by Whitley Cox
Even though fear and surprise still prickled along his arms and in his belly, he allowed the smile of joy to embrace his face, released her hands and pressed his palm over her belly. “We made a baby.”
Something he could only describe as relief washed across her face. “You’re not mad?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. Why did you think I would be mad?”
“Because we’ve only been together for a month or so … and after everything Carlyle said … ” It didn’t seem like she wanted to look at him. Her eyes were darting everywhere but his face. “I don’t know if I should keep it.”
What? “Why not? I thought you wanted children?”
He was all about a woman’s right to choose and body autonomy, but for the love of God, he could not understand why she wouldn’t want to keep their child.
“You heard what Carlyle said. I’m a ticking time bomb. How can I knowingly put you and any child I bring into the world through that? I love my mom, but I wouldn’t wish what I have with her on my worst enemy. To watch your parent slip away from you, the way she tears out a new piece of my heart each and every time I go see her. It killed my father to watch her deteriorate the way she did. The woman he’d loved since they were kids no longer knew who he was. I couldn’t do that to you.”
His jaw grew tight. “Do you know for a fact that you have the gene?” She seemed to be basing a hell of a lot of her choices—their choices—on speculation. He wanted fucking facts before they did anything drastic.
She shook her head. “No. I took the test, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to open the envelope. It’s been sitting in my desk at work for about a week. After the last time I saw my mom—you know, right before you met her—I did the cheek swab and mailed it off—put a rush on it. I had to know. But now with the baby, I’m afraid to know. I’ve already started to feel my mind going, particularly lately. That has to be a sign I’ve got it, right?”
That was probably pregnancy brain, but he wasn’t going to say that.
As much as he loved this woman, he couldn’t deny the frustration that began to grow inside him at her complete lack of zest for the truth. As a lawyer, he was all about the truth, and yet she seemed to be running away from it.
He made to stand up and bring her with him. “Then let’s go to your studio right now and open the envelope. Find out once and for all, then we can go from there.”
She pulled free of his grasp and stepped back. “I can’t do this to you, Atlas. Let you go through it again. I know that you’re still struggling with your wife’s death. I can’t pile even more onto your plate. It wouldn’t be fair.”
At the mention of his wife, Atlas took his own step back, and he bit down hard on his back teeth. A flash of pain, anger and sadness hit him in the chest like a bolt of lightning, and his eyes slammed shut for a second to allow the emotions to settle before they completely overtook him.
“You don’t know anything,” he whispered. “I’m dealing with Samantha’s death in my own way. It will always be some kind of a struggle—I lost my wife. Aria’s mother. But that doesn’t mean I can’t function. That doesn’t mean I can’t help you. Be with you. You’re making a lot of assumptions right now. And I know you’re scared, but you’re allowing your ignorance to run your fear.”
Her nostrils flared. Yeah, he could bust out the psychobabble too.
Her throat bobbed on a swallow. “I’m sorry.”
He relaxed his shoulders, but anger still ran rampant through him. His fingers twitched at his sides, and a muscle in his jaw thumped in time with his rapidly beating pulse.
Her shoulders slumped, and she exhaled in frustration. “I shouldn’t have brought up your wife, but everything else I said was still true. I can’t do that to you, to an innocent child.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. He wanted to fucking scream. “What the fuck do you know? You haven’t even opened that fucking envelope. You know nothing.”
Her bottom lip wobbled. He knew all of this was coming from a place of fear. From the hormones running rampant through her. From the adrenaline of her defense yesterday, the showdown with Carlyle today and finding out about the baby. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and he needed to help her see that together they were better. Alzheimer’s or not. Together he could help her weather the storm. He was her bifocals when the world went blurry. She was his gust of wind when he needed to be swept off his feet and not take life so seriously. They balanced each other out. Why couldn’t she see that?
“I’m really scared.”
Well, now they were fucking getting somewhere.
He pulled her into his body. Like a shock absorber, he took in every one of her shudders and shakes as she sobbed in his arms. He shushed her and stroked her head. Let her get all the emotions of the last several weeks out. And all the new emotions that came along with a pregnancy.
Her sniffles became muted as she pressed her face into his chest, but her breathing eventually returned to normal.
Once he knew she was in a better state, he released her, held her biceps and looked her square in the eye. She needed to understand a few things before they went any further. He wanted her. Couldn’t imagine his life without her. But he also knew he couldn’t be with someone who preferred ignorance over the truth. Who preferred to live life in the dark rather than take the light, head on and power through the harsh rays.
Her blue eyes held so much fear, he was tempted to just pull her into him again. She blinked thick, spiked lashes at him, waiting.
“Whatever you decide, I will be here. But only if you open that envelope.”
The quick draw of her breath stirred his protective instincts, but he kept hold of her biceps. He needed her to hear him out. “If the results are not what we hope for, then we will take the next step. If you want to have the baby but then go off and see the world, live the last few lucid years of your life having adventures, I will take the child. You don’t have to keep it. You don’t have to be in its life. But you need to open that envelope.” His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed again at the same time he released her. “Open the envelope, Tessa. Then come find me when you do.”
“Come on, buddy, let’s go!” Tessa said, helping Forest out of the back of her car. She hadn’t seen her dog this happy since she’d picked him up from the rescue society. And just like he’d known that day, today he knew he was finally coming home. Normally, he pulled a bit and sniffed at every shrub and tree on the walkway up to her condo lobby, but today he remained right at her heels, looking up at her as if she were some deity he revered. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, his brown eyes sparkled, and his black lips curled up in a big doggy smile.
Despite everything that had gone down in the last twenty-four hours, an odd sense of calm fell over her as she opened the door to her apartment and Forest went bounding inside past her. He began to sniff every reachable surface, to make sure no usurper canine had played with his toys or lain in his favorite spot on the couch. Once he was satisfied that Tessa’s heart had not been won over by another dog, he stuck to her like glue as she went about putting on laundry and tidying up the house.
Since she’d been in study mode for the last month, particularly the last week, her apartment was a disaster zone. She hadn’t cooked a meal all week, and takeout boxes from the Healthy Hippie a takeout-only vegan restaurant she frequented—filled the recycling bin, receipts covered the top of the dresser in her room, and there was an Everest-size mound of dirty laundry beside her overflowing hamper.
“You’re procrastinating,” she muttered to herself as she sorted the colors and whites of her laundry on the bed. “I am not,” she replied. “Yes, you are. You know you need to go to the studio and open that envelope, but you’re putting it off.”
Forest was lying on the bed staring at her, and he cocked his head back and forth like a puppy as he tried to figure out who she was talking to.
“I’m just not ready.” She slammed the door of the front-loading washing machin
e and hit the on button before stalking back to her room in a huff. “Who the heck is he to tell me what to do?” She growled. “He’s the father of your baby, that’s who, damn it.” She scooped the pile of receipts off the top of her dresser and tossed them on the bed. Most of them were for takeout, but there were a few here she needed to keep for tax and work purposes. Forest was still on the bed but had shifted his body so that his shiny black nose was buried in the pile of receipts and his front paw was resting on a bunch of them. He wasn’t prepared to let her out of his sight. She ruffled the top of his head. “The feeling is mutual, buddy.”
Forest whimpered and dragged his paw in the pile of receipts over and over again until he pulled something free from the bottom of the pile.
“Hey, buddy, don’t do that. I need those.” With a huff, she pushed them all away from his big paws. But he still had a piece of paper beneath his paw. And then the other paw fell on top of it before he rested his chin on it as well.
Tessa planted her hands on her hips. “What is the meaning of this, Forest? Give me my receipt.” She went to tug it away from him, but he growled. It was the first growl he had ever given her in his life, and it made her snatch her hand back and take a step away. “What on Earth has gotten into you?”
She tried again to retrieve it, but he growled again. She knew he would never hurt her, but the noise was a warning that whatever piece of paper he had in his grasp was entirely off-limits to her. Rolling her eyes, she gathered the rest of her organized receipt piles and headed to the kitchen.
“You’re a weirdo, you know that?” She shot him a look as she left the room. She heard him jump off the bed onto the floor, and his nails clickety-clacked on the wood behind her. “Oh, so now you want to be with me?” He was once again right on her heels, only this time he had the piece of paper in his mouth.
“I sure hope whatever you’ve got there isn’t going to cost me a nice tax deduction.” Her back ached, her stomach turned and her head spun. That’s when she realized she still hadn’t eaten anything all day. The clock on the microwave said it was nearly four o’clock. Well, no wonder she was lightheaded. The achy back and woozy belly were from something else though.
Her hand fell to her stomach as she reached for a banana and wandered over to the couch. “What are we going to do, Forest?” she asked, propping her feet up on the coffee table and peeling her banana halfway down.
She wanted Atlas.
She wanted this baby.
She also wanted to grow old and know her children, her grandchildren and remember all the amazing things she’d accomplished in her life. Ignorance had been bliss, but it had also been torture. She’d changed her diet because she thought she had this disease, focused on school and was always working her brain. Reading and listening to educational podcasts. The only indulgences she allowed herself were wine, the serial killer documentaries and her motorcycle—which she’d have to stop riding now with the baby on the way.
She was one of the healthiest people her doctor had ever met, and yet, she didn’t feel healthy. She felt like for her whole life she’d been doing nothing but waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the depression to yank the rug out from under her or the Alzheimer’s to claim her earlier than it’d claimed her mother. At least not knowing for sure had allowed her a small percentage of hope. Hope that her fretting had all been for naught. She knew she was being stupid. Living her life in the dark, wandering around in a fog of ignorance. But the alternative scared her to death. Knowing definitively whether she would develop Alzheimer’s terrified her.
But now it wasn’t just her life she needed the answers for. It was her baby’s life. Her baby’s future. Atlas’s baby. Atlas’s future. Aria and Cecily’s little brother or sister.
She couldn’t draw them into her bleak and desolate world of witlessness. They deserved to know. Her baby deserved to know. Deserved a mother who met the world head-on, embraced the truth and the ramifications or beauty that came with it rather than burrowing into the sand and ignoring life as it happened.
She stared at the half-eaten banana in her fist. She didn’t feel hungry at all anymore. She felt sick. She felt alone.
Forest whimpered at her feet. Okay, well, she wasn’t completely alone anymore.
“What am I going to do, buddy?” she asked, folding the banana peel over the uneaten portion and tossing it onto the coffee table. “What would you do?”
As if on cue, he leapt up on the couch beside her as quiet as a jungle cat and plopped the paper he’d had in his mouth directly into her lap. Of course, it had a thin coat of dog slime on it, but it still appeared to be intact. “Why the change of heart, hmm?” She picked up the paper and turned it over, expecting to see a receipt for My Kind of Thai or the Healthy Hippy, but it wasn’t a receipt at all. It was the envelope from her dad.
She’d totally forgotten about this. Which was so out of character for her. Normally anything having to do with her father was at the forefront of her mind. It just went to show how distracted she’d been by everything lately.
Now it totally made sense why Forest was being so possessive, he adored her father, and her father adored Forest. It always amazed her how intuitive animals could be. The letter probably held some last remaining traces of her father—maybe a bit of grease from his bike, or a thumb print with salt and vinegar chip residue. Something easily detectable that would make Forest immediately think of her father.
A dull ache spread from the center of her chest outward as the memories of her Dad came crashing back. He really had been the most remarkable, wonderful, patient man in the world. He literally had given someone the shirt off his back once, and then he gave the guy twenty bucks for a hot meal and returned the next day with a suitcase full of more clothes and a two-hundred-dollar gift card to the grocery store.
Tessa had only been about ten-years-old at the time, and on the way home, with her father sitting shirtless behind the wheel of his pickup on a cold November evening, he turned to her and said, “I’m a lucky man. I don’t know his story, and that’s not my business. But he’s cold, he’s hungry and he’s out there asking for help. The least I can do is keep him warm and his belly full. I’ve got lots of clothes, and the fridge is stocked. I’m a lucky man.”
Pressing her forehead to Forest’s she squeezed her eyes shut and focused on her breathing. It didn’t matter that her dad had been gone for two years, if she thought too long or hard about him the pain resurfaced. It always took her a moment to regroup, embrace the grief, mourn her loss and then move forward. She’d gone to quite a few grief counseling sessions following her father’s abrupt passing, and she’d been taught not to ignore the grief, but to accept it, embrace it and then move forward.
When she opened her eyes again, Forest’s deep, chocolate brown orbs pierced her, a whimper vibrated in his throat and his tongue shot out and licked her chin.
Chuckling, she smiled, grateful that her best friend was finally home again, and bringing her the peace she’d been sorely lacking all these weeks. “You always know exactly how to bring me out of my funk, buddy.” Running the pad of her thumb over her father’s handwriting, she scratched behind Forest’s ear with the other hand. “Did you know this was important? Does it smell like Dad?” Shaking her head at the mystery and wonder of dogs, not to mention how therapeutic it was to have him back by her side where he belonged, she opened the envelope. What came next, she would have never expected in a million years.
Dear Kiddo,
I don’t know when you’ll get this, but I hope it’s sooner rather than later. I’ve wanted to tell you this since you were a teenager, but from the day we brought you home from the hospital, your mother made me promise I wouldn’t. Even as her mind started to slip, she made me promise.
But I can’t keep this a secret for any longer.
In every way that matters, you are Tessa Marie Copeland. My daughter. But you’re not my blood. You’re not your mother’s blood either. You, my darling child, are adopted.
Two days before you were born, your mother was rushed to the hospital. She gave birth to a premature baby girl—Georgia—who unfortunately passed away after a day and a half. Understandably, your mother was very upset. So was I, of course. On the same day her milk came in, so did a young woman, maybe sixteen or so. She was thought to be a runaway. She’d been in a terrible accident, and they were unable to save her. They did, however, save the baby in her belly—you.
As hard as it was for your mother to lose Georgia, she knew what she had to do, and she put you to her breast. For me, it was love at first sight. You were mine before we were even able to ask about adoption. You slept on my chest when you weren’t eating. You settled in my arms the moment I held you. You were mine and I was yours, there were no two ways about it. We became inseparable. Eventually, we were able to take you in as foster parents, and after a year or so we adopted you. However, it was around your third birthday, after we tried for another baby and your mother lost that one, that she slipped into a deep depression. Her grief and guilt over losing Georgia and the other child made it hard for her to be a mother to you. I know she felt awful about it, and you have to know that she loved you with all her heart and the best she knew how. She just lost a big piece of her heart when Georgia died, which made her unable to give you her whole heart.
I’m telling you all of this because you deserve to know the truth, and if something happens to me before I’m able to tell you in person, I would never forgive myself. I know your mother is too far gone with her Alzheimer’s to tell you, and even if she wasn’t, I’m not sure she would tell you. She never wanted you to know the truth. Her reasons were … complicated.