Chapter Fifty-Five
When Jane pulled up at the front of the house, she knew something was wrong. Everything seemed very quiet and still. Even the camera crews’ trucks were gone.
Unbuckling Teddy from his car seat, she wiped some hot fudge from his chin and helped him out of the car. The second they reached the front door, it swung open, and Dax stood there, looking wild-eyed and unfocused.
Oh no, Jane thought. Here we go again.
“Big problems,” Dax said, fidgeting from side to side.
Jane tightened her grip on Teddy’s hand. “What? Is everything okay?”
Rather than answer her, he spun and stalked through the foyer and into the living room.
“Hi, Daddy.” Teddy held up the stuffed animal he had won from an arcade machine.
Dax didn’t seem to notice Teddy. Jane tickled the boy to distract him as she watched Dax pace back and forth, running his hands through the dark shock of hair at the top of his head and muttering to himself.
One of the housekeepers hurried by, and Jane called for the woman to help.
They had a quick discussion, and the housekeeper took Teddy to the kitchen.
Their chef could prepare a snack—not that he would be hungry.
They’d just had a big helping of ice cream.
But Jane had seen this side of Dax enough to know that when he got like this, everything was far from okay.
Jane waited for him to say something, but he only paced. “Okay, well, I’m going to make sure that Teddy is—”
He wheeled on her, eyes wide as if noticing her for the first time. “No. Don’t go anywhere. I want to… I don’t know. It’s got to be big. Something really wild and out there. But what?”
Out there? The last time Dax had talked about out there, they’d ended up on a plane to Syria. “I… don’t know,” she said softly.
But if his unfocused eyes were any indication, he wasn’t asking her. It was more like he was asking himself, asking the universe. And she was caught in the crossfire. “Dax—”
He grabbed fistfuls of his hair and faced the window, then suddenly spun on them.
“I got it. Free insurance for life for the person who pulls the craziest stunt and posts it on our Facebook page. Yes!” He reached for his cell phone and came up short, patting his pockets.
“I’ve got to get that to our marketing team. ”
Why wasn’t there another voice of reason available? Jane gnawed on her bottom lip. “But what if someone gets hurt?”
He waved the idea away. “That’s what my legal team’s for.”
The front door opened, and Aunt Courtney stepped in, arms crossed, looking like she was out for blood.
She strode across the room, heels clicking on the marble floor, and sighed at her brother as Teddy’s voice called from the kitchen.
Jane heard him racing to his aunt, and she only stopped when the little boy threw himself into her arms for a hug.
Aunt Courtney whispered into Teddy’s ear. He giggled and nodded, then kissed her on the cheek and raced back toward the kitchen.
As soon as he was out of earshot, she rekindled her wrath and focused it on her brother. “Stand down, you crazy son of a bitch.”
Dax moved his mouth and his hands, mimicking a puppet’s mouth flapping. “Womp, womp, womp. There goes the fun.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Really, I don’t know why anything you two do surprises me.”
“Womp, womp, womp.”
“Dax! You need to take a Xanax. Or whatever meds you skipped.” She scowled. “Did your psychiatrist refill your prescription? That one you restarted?”
He matched her scowl, and then his face lit up. He rushed across the room and snagged his cell phone off the ornate hall table. The camera crew appeared with the lights on and the film rolling.
“Dax,” Aunt Courtney yelled. “You can’t—”
“Stay away, Court. I’m in the middle of something important.” He scrolled through his phone. “Something epic.”
Courtney whirled on the camera crew and stuck her hand over the lens. “Turn this shit off.”
“Don’t touch the equipment.”
“I will own your network if you don’t get those cameras out of here in the next thirty seconds.”
“Always the buzzkill,” Dax complained.
Apparently, Aunt Courtney had threatened the crew with magic words. They cut the shot and killed the lights.
Courtney opened her mouth and paused, turning to Jane. “Would you mind taking Teddy upstairs or outside?” She pursed her lips. “Somewhere else for the time being?”
Dax didn’t argue, and Jane nodded. “Of course.”
Jane found Teddy with the chef, licking peanut butter off of celery. The two adults exchanged a knowing glance before Jane picked Teddy up and took him to her cottage.
“You’re so sticky.” She pushed out the door and hurried down the deck. The sun warmed her shoulders and made his little hands that much stickier. “How about a bath before we do anything else?”
“Yes!” Her bathtub had jets, and he loved to play in it.
It only took a few minutes to strip off the ice cream and peanut butter covered clothes and set him in warm water. She got out toys, and he played with them in the tub.
Suddenly, Teddy stopped. “Is everything okay with Daddy?”
His big chocolate eyes made Jane’s heart ache. She nodded. “He’ll be okay. He’s just a little wound up tonight.”
Bath time wasn’t much fun after that. She cleaned him up, redressed him in fresh clothes, and curled around him on her bed, turning a movie on. They hadn’t had a nap, and he didn’t always need one, but after a day like today, they could both doze off without complaining.
As the movie started, Teddy pulled the covers up over his chest. “Do you think there could’ve been a mix-up at the hospital?”
“What do you mean? When?”
Teddy turned, and his little face studied her. Whatever he was about to say had required him to wonder and think.
Uncertainty prickled in her chest. “Teddy?”
“Maybe Aunt Courtney is my mom.” His sober expression gave way to a small slip of hope. “And someone else is my dad.”
Jane tried to hide the moment her heart broke into pieces.
A golf-ball-sized knot lodged in her throat, and she vividly remembered her own childhood, when she wondered and prayed that her own parents were not her real ones, too.
“Oh, baby. Teddy.” Tears spilled from both their eyes as she wrapped him in her arms. “I’m so sorry. ”
He sniffed. “But what if the doctors just gave me to the wrong person? What if it was an accident that they gave me to them?”
She couldn’t stop her tears and kissed his forehead. The movie came on, and she quietly promised, “I know grown-up problems don’t make sense. But, you and me? We’ll keep going. We’ll stick together. We’ll love each other very much.”
“And Aunt Courtney,” he said.
“And Aunt Courtney,” she agreed, then let the opening scenes distract him from her silent tears. Jane’s heart ached. Poor Teddy was asking the same question she’d asked herself when she was only a little older than his age: Why couldn’t his parents find it in them to love him?