Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Rain was the first friend Josie had made in eight long years, and she felt a tension loosen inside her with the newly forged bond. The reminder of how important women are to each other.
Together, they’d removed the more feminine décor items Josie had had in the room: the floral paintings, the antique ceramic pitcher and basin that had been on the dresser. They’d painted the walls a blue gray and replaced the pale-pink-and-green quilt that had covered the bed with one Josie had found in the attic done in blues and whites. It was perfect. Reed had plenty of space to add his own special items.
Josie sat down on the bed, her hand running over the hand-stitched fabric. Her mind drifted to the quilt Marshall…no, Charlie had thrown in the warehouse cell where she’d given birth, the quilt she’d used to wrap around her newborn infant after she’d first held him.
She clenched her eyes shut. She was alone now, no chatter distracting her from her own thoughts, and suddenly, her chest ached. She felt so deeply unsettled, and she didn’t know why. She should be overjoyed, shouldn’t she? Here she was, preparing the room where her son would sleep. The ending to her long search that she’d only dared to dream of. It was just nerves, she told herself. It was going to be a difficult adjustment, and she had to be realistic about that. But it would get better. Both for her and for Reed. It had to. It had to.
She heard her cell phone and stood quickly, walking back to her bedroom and frowning at the unknown number. “Hello?”
“Hi Josie, it’s Graham Hornsby.”
Her lawyer. Josie tensed slightly. Was something wrong? Something regarding Reed? “Hi, Mr. Hornsby. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, everything’s fine,” he assured her. “Right on track. I met with the Davies earlier. The reason I’m calling… Josie, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but—”
“What?” She straightened her spine, worry thrumming through her once more. “Is Reed okay?”
“Yes, sorry, he’s just fine. He’s at a baseball game. His team is playing against a Cincinnati team. He’s…he’s very close to where you are, and I shouldn’t be saying anything at all, but”—he released a long breath—“I have children myself, grandchildren. I can imagine…”
Her heart leapt. “I can go watch?”
There was a pause. “You can’t let him see you. You have to promise that.”
“Yes, yes, I promise. I won’t let him see me.” She was gripped by excitement. To see her son in person. Not in a still photograph. But in person. Right up close.
She heard Mr. Hornsby exhale into the phone. “I could…get in trouble for even mentioning this to you—”
“You won’t, I promise. I’ll call my friend Rain. I’ll see if she can help me.”
“All right.” Mr. Hornsby sounded so torn, as though he was second-guessing himself and what he’d just instructed her to do. The sweet, fatherly man who’d gotten tears in his eyes when she’d told him of her search for her baby. The man who’d taken her case pro bono after Zach had referred him to her. Zach. At the thought of him, her stomach trembled. God, she missed him. She missed him so much, and she’d pushed him away. It was necessary, but it still hurt. And God, he would blow a gasket if he knew what she was about to do.
“Which field?” she asked quickly before Mr. Hornsby changed his mind. He told her, and then she held the phone tightly to her for a moment as though she were squeezing the older man himself. “Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you so much.”
* * *
“You sure this is a good idea, Josie?” Rain asked, pulling into a space at the field where Mr. Hornsby had told her Reed was playing a baseball game.
The lot was full, and she could see that the game was already underway. Her heart beat swiftly, her breath shallow. She was about to lay eyes on her son for the first time in eight years. Maybe it was a bad idea, perhaps she should just wait until he was delivered to her house. But that moment was going to be awkward and emotional; she wasn’t sure how Reed was going to react to her at first, and she just wanted to see him. She ached for it. To soak him in without him knowing for just a few precious moments. That wasn’t so wrong, was it?
She’d told the officers at her house that she was going to take a nap but then called Rain, who had come to her front door and dropped something off under the guise of being neighborly, distracting the officers for a moment while Josie had snuck out and then met Rain down the road. She’d left her phone at home, knowing it had a GPS tracker on it. It was a lot of subterfuge but worth it. She’d only be gone a couple of hours at the most.