Chapter 63 Daisy - Covert Mission
DAISY Covert Mission
Are you sure we should be doing this?” I whispered as Mason killed the lights on his truck and parked on the street.
I snuggled my face into Dolly’s soft fur.
She was pooped out and snoring contentedly in my arms. And while, no, this didn’t make up for having to let Maisy go, a precious puppy certainly didn’t hurt.
No one could hear me inside the car, but I’d never really undertaken a covert mission like this before, so I was nervous.
He turned to look at me, resting his forearm on the center console. “I just need to check on her.”
I nodded, feeling everything inside myself steel. I could do this. I could.
Mason opened his door quietly and crept out, walking around to open my door too, but not bothering to close it.
He took my puppy-free hand and we crept through the front yard as silently as possible, making our way toward the house, which was all lit up.
“We don’t even know that they’ll be here,” I whispered. “Or that she’s awake.”
“She’ll be up for her ten o’clock feeding,” Mason said, making everything inside me feel warm. He knew Maisy’s feeding schedule; he remembered. Maybe he was ready to be a father.
I stopped walking as my heart began to race.
“What?” Mason asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can see her. What if she’s crying? What if she’s upset?”
Mason nodded. “Okay. We don’t have to go,” he whispered. “We can just get back in the car.”
I looked at the two of us, in the dark, in Cheryl and Andy’s yard like a couple of criminals.
We could have simply called them. I’m sure they would have let us come over.
But it wouldn’t be the same. That would be a performance.
This was natural. And I wanted to see that, the natural.
I wanted to see if they could handle my baby girl.
I knew I had to stop thinking of her as mine.
But wouldn’t she always be? At least a little?
I took Mason’s hand again and whispered, “We’re here. Let’s just do it.”
As we made our way toward the big picture window on the front of the house, I could make out three figures.
My breath caught and my eyes filled with tears as we got close enough to see Drew—baseball star, alpha-male Drew—cradling his baby daughter on the couch.
Sarah was beside him, stroking Maisy’s head, and they were both smiling down at her, talking, awestruck, like they couldn’t believe their luck.
Cheryl walked in with a bottle. The minute Maisy saw it, she began to cry.
Mason and I both laughed softly. We remembered that.
I leaned into him, and he squeezed me to his side.
Neither of us said a word, just watched the interaction in the living room, as Cheryl tried to take Maisy and then, evidently, Drew decided he would keep her, he would feed her.
He smiled down at his baby daughter as she took the bottle, and Cheryl sat on his other side.
Andy walked in too and stood smiling at the four of them.
And, against all odds, instead of feeling like my heart was going to break, something new happened.
I felt peaceful. I felt content. Maisy was happy.
Maisy was extravagantly loved. I swallowed the lump in my throat as Mason rubbed his thumb over my shoulder.
“We did that,” he whispered. “We gave her that.”
All I had thought of the past few hours was how devastated I was that Maisy wasn’t mine. But Mason was right. He had rescued her. I had cared for her. We had helped a couple of scared teenagers tell the truth. And that had made a family. We had done that. Together.
I knew what it was to feel lost and let down by the world.
I knew what it felt like for the people who were supposed to love and protect you to leave you behind.
And I knew then that, even though we wouldn’t be the ones to raise her, Mason and I had helped create a future for this little girl where she would never, ever have to feel like that.
I snuggled tighter into him. Mason leaned down and kissed the top of my head as Dolly licked my face.
I thought about what Abbott had said. She was getting her second chance, and, with the stars shining around us, in the arms of the man I loved, holding a new little life, I couldn’t help but think that maybe we’d get ours too.
As we watched the parents, grandparents, and baby inside like we had bought tickets, like they were there for our entertainment, I had the most wonderful thought: Maybe, one day, Mason and I could have a family of our own.