Page 27 of Bailey

He looked left to check the traffic that way, and then looked right, his eyes catching on hers.

“I have to tell you something,” she said, her voice sounding a little bit like a bleat and a lot scared.

Reeves glanced into his rearview mirror, and Bailey looked into the side mirror on her right. No one had lined up behind them, and when she looked back over to Reeves, he gazed steadily at her.

“Go ahead and drive,” she said. “It’s kind of a long story, and it’ll be easier for me to talk if you’re not looking at me.”

His eyebrows went up, but he turned the other direction again, still found no traffic, and made the right. “Okay,” he said.

Bailey reached out to adjust the volume on the radio, which broadcasted country music. “It involves the Youngs,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve wondered why they seem to be as close as family.”

“I have,” Reeves said, his voice quiet and unassuming.

Of course he had. Bailey’s memory fired at her that he’d even asked how they all knew each other when she’d brought over three of the most well-known Youngs to help him clean up his farm.

She took a deep breath. The words she needed to say sat right there at the front of her mind. “OJ?” she said. “That teenager you met yesterday?” She looked over to Reeves. “He’s my biological son.”

Relief like Bailey had never known filled her, and the tiniest hint of tears pricked at her eyes as she looked back out the windshield. “Bryce is his father. We dated in college.” She felt the weight of Reeves looking at her, but she kept her gaze forward.

“We didn’t get married,” she said. “Though I loved him, and probably still do on some level. He said he’d marry me, and we could try to raise the baby, but in the end, we both knew that wasn’t the right thing to do.”

Some of Bailey’s memories had softened around the edges due to time and distance, but she could still clearly see OJ for the first time and feel his eight-pound body in her arms.

“Otis and Georgia couldn’t have kids,” she said. “And so Bryce’s uncle adopted OJ, and he’s raised him for the past fourteen years.”

She blinked and looked over to Reeves, but he’d focused on the road again. His knuckles didn’t seem white around the steering wheel, and while his shoulders had gone up a bit, he otherwise seemed relaxed and normal.

“I’ve been in Montana since OJ was born,” she said. “Until I moved back here at the end of last year. I didn’t really start talking to him until he was seven or eight, and we have a pretty good relationship now.”

“He obviously knows you’re his mother.”

“No,” Bailey said. “I’m not his mother. Georgia is his mother, and he knows that.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Reeves said. “I meant the adoption is open, and everyone knows about it.”

Bailey swallowed and tried to lower her guard. “Yes,” she said. “That’s true. Everyone knows about it, and well, I wanted you to know who he really is, so it wouldn’t be weird.”

Reeves reached over and tried to slip his hand under Bailey’s elbow, which had practically fused to her torso. She relaxed and lifted it, and he slid his fingers down the inside of her forearm and into hers.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said softly. “Your relationship with the Youngs makes so much more sense now.”

“They can be insufferable,” she said with a sigh. “They never let you get too far away, even when you try to run. They call and text and invite you to everything.” She scoffed like she had a terrible burden to bear.

“You’re missing a wedding this weekend,” he said.

“Yeah, because it’s in Texas,” Bailey said. “If Cole and Rachel—see how I know their names? And Cole is only twenty years old, which is far too young for me to even be friends with—had chosen to get married here, I’d be attending the wedding.”

“Would you, though?” He looked over to her, his eyes slightly narrowed. “You don’t have to go to everything they invite you to.”

“I skip plenty of things,” she said, and more memories flooded her mind. “I missed everything and removed myself from my family—and theirs—for a long time.” She let the long years flow through her mind. “Because my family never gave up, and the Youngs didn’t either, and God never gives up, I came home.”

The same peaceful feeling Bailey had experienced when she’d finally given in to the promptings to return to Coral Canyon filled her. “Now I know it’s the right thing that I’m here now,” she said. “But it’s still hard sometimes, and it feels like every situation is a new one I have to figure out how to navigate.”

“That’s because that’s all life is,” Reeves said.

Bailey drew in a long breath through her nose. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

He made the wide, arcing turn that had them driving west, and Bailey simply enjoyed the feel of his hand in hers until he came to the stoplight where he flicked on his left blinker and eased into the correct lane to make the turn.