that she asked the question told him she’d had doubts. Which bothered him. “Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”

  She met his gaze then. For far longer than the usual look they exchanged during partnership discussions. “No.”

  He felt exposed sitting there, hard as a brick, with both of them aware of his penis activity. That just made it want to be more active.

  He was ready to head to the shower, but it wasn’t clear whether or not they’d handled the issue sufficiently.