“I owe you an apology,” I started. “Actually, I owe you a lot of apologies, so you’ll have to bear with me while I get through them all, okay?”
Mimicking my position, she rolled onto her side making me frown. Were pregnant women allowed to lie like that? Would it upset the baby?
Making a mental note to look it up later, I traced the side of her face with the tip of my index finger, enjoying being able to do it after being away from her for so long.
“To start with, I’m so fucking sorry about Shonelle, pixie. That whole thing was fucked up,” I groaned. “So fucking fucked up.”
“You have a past, Elijah,” she sighed. “Everyone has a past, even if it’s not sexually. There’s no need to apologize for that.”
“Yes, there is,” I said seriously. “My past and my future shouldn’t come into contact with each other. I’m not being a dick when I say that, but I just don’t want anything to hurt you. And the fact that it was her, someone who’s bullied you and Bonnie… I’m disgusted with myself.” Rolling onto my back, I had to look away from her to say the next part. “I’m also disgusted by the fact that I don’t remember that night. I get that drunk hookups happen,”— she snorted, making me chuckle—“but I was always careful not to be too drunk because that’s disrespectful. Regardless of the circumstances, I never wanted to be that dick who didn’t remember a woman.”
“I’m not saying it’s right, but I also think you’re beating yourself up about it too much.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged, “but I can’t help it. I also don’t want you thinking I’m a total asshole and using it against me at some point.”
“Elijah,” she called, reaching over and squeezing my hand to get my attention on her. “Like I said, we all have a past. Ideally, the past and future shouldn’t collide, I agree with you, but it happens to almost everyone. Using it to create a gap between us would be bullshit, and I wouldn’t do that. I’m a mature adult, getting shitty about your past would be stupid. Just put it away, okay?”
Blowing out a breath, I nodded. “I’ll try. I’m also sorry for just up and leaving you. When she said that, I was scared that I’d see the same look of disappointment on your face that Coop’s parents had on theirs, and I couldn’t take it. The missing fishermen reopened a raw wound, so I was already in a bad place. Seeing that would’ve tipped me over the edge, so I took the pussy way out and left.”
Smiling sadly at me, she squeezed my hand again and then tugged it to get me to roll back on my side. “I thought that might’ve been the case. I’m not saying I wasn’t pissed off, but I can understand it. Heck, even seeing the crossing where Mum was hit by the car triggers a shutdown inside me emotionally, so I can only imagine what that would’ve been like for you.”
I didn’t know how I’d become so lucky but fuck me, Sadie was proof of it.
“Just so you know, I wasn’t running to escape you. I was running to get my head on straight to come back to you with none of the hang-ups that I had before. I didn’t want to be the guy who was on an emotional rollercoaster, you deserve better than that. I needed to come to terms with it, put what Coop’s parents said in a box, and lock it all up.”
“Grief is a process that takes a lot of time, and every person and circumstance is different. Fighting it isn’t going to make it go away, it’s just going to bury it in the ground until it pops back up again.”
“I know, and that’s what I’d been trying to do with it, so I went where we used to stay together when we were both off work, and I made peace with it. I think I’m always going to be affected by the shit his parents said to me—”
“I know they blamed you for it and were arseholes at his funeral, and that was so fucking wrong,” she sighed, looking close to tears. “A lot of people lash out when they’re grieving, but it doesn’t fix it and make the person come back. They should have manned the hell up and apologized by now. Them not doing it makes me wonder if they’ve got some guilt going on as well, so they’re projecting the blame onto you to help them through it.”
Gently pushing a chunk of hair off her forehead, I whispered, “So wise.”
“What can I say?” she shrugged, smiling shyly. “Have you thought about contacting them? Does he have any siblings you could reach out to?”
“Right now,” I said slowly, “I think it’s too much. I’ve only just put it away and closed the door on what they did. If I was to contact them and open that door back up, I think it would be too soon. My focus has to be you, our baby, and keeping you safe.”
“And yourself, Elijah. You can’t protect everyone before your own safety and wellbeing. You matter just as much.”
Scanning her face, I took in the shape of her eyebrows, the light blue color of her eyes with the pretty crystal blue striations through them, how plump her lips were, and her adorable chin. I don’t think there was one feature of hers that didn’t do it for me. Hell, even her fingernails were making me hard right now, which was inappropriate given what we were doing.
“I just needed to make sure I was in a better place so that I could look after you. If I’d known all the details, and that you were getting the stuff in the postcards, Sadie…” I trailed off, grinding my teeth together. “I thought having Jackson and my cousins watching over you would be enough on top of your dad’s security, but it wasn’t.”
“Okay, this is what I was talking about,” she snapped, pushing my shoulder. “You’re taking on everyone else’s shit as your own. No one is responsible for the unhinged bullshit that Orson Riley’s doing apart from the wanker himself. I understand feeling protective or concerned over someone, but you can’t apologize for needing time away to sort your shit out. Everyone has to at some point. If you’d known what he was doing, you wouldn’t have gone. But you didn’t know what he was doing, neither did I. And if you hadn’t gone away, you’d still be suffering, so it’s not an issue. Your brother kept me safe, my alarms kept me safe, Dad and his security gorillas kept me safe, your family kept me safe—I was safe. So, please, just drop it all now. Life isn’t meant to be about guilt and duty, and now there’s a baby on the way, so our focus has to shift again.”
“Don’t,” I growled. “Don’t minimize what he’s doing. The second we do that, we’ve opened you up to whatever he has planned because we’ve relaxed our defenses. Right now, let me be worried and concerned about it because it means that I’ve got my eye on the ball, and you and our baby are protected.”
The look on her face would have been scary if she wasn’t so adorable. “I fucking hated that man before, but now I wish I could drop bleach on his scrotum just to cause him unbearable pain. No, drain cleaner on it, because that’d burn like a bitch.”
“But am I right?” I pressed.
“Yeah,” she growled, glaring at me. “You’re right. But if I hear you reminding me of the time I said that, you’re a dead man, too.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you or the baby, pixie. We’ll make sure of it.” Then, unable to stop myself from doing it, I covered her belly with my hand. “I can’t believe we made a baby.”
Chewing on her lip, she stared at my hand. “How do you think it happened?”
“Drunk sex with piercings and a condom?” I chuckled, then stopped when she looked worried. “What?”
“You don’t think Shonelle…”
What did she have to do with anything? “What do you mean?”
“Parker said that two out of a hundred women get pregnant because a condom didn’t work. Well, you said you were too drunk to remember, so what if—”
“No,” I snapped.
“But it could be—”
“No, it couldn’t,” I interrupted her again. “And I’ll tell you why. That was almost a year ago, and I have zero doubts if she’d gotten pregnant that she would have thrown it in my family’s faces months ago. And before your mind even goes close to the next thing I’m going to bring up, I’m going to tell you that I had to have a physical for my new health insurance. Part of the te
sts they do is to make sure I don’t have any STDs or nasty problems. Everything came back negative.”
Her expression went from concern into anger, then morphed into confusion. “From the little I know of Shonelle, she wouldn’t have hesitated to throw that night in your family’s face. So why didn’t she?”
Because evil doesn’t always work the same way?
“I don’t know,” I sighed, knowing I had to tell her the rest of it. “But there’s something else you need to know.”
“Please don’t tell me you shagged someone else who’s unhinged.”
“Marcus’s best friend is a whizz on the computer, and he managed to get Riley’s phone records. A number from here showed up on it a couple of times, and when he traced it, it came back to Shonelle’s. He’s still trying to get into his emails to see if they exchanged information on there, too, but so far, that’s what we know.”
Staring at me wide-eyed, she gasped, “That’s how he knew where to find me.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to rip her hair out at the roots and shove her tit down her throat,” she growled. “Who fucking does that? If she was able to track him down, then she was more than capable of finding out what he’d done. She’d know he’s a convicted rapist, and what he tried to do to me, why would she do that?”
Sure, it was angry ranting, but at the same time, there was a lot of despair and vulnerability laced through the words, and it broke my heart to hear. Pulling Sadie into my chest, I kissed the top of her head, grateful just to be holding her again after the time away from her.
It wasn’t the homecoming I’d been thinking about and dreaming of. It was better.
“The type of person who does that isn’t one that’s worth your time and energy, pixie. Right now, that little being is in your stomach, wondering why his or her mommy’s so upset. If you don’t calm down, you’re going to end up getting sick again, and then they’ll never let you out of here until after you’ve given birth.”
She was quiet for a couple of minutes, and when she spoke again, I knew she’d moved on. “The OB/GYN said that depending on the hospital, birth, and insurance company, they might let me home the same day I have the baby. That’s what I want.”
Rubbing her back, I breathed her in and smiled into the top of her head. One of the first questions she’d asked was if she’d have to stay in after the birth because that’s what she’d seen on television, but didn’t like hospitals and wanted to take the baby home the same day. They’d even discussed home births, but I wanted her in a place where if there was an emergency, they could do something immediately instead of having to transport her to a hospital.
The OB/GYN had told her that the policy on keeping a new mother and baby overnight had changed recently. It depended on what the insurance company said, how the birth had gone, how mommy and baby were doing, and the hospital themselves. Now that I knew how strongly she felt about it, I’d be reading through both of our insurance documents, and if hers didn’t allow it but mine did, I’d add her onto my own just in case.
Telling her all of this was the right thing. “Thank you! I might feel differently after I have the baby, but just in case, it’s a weight off my shoulders having the option available to me. I was never angry or disappointed in you, Elijah. I was just hurt that you’d run away. But the version of you I see now shows me how much you needed that time, so it was for the best.”
And with that, she fell asleep. Two days ago, when I’d woken up, I had dreams and plans that I wanted to achieve. Now I had a whole new set, and so long as they all involved her, I’d keep adjusting and adapting every day for the rest of my life.
Chapter Fourteen
Sadie
“Baby, wake up,” Elijah said urgently, shaking me gently. “We’ve got to go.”
Blinking, I tried to shield my eyes from the lights in the ceiling. “What’s going on?”
“Sadie,” Dad called, making me jump when he spoke from the space behind me. “We’ve got to get you moving.”
“Moving where?”
Parker was in the room as well, taking the IV out of the back of my hand with a grim look on his face. Seeing me watching him, he flashed me a smile and then stuck a Band-Aid on the great honking hole he’d left in my hand.
“Elijah has what you need to keep the nausea away, and I’ve also given him some stuff for you to drink so that your glucose levels don’t drop. He’s going to get you a doctor as soon as you get to where you’re going, so don’t panic.”
Blinking at Parker, I muttered, “Panic? Why would I be panicking?”
Ignoring my question, he nodded at Elijah. “She’s good to go.”
Before anything else could be said, I was lifted out of bed with a thick blanket around me, and we were moving out of the room.
“Pass her to me,” a deep voice I couldn’t quite place said as we cleared the door to the room I’d been in. “He doesn’t know me, so if I carry out someone in a blanket, he’ll think nothing of it.”
All of the muscles in the chest under my cheek tightened, and then I was being passed over. Looking up, I saw Elijah’s brother Jesse’s face smiling down at me. “Hey, pretty girl. I’m your chariot for this part of the journey.”
I’d been raised with manners, so I immediately used them. “Thank you.”
Nodding at his brother, Jesse peeled off in the opposite direction that Dad was leading Elijah. “Now, don’t worry, you’re going to meet up with him. We just have to do something first.”
The blanket covering my head was lowered, and then dark hair fell over my eyes, scaring the shit out of me.
“It’s okay, honey,” Ronnie murmured. “We’re just giving you a new hairstyle for a while. Your hair’s so pretty that he’ll know it a mile away, so we need to change that.”
Then, the blanket was back over me again, and chunks of hair were arranged to spill over it before Jesse continued on his way. “See you later, Mom.”
“Am I not breaking your back?” I asked as he strode wherever it was he was going.
“As if,” he snorted, opening a door with his butt. “And I’ll prove it by carrying you down the stairs of this place.”
And he did—six floors of stairs, to be precise. I couldn’t even make it up two flights before I was out of breath, but he made it look like he was just taking a stroll.
Once we were outside, I was placed in the front seat of a vehicle, and then he was jogging around to the opposite side while I did my seatbelt up.
“Wanna tell me what’s going on?” I asked as he got into the car and turned the ignition.
I was so focused on him that I didn’t realize we were alone until a hand landed on my shoulder from the backseat, and Elijah said, “We’ll tell you once we’ve gotten far enough away from here.”
At least, I think that’s what he said. I was too busy screaming my arse off.
It felt as if we’d been driving for days, and every so often, the tosser behind the wheel would start laughing again at my reaction to Elijah popping up in the back of the car.
“It’s not funny,” I pouted. “I could’ve gone into labor.”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say to Jesse. “What? Do you need to see a doctor? Hang on, I’ll pull over and check where the nearest one is on my phone.”
Looking over my shoulder, I pleaded with Elijah again, “Please can I swap places with you?”
This time, he took pity on me. “Jesse, she doesn’t need a doctor, but if you could pull over so she can get into the back with me and lie out, that’d be great.”
At some point, he’d lowered the seatbacks in the back so that he could stretch out, so there was ample space available if I kicked the bags in the trunk to the side. I’d slept a lot while I’d been in the hospital, but I still felt like I needed another twenty hours.
Doing as he was asked, but still looking at me worriedly, Jesse pulled over, and I climbed into the back beside Elijah, immediately snuggling in and using his chest as a pillow.<
br />
“Before you go to sleep, can you do me a favor and have a bit more to drink. Parker said I was to get you to drink as much as possible and make sure you ate small amounts regularly. He also recommended plain stuff like crackers and dry toast.”
Cracking an eye open to glare at him, I came face-to-face with a bottle of some sporty rehydration thing that Jesse had picked up at our last stop. Fortunately, it was the flavor that agreed with me, and not the cloudy pee looking one that they’d tried me on the first time around.
“We’ll stop in an hour at a motel I found,” Jesse said as I drank down as much as I could, grateful for the fact that it was cooling down my stomach. It was a weird sensation, but it felt like putting ice on a volcano inside me.
Passing it back to the drink bully, I cuddled into him and closed my eyes, letting the movement of the car rock me to sleep. I even slept through being carried into the motel room, but through the haze when I woke up, I heard Elijah and Jesse arguing about who got which bed because there’d only been one room.
Smiling, I fell back to sleep again after making sure I had some more to drink. With the medication the doctor had given me in Gonzales County, my stomach was feeling more settled, and I could breathe without wanting to throw up everywhere. Apparently, doing that was exhausting because I slept deeply that night, not even having one of my cartoon dreams.
It also meant that I slept through the phone call Jesse got that freaked both men out. Orson was making his moves and showing his displeasure that he couldn’t find me, and he was leaving proof of it where he knew everyone wouldn’t miss it.
Elijah
“Yo,” Jesse said as he answered his phone, shooting me the finger at getting to his phone before I could.
Yeah, we were thirty and twenty-eight, but who gave a shit.
Great Sass: Providence Family Ties Series Page 16
