The Rockers' Babies (The Rocker... Series) (14 page)

Because Lydia hadn’t put Lucy’s father’s name on the birth certificate Jesse and Layla hadn’t known who, if anyone, they had to get permission from to legally adopt her. With a man coming forward now, only a

paternity test or his signature on the bottom of the papers saying he didn’t contest the adoption would keep this from going to court with what would only be an extremely ugly, widely publicized custody battle.

“What’s our first step?” Layla asked, her voice sounding small and completely so not the Layla that I

knew. She kept rubbing her hand over her stomach as if she were in pain and I wasn’t sure if it was

because of all the stress she was under or if the twins were causing her problems. If those monsters inside of her were anything like the girl bouncing around in my stomach right now I knew that they weren’t

happy.

“First we need to do the paternity test,” Brad said, taking off his thin wire-rimmed glasses and rubbing

the bridge of his nose. “As soon as we get that cleared up we can move forward. I’ll have the private

investigator agency I use look into Mr. Grady’s background. He obviously has a messy past, and if we can

prove just how messy a judge won’t even blink before giving you custody. However, the judicial system

tends to favor the biological parent. If he can provide for her—put a roof over her head, keep her clothed, and make sure she has three meals—then that is technically all they want. The fact that Mr. Thornton and

yourself can provide a private school and just about anything else a child could want doesn’t matter. Plus, with you pregnant at the moment, Mrs. Thornton, the court could conclude that as you have your own

family to take care of Lucy would be better off with her real father.”

Jesse stood, knocking over the heavy chair he had been sitting in beside Layla. “I am Lucy’s real

father!” he roared, causing everyone in the room to jump except for Emmie. “I was the one who taught her

to ride a bike, to surf on that beach out there! It doesn’t matter that Layla is pregnant. Lucy is just as much

my daughter as any child we will have together. We aren’t a family without her, damn it!”

“Jesse…” Layla reached out for his hand and he seemed to calm a little at her touch. “You’ll always be

her dad, Jesse.”

“No one could do a better job than you, bro,” Shane assured him from his seat on the short couch near

the window where he sat with Drake beside him and Harper on his lap. “No one could ever question that.”

Emmie pushed back from her desk and stood. Her face was pale and her eyes were unreadable. She had

a lot on her plate lately and this was just adding more to an already full load, but she wasn’t going to

complain. When it came to Emmie’s family she would walk through hell and back to help us.

She stopped in front of Mr. Horton and offered her hand. “Thanks for coming by on such short notice.

Get your PI people on it as soon as you possibly can. I want a report of everything they give you as soon as it’s in your hands. Also, I need you to set up the paternity testing. Make sure that Grady isn’t present when Lucy is getting it done. His lawyer can witness the test being administered if he must, but we want to keep this private for as long as possible. As soon as the media gets wind of this it is going to be a field day for everyone.”

Horton stood, knowing that Emmie was dismissing him and that he had better get on the list of things

she wanted done as soon as the door shut behind him. “Of course. I think we can have the test done this

evening, if that is okay with Mr. and Mrs. Thorton?” Jesse didn’t spare the man a glance but Layla nodded

her head in acceptance. “Good. I’ll text you the time and location.”

“How long will it take for the test results come back?” Nik asked, leaning against the edge of Emmie’s

desk.

“Depending on how soon we can get Mr. Grady’s DNA sample it shouldn’t be longer than three days.”

“That’s a lifetime,” I muttered, clenching my hands in my lap. It also meant that Drake and I would be

in New York when the results came back. I wanted to be here, holding Layla’s hand when she found out if

Vince Grady was Lucy’s biological father. It just wasn’t possible though. Drake had to go back for work

and I couldn’t handle being away from him for more than a few hours since I had found out we were

pregnant. “Does it really take that long? Or can we pay extra and get them to rush the test results?”

“This isn’t something you really want to rush, Angel.” Drake tried to reason with me. “We want them to

be completely certain that this guy didn’t donate his sperm, right?”

I sighed. “Yes…”

“I’ll be expecting your call later today, Horton,” Emmie told the lawyer and Nik stepped forward to

show the man out. When the door was closed behind them Emmie turned to Jesse and wrapped her arms

around his waist. “I think we can settle this without the lawyer. Just give me a few days, okay?”

After a small hesitation Jesse finally nodded but the tears rolling down his face gave another answer

entirely. A few days really was going to be a lifetime for everyone, but especially for Jesse.

Chapter 11

Jesse

Layla wasn’t feeling well. After the morning—and the weekend leading up to this morning—that we’d

had, I wasn’t feeling so great myself. As soon as we got home I carried her upstairs and put her in bed. She said her back was killing her and she just wanted to sleep.

Maybe I should have lain down with her and held her, but I couldn’t stand still let alone go to bed.

There were three hours left before Lucy came home from school. Three hours of wondering, worrying. We

had to tell her. She was too smart not to wonder why she had to have the DNA test done and I didn’t want

to lie to her.

I found myself downstairs cleaning, something I had been doing more and more of lately since Layla

was getting so big and unable to move around so much. We could have easily hired an entire housekeeping

staff to keep the house in order, but she didn’t want strangers in our home. Layla loved making our house a home on a daily basis. So I rinsed Lucy’s breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher then wiped down

all the counters before climbing the stairs to see if Lucy had any clothes that needed washing.

Opening the door to Lucy’s room, a feeling of defeat washed over me and I dropped down on the edge

of her bed. My eyes went around the room that she had decorated herself, grimly avoiding the snake in his

habitat. Ziggy and I had come to an understanding. I wouldn’t chop his head off in his sleep if he didn’t

escape from his home that Lucy painstakingly kept organized. The walls were two shades of purple, her

favorite color. A zebra print separated the two colors and matched the fuzzy pillows on her bed. Against

one wall was her desk with her computer and her notebook that she kept all of her rough drafts in. Lucy

loved to write, to create worlds and characters that she would escape in for hours at a time.

On the wall above her desk were posters of Demon’s Wings and one of OtherWorld. All of them

newer, having been taken in the last two years. I loved that she liked our music, but didn’t let her listen to all of our work. Some of the stuff Nik wrote was too hardcore for a nine-year-old.

My gaze went to her bedside table. A picture of her, Lana, and Layla in a purple picture frame with a

dolphin sat beside her lamp. They all looked so similar, but so different. Lucy and Lana had the same shade of dark hair, but Lucy’s short locks were so curly it took her forever to get her hair sorted in the mornings.

They all had brown eyes, but in varying shades. Lana’s whisky, Layla’s chocolate, and Lucy’s an almost

midnight black. While her sisters were slightly tanned, Lucy was a soft cream. The three all had the same

nose, the same lips.

I lifted the second photo from the table. I remembered the day it had been taken and my lips lifted in a

half smile. We had been sitting on the beach in the sand, watching as the sun was taking its time setting.

Layla had been shouting at us from the kitchen to come in and have dinner but we couldn’t be bothered to

move. We were settling in well, I thought. And Layla and I had signed the adoption papers that afternoon.

We had finally become the family I wanted us to be and it felt like nothing could ever go wrong in my life.

“I love it here,” Lucy had said, a happy sigh escaping her.

“Me too. It’s finally feeling like home.”

“Thanks for today.”

My head turned to frown at her. “You’ve been mine since the day I met you, Lu. Today just made it

legal.” I reached over and tugged on one of her short ringlets. “If anything, I should thank you for wanting to be my daughter.”

She threw her arms around my neck so suddenly I nearly fell back into the sand. “I love you, Dad,” she

had whispered.

Those four words had been my undoing and I had to blink hard to keep from crying. I hugged her tight

against me, never wanting to let this little girl who had snuck into my heart so quickly go.

“Say cheese!”

We had both turned to find Layla standing over us with a camera. Our first picture as father and

daughter…

The thought that I was going to lose my little girl made my chest ache and I put the picture back where it had been before standing. No matter what, I wasn’t going to lose Lucy. It would destroy me. If anyone

tried to take her away I would kill them with my bare hands.

A glance at the clock on Lucy’s desk told me I had been in her room for nearly an hour. Turning the

lights off, I walked down the hall to the master bedroom and cracked open the door. I was expecting Layla

to still be in bed, but it was empty. “Baby?” I called out, moving toward the bathroom on the other side of the room.

“J-J-Jesse?”

Her trembling voice kick started something inside of me and I moved faster. She was crying, I could

hear her sobs through the closed door. As I opened the door she moaned and my heart actually stopped at

the sight before me.

Layla was standing at the sink with the water on. She was bent in half, holding onto the edge of the

counter as her body shook. The baby blue leggings she had on were damp, a red spot soaking through.

“What..?”

“My water broke!” she sobbed. “I’m in labor.”

“No.” I shook my head stupidly. “No, you are only seven months pregnant! They aren’t supposed to

come for another nine weeks.”

“I… I know that!” she shouted at me. “But these babies haven’t got the memo… Call Emmie. Call the

hospital.” She gripped her stomach and moaned. “Call a fucking ambulance!”

With shaking fingers I pulled my phone from my pocket and called 911. She was in too much pain, the

contraction coming too close. Every time she moved more fluid flooded her pants, pooling at her feet. As

soon as I told the operator what was going on and our address, I tossed the phone aside and lifted Layla

into my arms. I didn’t want her to slip in the mess.

“Emmie,” Layla panted as I carried her downstairs. “Call…Emmie.”

“Emmie will see the ambulance and know something is going on,” I assured her. My heart was beating

so fast I was sure it was going to explode, but I couldn’t worry about that right now. I could hear an

ambulance in the distance and thanked gods that there had been one so close. “Take deep breaths, baby,” I

urged, knowing that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Our Lamaze classes didn’t start for another

week, and I knew nothing about what was going to happen.

All the nightmares of Emmie’s delivery flashed before my eyes and I was sure I was going to vomit. I

had been terrified when Emmie went into labor with Mia, but this? This fear that I was experiencing,

witnessing the woman who owned me heart and soul in so much pain. The fear of something being wrong

with our babies because it was way too soon for them to come into this world…

There wasn’t even a word for this kind of gut wrenching fear!

The ambulance was pulling to a stop as soon as I opened the front door. An EMT jumped out of the

passenger side and ran toward us. “How far apart are the contractions?” the dark skinned man demanded.

“Minute… Maybe,” Layla told him because I sure as hell couldn’t. I couldn’t even talk. What was

wrong with me? Why couldn’t I talk? I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Not a single sound.

“Twins… I’m only thirty-one weeks.”

“Sir, can you put your wife in the back for me?” the EMT instructed. “Place her on the gurney and we

can go.”

I moved automatically. He opened the back door and I climbed in before placing Layla on the narrow

bed. As soon as she was out of my arms the dark skinned man was pushing me out of the way. I dropped

down on the small bench behind them and just watched in horror.

“Jess! Layla!”

Emmie’s frantic voice called out before the back door opened again and Emmie climbed in. “What..?”

“Ma’am, Mrs. Thornton is in labor… Her water has broken and she appears to be at four centimeters…

Mr. Thorton seems to be in shock… We have to go now, ma’am.” I only caught parts of their conversation

and then Emmie was sitting beside me as the ambulance started moving, racing toward the closest hospital that had a maternity ward while the EMT kept working on Layla.

Emmie held her phone to her ear with one hand and gripped one of my hands with her free hand.

“Nik… Pick Lucy up from school. Call Lana… Yes. I’m with him… Not good. Love you, too.” Then the

phone was gone and Emmie was in my face. “Jesse! Look at me.”

I lifted my eyes to meet her green gaze. Her brow was furrowed and she looked stressed. I felt numb,