Babyjacked: A Second Chance Romance

by Sosie Frost

  My phone buzzed again. I clutched it tight while ordering my coffee.

  I should get out of here by five—hell of a day. Remind me to tell you about the drunk with the turtle…really should have checked if he was a snapper before sticking anything near that mouth.

  Anything for my smile. Usually I loved fun police stories that didn’t end with high speed chases or gunfights.

  Like the time a high school senior got hauled into a police department for cross-dressing a Santa Clause on a Christmas display, and the rookie cop who took on her case happened to cut her a break.

  A handsome, blue-eyed rookie cop.

  I pushed my coffee away, refusing even a taste. Nothing about the mocha would settle my stomach. The single knot in my gut started to unravel, and I didn’t like where the tendrils led.

  Pizza tonight? Shepard’s text buzzed in my hand. Or skip the bread and hack open a pineapple?

  Pizza.

  What were the chances that Shepard would have ordered the exact pizza I loved the most? A Hawaiian with double pineapple and red onion? Not exactly a common order.

  And while the brick-oven restaurant had tasted divine, I knew I’d had better pizza before. From another place in the city. Hell, Shepard and I had ordered from three different places just to check. None of them were right—and now I knew why.

  We weren’t looking in the right place.

  I checked the browser on my phone, skimming the map for pizza places near where my accident had been—not Evie Street, but further away…

  Clarissa Street.

  One locally owned pizza place popped up on the map. Oil and Basil Pizzeria. It didn’t sound familiar, but what did? My head pounded, and the screen blurred. Wasn’t sure if it was tears or pain, but I pushed the call button.

  “Oil and Basil.” A gruff voice answered. “What do you want?”

  God, if I only knew. What I wanted didn’t come with a free order of breadsticks.

  “I’m hoping you can give me some information,” I said.

  “No delivery charge if the food costs more than twenty bucks. Special today is a ham and bacon calzone.”

  “No. I’m just wondering…have you worked there long?”

  “Yeah. I own the place. What do you want?”

  My voice trembled, but I leaned forward, gripping my coffee. “Do you remember common orders?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  Wasn’t that the question of the hour?

  “Every Friday night, someone would have place an order for a pizza—Hawaiian, double pineapple, and—”

  “Red onion.”

  “Yes!”

  “What about it?”

  “Where did you deliver the pizzas?”

  “Look, lady, what’s this about?”

  I might have confessed and told him about the amnesia, but Shepard was right. The last thing I needed was anyone else knowing I was without a memory.

  No telling who would have taken advantage of me.

  Especially those who pretended to help.

  “I’m looking for my sister. Evie.” It was easy to bluff. “She used to order pizza from you, and I don’t know where she’s gone.”

  Honest enough. The pizza guy quieted. Damn it. I should have gone down there in person and slipped him some money. No way he’d give up his client for anything less than a pepperoni pizza.

  “I think she’s in trouble,” I said. Again, not a lie. “Please. I’m just looking for her last apartment. I need a street.”

  “Yeah. She’s got two places.”

  “Two?” My stomach turned.

  “I haven’t heard from her for six months.”

  “I know. I’ll take any information you can give me.”

  He sighed. The phone muffled, and he shouted to someone else in the kitchen. “Hey, Ty. Where’d that double Hawaiian pizza always go Friday night? Yeah, the knocked-up girl with the nice rack.”

  Always eager for a compliment. I held my breath.

  He shouted again and cleared his throat. “Bethany Street. She had an apartment.”

  “That’s great.” That must have the apartment where I lived while pregnant. “What about the other location?”

  “We don’t deliver there anymore. Too risky for our drivers.”

  That sounded about right. “Where was it?”

  “South Chester Street. Off Center Avenue.” He huffed. “Be glad your sister got out of there. That place has been hell for about a year.”

  A year.

  Clue was six months old. I had been pregnant when Granna was arrested.

  I dropped the phone.

  Christ, my head hurt.

  “You have no idea what you did.” I tossed my clothes into a bag and rushed to the bathroom for my toothbrush and makeup. “The neighborhood is going to implode. I have to go back.”

  “Where?” He stood in my way. “To your Granna’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re pregnant! What are you thinking? That neighborhood isn’t safe!”

  “It’s perfectly safe—thanks to Granna.” I didn’t bother asking him to move. He read it in my expression. “Despite anything you guys ever did for it.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Not fair? You know what isn’t fair? The kids on that street. No homes. No school. No food in their bellies or place to sleep. Granna took them in. She kept them safe…especially when the police wouldn’t. Those kids have no one now. I have to go help.”

  “We’re working on the case—”

  “She doesn’t have the money for a lawyer, and the police know that. You think they care about some old lady who fed and clothed a bunch of gangbangers they’ve been trying to arrest?”

  “Evie—”

  “She is the reason that neighborhood—my home—hasn’t destroyed itself. Because it didn’t matter the colors, who your family was, or what you had to do to survive. Everyone was safe there.” I couldn’t even look at him. “And now she’s gone.”

  “And you want to go there?”

  “Someone has to keep the peace.”

  “It’s not going to be you.”

  “And it won’t be you either!”

  He exhaled, staring at the floor. Couldn’t meet my eye. “We’ll find a way to fix it.”

  “Fix what? There’s nothing left now. It’s over.”

  “I’m going to make this right.”

  “You can’t. You never could.” The tears stung my eyes. “We’re done.”

  “What?”

  “You made your choice.” I picked up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder. “I’m making mine.”

  “Evie—”

  The neighborhood collapsed after that.

  He’d been right.

  It wasn’t a safe place for a pregnant woman. Or a mother. Or a sister, brother, friend, family. Without Granna, the block destroyed itself.

  My home wasn’t a home, but it was all I had. All any of those people had.

  And when she left?

  When she was taken?

  That betrayal was unforgivable.

  I thought I knew misery, but nothing was ever as terrible as the news that came after. When Granna had died. When the very people who were supposed to protect the community arrested the one person who had kept the peace. She worried herself into a heart attack, and that was it.

  Gone forever.

  And with her…any trust I had for him.

  I rubbed my temples. The answers were there. Buried and painful.

  Nothing I ever wanted to experience again.

  Maybe I had wished so hard for the pain to stop…it had come true?

  I picked up my phone, staring at the name buzzing on the screen.

  I answered the text as the tears burned in my eyes. Going home. You know where that is. Meet me there.

  I didn’t bother reading the response. I shoved the phone in my pocket and pitched the untouched coffee. Clue grumbled from the stroller, but she was waking up.

  Good. She’d b
e awake in time to see the truth. And I prayed that the answer wouldn’t destroy us both.

  The only bus route through Center Avenue stayed on the main street and didn’t deviate onto the more dangerous blocks—the ones with graffiti on the boarded windows, rusted fences with sprouting grass peeking from the sidewalks, and cars with tinted windshields waiting in the street.

  I tried to get off the bus. The driver took one look at me and the stroller and extended an arm.

  “Miss, you sure you know where you’re going?”

  I recognized this street. Didn’t like it, but I knew where I was. “Yeah. I can handle myself.”

  He didn’t believe me, but he opened the door. Clue and I hit the road, and the bus pulled away.

  At least it was still daylight.

  Every instinct in my body tensed, but I could stay safe during the day. Most everyone kept to themselves anyway. No need to start any problems.

  Only one way to solve them here.

  The sidewalks crumbled just off the major street, and the alleys and roads had been ground into a series of potholes. The whole neighborhood was bordered by apartments built in the late sixties—buildings that were rotten by the seventies, ugly by the eighties, destroyed in the nineties, and lost now.

  But families lived here. Kids played in the street, moms walked with strollers in the sunshine, and the poverty united everyone…provided they played by the rules. Reds on one side…Blue on the other.

  Instinct guided me. I let myself wander. My feet chose the path, skipping loose stones and crossing the street to avoid sketchy looking buildings with open doors and debris spilling onto the porch.

  I wasn’t scared—but I didn’t let my guard down. No need to judge the people I’d left behind, even if I knew getting away from this place and the danger was the greatest thing that could have happened to me.

  And it was all Granna had ever wanted.

  A busted up pickup truck sat on the corner, the driver’s door wide open. No one waited near it, but the two teenagers—hardly old enough to drive, scoped out the interior, cracking jokes and whistling as they spotted the keys tucked into the ignition.

  Fools.

  I marched over to them, parking my stroller in their path before they made a very unwise decision.

  “Get away from the truck,” I said. “Don’t you have any sense in your head?”

  One of the teens grinned at me. “Easy, momma. We got this.”

  I pointed to the obvious set-up. “This is a bait car. There’s someone undercover probably sitting right down there…” I studied the neighborhood. A dark Ford parked two blocks down, in clear view of the truck. I pointed. “There. The cops are waiting for you to take it so they can bust you. Get your asses home before they decide to frisk you.”

  The kids swore, threatening a variety of ends to the police who happened to be watching—but they scampered away, protecting their five hundred dollar shoes before the Department of Corrections confiscated them.

  Or some desperate punk jumped them from the shadows for a chance to sell them.

  I’d seen it before.

  Those weren’t the memories I wanted back.

  Granna’s house had once been the very center of the neighborhood, the division between two sets of gangs, and the only safe place in the middle of a forgotten warzone.

  But now?

  The house was destroyed. Boarded windows. Rotten stairs. The front door was just gone. I didn’t risk going inside. Not with the needles visible from the street.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

  Granna’s home once had flowers outside. Pretty little bushes and delightful pansies and herbs and ferns that shielded the rickety house from most of the ugliness in the neighborhood.

  Her living room was a warm and loving place. Soft furniture. Cozy blankets. Books…so many books. She loved hardbacks, and the kids in the community used to buy her dozens at a time. Or steal them. But she didn’t question it. Not when she could use them to teach the forgotten little boys and girls how to read, write, and do math problems that weren’t just converting grams to dollars.

  “You’re no more special than anyone in this place,” Granna said. “Everyone here comes from the same dirt and misery. Don’t let that be your excuse. Make sure that’s your reason to keep fighting.”

  “I’m coming back to visit.” I pushed my bookbag over my shoulder. “The college is just across town.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Come on, Granna. You’re family.”

  I ducked before the old woman slapped my head. “You get out there. Make your own damn family. I don’t want to hear from you until that handsome boy tells you he loves you.”

  “Granna.” I exhaled. “He’s engaged.”

  “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.” She winked. “And a lot of things are meant for you.”

  “Right. It’s one big fairy tale.”

  “With that man, it just might be.”

  “Come on.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m only friends with Shepard.”

  I stumbled. My fingers curled over the stroller.

  My head pulsed like it’d split open.

  The knock came quietly. Late at night.

  I closed the textbook, marking my place in the chemistry notes with my pencil. I hadn’t read a single line. Couldn’t.

  Not after what he said.

  Not after that kiss.

  I opened the door, leaning against the frame. He was still in his uniform. His voice low.

  “It’s over,” Shepard said. “I called it off. Told her…I couldn’t marry her.”

  “And you think that makes this okay?” I whispered. “I won’t be responsible for breaking up a relationship.”

  “You didn’t break this up.” He reached for me. Why did I lean into his touch? “I wasn’t in love with her.”

  “Who are you in love with?”

  “I can sign a confession right now.” His lips met mine. “Or I can prove it to you, Evie.”

  The tears rolled over my cheeks. I held my breath.

  It didn’t help.

  “Evie.” His pounding knocks would shatter my door. “I’m sorry!”

  It didn’t matter what he said. Didn’t matter what he promised to do.

  Didn’t even matter that he swore it wasn’t his fault.

  I spoke through the door, clutching my swelling tummy. I threw up again. It wouldn’t stop. This time, it wasn’t morning sickness.

  “She’s dead.” Tears wetted my cheeks. “She died in custody.”

  “Evie, let me come in. Let me talk to you.”

  “She was arrested because of you.”

  “I didn’t go over there to arrest her.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She was arrested, and now she’s dead…because of you.”

  Shepard swore from behind the door. He called my name.

  I’d never answer him again.

  I’d never speak to him again.

  And if I could…I’d wipe him from my mind.

  Forever.

  I didn’t turn as a car screeched to a halt and parked beside me. The door slammed shut.

  I knew who it was.

  I had always known.

  “Evie.” Shepard raced from the car. His words fired, quick and fierce. “Please. Just listen to me. Let me explain.”

  My slap echoed across his cheek.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  20

  “How could you?”

  I beat at Shepard with the only arsenal I had available. The diaper bag wasn’t nearly hard enough, but I took comfort in the fact that it contained a dirty diaper wrapped up in a plastic bag.

  “You lied to me!”

  Shepard didn’t defend himself, but he twisted from my Winnie The Pooh styled weaponry. “Evie, I swear to God, this isn’t what I had planned.”

  “No shit! Did you want a deathbed confession?” I screeched loud enough to wake the baby. “After our fiftieth wedding anniversary you�
�d lean over and tell me I was the one from your past all along.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “What is the fiftieth present? Silver? Wood?”

  “I don’t know. Gold?”

  “Pretty sure it’s not betrayal.”

  “Evie, you’re upset.”

  “Don’t start.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “I transcended upset a couple minutes ago. Now I’m mushroom-cloud pissed. You. Lied. To. Me.”

  “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “How about—I know who you are. I know your name. I know where you’re from. I know that you’re allergic to shellfish. That might have saved me an entire night from looking like the black Angelina Jolie.”

  “I’m sorry.” Shepard extended his arms. “Evie, I’ve wanted to tell you. I tried so many times.”

  “Don’t fucking speak to me.” I tangled my fingers in my hair. “There is nothing you can say that would make any of this okay.”

  “Let me try.”

  “Six months, Shepard. For six months you let me believe I was unloved.”

  “No. That’s not—”

  “I told you no excuses!” I beat him again with the diaper bag. The seams split, and two jars of mooshed peas catapulted across the street. “You left me alone. I thought no one wanted me. I thought I was unlovable. I thought I was cheating on the man from my past.”

  “I never considered it cheating.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic. This perverted, schizo-scheme of yours worked perfectly.”

  The streets were used to fights. Most people gathered for a chance to place bets on the little rumbles. They knew to clear out if someone pulled a piece from behind their back.

  I don’t think they ever saw an irate black woman smacking her white baby daddy with two fistfuls of diapers and a rattle.

  “You slept with me,” I hissed. “You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew I was vulnerable. That I trusted you! And you slept with me.”

  “I tried to tell you, Evie. I thought I could give you clues or tell you what I was thinking, or explain it.” His voice broke. “I can’t justify what I did.”

  “No. You can’t. This is….” I held my throbbing head. The memories flooded back. One after another, not gently blossoming into existence, but machine-gunned where they belonged. My vision blurred, and I gripped the stroller to stay upright. “I finally have my memory, and now I don’t know who you are anymore.”