Page 34 of I Found You
Jane continued to fuss in my arms. She seemed to be in a bad mood for some reason. Go figure, the most easygoing baby was going to pull a one-eighty as soon as I was responsible for her.
Maeve was back downstairs, dressed in a simple light blue dress with little wavy sleeves, within fifteen minutes. Her hair was still wet, but she had pulled it into a knot on her head. Her white sandals were tied around her ankle with little straps.
We talked about Jane’s weird mood and Maeve’s timeline for feedings and naps. She told me that she and Jane had spent some time outside this morning, and she was fine. It was only about thirty minutes ago that she’d started fussing, and she didn’t want her bottle at her regular feeding time.
“I should cancel. Tell Josie that Jane’s not feeling well.”
“You don’t need to cancel. I can take care of her. I’m not forcing you to go if you don’t want to, but don’t cancel because Jane is a little fussy. I’ve got this.”
“I don’t want to leave her when she’s not feeling well.” Maeve picked up her phone and put it right back down. After staring at it for a second, she picked it up again, and again, she put it right back down. “Should I cancel?”
“Do you want to meet with her?” I asked. It wasn’t my place to step in the middle of her family business.
“Yeah… I think… I don’t know. I think I’m just afraid of what I’ll find out.”
Oh shit. Luke’s information. I had completely forgottenabout it once Maeve came out of that bathroom in nothing but a towel.
“Actually, I might be able to help a little with that. According to her background check, she’s been arrested four times in the last ten years, only one charge sticking, possession of a controlled substance, and she went into a rehab program rather than jail for it. Two of the other charges were drug related, and the other one was solicitation, but they were all dropped.” Maeve’s eyes were wide, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper as I talked through what Luke had told me. “Last arrest was eighteen months ago.”
“What? How? What the heck, Wyatt! You had Josie investigated, and you didn’t think to ask me first?”
“No. I mean, I asked Wes to keep an eye on her, but that’s not an investigation. And Luke ran a background check for me.”
“I don’t know how I feel about this.” She was pacing now. Jane was crying in my arms as I kept my eye on Maeve. Luke warned me not to go digging, but Maeve should be happy I found out what I did, right? She wanted to know what she was walking into, and I got her that information.
“At least now you know what she’s been up to.” Maeve shot me an unimpressed glare. I had to pinch my lips together not to smile at it. She was so damn cute when she was mad. “Go. Ask her about her past. Now you’ll know if she’s lying to you.”
“That’s true.” She nodded in agreement, her hands still knotting and fidgeting. “Thank you, I think. But Wyatt…” She glared at me.
“I’ll never do a background check on your sketchy family members again. Not without asking you first.”
She chuckled and shook her head at me, so I flashedher a wide grin.
“Okay. I’m going. You sure you’re okay with Jane tonight?”
“Go.” I had to spin her toward the door. She took three steps and then turned back around just to kiss Jane on the forehead.
“Okay. Okay. I really am going now,” she said, grabbing her purse and keys and heading for the door.
After Maeve left to meet her mother, Jane and I walked in circles around the house while I tried to calm her down, but it seemed like she was getting worse by the minute. She went from fussing to a heart-wrenching cry that wasn’t like anything I had ever heard within twenty minutes. Her temperature felt warmer than it did when I got here, so I stripped her of her outfit, thinking I was going to give her a cool bath to help get her temperature down.
As soon as I started to remove her clothes, I could tell that something was wrong. Small red dots had broken out on her abdomen, back, and legs, but she was otherwise really pale. The baby thermometer was in Maeve’s linen closet in the bathroom, and I thanked my lucky stars that it was the forehead scanner style. One hundred and one point six. She looked exhausted, her body limp in my arms like crying was wearing her down.
I didn’t want to bother Maeve, but I didn’t know what to do. She was freaking me out. My heart was beating fast in my chest, my muscles tense with worry. Maeve didn’t answer, so I ran that cool bath and tried to soothe Jane. Her cries turned to moans as I ran a cloth lightly against her.
After my third call to Maeve, I changed gears and called Luke. As a police officer, he had been medically trained for a lot of scenarios. With my phone on speaker, I explained tohim how Jane was acting as I wrapped her in a towel and held her close to me.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I growled at him.
“Take a breath, man. Can you take her temperature again? Is it getting worse, or is it the same?”
I laid Jane down on the floor so I could put a new diaper on her and retake her temperature. One hundred and two point two.
“It’s higher. She’s scaring me, Luke,” I confessed to him quietly. “Fuck, I think I’m going puke.” I ran my hands through my hair, rubbing the scruff on my face. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing.
“Listen to me, Wyatt,” Luke said. His voice was calming yet stern. He was made to be in law enforcement. He had a demeanor about him that oozed authority. It would usually piss me off when he would try to pull that tone on me, but right now, I could see why he was so good at his job. De-escalating situations, keeping a cool head about him, Luke could talk a man off the ledge. Which was exactly what he was doing with me before I could completely lose my shit and go into pure panic mode. “I’m going to talk to Letty, and she’s going to send an ambulance to Maeve’s house. If the EMTs don’t think there is anything to panic over, they will let you know. They are trained professionals, Wyatt. If they think that Jane should be brought in to be looked at by a doctor, then that’s what we’ll do. I’m heading over there now as well. I should be there in eight minutes. The ambulance is four minutes out.”
My brain couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. It was like white noise was pulsing inside my head. I finally processed what he said after a few seconds. “You never calledLetty. How is the ambulance already on the way?”
