37. Jamison

Rooted firmly in Liam's lap, she fixed her gaze on the corner shelf. Overflowing with Dee's porcelain animal collectibles and a hefty batch of family photos, it reminded her of something that should belong at Haven House.

One photo in particular drew her attention. Taken at their small engagement party organized by Annabeth, neither she nor Liam had realized anyone was watching. Never liking crowds and preferring each other's company over anyone else's, they had snuck off to the quiet conservatory where he turned on the record player and asked her to dance. She couldn't recall the joke now, but whatever Liam had said while they swayed together had made her toss her head back and laugh just as Ty snuck in to snap the photo.

It had been one of the happiest days of her life.

"I love this picture. It captures that special something you two share," Ty had told her when he placed it on the shelf. "The term made for each other is kind of corny, but yeah. I think that's exactly what we have here. It reminds me of your mom and dad."

To be compared to the great love story of her parents had been the biggest thrill. It solidified that this magical thing between her and Liam was real. Halves of a whole, never complete unless together.

Or so the story goes.

But sitting here, with the truth burning on her tongue, she wondered what her mother would think. If Laura Jean had lived, would she have held her daughter's hand through this mess, or would she have looked at her with the same exhausted frustration everyone else always did? Would she be annoyed and think, well, what can you expect? This is Jamison, after all.

And that was how everyone was going to react when they learned what she'd done. None of them would be surprised. It would be just another one of the audaciously ridiculous things they expected from her. Another failure that was inevitably her fault.

Thinking it wise to place some space between them, she moved to stand, wrapping herself in his button-up shirt that nearly swallowed her whole.

"I'm going to sit over here."

He didn't stop her as she went to the other end of the couch.

"The months before we broke up, things were rough," she began, thinking her way back to the beginning. "Tough cases for you. Tough crap at my work. I was tired, you were exhausted, and life generally sucked. I was like a zombie and you… you became a ghost."

No matter how much he hated her after this, Liam was a good man, and would acknowledge the change he'd undergone working those horrific cases.

"Yeah, it was a bad time."

"And that was when you started to say how you weren't interested in having kids."

She risked a glance in his direction. Leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, and head hanging, his hands shook. Out of nervousness or anger, she wasn't sure, but as a master at concealing his emotions, the slight tremor meant he was preparing himself. Good. The last thing she needed was to catch him by surprise.

"Talk." Eyes forward, and body stiff, he nodded again. "It was just talk."

"But you meant it," she shot back. "You say you know me, but damn it, I know you. You meant it every time you said it, and God knows you said it enough."

His eyes closed as a shuddering breath escaped him. "If you had lived through what I had, if you had seen what I had seen, you would understand the headspace I was in."

"I know," she replied, disappointed in herself. It should have never come to this. She should have been the partner he deserved and helped him work through the clutter in his mind. "And I knew it then."

"Just say it, Jamison."

Her brain scrambled over where to start so she could soften the blow, but there was really no way to do that. "The week prior to our breakup, do you remember how I had been sick with that nasty cold?"

Liam tilted his head to look at her, his brows drawn tight as he thought back to that horrible time. "Vaguely."

"We had our fight on Wednesday, and after you left, I started throwing up."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah, good." He relaxed some. "When I left and went downstairs to my car, I puked in the parking lot. I think half the building saw me."

He'd seemed so calm when he walked out the door that night. Leaving without a word and taking nothing with him. No clothes. No toothbrush. Nothing.

"I'm sorry I put you through that." The tears were overwhelming her again, and she sucked them down, determined to see this through. "I'm sorry I put you through all of it, Liam. You deserve so much more than me."

"That's your guilt talking."

It wasn't. It was the truth. She had put them through hell, and he deserved to be with someone worthy.

"The next morning, I started puking again.," she said finally. "I couldn't even go to work."

He sat back on the couch, continuing to assess her while she prepared to get through this next part. There was no going back. He might never speak to her again, but for the remainder of her life, she would always love him, no matter the pain that would eventually come from being unable to let go.

"Laura Jean always thought the phrase falling in love was stupid," her dad had once told her. "Your mom would say that if you were ever truly in love, it wasn't a fall. It was a tumble. Right off a cliff."

She might never have known her mother, but she wholeheartedly agreed with her way of thinking. Anyone could fall into love as easily as they could fall out of it. Tumbling, on the other hand, involved a head-over-feet affair.

And as with any tumble, there were parts of you battered and bruised in the drop. Moments which left scars. Scars that served to remind us how real it was.

On the very first day she met Liam in Haven's library, and he tripped over his own feet to shake her hand, Jamison had tumbled into love with him.

He tripped.

She tumbled.

It had all been so easy.

One day, they might trip and tumble their way back to what they once were, and if it ever happened, she would never take a second of their time together for granted.

But today would not be that day.

Sitting up straight, she spoke loud and clear. "The next day, the same thing happened. I started puking when I woke up."

It was as if time stopped. Liam sucked in a sharp breath, and she held hers with him. Some sort of unnatural roar overtook the silence, accompanied by the rhythmic thudding of a heart. Hers or his, it didn't matter. They both beat to a broken tempo these days.

"What did you do?" Liam didn't need it spelled out for him. "Talk fast before I… just talk fast, Jamison."

Rubbing her hands over her thighs nervously, she ordered herself to speak one sentence at a time. This was going to hurt, that was inevitable, but he needed to hear everything.

"I took a pregnancy test." Her vision went in and out of focus, thinking of those two pink lines. "Actually, I took four pregnancy tests."

Digging her nails into her knees, she watched helplessly as he shot off the couch. Hands on top of his head, chest rising and falling. "Keep talking," he demanded, like he couldn't quite catch his breath. "Faster."

"I called my doctor to see if I could get in, but they were full for weeks, so I made a same day appointment at a clinic close to our place. We had agreed that you would stay away until the weekend, and I wanted to be sure before you came home. They checked everything, did an ultrasound, and let me go with a black and white photo of a dot."

The utter devastation on his face, the absolute haunted look in his eyes, had a sob erupting from somewhere deep in her soul. "It was just a dot, Liam. But it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen."

A paleness washed over his skin, and he dropped to sit on the floor as if standing or returning to the couch required too much energy. He wasn't expecting this. Whatever he thought she was keeping from him, a baby wasn't it.

"On the way home from the clinic, I passed one of those cute baby boutiques, and on a whim, I went in."

She was rambling now, strangled by the memory. That store had been the most exciting place, filled with promises of a happy future. No matter if she ever became pregnant again, the emotions which struck the second she stepped inside that store would never rise in her like they did that afternoon. The immense joy. The soaring hope. All from one silly downtown shop with its racks of tiny clothes and colorful toys.

"I bought a little pink dress and a blue T-shirt with a picture of a guy surfing on it in case it was a boy. The store clerk wrapped them in this beautiful packaging, so it would be just right when I presented them to you. Then I went home, ordered every baby book I could find, and spent the rest of the night researching names."

A bittersweet smile settled on her lips as she recalled how late she stayed up, totally dedicated to finding the perfect one. List after list, she hunted, using it as her focus while she fought the urge to call him and share their news.

Surprising him had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

"I cleaned up the apartment, taking measurements and stuff. You know, like calculating where we would put the highchair," she went on. "I got the ingredients to make my lasagna because I know you love it. We had agreed that you would come back on Saturday, so I wanted everything to be ready when I told you. I wanted to have my plan in place so you could see that having kids wasn't going to be a bad thing."

Scrubbing his hand away from his mouth, he spoke with deadly calm. "But I did come home, and you weren't there."

No, she hadn't been there.

Outside, dark clouds rolled over the gulf, dimming the already dwindling sunlight trickling in through the sliding glass door. Shadows played around the room and over Liam's face as he waited for her to explain. With every passing second, he seemed to regain a little more control of himself until he stood looming over her.

"You weren't there," he repeated. "I came ready to beg. To get on my fucking knees and beg, but you weren't there, and now you're telling me this?"

"I'm sorry."

"From me, Jamison," he roared, his hands fisting at his sides. "How could you keep something like this from me?"

"I couldn't hold her."

Chest pumping, eyes wild, he bared his teeth. "What?"

"I went to bed, and when I got up in the night to go to the bathroom, there was blood in my underwear, so I called the emergency line for the clinic." Her voice became strained with every word, the pitch rising until she had to clear her throat. "They said it was normal and should stop."

Hugging her midsection, she rocked. Red. There were so many shades. She closed her eyes, but the red remained.

"It didn't stop." Her rocking increased, soothing the churning in her stomach. It still didn't feel real. In the bathroom that night, or now. "It kept coming and coming, and I didn't know what to do."

The fury in him disappeared so swiftly that he looked ready to vomit. Without direction, Liam spun away and went to the sliding glass door to stare at the turbulent landscape.

Hands braced on the sliding glass door, a cross between a sob and wail carried through the townhouse. She didn't need to see his face to know what she was hearing was the sound of his heart breaking. Hers had made the same sound as she drove to the hospital.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"And ruin the surprise?" There was no holding back, the hysteria consuming her completely. "No, no, no! I picked out a name before I went to bed. It was a girl. They couldn't tell me at the hospital because they said she wasn't real yet, but I know it was a girl."

Some part of her mind recognized she was screaming, but it didn't dare stop it from happening. She was too far gone, her grief running the show. "Some things aren't meant to be. That's what the nurse said. Not meant to be. My baby—our baby—wasn't meant to be. Why would she say that? She asked where my husband was, and I said you were busy. She gave me this look and said it again. Some things just aren't meant to be."

Strong and stable, he was across the room and wrapping her in the safety of his arms, allowing her to mourn for the first time.

"Why would the nurse say that if it wasn't true?" she cried against his chest. "Was none of it meant to be? Me? You? Her? I don't understand. Did she not want me? Did she think I wouldn't be a good mom because I didn't have one? I would. I would be a good mom. I would do all the things, and if I didn't know how to do them, I would learn."

"You'll be the best mom." Pressing his lips pressed to her temple, his tears mixed with hers. "You'll do everything right."

"I wanted to be her mom and you to be her dad." The words were strained, the desperation heavy. "I wanted it so bad, Liam."

Cupping the back of her head, he held her as tight as he could. "And you'll have her. One day. We'll have a million babies if you want them."

She curled around him, latching onto his neck as they grieved together. Second by second, hour by hour, she told him of her time at the hospital, and he listened without interrupting, reliving the nightmare with her. The sights, the smells, the people who watched her with vacant eyes as if it were just another day.

"When I got home, you had already come and gone. I was so numb. All I could do was stand in front of the closet and stare at your empty side." Lifting her head, she met his gaze. "You forgot a shirt, by the way. It was on my side, and I guess you overlooked it, but that was good because I pulled it on and wore it for days. I could hardly function, but living in your shirt helped."

She rested her head again on his naked chest, relishing the heartbeat punching against her cheek. How much longer would he allow her to lie here and listen?

"That shirt got me through."

"I could have got you through."

An undeniable truth. "They said it could happen again."

Hollow and empty, she repeated the parting information from her doctor. The follow-up appointment had been a haze of revelations. An hour of listening to a group of medical professionals obliterating the dream life she so desperately wanted. "They said I might never have a baby, and if I conceived, the pregnancy would be so high risk it wouldn't be worth the effort."

He absently rubbed his chin back and forth on the top of her head, his thoughts so loud she could almost hear them. "But it's not impossible."

"Well, no."

"And your mom had problems getting pregnant when she was in her twenties."

She didn't know what he was getting at, and her nerves hitched up a notch. "Yeah, but with my dad, I think she got pregnant pretty easily, and then, of course, she was pregnant when she died."

A boy. Not until Liam allowed her to read her mother's autopsy report had she known they were able to determine the sex. But it made sense, Laura Jean had been roughly five months pregnant when she was killed.

"What did Ben say about this?"

"I haven't told him." Gnawing on her bottom lip, she winced. "I didn't tell anyone."

"Alone?" He forced her to look at him. "You're telling me you've been going through this alone?"

Scrambling to stand, she shouted down at him. "I couldn't talk about it!"

"That's no way to handle this." He bounded off the couch. "Why would you keep this bottled up?"

"Because I was angry at everyone!" she yelled, the jealousy scratching at her once more. "I was angry at the nurses in the hospital for treating me like it was all routine. I was angry at my doctor for telling me the truth. I was angry at my sister, Liam. Irrationally, ridiculously upset because Evie was pregnant, and I wasn't." She pressed forward, standing toe to toe with him. "And I was beyond angry at you for getting exactly what you wanted. No kids."

"Jamison—"

"No!" She knocked his hands aside when he tried to hold her. "I couldn't be around anyone. I knew what I was feeling was fucked up and selfish, so I locked myself away or else I would explode."

"And that was your solution on how to deal with what you'd been through?" He stared at her incredulously. "You, of all people, know that's not how to handle a loss."

God, she wished he didn't have so much faith in her. It was exhausting trying to live up to it.

"No, you're the one that knows how to handle loss," she snapped, the bitter resentment once again filling her. "I didn't know how to survive during those first few months, let alone be able to stop and realize my actions could be classified as a psychotic break. And that's what it was. I know that now, and up until you showed up, guns fucking blazing, I had actually convinced myself the nurse had been right. That some things just weren't meant to be. That we weren't meant to be. You didn't want kids, and I did, so what happened was the universe coming to a draw."

A disbelieving huff of laughter burst out of him. "I know how to handle loss? Are you fucking kidding? I didn't know how to handle anything. While you were angry at everyone, I was blaming them." He let out another laugh, but this time it came off slightly more unhinged. "I quit my career. I stopped talking to my parents. Hell, I even punched your brother."

Wait, what?

Punched her brother?

Jamison's lips parted in surprise. "You punched Samuel?"

"Hell, no. I'm not an idiot." Gathering his composure, he began again. "Selah came out to Texas to check on me after I quit the Bureau, and I punched him."

Her mouth fell open fully, as did her shirt, exposing her body. Quickly, she yanked it closed. "Why?"

"Because he said something along the lines of how some relationships just aren't meant to be." Placing his hands on her waist, he slowly drew her into his space. "I guess you and I both have the same trigger phrase."

Liam and Samuel were roughly the same size, although her brother had an inch or two on him in height. But Selah was bigger than both and had a powerhouse punch.

"Did he hit you back?" She checked him over for damage as if the altercation had just happened. "Does Samuel know? Does my dad know? Does your dad know? Oh god, does Lenora know?"

Not only was Lenora overprotective of her son, but she was known to go ballistic on anyone who might take advantage of Selah's kind heart.

"He didn't hit me back," Liam replied. "My dad called me an idiot, but I think your dad was impressed?" He shook his head. "So was Simone, actually. It was weird."

"What about Lenora and Samuel?"

"Lenora thought it was funny, and Samuel tried to give me tips on how to knock Selah out fully if it should happen again."

She held onto his shoulders. "Abe saw them fight when Selah called Samuel out over his feelings for Evie, and he said it was like watching two bears wrestling."

"I'd believe it."

They quieted, not speaking as they clung to one another. Desperate and afraid they would lose their momentum and fall back down into hell again.

After seconds and then minutes passed, his tear-streaked face softened. "Hey," he whispered at last. "I love you."

"Hey." Snotty and absolutely wrecked, she smiled at the playfulness in his tone. "I love you too."

"Are you going to let me fix this?" His head tilted, lips grazing hers. "Fix us?"

She met him halfway. "Only if you let me help."