Because I Love You (20 page)

Jill snatched her car keys from her hoodie’s pocket. “Welp, looks like it’s Plan B.” She skipped toward her car.

Oh, no.
She was going to bug the house—and now Neil would be a witness, too. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I couldn’t let him get in trouble for our decision.

“Jill, wait,” I said. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“Do what, exactly?” Neil asked as I let go of him, following me to Jill’s car. He peeked over her shoulder as she pulled bug after bug out of her duffel bag. “Whoa, are those what I think they are?”

“Yep,” she replied. “We’re going to get info out of this chick whether she wants us to or not.”

Neil snatched them from Jill’s hands.

“Hey!”

“No way. You’re not doing this.” He dropped the bugs on the ground and crunched them beneath his foot.

Jill screamed, and I covered my mouth.

“You little dick! Do you know how much those cost me?” Jill said.

Neil held up his hands. “I will pay you back, but you are
not
going to get Andie involved in something like this. She could go to jail.”

“She said it was fine!”

Neil turned to me, his face red. “Please tell me that’s a joke.”

I dropped my hand from my mouth, my skin flushing. I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

Neil let out an exasperated chuckle and put his hands on his head. “Do you have any idea what would happen if Regina found the bugs and called the police?”

“You were perfectly fine with hacking the agency’s files,” Jill said, her voice tinged with annoyance.

“Yeah, on laptops with IP addresses bouncing off multiple servers across the world. But those things”—he pointed to the broken devices on the ground—“would have both of your prints all over them, and what you were about to do is a
felony
. If you went to jail, you’d be in there for years, and your baby would be taken away by child services. Did you even think about that?”

I faltered backward, wrapping my arms around my waist. I hadn’t. He was right; I should’ve thought this through. The world wavered through my blurry eyes.

The lines in Neil’s face softened. He sighed, stepping toward me. “Andie, I—”

“No, I think you’ve proven your point.” Jill moved between him and me.

“Jill, move. Please,” he said calmly.

She looked at me, and I nodded before she turned out of the way.

Neil reached me in two big lunges and took my face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have worded it like that.”

My tongue felt two sizes too big, and I was afraid if I opened my mouth, the only thing that would come out was a squeak.

He pulled me into his strong embrace and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll talk to Regina, okay? I promise I’ll get her to tell us what we want to know. Just . . . please forgive me. It’s been a long time since I cared this much about anyone but Mom and Beth, and I snapped. I’m sorry.”

I nodded, my cheek pressed against his chest, and listened to his heartbeat, trying to calm the shaking in my legs and stop the tears that ached to flow. When Neil let me go, I wasn’t ready, and a single droplet rolled down my cheek. He caught it with his thumb.

“We okay?” he asked, brushing hair from my forehead.

“Yeah,” I replied, my voice as quiet as a whisper.

He lifted my chin, gently pressing his lips against mine.

“Well, that’s all fine and dandy,” Jill said, “but you still owe me, like, five hundred bucks.”

Neil pulled away, sighed, and turned to her. “I said I’d pay you back, and I will.”

She glared at him and crossed her arms. “You better, or your sexy times with Andie are gonna be over.”

“‘Sexy times?’ How old are you, ten?”

“Oh, shut your cake hole.” Jill picked up the pieces of ruined equipment off the ground and shoved them in her bag. She slammed the back door of her car closed before hopping into the driver’s seat.

After ensuring Neil I wasn’t mad at him—which was the truth; I just felt like an absolute fool—I climbed into Jill’s Honda as he returned to work.

As she drove away from Regina Miller’s house, two realizations sunk in: We might never uncover the details surrounding my adoption; and if Neil hadn’t been there to stop me from making the—second—worst mistake of my life, I might’ve lost the very reason I was so desperate to learn about my family history.

My baby.

That evening, Neil made a point to call me after work to make sure I was okay. At first, it hurt too much to talk, thinking about how close I’d come to ruining everything and how I might never learn anything about my birth parents. But he refused to let me go until he knew I was smiling. So, in typical, Neil Donaghue fashion, he joked until he had me laughing so hard I nearly peed. Since then, we’d spoken every night—or seen each other in person, which often resulted in make-out sessions. And every weekend, I stayed at Jill’s house, doing what we could behind the protection of her IP scramblers to uncover Regina’s role in my adoption.

Four weeks to the day after we started investigating, I got a text from Jill:
Tell Neil to ask Regina about a Miranda Fuller. I’m about ninety-five percent sure she’s your mom.

I jumped off my bed with a squeal. My textbooks fell to the floor. She’d done it. She’d actually done it. Jill had found my mom. I fought the urge to twirl with my stuffed polar bear like we were starring in Disney on Ice. A glance at the time showed 1:00 p.m. Two hours until school let out. I paced at the end of my bed, trying to decide whether to wait for Neil or start investigating on my own.

Aw, heck—he’ll forgive me.

I raced to the computer.

An hour later, the doorbell rang, and I swallowed a shriek. I’d gotten so wrapped up in reading about Miranda that I’d escaped into an alternate universe. Not anticipating anyone, I ignored the visitor.
If it’s that important, come back later.

My phone chimed with a text from Neil.
Just so you know, by not answering the door, you ruined the surprise
.

Pushing aside the curtains on the office window, I spotted Neil’s truck in the driveway and smiled. After hurrying to the front door, I yanked it open then leapt into his arms, planting a kiss on his mouth. Neil smiled, his lips against mine, and with hands on my lower back, he guided me into the house and then kicked the door shut.

“You’re early,” I said between kisses.

“Skipped last period.” He kissed me again, sliding his hand behind my neck. “Test tomorrow.”

My body vibrated. I held firmer to him, my knees weakening. One more time, Neil’s mouth met mine, then he pulled his lips away.

Neil held my lower back. “I hope that’s not how you greet all your friends.”

“Just the boys.”

He smirked. “Well, aren’t you chipper today? Did we win the lottery?”

I grinned and led him toward the office. “Even better.”

“Please don’t tell me this is going to be one of those things where I open a lid and a puppy springs out.”

I laughed. “No. There’s no puppy.”

“Okay, good. I hate those things.”

Stopping just inside the room, I stared at him, wide-eyed. “You hate
puppies?
”

He looked at me innocently. “What? They pee and poop and bark and chew things, and they smell all the time.”

“They’re adorable.”

“They’re flea bags with rotten egg breath.”

“You don’t have a heart.”

“I know. For Valentine’s Day, I’m just going to send you a text that says ‘I.U.’” He grinned, and I shook my head before pulling him to the desk.

“Jill sent a text earlier that she’s figured out who my mom might be.” I pointed at the computer, and Neil sat down. “I guess she won some humanitarian award a few years ago for her involvement in helping to stop sex trafficking.”

“So, she’s like a modern-day Mother Teresa?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, then maybe she’ll be up to visiting with you.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But my adoption was closed. She must’ve done that for a reason, right?”

Scrolling through the webpage, he waved his other hand. “Yeah, but she gave birth to you. I’m sure there’s some maternal desire there. I bet I can dazzle her into meeting us for lunch.”

“Unless she smacks you with her purse and calls you a confounded hooligan.”

Neil tipped his head back and laughed. “Maybe I better call her on the phone.” He turned his face toward me, the corners of his eyes creasing as he smiled.

My skin flushed, and if it weren’t for the sound of the door closing from the garage, I would’ve pulled him off the chair and kissed him until we couldn’t breathe.

Ugh.
What was Mom doing home so early?

“Andie?” she called from the kitchen, her voice weak.

“In the office.”

I listened as her heels clicked on the foyer’s hardwood floor, then she stepped into the room. “Did you forget about Dr. Brandt?”

Crap.
My monthly appointment was today. “Yeah, kind of. Can we reschedule?”

“No. It was hard enough to get her to squeeze you in every month.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Neil said, clicking out of the Internet. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” He stood and smiled at my mom.

Her glare was hard as her lips barely turned up in a smile. I’d warned Mom a couple days before he started coming over that we weren’t just friends anymore, but she still hadn’t warmed up to the idea of Neil and me.

Neil kissed my forehead before crossing the room and sticking a piece of paper in his back pocket.

“Have a good evening, Ms. Hamilton,” he said before entering the hall. He winked when Mom’s head was turned, then opened the front door. I waited until it closed before scolding my mother.

I crossed my arms. “You know, he still thinks you don’t trust him.”

“I don’t.” I glared at her. “But I do trust you. So, I’m trying to be accepting. Now, let’s go before they cancel your appointment.”

After rolling my eyes, I grabbed my purse and followed her to the car.

chapter twenty

The soft
whoosh-whoosh
from Dr. Brandt’s ultrasound machine calmed every anxious fiber in my body. No more worries of birth parents or hacking databases. It was amazing how much I’d come to care about the little person inside me in such a short amount of time. Almost unbelievable. Impossible. How could any mother have the strength to give up their baby?

I stared at the screen. The baby was still small, but I could make out some of its features. Goosebumps rose on my skin.

“Well, you’re looking really healthy, Andie,” Dr. Brandt said. “The baby is, too. Whatever you’re doing, keep up the good work.”

She removed the device from my abdomen, and the screen went black. The sound of the baby’s heartbeat disappeared. I swallowed the instantaneous lump in my throat. Stupid emotions.

“I’ll let you get cleaned up, and I’ll see you again in a few weeks. Make sure you check out before you leave, okay?”

I nodded, then she wheeled the ultrasound machine from the room, shutting the door behind her. I blinked back tears and stood from the bed, reminding myself that, soon, the baby would be in my arms. And I would never have to worry about not seeing it again.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward for a wet cloth to wipe the sticky goop from my bloated belly and smiled.

The rest of the week went by without much excitement, and that Friday, I helped Jill and her mom finish inventory for the jewelry store, and on Saturday, Jill got me addicted to
Halo
. With Neil taking over the investigation, the two of us had nothing to do but relax and pick on her dad on his one weekend off work. But where my mom would’ve been annoyed by our constant pranks, Mr. Anderson turned around and tried to get us back. He reminded me so much of my dad; I couldn’t help but smile the entire weekend.

It wasn’t until after lunchtime on Sunday that Jill brought me home. Unable to stop laughing, even after I exited her car, I wandered into the house with a huge grin. And then I spotted Mom sitting at the kitchen table with a scowl, holding a hot mug of tea. Her eyes were framed with red, and again, I couldn’t help but notice how pale she’d gotten. Before, I thought she was simply nervous about speaking with Carter’s mom, but now . . . .