Declan’s jaw rocked side to side. “Sorry for having to call you.”
“It’s fine.” She waved one hand, but dropped it to the carseat halfway through.
We’d never been awkward with each other. I hated that it happened now.
“Bree, did you kidnap a baby on your way here?” I moved to the side, trying to look into the carseat.
A peal of laughter rang out. Bree shook her head. “No, Finn.”
The baby’s soft rumblings turned into a blatant cry.
Bree jiggled the carseat. “Sorry. She’s not used to long car rides, and it’s time for a diaper change.”
“Here.” Declan opened the door and held it, stepping back to let Bree go ahead of him.
The three of us filed in behind her. My head whirled with the sight of Bree with a baby. Whose baby?
Bree set the carseat in the middle of one of the tables and unclipped the harness. Her voice lowered to an indistinguishable level. The baby, a girl based on the pink clothes, wiggled and continued to cry. Without a moment of hesitation, Bree changed the baby’s diaper, kissed her forehead, and lifted her into the crook of her arm.
The three of us stood off to the side, slack-jawed. Bree mothered the baby with such comfort and familiarity that reality settled even as Bree walked forward wearing that tense but unapologetic smile.
“Okay. If you didn’t kidnap a baby, then who is this?” I broke the quiet because it seemed like no one else could.
Bree’s head swung toward me, and I swore I saw relief in her eyes at my question. “This is Clara. My daughter.”
Pretty sure someone could have set off a bomb under our feet and we wouldn’t have been able to move. I, for one, swayed with the impact of her words. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” Bree’s tight smile stayed in place. She rocked side to side, baby Clara staring up at her, completely content.
“How old is she?” Ronan’s voice cracked at the end.
Bree met his eyes. “Three months.”
I was no mathematician, but even I knew that nine months of pregnancy, plus the three months we’d spent together, meant Clara might be ours. The knowledge settled deep, stealing every other thought. I might be a father. I might have been a father for a while and she’d kept that from me. From us.
“I didn’t think my heart could break anymore, but what the actual fuck, Bree?” I palmed my mouth to keep from cursing any more. “Sorry, Clara.” I whispered her name, my heart already taken with the tiny bundle. “You’ve been keeping secrets from us. Little, big secrets.” My hands itched to hold Clara. I’d always been enamored with kids. They came into the fire house all the time, begging to climb on the firetruck and asking a million questions.
I’d always thought I would be a father someday, and Bree had kept this from me. I mean, we never talked about kids. She’d made it sound impossible since she was on birth control. Guess it had failed.
Declan took a single step forward. “Why would you keep this from us? One of us is the father, yes?”
I didn’t need her nod to confirm what we all knew. Bree shifted her weight toward the door, her feet pointing that way like she might bolt at any second. Too late. We knew the truth now. We had let her go because we thought it was what she wanted, what she needed.
Things were different now. She’d come back because of the fire. She hadn’t planned on coming back at all. Would she have ever told us if the fire hadn’t forced her to face us again?
I pressed that question down deep and buried it under a pile that I’d dig up later.
37
BREE
Whew. They did not make it easy on me. I didn’t deserve for them to. I’d betrayed them by keeping Clara away. I knew that, and I’d made up my mind to tell them everything. No better time than while they stood there gaping at me like they’d never seen a baby before.
My heart thought it was a great idea to beat in my throat, almost cutting off my air. I felt every pulse thrumming and pressed my fingertips to the hollow of my throat to try and push the lump down. “Yes. One of you is Clara’s father.”
They shifted toward each other, their body language somehow loosening but still tense enough to keep my pulse racing.
“I never planned on coming back. I didn’t want Clara to face the same judgment this place put on me. She’s an innocent in all this, and I will do whatever it takes to protect her from feeling that kind of pain.” I wouldn’t be able to save her from every pain, but it was my job not to put her in situations that I knew would hurt her. “This town would destroy us.” I motioned at Clara, who waved her fist like she agreed with me. “If they found out I waspregnant and didn’t know who might be the father, things would have been worse than they were. After how we left things, it felt like the only way to protect my daughter.”
