Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Maverick
Jo wasn't the only one crying.
I wasn't ashamed to admit that tears filled my eyes as I stared at the monitor until it went blurry. There on the screen was our baby, and that beautiful heartbeat drumming throughout the room was proof of what Jo and I created.
"The sound is so beautiful." Jo sniffled, and I felt her body shake.
"It really is." I gave her a little squeeze.
"I'll print off the picture for you, but the baby sounds great." I winced when the doctor pulled the wand out. I didn't care what Jo said. There was no way that thing didn't hurt. "Give me a few minutes and I'll get you discharged with instructions to follow up with your ob-gyn."
The doctor was out of the room when Jo broke down into sobs. "I'm so sorry."
"You have nothing to apologize for." I tried to reassure her, but she shook her head violently.
"No, it's my fault. I was so mad when I left the house that I was driving recklessly. Then when the brakes didn't work, I panicked, and all I could think to do was cover my stomach in hopes it saved the baby."
"And you did great. Our baby is safe because of you."
"But I was so reckless," she wailed. "What kind of mother does that make me?"
"One who makes mistakes but learns from them. In the end, you protected the baby when it mattered most. That's all you need to concern yourself with."
It was screwing with my head that I wasn't the one there to protect them. I should've been. If anything, I never should've let her storm off in a fit of rage. But we had another problem to worry about at the moment.
"Tell me more about the brakes." I shifted around the bed so I could look at her as we discussed it.
"They just stopped working. I pressed on the brake to stop when I got close to the diner, but nothing happened.
I even tried pumping on them a few times to see if maybe I was just imagining things, but again nothing happened.
That's when I threw the car into neutral and braced for impact.
Oh my God! The other car. Was there someone in it? "
"No," I reassured her. "It was just a parked car with no one in it."
Jo sighed in relief. "Oh, thank God. I would've felt horrible if someone else got hurt because of me."
"I don't think it was your fault."
"What do you mean?"
I obviously didn't have anything to go on without someone looking over the car, but I had a good idea what could've happened.
"I'll explain more once I get someone to check the car." I pulled out my phone. "I need to make a phone call. Are you going to be all right if I step out for a minute? I can wait if you prefer I stay with you."
I probably shouldn't have asked. Of course she would want me to stay after what happened.
"Actually no, it can wait."
"Maverick." Jo placed her hand on my arm. "It's fine. Go make the call and come back to us."
I liked the sound of that. "I promise I'll be right back."
"Okay." She patted my arm.
It was harder than I expected to walk away even though I knew it would only be for a moment. If Jo thought I was protective before, it was nothing compared to how I was going to be now that this had happened.
Once in the hallway, I called Nolen.
"How's Jo?"
My friends still didn't know about the baby, so they had no idea the scare we just went through.
"She's fine. A little shaken up but overall fine, but that's not why I called."
"Okay. What's up?"
"Jo mentioned her brakes stopped working. I need you to have Tim over at the Service Station look it over preferably as soon as possible."
Nolen cursed. "That's no problem. It's where the fire department had it towed to anyway. I'll make sure he gets on it today."
"Thanks, man. I owe you."
"I'll remember that." Nolen laughed before he hung up the phone.
I walked back into the hospital room and found Jo with both hands on her stomach as she stared down at them.
"Hey." I walked straight over to her and placed my palm over hers. "Is everything okay?"
"It just dawned on me how real this is. I mean I took the tests and got the bloodwork that said I was definitely pregnant, but it wasn't until I heard the heartbeat that it finally felt real." Jo looked up at me through her wet lashes. "We're going to have a baby."
I wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Yes, we are, and we're going to be fantastic parents."
Jo sniffled. "You really think so?"
"I think you can do whatever you put your mind to, and that includes being a great mother. Don't sell yourself short."
"What happens now? I thought you were just overreacting when you said someone was after me."
I gave her a sad smile. "A small part of me always hoped I was just overreacting but not anymore. I'm still moving in. I know you like your independence, but now isn't the time for it. We know who's behind the blackmailing, and now that he's made an attempt on your life, I plan to confront him."
It was going to be tricky because he was a lawyer, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. He put my baby's life in danger. I refused to tolerate that.
"Who is it?"
"Alejandro's cousin, Santino."
Jo scrunched up her nose. "The gang leader who died in prison? That Alejandro?"
I nodded my head.
"What the hell does he care who I am? I write for a small newspaper in an even smaller town."
"That's what we're trying to figure out. Nothing makes sense. He's a high-profile attorney who represented the gang, but otherwise he has no ties to them."
"Unless he does."
I could see Jo's mind turning things over. I was fascinated by how her brain worked now that I knew she was B. Feather.
"What do you mean?"
"What if he's the Oz behind the curtain?"
Now she lost me. I considered myself a smart man, but at the moment, I was feeling pretty dumb. "Huh?"
"You know the movie." Jo looked at me expectedly. "The one where the all-powerful Oz hides behind the curtain so no one realizes he's just an ordinary man."
"Okay …" I still wasn't following.
"So what if this Santino is really Oz. He let Alejandro be the face of the gang, but in reality, it's Santino pulling the strings."
It was a good theory and all, but it still didn't make sense.
"So why would he come after you?"
"I'm guessing that without Alejandro, he has no ties to the gang. Didn't you say someone new is in charge?"
"Yes, and he's an idiot. Not nearly as powerful as Alejandro was. It won't take long for him to run the gang into the ground."
"Which means if I'm right, then Santino has lost everything."
It was a good theory. I wasn't sure how accurate it was, but it was certainly better than the nothing we had.
"I'll make sure Nolen looks into that possibility."
Jo leaned back in the hospital bed with a smile. "This is what I miss."
I cocked my head at her until she explained.
"The chase. The journalistic approach to finding out the deeper story. I haven't been able to do much of that since I came back to Willow Creek."
I gave her a sad smile. "So what you're telling me is you miss the city."
"God no." She laughed at me. "I'm a small-town girl through and through. The city life was never for me, but journalism is."
Maybe I could find a way to give her both.