Catching His Songbird
Author
Jane Anne
Reads
211K
Chapters
49
One night. One mistake. One baby they never planned.
Wren doesn’t do relationships. She does control, independence, and very clear boundaries—especially with Morgan, her best friend and the one man who’s always been off-limits.
Until the night everything changes.
Morgan has loved Wren for years, but one reckless decision pushes them from friendship into something far more dangerous—something neither of them is prepared for.
Because what starts as just sex quickly becomes something neither of them can control.
And when Wren disappears… she’s not just running from Morgan.
She’s carrying his child.
Now forced back together, secrets unravel, past betrayals come to light, and the lines between love, lust, and loyalty blur beyond repair.
But some connections were never meant to stay platonic.
A Therapist’s Wet Dream
Wren: Thirty Years Old.
Morgan: Thirty-Five Years Old.
Relationship Status: Complicated
WREN
Whoever first decided that people should sit in a cozy office with fluffy cushions, candles that smelled like cinnamon, and talk about their most intimate problems with a practical stranger, well, they must have been a genius.
Therapy was amazing.
Therapy rocked.
Especially for a girl like Wren Lancaster.
She was a therapist’s wet dream.
Control issues? Check.
Intimacy issues? Check.
Workaholic? Check.
Unable to maintain a romantic relationship for more than a few months? Check, check, triple-check.
And now here she was—nine months and a thousand and one days pregnant—alone and with no idea what she was going to do with a baby in her life.
Mara, Wren’s therapist for ten years now, must have been counting the dollar signs in her head with unrestrained glee. Or she would be if Wren hadn’t made a habit of disappearing for months at a time in between sessions, each failure to stick to their schedule a result of her unwavering belief that she could finally live a normal life without someone else interfering.
Not that Mara interfered. It was just that Wren became used to relying on her. And Wren didn’t like relying on anyone. It was hardwired into her like those annoying pop-up ads on your newsfeed that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times you clicked the close button.
There wasn’t a close button in real life. So Wren ran away and buried herself in work and exercise until some major life event forced her back.
A major life event, like becoming pregnant when she wanted to be anything but pregnant, certainly fit the criteria for returning to therapy.
So now Wren was back, and she was already regretting having avoided her therapy sessions lately. She was reminded all over again how she usually loved her time with Mara—a one-hour reprieve from the cluttered head spin her life had become. They soothed her, righted all the wrongs in her world, and she never failed to leave feeling better than when she arrived.
Even her most reckless decisions, the most visible right now being her burgeoning baby bump, didn’t seem so bad after Mara discussed it in the soothing, gentle tones she always used.
Mara had been Wren’s therapist since Wren was twenty, after all, and now Wren was no longer that frightened young adult; they were more friends than doctor and patient. Mara had seen Wren through her worst and hopefully would continue to do so.
But today Wren sensed that their session—a last-minute decision made only yesterday—wasn’t going to end in positive affirmations and a warm, comforting hug.
Wren shifted uncomfortably on the couch and tried to breathe out through a sharp squeeze in her stomach. She placed a hand on her rounded bump and winced. She shouldn’t even be here, chatting to Mara while pretending this was a normal day or even a normal therapy session.
She was in labor, after all.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Mara stated, glancing at Wren with something akin to disappointment.
Wren removed her hand from her bump as the contraction passed. “I’ve been a bit busy.”
“I can see.” Again, disappointment fought with concern on the other woman’s face. “How is that going?”
“By ‘that’ do you mean the human-fetus-slash-alien that I’m growing?”
Mara’s mouth twitched slightly. “Yes.”
“What do you think? I haven’t even told the father that I’m pregnant. I ran away like a coward.”
“Yes, but you had good reasons at the time. Or at least you believed you did.”
Wren set aside her guilt and her regret at how she had handled everything to focus on the present. “I didn’t come here to talk about the baby. I need to talk about the other thing.”
“Now?” Mara glanced at Wren’s large stomach, at how Wren was still shuffling uncomfortably on the couch. “Do you think now is the best time to be discussing that?”
“You are the therapist. We talk about what I want to. And I want to talk about Fred.”
Mara didn’t react to Wren’s unusually snippy tone. “Fine. Go ahead.”
Wren paused, her next words forgotten, as another contraction came on suddenly.
She frowned. She really should be timing these. That was a thing someone in labor would do, wasn’t it? The rounds of pain were surely getting too close to each other.
“Wren?” Mara prompted.
Wren forced herself to focus. Her eyes landed on the framed nature scene behind Mara’s head. “Is that painting new? I like it. It must have been hard to find. I know the artist, and he doesn’t sell a lot of—”
“Forget the painting,” Mara said firmly. “You are distracting yourself with useless details again.”
“Details aren’t useless. The details are all that matters.”
“How close are your contractions, then?”
Wren stiffened in surprise. “That’s not—”
“You are obviously in labor. I’m not an idiot, Wren. I’ve had three children and know the signs. How far apart are the contractions?”
Wren flinched. “I don’t know. I lost track.”
“You, who obsess over every detail in your carefully constructed existence, don’t know how far along in labor you are?”
Wren pulled herself up, self-defense pricking her skin. “Yes.”
Mara narrowed her eyes. “You are still refusing to connect to this baby. You don’t even want to acknowledge that it may be born today.”
“Just because I haven’t been timing the—”
“Do you even have a crib ready? A hospital bag packed? Anyone to support you at all?”
“No,” Wren admitted with a sigh. “I thought my parents might help, but we aren’t seeing eye to eye on the baby…” She trailed off at that particular awkward discussion point.
Mara sighed too. “And instead of going to the hospital like you are supposed to, like any normal woman would when they are in labor, you are here trying to revisit a past that doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Please don’t ever talk to me about being normal. And the past does matter. Before I have this baby, I want to confront it.”
“You already talked to Winifred nine months ago.”
Wren smiled. “She hates being called that. Her fancy thoroughbred parents really didn’t think through that name properly. Of course Winifred is going to be shortened to Fred.”
“Details, Wren.”
“Right.” She shifted again. “I can focus. I can. But I didn’t get a chance to resolve the issues between us. It was too much. I need to finally move past everything once and for all.”
“That is commendable. But if you want to do that, then you can’t do that here, in the safety of this room. You need to do it in person. You need to confront Fred directly.”
Wren shuddered. “I can’t. Fred is with…him.”
Mara lifted one eyebrow. “Him?”
“The baby’s father.”
“I see.” Mara was quiet for a moment. “And that scares you? If you confront Fred personally, are you scared of risking the chance that he would find out you are carrying his child?”
“I’m going to tell him. I made a promise that I would. But it’s going to be on my terms once the baby is born.”
“And how do you think that is going to go?”
Wren couldn’t answer that loaded question because at that very moment, there was a commotion beyond the closed door of Mara’s office. It drifted in through waves of hurried footsteps and loud voices in a terse back-and-forth.
Mara turned slightly, only having time for a perplexed “What on earth?” before the door burst open and someone barged in.
