Chapter 29
CALEB
The cops pull up outside the hospital as soon as Piper and I leave.
They checked her over and she was right—she’s perfectly fine.
Trust the police to come at a bad time. I stole a fire truck and sped around in it for hours, searching for her. You’re only licensed to drive those things when on shift…
“I have a photograph of the man. He’s still out there south of the town, somewhere in the forest.” I hold my phone up for the officer to inspect.
“Where did he get the black eyes from?”
“Me. It was the only way he’d leave Piper alone.”
The officer raises his brow. “That’s quite a big assault.”
I clench my jaw and hope they’re going to leave it at that.
For now.
The two officers cut their gaze over to Piper. “We have on file that your father, Philip Hart, was escaping a gang in Boston.”
Hart side-glances me, knowing I had to report the truth. Something terrible must’ve happened there at the motel, because she nods in response to the police’s statement and says, “Yeah. That’s true.”
“And he’s staying at West Mill Hotel?”
“Squatting,” she corrects. “There is no West Hill Motel. The place shut down some time ago due to a rat infestation. But yeah. He’ll still be there. The bullet wounds in each of his thighs will be making sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
Jesus. Sounds like it was a massacre in there.
“We’ll need to be in touch again,” says the other officer, plucking the radio from his pants. “Speak soon.”
I swing my arm around Piper and bring her close.
For someone who saw their own father shot at today, and who came close to death, she’s doing well.
And I know her well enough to know that the assurance in her voice is no front.
She’s okay, and I clarify that by looking into her eyes, blue as ever in the afternoon sun.
“Let’s go home,” I tell her, making sure to slip back into the truck when the cops are well away.
“Home,” she repeats. “You’re no longer referring to it as your place?”
“After the day we’ve had, I think we can cut to the chase and realize that our feelings are too strong to fight.” I offer her a smile.
But her gaze is elsewhere, cutting across the parking lot.
“Hart?”
“Taylor.” The self-assurance disappears from her face, her eyes wide with fear. But she manages to sigh the fear out of her system. “I’ve taken enough shit today. I’m not letting him come between us and get in the way of our good thing, just because he doesn’t have one.”
She pops the truck door and jumps out, taking wide steps toward the suited man who has just stepped out of his own car.
“Hart!” I leap out after her, positive that she’s still on an adrenaline high. This can’t get out of control. “Hart,” I call again, this time through gritted teeth.
“I got a confession from the hitman who’s been after my father,” Piper shouts, storming through the rest of the parking lot. “Only he got my phone and deleted the recording.”
James Taylor adjusts his cuff links, grinding his jaw. “I have been advised by the police to drop the case.”
In his fucking face.
I stay behind Piper, waiting for him to elaborate further, but the man only likes to talk when the ball is in his court.
“What?” Piper scoffs. “I don’t understand.”
“Even though you were intending to squeeze a couple thousand out of the situation, your house did not burn down on your account. The man following you around was the one who—”
“You’re just relaying information that I already know.”
James stands rigidly in front of Piper. The restricting suit probably isn’t helping matters. I’d look like a piece of cardboard too if I forced myself to wear linen and tweed everyday.
“The hospital and police have been in communication. I was informed that you were almost shot at today.” He bows his head. “You have a son to look out for. You cannot raise a child if you’re dead, and you certainly cannot raise one behind bars serving time.”
“Thanks,” Piper whispers. I sense the underlying confusion in her voice, as to why the guy has suddenly changed his tune. He was at our throats like a vampire only days ago. “That’s…not what I was expecting you to say.”
“No.” James keeps his voice controlled. “But you are around the same age my sister was when she lost her life.” He bows his head again and disappears into his car, leaving Piper and me to fill in the gaps.
“Fires are personal,” I tell her as we head back to the truck. “I should have known before that he was trying to rectify a past guilt.”
“There’s something you should know,” Piper says, starting up another conversation. Whatever it is, it looks important. Her eyes are flared wide, and her bottom lip develops a tremor. “I really should have told you this before, but I was scared, Caleb.”
And now she’s making me scared.
I turn my body around in the driver’s seat, keeping the engine off. “Piper?”
“Sonny is yours. You’re his father.”
I can’t be hearing this right.
Maybe my ears are playing tricks on me, but her eyes are not. She’s scanning every corner of my face for my reaction. Whatever face I’m giving her, it can’t be a good one, because she pulls away and faces the window.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“No.” Her voice is tiny.
“Piper?”
My voice carries enough weight to steer her back around to me. I have so many questions flooding my head, but all of them dissipate the second I lock eyes with her. “Sonny is mine, and you decided to keep that information from me.”
“I had to.”
“I deserve to know who my son is.”
I think back to the late-night conversation we had out on the porch. I’d asked her what the deal was between Sonny’s father and her.
“It isn’t worth talking about. Trust me.”
I relay her own words back to her. “It wasn’t worth talking about? What the hell did you mean by that when we had our conversation on the porch?” I swipe a thumb over my jaw. “You wanted me to trust you that it wasn’t a big deal, so I did, and never mentioned it again. I thought it ended badly.”
“It did.”
“Which part?”
“When I found out I was pregnant after you left.”
That explains why she lied about Sonny’s age at first.
We get on well, and things are natural with Sonny and me, but it never occurred to me that he could be mine.
“I was protecting Sonny.”
“And yourself.”
“Yes, and myself,” Piper repeats. “But can you blame me, Caleb, for deciding to keep this a secret? You promised me everything, and then left. That does something to a person.”
I start the truck engine. It’s time we get the fuck home.
“I couldn’t introduce Sonny to you as his father. I had to make sure that you weren’t going anywhere. And now that I know you’re not…”
“You think I’d be in a rush to leave town with a house and a daughter?”
“I had to consider it.” She turns to the side window, arms crossed over her chest. “You kept things from me too, and I forgave that. Are you telling me that you can’t forgive this?” The desperation in her voice hurts. She wants me to be okay with this, just as I do. But I don’t think I can be.
Not yet, at least.
“You should have come to me,” I tell her. “We could have worked something out.”
“Worked out what exactly?”
I turn at the next intersection, gripping the steering wheel extra hard.
“We could’ve worked out how to tell Sonny together.
As parents.” The word punches me in the ribs.
Us. Parents. Officially. We’ve been living under one roof as a family for the past month and I never knew.
“I understand your hesitation with him. You want to tell him in the right way, at the right time—I get that. But I deserve to know who my son is.”
She hitches her arms higher up on her chest and turns her head into the side window.
I have one eye on the road and one on her. A tear falls down her face. I see it in the reflection of the window, and she subtly wipes it away, covering up a sniffle that she also fails to hide from me.
I love this woman with every ounce of my being, but this feels like a betrayal. Granted, it’s a justified one, and she was protecting herself for good reason. But I have been down this road before, kept from my own child.
The silence weighs more than the fucking news that has just been dropped. When we arrive home, I open her door, let her out, and jump back in the truck to drop the thing off.
“I’ll see you tonight,” I tell her.
She nods, heading to Grace’s to collect the kids.
Both of which are biologically mine.
I restart the engine and return to the station. Ryan will be pissed to find out that I stole a truck, but I see what happened today as an emergency.
I roll down the windows, relying on the soft afternoon breeze to sort me out.
Catching a breath of fresh air is easier here than it was in Long Island.
It was the reason I came out here in the first place, to clear my head, although I don’t know how much that’s gonna work this time, seeing as Piper and I are way past complicated.
The reality of our relationship is really quite simple. We’re parents in love. Everything else should work itself out.
I inhale the pine-scented air and wonder if I overreacted. She and I have both kept secrets from one another. The only reason I blew up about the news is because the past is repeating itself, and ever since being a part of Ellie’s life, all I’ve ever wanted is to put Holly’s betrayal behind me.
Certain past events just have a way of staying with me, like the time I rescued myself from that fire.
That’s exactly what I’m doing now—thinking of myself.
Her decision to keep this from me was rational. We both think with the past in mind. I can’t blame her there.
I pull into the station and await my beating from Ryan. There’s nothing he can say to hurt me. I might leave here with no job, but that loss is much less catastrophic than the one I nearly faced today.
“Evening,” I greet, stepping out of the vehicle.
Ryan looks like he’s ready to grill the fuck out of me. “First parking in the ambulance bays, now this?”