Found and Lost by Amanda G. Stevens Read Free Book Online

them.”
    â€œUm, if they—”
    Belinda waved, mouthed something, mimed taking the phone.
    â€œHey. Be—” No names. “Someone here wants to talk to you.”
    â€œTell them later. And thanks.”
    Before Clay could determine if that meant gratitude for him or for Elliott’s caretakers, Marcus hung up. Clay pocketed his phone and shrugged at Belinda. “He said he’ll talk to you later. And I got the feeling he wants me to leave now.”
    â€œI’ll go get the stuff,” Chuck said and returned in a few minutes with a diaper bag and car seat.
    Belinda settled Elliott inside and chattered as if words could hide the tears that dripped down her face. “It’s been harder than we thought, keeping him hidden. Once our neighbor showed up, toting some extra garden vegetables she couldn’t use, and I just about forgot to take him up to the playpen before I answered the door. Now, picture explaining that one. She knows none of my grandbabies are that young.”
    Once she’d finished fastening buckles and straightening straps, she stayed kneeling on the floor and gazed at the baby, who fussed at the confinement.
    â€œI’ll make sure he gets there safely,” Clay said to fill the throbbing silence.
    â€œOf course you will.” Chuck leaned down and half lifted his wife to her feet. “C’mon, now, time for him to go.”
    Belinda nodded and buried her face in his red shirt, sure to leave a dark smear of tears. Awkwardness piled on more heavily with every second.
    When Clay hefted the carrier, Elliott’s squirming abated. Clay tossed the diaper bag’s strap over his shoulder, and Chuck nodded over the top of his wife’s head, then tipped his gaze toward the door. As Clay stepped onto the porch, Belinda shattered into a loud sob behind him. He held the screen door to ease it shut and bore his cargo out to the Jeep.
    Young-father instincts could rust but not disintegrate. He installed the base and lifted the carrier into the Jeep, facing Elliott toward the seat, and his hands remembered securing Khloe into their old minivan. They’d bought a vehicle big enough for a small flock of babies. He tossed the diaper bag onto the passenger seat and headed toward Elliott’s new family.
    The turn into the subdivision revealed small, identical brick townhouses with dark-red siding and narrow walkways to their front doors. Cozy in any other context, now almost claustrophobic compared to Chuck and Belinda’s plantation. In a community like this one, a baby might be big news. Thank goodness the drive had lulled Elliott to sleep. Clay pulled into the open garage, his headlights illuminating a mountain of boxes along the back wall.
    He switched on the dome light. The diaper bag had tipped forward and dumped a bottle adorned with T-rexes, a mint-green blanket … and a plain, legal-sized envelope. He stuffed the blanket and bottle back into the bag.
    Across the envelope, someone had written Elliott. It was unsealed, the gummed flap tucked to the inside.
    An explanation?
    None of his business.
    He slid his finger under the flap. Ouch. Paper cut. Really none of his business.
    No. He was putting himself on the line here. He was allowed to ask questions. He drew out the folded page, torn from a notebook, blue-lined and red-margined. The same handwriting marched within the lines, small and block and black. Masculine.
    Dear Elliott,
    I’m writing this because I knew your mom and you should have something of her since you won’t remember her. I didn’t know her well though, only for a weak. But I learned enough to tell you some things. Your last name is Weston. Your a baby right now, five or six months old I think. Your mom has been gone a couple months.
    I guess you’ll never see a picture of her, so Aubrey was kind of short and had long brown hair. In case you ever wonder about that. She talked alot, and she could get stubborn. I