Risking Fate(31)

He pressed his lips over mine and held them there. His hot breath covered my mouth. “I’m sorry. I just hate feeling this way. I don’t want to spend one day without her. I miss her already and she is coming home tomorrow.”

I sat up and turned on the light on Bella’s nightstand. “Ty, do you really think this guy can change those results? Do you think we can really do this and not get caught?”

He nodded his head. “I do, Baby. I swear I do.”

“Then tomorrow start making calls. I will support whatever you have to do to protect our family. I can’t go another day seeing you like this. It’s too hard on both of us.”

He started kissing me all over my face. “Thank you, Baby, Thank you so much. I will do whatever I have to do. I won’t let that woman touch our daughter. I promise you.”

“Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything Baby, anything.”

I started shaking even thinking about saying it out loud. “Promise me that I won’t lose you over this.”

“Oh God, no, Baby. You will never lose me. I would never ever leave you. My God, is that what you think? You think if we had to share Izzy with that woman, I would leave you and our kids? Jesus, Miranda. I would never do that. You are my world and you own my heart. There will never be anyone else in the world that I’d want to be with. Say you believe me.”

My heart was beating so fast. “I do Ty, I swear I do.”

We ended up falling asleep in Bella’s bed. It wasn’t the most comfortable night’s sleep, but we were both so emotional that it didn’t matter. Ty held me so tight I almost felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want him to ever let me go. When the sun came up, he was still holding me tight against his body. Our tears had dried up, but our emotions were still at the highest level.

We did our best not to talk about it, on account of preparing ourselves for Bella’s arrival. We promised that we were going to protect her from all of this. If things ended up working out, she would never have to know what we went through.

Ty made a couple calls and left messages for someone to get him the guy’s number. We went about our day like our lives were hanging on that phone call. When Conner and Bella walked into the house, Ty seemed to brighten up. She made him smile for the first time in days and I felt myself relaxing, knowing she could make him feel better.

Ty went back to work on Tuesday and by Wednesday he was starting to panic again. I ended up not feeling well and staying home from work, so he took the car and took Bella to school before going into work. I got a call at five o’clock from Ty saying he was going to try and hunt down where the guy was staying. Something about it made me feel uneasy, but I had faith that my husband knew what he was doing. Ty’s mom had gone out and picked Bella up from school for me and Conner took her out to ride the tractor to give me some time alone.

At eight o’clock Ty walked in the door. He gave me a big hug and was smiling. “He said he can do it. He said he can change the results for us.”

“Just like that?”

“It’s gonna cost a grand, but he said he would do it. I just need you to call and set up the appointment at the hospital.” He squeezed my hands. “We’re going to be okay, Baby. Bella is never going to have to know this ever happened.”

Relief washed over me. I couldn’t believe the guy had come through for us.

“I just need to pay for the test and pay the guy and he will take care of everything else. This nightmare will be over in the next few weeks and we can pretend it never happened. She’ll never be able to cause us problems again.”

Ty seemed confidant, but there was something about his tone that made me worry. I didn’t know what it was, but I promised that I would trust him. I knew he loved us and would never do anything that he thought would hurt us. Maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be okay.





Chapter 10

Tyler

I promised myself that I would never lie to her; that I would never keep something from her that could hurt our marriage, and I had broken that promise.

There was only one way for me to protect my daughter and doing so meant I had to call someone I never wanted to see again. The first call was quick. She didn’t know my new number and I didn’t really want her to. She’d caused so many problems in my past, it killed me that she was my one link to solving this problem.

After the first message and she hadn’t called back, I left several more, probably sounding more desperate for a call back than I should have, but that is what I was. I was so desperate. I couldn’t imagine one more minute of thinking I could lose anything about my relationship with my little girl.