Chapter 27
Blue watched Jay disappear inside. The man was kind, generous, and closed up tighter than a jar of her mother’s pickles.
His childhood had made him insular. Jay’s emotions were locked away, and when someone pressed him, rather than respond, he put up a wall and ran.
She wasn’t sure what, if anything, she could do to help him, but she wanted to try.
The night before had been a revelation.
New York had blown her mind, but their lovemaking in the shower had been different.
She’d heard people talk about having their soul touched.
Last night, she’d understood what that meant.
And this morning, waking in his bed, after the night in his arms, she’d found Jay outside in the sun with his coffee and felt it again.
Everything about being here with him felt right and natural.
Getting to her feet, she followed Jay and caught him coming back down the stairs, dressed for his workday in jeans and a T-shirt.
“I’m sorry for pushing you, Jay. That wasn’t my intention,” Blue lied.
It was her intention because she felt he needed to deal with the Hazel issue, but she was used to her brothers.
You had to push hard with them because persistence was the key to get them to do or tell her something, and she’d taken that tack with Jay. It hadn’t worked.
“It’s okay. I wasn’t upset.” His face was calm, all emotion locked away, but last night, she’d seen and felt that emotion.
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
“Of course.”
She didn’t like seeing him like this, any emotion and passion gone. But Blue wasn’t sure how to break through to the man she knew was beneath—the funny, generous, and caring one she’d been sharing this house with.
“All right, then. Are you still coming to my appointment with Dr. Hannah?”
“I’m sorry I have to work now. But let me know how it goes,” he said.
Jay walked away before she spoke again, and Blue let him.
He’d told her he wanted to come with her to the appointment and now was backing out.
She felt sad, confused, and a whole number of other emotions that she put down to being pregnant.
She was used to unemotional people in her job.
Had even become like that herself while at work, but you couldn’t hide your McAllister side for long.
Blue took a shower, washed and dried her hair, and then left to see Dr. Hannah.
The black pickup across the street wasn’t a vehicle she’d seen in Lyntacky before, but then, there were plenty of new people moving in these days, whereas once she could have told you the make and model of every car and who it belonged to.
“Change,” Blue whispered. “It’s all around us.”
She was feeling a little off-balance for no other reason than she wasn’t sure how to get through to Jay. The problem was, most couples—if that’s what they were or were going to be—had time to get to know each other before a child entered their lives. They’d done it the other way round.
She walked and let the thoughts come and go, and when she reached Dr. Hannah’s clinic, she had a plan. Tonight, she’d sit down with Jay and lay it all out. How she was feeling and what she was beginning to feel for him.
Being open was the best move going forward for both of them because secrets were destructive. They needed to be open and honest. That had always been her family’s mantra, no matter how much she’d hated it when she was younger.
Blue reached the clinic and took a seat in the corner, not feeling very sociable. The place smelled faintly of antiseptic and lavender oil. A fish tank burbled in the corner, as it had since she was a kid and her mom had reluctantly brought her here because the home remedies hadn’t always worked.
Somewhere down the hallway, a baby cried, and Blue felt her heart squeeze at the sound. Would she bring her baby into this clinic, too, one day?
That was another thing she needed to talk to Jay about. Plans were important, and she needed them more now than ever. Blue could still work and planned to, though as yet she wasn’t sure at what, but an idea was forming, and it made her feel excited.
She pulled her phone from her bag and decided a few minutes of scrolling wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Her thumb hovered for a moment before she typed the name she’d memorized into the search bar. There were a few Hazel Davises, but the one on Facebook was the one she clicked on.
The page loaded slowly, like it was considering whether Blue deserved to see it, and then a young woman with Jay’s eyes and hair color was staring back at her. To Blue, there was no doubting the similarities.
Not identical. She was softer, more feminine, with a wide, open smile. She was outside with a mountain behind her and looked happy.
Blue leaned back in her chair. “Well,” she whispered. “You don’t look terrifying.”
She scrolled some more.
Photos of a golden retriever. A lopsided birthday cake with too much icing. A shot of Hazel with a man, both smiling at each other. There were comments under it like, you two are the best and love you guys.
Blue didn’t know Hazel Davis, but she didn’t look like a bad person.
She wasn’t naive, and experience had taught her that people could hide their true identities.
But she felt like this woman was more a support-the-local-bake-sale and host-cookouts kind of person than the stomp-all-over-other-people kind.
“She’s nothing like her mother, I’m sure of it,” Blue murmured.
“Nothing like who?”
Blue started and dropped her phone. Dan Duke bent to retrieve it. Of course the screen was facing him, so he saw the picture that was still open. She watched him study it before handing it back to her.
“You surprised me,” Blue muttered, taking her phone back. “Are you not working today?” she added, noting he wasn’t in uniform.
“Nope. Day off, and I need to get some shots—so yay, go me.”
“Not my kind of day-off activity, to be honest,” Blue said.
“Leah made me do it. Hudson was supposed to come with me, but he’s got a head cold. So I’m bringing him next week.”
“He’s a cool kid.”
“The best,” Dan said with a gentle smile. “Now, how about you tell me why that phone is pressed to your chest and you look all bent out of shape about something. You haven’t even seen the doctor yet.”
“I can’t tell you,” Blue said. She hated lying and wasn’t going to start now.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
Dan’s gaze flicked to the hand that held the phone and then back to her face. He didn’t rush her. That was the thing about him. He didn’t fill the silence just because it existed like many in this town. Plus, he was a cop, so he knew how to interrogate people.
“Is it to do with Jay?”
Blue didn’t nod or speak. In fact, she barely drew in a breath.
“I’m going to ask you a question now, Blue Jay, and I want you to answer me, okay?”
“What if I don’t want to?”
His smile was gentle. “I think it’s in the best interests of your man and my best friend that you do.”
“Oh god,” Blue whispered, knowing she was going to crack and tell him.
“The woman in that picture had some similarities to Jay, Blue. Is she his sister?” he asked quietly.
Blue’s chest was so tight now, it hurt. She would be betraying Jay if she told him.
“Tell me the truth now, Blue.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “We looked through his DNA results and found he had a half sister. I wasn’t going to look,” Blue said, which was a lie, and they both knew it.
“But I kept thinking about what he said. About her being like their mother and him not wanting or needing that in his life. And I just… I needed to see because I felt sad he had a sister in his life but had always thought he was alone.”
“Let me see her again.” He held out his hand, and she passed him her phone.
Dan studied the photo again. “Is she bad, Blue? Will she hurt Jay?”
“I don’t think so, but how can we be sure?”
Dan looked through the page and read the comments. When he was done, he handed it back to her. “You planning to message her?”
Blue’s fingers tightened around the phone. “No.” The word came too fast. She softened her voice. “I don’t think so. I just…. I don’t know how to help him, Dan. He shuts down. Walks away when I push him about her.”
“That doesn’t sound like the tough Blue Jay McAllister I grew up with. The big New York fashion designer.”
“He’s special to me, Dan. I think really special, and that is freaking me out. Plus, there’s the baby messing with my hormones.”
“Already blaming your kid for shit.” He tsked.
She snorted at that.
“I don’t want him living his whole life scared of something that might not even be real,” Blue said a few seconds later.
Dan rested his forearms on his thighs. “You push a man before he’s ready, he’ll dig his heels in harder. Or he’ll bolt.”
“I’m not trying to run him off,” Blue said quickly. “I just…. He deserves more than the mess he was given by his parents.”
Dan’s eyes softened slightly at that. “I don’t know a lot about that, but I know enough to say that his childhood was bad.”
She nodded. That wasn’t her story to tell. Not that she knew much anyway.
“I was going to visit him after the doctor’s, so maybe I’ll talk to him.”
“He might not be receptive.”
“You let me worry about that. I’ve been dealing with him since we were kids.”
Relief flooded her before guilt followed right behind it. “Okay.”
Dr. Hannah called her name, and Blue got to her feet.
“I think you two are good for each other, Blue, if that holds any weight,” Dan said softly.
“I think we could be good for each other too,” Blue said and then walked away hoping Jay wouldn’t be angry over the fact she’d told Dan about Hazel.