Page 94 of Derecho

As badly as I wanted to call Lach, to have him tell me everything was going to be okay, I knew if I called now, he would panic until I was back at the ranch. And I wouldn’t do that to him.

So I typed out the only thing I could.

Looks like you guys are having a great time together. See you both soon.

Lachlan

“Here we go. One fresh and clean boy before Mama gets back from her appointment.” I kissed the bottom of Reid’s feet before I slipped his legs back through his pajamas. We’d had quite the diaper disaster, but I was quickly becoming a pro at handling it.

As soon as the buttons were fastened, I wrapped the light blanket Lainey favored around his arms and legs, and we made our way out onto the porch. She was driving back from her appointment, and I was holding on to the hope that she said everything she needed to say to her doctor. And that her doctor actually took the time to hear what she was saying.

Reid cooed as I sat in the rocking chair, gently swaying him as my truck finally came into view.

I watched her get out, and my face fell. The end of her nose was red. Her eyes puffy. And her face was wet with fresh tears.

Lainey threw her purse and a thick packet of paperwork on the porch, her eyes locked on my arms. “Please…” Her voice strained as she reached out for Reid.

“Lain?”

She didn’t respond to me. Just took Reid and sank down to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, panic laced in my voice. Something had happened. This wasn’t the Lainey who left here this morning. The one with hope in her eyes and the tension she’d been carrying for weeks finally gone from her shoulders. “What happened?”

“They’re going to take him from me,” she whispered.

My heart dropped. “Your doctor? Lainey, if they are that worried about you, they should have offered you treatments⁠—”

“No. No. My appointment was great. We talked about t-therapy. He thinks that I should start it and gave me some providers who s-specialize in postpartum depression and anxiety.”

“Okay. Why do you think they’d take Reid from you for going to therapy?”

“No. I don’t. It’s not…” She pointed over to her purse before pressing a kiss to Reid’s head.

“The paperwork?” I asked, my stomach sinking as I grabbed my cane and walked over to pick it all up. “What is this?”

“They were there, in the waiting room. Greg and his wife. She knows, Lach. She knows that Greg is Reid’s dad, and she wants to take him from me.”

“Absolutely not,” I growled as I made my way back over to them. “Let’s go inside. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m scared to move. I’m scared once I do, once you read the papers and see it’s real, that they’ll take him from me. And I just admitted to my doctor that I didn’t think I was meant to be a mom. That sometimes I think Reid would be better off without me.” Her glazed over eyes snapped to mine. “Oh, God. I went to get help, and they’re going to use that against me, aren’t they?”

“No. No, baby. It’s going to be okay. They’re not taking Reid. Let’s get you both inside.”

Lainey pushed off the floor and we walked inside, my mind tumbling through everything she’d just told me.

Sniffling, she turned to me. “I’m going to take him upstairs.”

“To my room,” I suggested, quickly shaking my head to correct myself. “Our room.”

“Lach…I…”

“I know you want to hide right now. I know, because that’s what I’d want to do, too.”

She nodded, her eyes unfocused. It was almost as if she was looking through me. “I don’t want to hide. I want to run. I want to pack up everything of ours and just…go.”

There it was. The moment I knew was going to happen all along. The moment the happiness I’d let myself get used to was finally being taken away from me.

“You can’t leave me. Things feel big and scary right now, but⁠—”