How B&B Sends Off Steffy For Jacqueline MacInnes Wood's Maternity Leave

Now that the maniacal Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown) is free on "The Bold and the Beautiful," everyone is running for cover. Steffy Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) thought her husband John "Finn" Finnegan (Tanner Novlan) was vulnerable to his evil birth mother, so Steffy took her kids and fled from her house. She feared that his newfound connection with Sheila would bring danger to her family, but after a time, decided to move back in with him. That's going to be very short-lived, as Sheila's already told Deacon Sharpe (Sean Kanan) that she now sees a path to her son and intends to use it.

In real life, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood is taking a break for maternity leave. The actor has a half-sister who's 20 years older than her, and her husband Elan Ruspoli is an only child, so the two have enjoyed creating a large family, with Wood's baby number four almost due. As a result, she'll be taking maternity leave from the soap, just in time for Steffy to hightail it out of town. 

In a terrifying scene on the Sept. 1 episode, Finn swore up and down that he wouldn't allow Sheila anywhere near his family, and as he and Steffy started to get intimate, she saw the evil woman peering into their house! According to Soap Opera News, a confrontation with the villain is what sends Steffy packing, and it's anyone's guess as to where she and the kids run off.

Because Sheila Carter has done some truly despicable things on "The Bold and the Beautiful," it's understandable that pretty much everyone lives in fear now that she's been released from prison. She can't be charged with the crimes she copped to when Bill Spencer (Don Diamont) and Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye) tricked her into confessing, and it all got thrown out of court because their tactics weren't completely legal. But it's also understandable that Finn is suddenly feeling compassion for Sheila. She is his birth mother, after all, and it stands to reason that despite his logical mind knowing how dangerous she is, his emotions have gotten the better of him.

A lot has been thrown at Steffy lately between her mother, Taylor Hayes (Krista Allen), telling her to work things out with Finn, and her father, Ridge, advising her to stay away from him. She's also got the whiny "little puke" Liam Spencer (Scott Clifton) — as Finn called him — tattling on her husband's every move and trying to get back together with her, despite him denying it. 

And Sheila's been following Finn, even saving Steffy's daughter Kelly Spencer (Sophia McKinlay) from drowning. Sheila poking her head into their house is most likely the final straw for Steffy, and a good excuse to have her exit the show while Jacqueline MacInnes Wood goes on maternity leave. Thankfully, Wood's real life is not quite so dramatic and dangerous!