Page 149 of The Lost and the Found

He ran toward Logan and me, but before he could run past us, I reached down and grabbed his little squirmy body.

He giggled even harder, and I would have dropped him had Logan not reached out to help me steady him.

Jesus, for such a tiny thing, he was strong and so full of energy.

“Hold on there, Hunter. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Hi, Logan!” He jumped out of my arms and into Logan’s. He was lucky Logan had good reflexes.

I looked over and shot him a confused look. How did he know this wild one?

The boy smiled up at him, showing off two missing teeth, and I couldn’t help but smile along. Okay, I admitted, he was pretty cute. He had his mom’s beautiful green eyes, though on him they looked too big, and he had a head full of dark blonde hair that was really long. If he wasn’t dressed in a Marvel shirt, I might have thought he was a girl. A very pretty girl, at that, with envious thick eyelashes and flushed chubby cheeks.

Logan looked up just as the woman approached us. “Thank God you caught him. I swear he needs a leash.”

I bit my lip, not knowing if it was appropriate to laugh or not.

“Logan, guess what?” Hunter asked, raising his tiny, and somewhat dirty, hands up to Logan’s face.

Logan didn’t say anything to that. Instead, he smiled down at the little boy so wide, my heart hurt just looking at them. “What?”

“I and Mama is, is, visiting Aunt Livia. And her baby, who has been in her belly since like forever!”

“Oh, yeah? Forever, huh?”

The woman let out a small chuckle and rolled her eyes. “Did you greet everyone, Hunter?”

He looked at his mom, shook his head, and turned to Logan. Gage had walked over to our little group moments before, and we all watched as Hunter crossed his arms and looked to Logan, right before he bowed a little and said, “Hi, Logan. Hi, Gage.” He turned to me. “Mama, I don’t know this lady.”

We all laughed, and the woman held her hand out to me. “You must be Hayden. Olivia has told me so much about you. I’m Lizzie.”

“Lizzie?” I asked. Olivia had been talking about her since I stayed with them, but I didn’t think I would get to meet her so soon. “Did you just get in? We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I caught an earlier flight and had literally just landed when Mason texted and told me Olivia was going into labor. We rushed right over here. Hunter slipped from me because I was busy carrying all our bags.”

She indicated to the two carry-on bags by one of the chairs in the waiting room. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said.

Max walked out then, and everyone quieted.

I didn’t know why, but Lizzie immediately grabbed Hunter out of Logan’s hand, and if I didn’t know better, I could have sworn there was a little stutter in Max’s steps at the sight of her.

“Lizzie. You’re here. Did you just come from the airport?”

“Ah, yeah. Some of my schedule cleared up and I was able to catch an earlier flight. I thought I would surprise Olivia, but she ended up surprising me by going into labor two weeks early. How is she?”

“Just a little tired. But I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you again.”

“Thanks. Is she…?”

Max nodded. “Yeah. The doctor checked. She’s fully dilated. I came out to give them some privacy. We’ll have the newest member of our family very soon.”

“That’s good…” Lizzie trailed off, and I didn’t know if it was just me, but the air turned thick with tension then, and it was mostly coming from Max and Lizzie.

I wondered if there was something going on there. But that couldn’t be right. Olivia told me Lizzie was happily married, and she was living in the West Coast.

Hunter stole the spotlight then, when he started squirming in Lizzie’s arms. “Down, Mama. Down.”’

“Oh, alright. There you go.”

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