Okay? I was a lot of things, but okay was not one of them.
My ex-wife, who I still loved with every beat of my busted-up heart, had given birth to our baby, hadn’t invited me to the delivery, and had now, for some reason I couldn’t fathom, signed over her parental rights and fled the scene.
Of all the things I’d thought Jules might do when the baby was born, this hadn’t made the list.
“Mm-hmm,” was all I had.
“Dad,” Cash whined from the back row, his knees practically shoved up his nose. “I know technically this thing is a seven-seater, but can we acknowledge that it’s actually not?”
“You didn’t have to ride with us,” Ford said. “You could’ve ridden in Ash’s van with Charlie. Or in Mom’s Bronco.” Both vehicles were right behind us.
When I’d sent out the SOS, every available family member had descended in less than ten minutes.
“You know I had to be in the car where it happens,” Cash said.
Immediately, Theo broke into “The Room Where It Happens” from Hamilton.
Ford’s bodyguard Jeff sat in the middle row next to my parents. The man was basically an honorary Dupree. Jeff was stone-still—almost still enough that I might’ve thought he was dead if his eyes weren’t tracking every passing car. But for a retired Navy SEAL, picking up a baby from a hospital wasn’t exactly a high-stakes mission.
“Jeff?” I asked.
His gaze flashed to me.
I swallowed. “You really think Jules is still at the hospital?”
“You know her better than I do,” he said,like you tell me.
“Yeah. I think so.” Though there was clearly a lot I didn’t know about Jules, I knew she wanted to be a mom. Desperately.
“Always trust your gut,” Jeff said. Then he pulled out his phone and typed.
But were these feelings instincts or just intense wishes? Maybe I was getting my hopes up for nothing.
“I can’t imagine how hard this is for her,” Mom said. “She must besoscared if she thinks this is her only option.”
My thoughts exactly. But Jules wasn’t the only one who was terrified. I was too—mostly, that I was wrong, and she was long gone. Was it selfish to hope that I’d not only meet my son today but somehow get the love of my life back too? Maybe. I didn’t care. I was hoping. Harder than I’d ever hoped before.
Dad must’ve read my concerns. “Sometimes tragedy hits, and you think it will break you. You walk in, determined to face it, immobilized by the what-ifs…” He gazed at Mom. “And you walk out with everything you never thought you’d get.”
I understood. He’d never dreamed Mom would be his until she was. But just because it had worked out for them didn’t mean it would work out for me.
Dad’s phone rang. “It’s Sophie.” She was in Ashton’s van with my uncles, Bowen, James, Charlie, and Liam. “You’re on speaker.”
“Guys!” Sophie said. “Juliette is at the hospital. I can feel it.”
“I think so too,” Mom said.
“Jeff?” Sophie asked. “What’s the plan? I know you’ve got one.”
“I do.” He didn’t look up from his phone. “But first, we need to merge the call with someone in Peyton’s car so I don’t have to say this twice.”
“On it,” Sophie said.
Fifteen seconds later, in the Bronco, Maddie had her phone on speaker.
Jeff started barking out orders. “Griff—you, Lemon, Silas, and James are going in to meet your son. Don’t worry about Jules. Sorry, James, but you can’t run yet, and we need runners. So you may as well go meet your nephew.”
I heard James grumble, “Whatever you say”—and the words “useless” and “pathetic”—probably talking about himself. But then he muttered, “Freaking GI Joe wannabe.”
