“Are you sleeping in your clothes?”
He shook his head, then sat up and replaced his cap. “Nope, but I’m going down to the bar for a drink.”
Ryan was out the door before she could respond. He moved fast, so she couldn’t offer to come with him. He needed to break away for a while. She was all-consuming. His brain was on overload just trying to give her what she needed while ignoring his own needs.
She didn’t want him for anything other than friendship, and he had to live with that, like it or not. It’s not as if he was looking for a relationship anyway, which just proved he was smarter to stay away and not get physically involved, right?
He ordered a drink and drank it down like a freaking loser alcoholic, then quickly ordered another. Once the whiskey settled into his system, he relaxed a little. He needed a game plan for this trip—yeah, he had to keep his head in the game. Focus on the goal. Concentrate on the reason he’d flown to Wisconsin. He pulled out a notepad and started jotting down some notes. The uncle had to provide some answers, right? If he was so dead set on Helen keeping her secrets, then he could tell her everything himself.
What if the something missing had nothing to do with her parents? What was the story behind the abandonment? Where could she have come from? What other scenarios is he missing? Missing?
He took another sip of whiskey and wrote the word missing on his notepad. Missing children were just as common back then as they are now. He’d learned this quickly when he visited all of the missing children sites online. What avenues did they have back then to find missing kids? There were no Amber Alerts. But babies didn’t just run away. They were usually stolen by an estranged parent. But a parent who went to the trouble of stealing his own child wouldn’t leave her in the snow. He wrote the word stolen with a question mark next to it.
Was it possible someone might have stolen her as an infant, then freaked out and changed his or her mind? But leaving her in the snow, that didn’t make sense. It takes one heartless son-of-a-bitch to do that to an innocent baby. Why not leave her at a hospital or police station? Of course, the chances of getting caught are greater, but it’s better than murder, and it would have been murder if she had died before the Mortons found her. He was certain they didn’t have safe surrender laws twenty-seven years ago.
Maybe this uncle was more involved. Maybe even a birth parent or something. Could Helen, Ernie, and Patrick have come up with a plan to hide Bailey in plain sight? Could Bailey really be a Morton after all? The possibilities were endless, and all sure to break her heart regardless.
He continued to make notes until he glanced up, and his eyes rested on the piano in a dark corner of the bar. He stared for a moment then nodded at the bartender.
“Do you mind if I fiddle around on that piano?”
He waved a hand. “Help yourself.”
Ryan carried his drink over and sat down on the stool. He played a scale to see if the piano was in tune, then nodded. It’s wasn’t bad. His anger flared again when he thought of Helen’s gutted piano. Ryan had already hired someone to do the repairs, but that didn’t change the maliciousness of the vandalism. He played an old song he’d written years ago. Then he toyed with the melody he’d written a few months before, but still needed lyrics for.
It had been one of his best to date, and he didn’t want to screw it up with something stupid, so he’d taken it slow. Kind of like how he was handling his relationship with Bailey. Handle with care were the words that came to mind. Tenderly, warmly, gently. He snickered. She’d kill him if she knew he thought about her like that. Bailey didn’t want to be handled with care. She wanted things given to her straight. She wanted clean lines, honesty, and sincerity. She didn’t want to be coddled.
Maybe Lucas was right. Maybe Ryan needed to come clean with his feelings, but what were those feelings exactly?
He pulled out his notebook again and wrote the words “Coming Clean.” Clean about what? My lies? My dirty little secret? He played the melody again then wrote dirty secret, then the words bare, naked, stripped, and exposed. As if he clicked a switch, it came together. He needed to come clean and wipe the slate.
A smile parted his lips. He sipped the whiskey again then played the melody in its entirety. When he looked up, Bailey was standing in front of him. He nearly jumped out of his skin, praying he hadn’t actually said any of that out loud.
“Hey,” he said, nearly jumping off the bench and grabbing his notepad. “I thought you were going to bed.”
“You don’t have to stop for me. I like listening.”
Heat rushed his cheeks. “You know I can’t stand to see a neglected piano.”
“Did you finally find some worthy lyrics to go with that melody?”
“No, I was just making some notes for tomorrow. I think we should start with the cop, then Uncle Pat. Do we have his address?”
“Yeah, it’s in Mom’s address book.” She reached over, grabbed his whiskey, and took a sip.
“I was getting ready to come back up, but if you want a drink, we can hang out for a little while.”
“I think a drink would help me sleep.”
Ryan stood to go to the bar, but she held her hand out to stop him. “I’ll get it.” She tilted her head and gave him a faint smile. “Will you keep playing?”
He nodded and sat back down. “What do you want to hear?”
“Anything. I just want to hear you play.”
Ryan played a Sam Smith song he knew she
