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Jax stared at me with wild eyes, and it wasn’t hard to see this was him in panic mode. He liked to be in control with everything—and I didn’t have to be an expert to know he didn’t do well with changes at the best of times. But this wasn’t him handing me the task of signing off on a contract, this was a freaking baby on his doorstep. I took his keys from him, picked up the heavy carrier, and headed into the cool interior of Jax’s home.
Jax stayed on the porch, and when I glanced back, he was staring at the envelope, immobile.
“We need to get inside, Jax.” I was as firm as I could be without scaring the baby, and he blinked at me, his brain not quite firing all synapses. “Jax. Inside.”
He nodded, then after a long pause, he came in and shut the door, keeping to the wall, bypassing the car seat and the increasingly restless baby within. He sat on the third step of the staircase, kind of scrunched up in self-protection mode, pale and shaking, as he rubbed at his chest as if there was pain there. This was more than shock or surprise, it was as if his whole brain was shutting down, and that wasn’t like Jax at all. His green eyes were bright with emotion, his lips thin, and I swear he was about to cry.
Okay, so this is up to me.
Jax wasn’t present in the moment, holding the envelope with shaky hands, staring at it as if the outside could explain everything. So, I scooped out Baby-Jax, blanket and all, and cradled him, or her, against my chest, bouncing them a little and patting the diaper. There was no smell, no fullness to it. The baby was robust and chunky, but I had no idea what I was looking for in a baby, barring a diaper or feeding emergency. I gently rubbed my thumb in downy red hair and touched the softness of a tiny pale blue onesie, Baby-Jax stared up at me. The baby’s eyes were blue, and not Jax’s forest-green, but that didn’t prove anything.
Fuck.
Jax hadn’t moved an inch, staring at the envelope as if it were a grenade. He blinked up at me. “It can’t be mine… I haven’t… I swear, it’s not mine.” He wasn’t telling me, it was more as if he was convincing himself, but given the evidence in my arms, it would take a lot to persuade me this wasn’t his child. I’d seen enough photos of India and Iris as babies spread all over this house, and Baby-Jax was an exact replica of his kids. “Arlo,” he murmured. “What is happening?”
“Read the letter, Jax.”
He stared at it. “Yeah.” He made no move to open it, and I wondered if this would be up to me as well. I could be here for him if that is what he needed.
“You want to take Baby-Jax, and I’ll read it?”
“Fu—fudge! Don’t call the baby that!” His eyes widened, then he shook his head and opened the letter, taking the time to smooth out the paper and checking to see if there was anything else in the envelope—talk about putting off the inevitable. What was he expecting? A gift card? Confetti?
“Dear Jaxon,” he began, then cleared his throat. “The letter is for me.”
Well duh, I thought, but I didn’t say a word.
“This is Charlie.” Jax stopped reading and glanced up at me and Baby-Jax, who now had a name.
“Hello, little Charlie,” I whispered to the baby.
“Does he know his name?” Jax asked.
God knows. How old was Charlie? The baby was holding my gaze, but was he super-tiny, just tiny, or slightly-older-than-tiny?
“Well, um, he’s looking at me. I can try again. Charlie? Do you know your name?” Charlie gave no real indication that he understood a damn thing, unless blowing a bubble was a yes, but he, at least, wasn’t screaming because a stranger was holding him. “Keep reading.”
“Okay, this is Charlie; he’s seven months old; his health records are inside the lining of the car seat for safety; but here’s a link so you can find everything electronic that you need.” He blinked up at me. “There’s a link and a password in the letter,” he explained. “Should we try that on a phone?”
“Carry on with the letter,” I poked.
“Uhm, okay, password… So, in the bag is formula, but C also likes baby rice and mashed bananas.” He paused and stared up at me. “See! I hate bananas.”
Was he saying that proved the baby wasn’t his? That was some reach. “Go on.”
“Okay, so…” He cleared his throat, wiped at his flushed face, then rolled his shoulders. “… mashed up banana… Shit, I read that bit already. Okay, for reasons I can’t go into, Charlie isn’t safe with me right now, so I did the next best thing and decided that his Uncle Jaxon would be the best person to look out for him.” He stared up at me. “Wait. He’s not mine? I’m Uncle Jaxon? But Leo, Reid, and Lorna haven’t… wait…” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe what he was reading as he went back to it. He went to the end of the letter, his world shifting as he uttered one word. “Zach. Shit, it’s from Zach.”
Long-lost twin Zach? Jax-has-been-searching-Canada-for-any-trace Zach? That Zach?
Was I relieved? Worried? Or just fucking confused?
“Charlie is your twin brother’s baby?” I summarized. “That explains the fact he looks like your girls, and with the hair and all…”
I’d never seen emotions slam into Jax so fast, an ecstatic high that his brother was alive after his years of searching and so many near misses, then shock that he was an uncle, plus the abandoned baby—his nephew, Charlie—and finally, faced with the enormity of it all, Jax was slipping into survival mode. He grew even paler, sitting on the stairs, not reaching for the baby, not finishing the letter, definitely in shock.
“What else does it say?” I prompted.
He blinked at me, and I swear there were tears in his eyes. He went back to the letter, his voice thick with emotion. “It says… I wish we could have met some other way before this, maybe in person, but that’s not going to happen for a while, and it kills me, but it’s important that I can trust you with this part of my heart, and as my brother…” Jax scanned the rest of the letter before finding his place and starting again. “In with the medical docs are legal papers giving you guardianship in the event of my death…”
