25. No such Thing As Coincidence
25
No such Thing As Coincidence
LEIGHTON
June
Spring flew by in a blur—May’s gray days filled with doctor appointments, end-of-school programs, and Beau’s first tot soccer season, which may go down as the most chaotic games in the history of organized sports. June gloom had rolled in by the time school let out, but once the warm coastal breeze shoved the clouds inland in the late afternoons, I was always desperate to get outside and soak up the sun.
Which led us here.
Second week of summer break, recovering from the most decadent baby shower anyone on any planet had ever seen, with “A Summer Song” by Chad & Jeremy playing over Ollie’s Bluetooth speaker. Tillie and I layered picnic blankets over the backyard’s manicured grass, scrapbook supplies now scattered like confetti across the quilts.
“This is what magic powers look like,” Beau observed, sprawled on his back like the tiny king he was. I looked up just in time to catch him trying to shake glitter glue off his fingers. When that failed, he wiped them directly on the lawn before I could stop him.
The perk of third trimester pregnancy? No one mistook me for someone hoarding calories for winter anymore. The disservice? I now moved like the sloth from Zootopia —Beau’s words, not mine.
“Totally, dude,” I said, fishing out a wet wipe and maneuvering my swollen self over to him to clean his fingers before the inevitable meltdown hit.
Scowling at the dried flecks, he muttered, “Sunshine makes glue faster. Which means it’s a wizard.”
“ Gandalf the Yellow,” Mattie muttered, tongue poking out between her lips as she carefully cut out construction paper hearts. My snort earned dual glares, so I raised my hands in surrender and let them go back to work.
Beau nearly dislodged my grip as he dove forward to snatch up a sheet of stickers, still sticky-fingered as I wrestled the last of the glitter from his palms. He cocked his head. “Do you think unicorns eat pizza?”
Fuck, my face hurt from smiling. How anyone could walk away from these two was beyond me—it was nauseating. If Carly wasn’t such an irredeemable monster, I might’ve felt bad for how expertly the Harts’ legal team kept delaying her custody petition.
But we were out of moves.
And in just a few too-short weeks, Ollie would be in front of a judge who would decide everything. Our future. Theirs. The weight of that made my smile falter.
I cleared my throat, turning over Beau’s little hand.
“Pizza?” I echoed.
“Yeah. ‘Cause I got a rainbow sticker already. But I think unicorns would like pizza.”
“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like pizza,” I pointed out as he stared intently at his glittering sheet.
“What if they eat rainbows?” Tillie offered from her spot, now focused on gluing a Polaroid onto her page.
We’d all agreed a scrapbook just for Ollie was the best possible Father’s Day gift for a man who had everything. Each photo had a note from one—or all—of us, listing the reasons we loved him. Because really, how the hell else do you impress a billionaire? A cute-ass scrapbook of him and his kids was my best bet.
“Like Skittles?” Beau asked, eyes narrowed in focus as I wiped his other hand.
The instant I let go, he scrambled for the pile of unclaimed Polaroids, flipping through them one by one before a giggle burst out of him, his grin spreading wide.
“What’d you find?” I asked.
“This one looks like Daddy hasn’t had coffee yet,” he declared with an affectionate smile. Tillie glanced over, smirking as she nodded in agreement. Beau scrambled to hand it to me once he’d looked his fill, returning to the stack as he muttered, “Very brave for Mommy to love him anyways.”
My heart…froze. A brick lodged in my chest, creeping up my throat as I looked down to see a sleepy-looking Ollie, with rumpled hair, and me pressing a kiss to his cheek. Both of us were entirely washed out by the flash, and his squint looked part amused, part exhausted.
“Did you mean to say ‘Leighton’?” I chirped, trying not to let the quake in my chest make it into my voice.
He frowned. “I didn’t say Leighton,” he declared indignantly, his tongue sticking out just like his sister as he flipped through the prints. .”
“Did you just call me Mommy?” I asked, the word breaking in my throat.
Tillie’s eyes snapped to me. And—unless I was dreaming—there was hope there. Hope and something else. Something fragile.
“I mean,” Beau said, brow furrowed in concentration, “you’re my brother’s Mommy, and you do all the things a Mommy does. And you love Daddy. And Mommies and Daddies are people that love each other and love their babies. And you love us .”
“Daddy says he thinks you’ll marry him someday,” Tillie added quietly, like it was a wish she didn’t dare say too loudly. “Will you? Marry Daddy?”
I swallowed hard, curling a hand around the chain at my neck—his ring resting just over my scar.
“Can you guys keep a secret?” I asked.
They nodded in tandem. Terrible liars, both of them.
“Look at the last page,” I said, voice low.
Tillie lunged for the scrapbook like a mountain cat, flipping through our work in progress with an energy that sent Beau into a half-hearted whine as he tried to swipe it back.
“Hey! I wanna see!”
“Me first!”
“What do whiners get?” I asked sternly, arching my brows.
“Nothing,” Beau grumbled.
“Good man.” I pulled him into my lap as Tillie kept flipping. “Both of you can see. No need to squabble like raccoons.”
“We’re not raccoons,” he muttered as Tillie grinned.
Finally, she reached the last page—a Polaroid I’d taken in my favorite Bomber’s hoodie. Ollie’s hoodie. I was grinning, holding up my hand, the ring clearly visible.
“I knew it,” Tillie declared triumphantly.
Beau blinked between the book and Tillie before craning his neck up at me. By way of explanation, she added, “Leigh is gonna marry Daddy!”
“ Yes! ” he whisper-cheered, fist punching the air so enthusiastically I had to dodge it. Then he turned in my lap and grabbed both sides of my face to plant a kiss directly on my mouth.
I burst out laughing. Probably not the right reaction to such a heartfelt moment, but I couldn’t help it. I scooped him up and blew raspberries on his belly while he squealed.
“Okay, okay, okay !” he screeched, writhing in my arms. “You win!”
Smiling so wide my cheeks hurt, I kissed his cheek and looked over at Tillie. Her expression had turned serious again—soft and tentative.
“What’s on your mind, sweet girl?”
“I want Daddy to be happy,” she said. “And... I’d like you to be my Mom.”
Tears burned behind my eyes. I nodded, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Soon, sweetheart. I’ll be your stepmom, but still.” My voice wobbled. “Is that okay?”
Tears welled in her hazel-blue eyes, and then she was nodding, her chin trembling as the strongest little girl I’d ever known threw her arms around me. Something in my chest clicked. I could never have been her mother—biologically speaking, the age gap between me and my oldest siblings was larger than the one between me and Tillie—but she still felt like she’d always been mine. Like I was always supposed to raise this girl, be the one cheering from every auditorium, the one curling her hair in the mornings.
Yes, I loved Ollie—with every ounce of my soul and every scrap of my patchwork heart. But I fell for Matilda Hart first.
With a sniffle, I pulled her in tight, holding both of them against my chest as tears spilled down my cheeks—harder, the tighter they held me. My waterworks turned into a laugh when their little brother decided he didn’t like being crammed in his womb condo and used my belly like a punching bag.
“Woah!!” Beau shouted, maximum enthusiasm and volume engaged, as his little hands rushed to the swell of my stomach—right as Tillie did the same.
“He’s like a little gymnast,” Tillie said, dead serious.
“Or a fighter!” Beau crowed, wide-eyed. “You see how fast ‘dere hands move!”
“He can be whatever he wants to be,” I told them, smiling. “Just like both of you.”
“Hmm. I wonder if he’ll like me.”
“You’re his big brother,” I reassured. “You’ll bicker like you do with Tillie, but he’ll love you more than anybody. Just be ready for him to think everything you own is his. And everything Sissy or Daddy or I own too.”
“Hmm,” he huffed. “We’ll jus’ have’ta teach him.”
“Exactly,” I said, dropping a kiss to Tillie’s head as she disentangled herself—clearly at her limit for affection. Blinking more than usual, both kids returned to their pages as the music shifted, little hands gluing and sticking with renewed focus.
Curiosity got the better of me as I set down the book and peered over Beau’s shoulder. “Can I see?”
“Yeah!” he blurted, turning proudly to hold up his work. Equal parts monster trucks and dirt, glitter rainbows and unicorns—and Ollie never batted an eye.
“I love your photos!” I said, sneaking a kiss onto his squishy little cheek.
“Mine too?” Tillie asked, handing her page over.
I looked down, grinning at their little faces, until a prickle of awareness spider-walked up my spine. My throat tightened.
The photo of Tillie and Beau at the park had a black sedan parked in the background. Feeling borderline crazy, I flipped back to Beau’s page—this one outside the art museum, both kids covered in paint, their smiles squinty from the sun—and there it was again. Same style car, parked at the curb.
A memory struck. The day of the anatomy scan—when preggo-brain had me crying over spilled pakoras—and a man standing beside a black sedan. A bearded man. Towering. Smiling.
My chest flushed with warmth, and my bones felt too tight, like my skin couldn’t hold the pressure.
Coincidence. It had to be coincidence.
But…the “funny guy” at the park had a “fuzzier face than Maverick,” Beau said. Dread—thick and oily—settled in my stomach as I flipped through the rest of our pages.
Disney World. Siesta Key. Our own backyard. Me and Ollie at the butterfly migration. Tillie in full recital costume. And in the background—blurred but unmistakable—was that same black sedan. Always just far enough away to miss.
My heart galloped as my mind jumped.
The bridge.
Royce.
“They were going to shoot at us! What the fuck is going on!?” I shouted, cupping my hands over Mattie’s ears.
“They’re trying to kill us—or capture us,” Jax said. Like that helped.
“I fucking see that, but why?!”
The engine roared as Jax floored it.
Royce’s voice cracked. “Because your sister stuck her nose where it didn’t belong.”
My concussion-muddled brain clicked disjointed pieces together. All of it—the fuzziness, the holes—roared back into clarity.
The tension between Ollie and Greyson after the accident. The weird distance between Alice and the truth. Detective Riviera blowing off my questions. The official report calling it random. Alice’s sudden memory loss.
But Royce had turned a gun on Jackson. He wasn’t sick to his stomach—he was a traitor.
It wasn’t random gang violence. It was connected. And I’d been too shaken to see it.
“Hands on the wheel, Reynolds,” Royce ordered.
Jax froze, glancing at Alice in the rearview.
“Royce,” Alice pleaded. “Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”
“Didn’t want to,” he said, voice strangled. The gun stayed on Alice, but his eyes were locked on Jax.
Alice glanced down at Mattie’s untied boots, then looked at me. Her fingers twitched.
Garrote.
I reached down, pretending to adjust Tillie’s laces, pulling gently at the ends.
“Slow down!” Royce barked.
“You’re going to kill us either way,” Jax said. “I’ll take you with us.”
The car surged forward. Tillie sobbed. I kept working the laces.
Alice tried to reason with him.
“I don’t have a choice—they took them.”
“Who?” my sister asked.
“All of them, Alice.”
“The kids?” Her voice trembled.
“When we didn’t turn you over, they—they took Miranda today.”
His wife.
“Who?” Alice demanded.
“I—it wasn’t supposed to go this way,” Royce choked out. “I let them in, Alice. I let her in. It’s my fault. If something happens to them, it’s my? ? —”
My hand flew to cover my mouth.
Oh my god.
What the fuck had Alice gotten herself into?
What kind of fallout were we standing in now?
Why did her sudden loyalty to Greyson suddenly make perfect sense?
With a shaking hand, I grabbed my phone, dialed Ollie on muscle memory, and stepped away from the kids just far enough to breathe. I collapsed into the teak furniture on the back patio, unwilling to let them out of my sight—even from behind glass.
Hart family security didn’t lurk. They didn’t sit in parked sedans like creeps in a low-budget thriller. They stood at inconspicuous distances, dressed like off-duty dads, hovering close enough to act but far enough that Ollie didn’t feel suffocated.
This? This wasn’t that.
“Hey, beautiful,” Ollie answered, his voice warm and easy. “How are you?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Leigh?” His tone snapped from afternoon delight to panicked in a heartbeat.
“Ollie, what happened on the bridge?”
“What do you mean, baby?”
“ The bridge . Royce. That wasn’t a fucking coincidence, was it?”
“Leighton, I?—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Oliver.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Kind of. No.”
“What’s going on?” he demanded, voice shifting, breath heavier now. Walking. Moving fast.
“I’m scrapbooking with the kids,” I managed, watching them—so perfectly unaware, surrounded by glitter glue and construction paper and sunshine.
“Okay…”
“And the photos, Ollie. There’s a car. A black sedan. I think a Toyota. I’ve seen it before.”
“Okay? There are a lot of black Toyotas, Leigh.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I’m telling you—it’s in at least three photos. And I saw a guy. A bearded guy. He smiled at me that day at the Indian place, and I thought it was nothing. But a while back…” I sucked in a breath, trying to steady the quake in my voice. “ A while back , Beau and I were at the park. He said the kid he was playing with didn’t like ‘the funny guy.’ When I asked about it, he told me it was a big guy. Fuzzy face. And he asked questions about his uncle.”
“What?” Ollie snapped, temper flashing in his tone. It wasn’t aimed at me, but it still sent my walls flying up. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
“I—” I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see it. “It felt paranoid. I didn’t think my unsubstantiated anxiety was worth mentioning.”
“Anybody talking to our kids that we don’t know is important. Anything that ever makes you uncomfortable is important, Leigh. Where the hell was security?”
“Giving me distance,” I bit out. “I thought it was a coincidence. Maybe they recognized him. But the guy downtown matched Beau’s description, Ollie. And now I’m sitting here looking at these photos and …” My voice cracked, a sob clawing its way up my throat. “Someone is watching the kids. Somebody’s been following us. And I can’t shake this sinking feeling that it’s all?—”
“Go to Greyson’s,” he cut in. “Now, baby. I’m on my way home, but get to Hart House. They’ll keep you safe.”
“Ollie—”
“ Now , Leighton. Grab Viper at the gate and have him walk you over. I’ll meet you there.”
“Ollie, just—tell me what’s going on.”
“I will,” he promised, the words tight and raw. “I swear, I will. Just get inside. Get to Captain Reynolds. I love you.”
“I love you too.” The fear bled into my voice, no matter how hard I tried to keep it from the kids. I stood from the patio chair, smoothing my face, swallowing my panic, and heading back toward them with measured steps.
“Wait for me there, Trouble.”
“Kay.”