“Taryn...”
“I’d love to stay here and chat, really, but ... I’m not going to.” A moment later, she ducked under his arm and was gone.
“Okay,” Ian said, watching her retreating form. “Now I believe you. Jake, watch the bar, man. Mick and I have some research to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Okay,” Ian said, lacing his fingers together and stretching them wide. “Let’s see what we can find, shall we?”
He began by pulling up the travel itinerary. “Looks like Aidan’s private jet landed outside Benton, just as they said it would. This log shows them being picked up in the company limo and taken right to Lexi’s penthouse.”
Next, he brought up a custom search engine, typing in several pieces of information, including Maggie and Lexi’s first and last names, cell numbers, social security numbers, a location code, and a range of dates covering their planned time down there.
“This will search every online database in the Benton area and give us a listing of anything that references their information – appointments, reservations, etc.”
Michael was impressed. “When did you set all this up?”
“When Lexi was hiding out in Benton,” he said without apology. At the time Michael had thought Ian was a bit paranoid, too intrusive of Lexi’s obvious desire for privacy. Now, he wanted to buy him a beer for having the foresight to create such an intricate – and thorough – system.
Within a few minutes a list began appearing. The flight schedule. The limo log. The big corporate meeting. The day spa.
“Wait,” Michael said when an unexpected entry popped up. “There – Elena McKenzie, four p.m. What the hell is that?”
Ian frowned. Elena McKenzie was one of the specialists Lexi had seen when she was pregnant with Patrick. She was also the one who worked with Michael to discover the most effective combination of organics to treat her. Since Lexi’s dramatic improvement on the organic program Michael had developed, they’d been trying for a second child. Ian’s face lit up with hope and fear. “You don’t think she’s pregnant again already, do you?”
But as Ian’s fingers flew across the keyboard, as new information flashed upon the screen, it became increasingly clear that it was not Lexi who had been subjected to a battery of tests.
“Oh, man,” Ian said softly as he pulled up the series of ultrasound images, and Michael looked upon his son for the first time. And he finally knew with certainty what his subconscious had been trying to tell him all along.
––––––––
Michael couldn’t take his eyes off of Maggie as he sat across from her at the corner table. She was more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. Radiant, really.
“What?” she asked self-consciously, nervously lifting her hand to her face. “Do I have lipstick on my teeth or something?”
“No, Maggie,” he said patiently. “I just can’t seem to stop looking at you. You’re glowing. It must have been a good trip.”
“It was,” Maggie agreed with a smile. “But I think this ‘glow’ is more from my homecoming than it is a result of my travels.”
A grin slowly curved across Michael’s features. The moment she had the front door unlocked he carried her up the stairs and spent the next several hours making love to her. Thoroughly. Passionately. Possessively.
“What can I say? I missed you.”
*
“I missed you, too, Michael.” It was an understatement. From the moment she left his arms to board the plane all she could think about was getting back into them again. To have his strength, his support, as she underwent test after test, terrified beyond belief. His calm, soothing voice, explaining everything, soothing away the fear. As it was, poor Lexi was probably being fitted for a hand splint. She’d stayed with Maggie through everything, holding her hand and offering support whenever she could.
Throughout the entire trip – thirty-six hours that felt more like hundreds – Maggie had gone back and forth in her mind. One minute she was convinced she had done the right thing by not telling him about their baby just yet. He would have been beside himself with worry, and she didn’t want to do that to him, not with him just recovering from a near-fatal chest wound. No, it was better that she find out first. If there was a problem, then they would face it together. If not, then she would not have worried him unnecessarily.