Cooper rolled onto his back. His bed would be more comfortable, but a family sleep-in beat comfort any day. He wasn’t used to going to bed this early, and his thoughts drifted to how drastically his life had changed since Kendall’s phone call.
Tomorrow morning, he would introduce his daughter to his friends, and he couldn’t wait to be the proud father. As for Kendall, he wanted to see where this chemistry between them could go. He liked her, wanted her in his bed, wanted a chance with her. At least, a chance to see if he could be more than just her baby daddy. He chuckled at the thought that he was a baby daddy.
“Can’t sleep?” Kendall whispered.
“A lot on my mind,” he whispered back. He rolled onto his side to face her. It was too dark to see her other than a dim outline but whispering to each other in the dark felt intimate. “You can’t sleep either?”
“No. Same reason.”
They could talk for a while, get to know each other better. He wanted to know more about when she was kidnapped as a little girl, but that might bring up too many dark memories for her. She’d already said the anniversaries of her kidnapping were hard for her, and the reason she was out the night he’d met her. He thought of another thing he wanted to know.
“Tell me about your podcasts.”
“I don’t remember what I’ve already told you about them. My head was messed up with Livie missing.”
“You only said they were about cold-case children kidnappings.”
“Well, I do one the first Monday of every month. I feature one cold case of a missing child. I’ve been doing them for three years, and two of the cases I’ve featured have been solved thanks to my listeners.”
“That’s great, Kendall. I’m curious, though, how does that work?”
“I have a dedicated email that I give out at the end of each podcast. Anyone who knows something or has a suggestion or picks up on a clue the police missed can email me. I pass any of those emails on to a retired homicide detective. I’ve never met Ray, but he’s pretty awesome in that he investigates on his own time.”
“Because of you, you said two cases were solved. That’s amazing.”
“It’s because of my listeners and Ray that the families finally got closure.”
“I’d say it’s because of you, your listeners and Ray, so give yourself some credit, too. You said you were kidnapped when you were seven.” It was bizarre that they’d both been kidnapped, and now Livie. “Will you tell me about it?”
She was quiet for so long that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Maybe if he shared his own story, she’d feel more comfortable sharing hers.
“When I was a senior in high school, I went to spring break in Florida. Funny thing. I was accidently kidnapped.”
“What?” She’d exclaimed that, and she glanced at Livie before lifting onto her elbow. “How do you get accidently kidnapped?”
He told her the story. “And that’s how I met Gray and Liam and why my life took a direction entirely different from what I’d planned.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s… Just wow.” Still facing him, she dropped her head back down on her pillow. “What had you planned?”
“My dream was to play professional baseball, hopefully for the Atlanta Braves. I had a full baseball scholarship to Vanderbilt in Nashville.”
“You must have been good to get a full scholarship.”
“That’s one thing I can’t be humble about. I was damn good.”
She chuckled. “Do you regret the way things turned out?”
“Not for a minute. Gray and Liam are my brothers, and as much as I would have been happy playing ball, I fully believe I wouldn’t have the satisfaction I get from rescuing children.” He grinned. “Besides, if my life had gone the way I’d planned, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“And we wouldn’t have Livie,” she whispered.
“Now that I know about her, I can’t imagine a world without her in it. Has it occurred to you that if you hadn’t been kidnapped, you wouldn’t have been at The Tipsy Turtle that particular night?”
“And we wouldn’t have our daughter. I never thought about it like that.”
“So as awful as that time in our lives was, something incredibly amazing happened because of those events. We had a baby.”
“Yeah, we did.”