Page 3 of I Found You (Wilder #1)

Maeve

As a rule of thumb, I didn’t drink much alcohol.

Last night, I had allowed myself to get talked into hanging out at the local bar, Harpoon’s, with some of my old high school friends.

We hadn’t really kept in touch over the years, but after running into Abbie at the store, we got to chatting, and next thing I knew, I’d agreed to a Fourth of July get-together.

Being a high school social studies teacher, it was strange to think that I’d been friends with these ladies since I was my students’ age.

I was only twenty-nine now, still considered young to most people, but when I compared who I was now to who I was at seventeen, well, I guess there wasn’t much difference for me.

But for the other ladies, they had all grown up so much.

I’d had to grow up fast when I was younger.

Someone had to take care of Jackson, and it wasn’t going to be our mother.

Neither Jackson nor I knew our fathers, although with our ten-year age gap and our mother’s lifestyle, it was clear they were different men.

By seventeen, I had taken over all responsibilities for Jackson. By eighteen, I was his legal guardian.

I was on my third cup of coffee, silently wishing my headache would go away and wondering if it was my imagination that Wyatt Wilder kept looking at me at the bar last night, when my phone started vibrating somewhere near me.

I put my mug down on the coffee table and started looking around for it.

I searched the cushion cracks and under the blanket that I kept on my sofa.

When I couldn’t find it anywhere around me, I had to actually get off my butt to look, and lo and behold, I was sitting on it.

I had missed the call, but it was a random number, so I wasn’t too concerned.

Who still answered the phone for random numbers anyway?

A few minutes later, the same number called again while I was scrolling through social media. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Hello?”

“Hey, uh, is this Jackson’s sister?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked.

My heart began to beat wildly, sweat already starting to bead on my forehead with just those four words. “Yeah. Where is he? Is he okay?”

The kid huffed out a small laugh. “He’s fine, as long as he keeps close to the toilet. He needs a ride though.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, my heart rate gradually slowing after hearing that he was okay. “Where is he?”

Great. This wasn’t the first time I’d been called to fetch Jackson.

It seemed like no matter how many times I got a call like this, it never got any easier.

It had been a while since the last time it happened though.

I wanted to believe that was because he wasn’t drinking as much, maybe slowed down a little.

But rationally, I knew it was probably because his so-called friends were helping him out.

Where were they this morning? Too drunk or stoned themselves?

I had tried to raise him right, keep him on the straight and narrow path, and I kept coming up short.

He dropped out of high school last year.

So close to the end. It was his senior year, but he had skipped school so many times he was told he wouldn’t be able to graduate if he missed any more days, so he just signed himself out.

I had tried to convince him to go back and finish his diploma or get a GED, but he was more interested in smoking weed, drinking, and running around town with his friends.

I threw on a dress and sneakers and drove to the address the kid provided. Jackson was sitting on the front steps, his head hung low. He picked up his eyes at the sound of the car pulling up, and I could see from here how red his eyes were.

I handed him a water when he got in the car. Jackson threw his seat back as far as it would go and leaned back, guzzling the water. He looked terrible, his skin pale, his eyes red and glassy. The smell of weed and beers wafted off him.

“Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

All I got from him was a grunt, so I left him alone. I was halfway back to my house when he broke the silence.

“I don’t want to go to your house. Just take me home.”

“I can take care of you better at my house. You can sleep in my room—just don’t throw up on the bed.” I offered him a small smile.

“I’m not a fucking kid, Mae. You don’t need to take care of me. Just bring me home,” he snapped.

I tried to keep the hurt off my face. I had been taking care of him most of his life, I couldn’t just stop now. But I took the next right, turning the car toward his apartment complex anyway.

It was still early when I got back to my house, so I decided to make breakfast. If I made a couple of breakfast sandwiches, I could wrap them up and swing by Jackson’s in a bit, just to make sure he got something to eat.

My phone rang as I was building the sandwiches, and I rushed to answer it in case it was Jackson and he needed something.

Another random number flashed across the screen, different from the one this morning. “Hello?” I answered cautiously.

“Oh, hi. Could I speak to Maeve?” the caller asked in a surprised and cheery tone.

“This is Maeve. What can I help you with?” My voice was decidedly less cheery until I knew what I was dealing with.

“Hey, Maeve, I’m not sure if you remember me.

Kara Dawson, from Calla Bay High. We had AP Bio together.

Well, I’m actually a social worker now for the Department of Children and Families.

We have a huge favor to ask you. You see, there is a baby in our care who is currently without a family, and your name came up as someone who was prequalified in our system.

” She paused as if she had asked that favor when, in reality, she had not.

“Kara, of course I remember you. Ah, that’s terrible for that poor baby, but I am in no way qualified to take care of a baby. I am only in the DCF system because I was my brother’s caregiver when he was a minor.” And apparently, now that he was an adult, that was supposed to stop, according to him.

“I understand your hesitation, really, I do. It’s just that right now, we are really short on people who can care for an infant.

And she needs to find a placement immediately.

Please, Maeve. It should be a couple of days, tops.

We are working with the CBPD to track down a next of kin or a family member. And she seems like a really good baby.”

Kara spent the next fifteen minutes convincing me this was a good idea, going over the arrival process and the requisite equipment and necessities.

After we disconnected, I paced the living room, berating myself for agreeing to this.

I didn’t know how to take care of a baby.

She promised that the little girl was laid-back and easy, but even an easy baby was terrifying.

There was a noticeable theme in my life of allowing myself to get talked into things that I should be saying no to.

Just like last night, I didn’t particularly want to go out drinking on a holiday night.

I knew the bar would be crowded and noisy.

I had tried to say no, but Abbie wouldn’t hear of it.

Instead, I broke out my blue-and-white striped dress, tied my hair back with a red hair tie, and drank too much alcohol.

But last night turned out to be a colossal mistake.

Abbie hadn’t told the others that she invited me along, and I got the impression none of them were too excited about it.

After a few drinks and a couple of snide comments masked as compliments, especially from Andrea, I’d had enough and took off.

The best part of the night was when I thought I saw Wyatt Wilder looking my way.

Wyatt was seriously attractive, with dark hair, dark eyes, and just a little scruff.

He kept glancing our way, and a part of me hoped that he would make his way over to our table, but I knew we must look like a lot.

Five women, drunk, laughing, shouting, and singing.

I couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep his distance.

Plus, there was the blonde woman with an amazing body in cutoff shorts and a crop-top tee that seemed to be touching him or hovering near him anytime I peeked his way.

He didn’t seem overly enamored by her, but I didn’t spend too much time trying to figure out their dynamic, and I certainly didn’t have the capacity to be spending any time on it now either.

I just had to hope this decision wasn’t a mistake as well.

A solid pep talk was in order. I was absolutely old enough to be someone’s mother.

I just hadn’t had the time to adjust to the idea.

A small learning curve was to be expected, factored into.

I was a fast learner. I had taken care of my brother for most of his life.

Sure, I wasn’t really responsible for him when he was an infant, and that was almost twenty years ago anyway, but still, I could do this.

A couple of days with baby cuddles and cute baby bubble baths. Yeah, I could do this.

I had two hours to get everything I could think of. Kara would be dropping the baby off with me sometime after 11:00 a.m., after she had a thorough exam at the hospital.

Diapers

Wipes

Outfits in size 0-3 Month

Bottles

Formula

Blankets

Bassinet

Baby soap

Diaper rash cream

I didn’t want to get too much stuff since she was only going to be staying with me for a few days, but I could always send anything extra with her to her next home.

* * *

I wiped my sweaty hands on my dress as a car pulled up outside my two-story farmhouse-style home.

A beautiful woman with long, wavy blonde hair pulled into a half-up/half-down ponytail stepped out of the car and circled to the back seat.

A minute later, she was walking toward my door with an infant in her arms.