“I spilled my fish,” she replied as grief-stricken as an almost-three-year-old could be about having spilled their favorite snack.
“Well, quick! Catch ’em before they swim away.” Heath chuckled.
She giggled. “They can’t swim, Luke!”
I’d told her that morning to call him Heath, but I still called him Luke on occasion. There was definitely going to be a learning curve involved for both of us.
“Oh! You mean your crackers,” he teased. “I thought you might have brought your pet fish with you.”
She cackled louder. “I don’t have no fish!”
She’d never had any kind of pet. Animals weren’t allowed in Walt’s house. Excluding him, of course.
“Clare.” Heath’s voice was low so she couldn’t hear him. “You need to calm down and show her there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
I swallowed hard and did my best to slow my pounding heart. “Yeah. I might need a step-by-step instructional video on how to do that.”
He turned his head my way, flashing me his blue eyes and one of his signature smiles that transformed his entire face from the badass Heath Light to the friendly and easygoing Luke Cosgrove.
“I’m not sure they make YouTube tutorials for that,” he joked.
I rubbed my sweaty palms over my thighs. “Yeah, I can’t imagine ‘how to relax while on the run from your neurotic crime lord husband’ has much of an audience.”
“Probably not,” he replied, flashing me another one of those smiles as he flipped his blinker on and switched into the exit lane.
“Are we getting off here?” I asked.
“Yep.”
A second round of nerves took up root in my stomach, but for a completely different reason. “How far out are we?”
“’Bout fifteen minutes still, depending on traffic.”
I pulled the visor down and used the mirror to inspect my face for the first time since we’d arrived at the hospital. Based on the impaired vision, I’d known my eye was going to look bad, but I wasn’t prepared for the rest of it. The doctors had glued numerous gashes on my face, and they were all starting to bruise. My lips were swollen, and dried blood still stained the corner of my jaw from the split on my ear despite the thirty-second shower I’d taken while Tessa had played peek-a-boo with the shower curtain.
Heath had offered to watch her while she’d sat in his lap, watching videos on an iPad he’d magically produced. However, I hadn’t been anywhere near ready for there to be a door dividing us if Walt showed up.
Closing the visor, I gave up on the lost cause that was my face. I looked like hell, but there was not one thing I could do to fix it.
The nerves rolled all over again.
“You good?” he asked the windshield.
I glanced back at Tessa then asked him, “Have you met her?”
“Who?”
“Elisabeth Leblanc.”
He sighed. “Yeah. Once.”
“What’s she like? I mean…is she nice?” I mentally chastised myself for sounding like a high school girl. I was twenty-eight years old, but I’d never been good with women. Though, given my current predicament, I wasn’t all that great with men, either. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. I’m sure she’s great. She’s opening her home up to us.”
“She looks like Tessa.” His eyes flashed to mine then back to the road. “I just want you to be prepared for that.”
I focused on my lap. “Yeah. I’ve seen a picture of her.”
“It’s eerie though. First time I saw her, I couldn’t drag my eyes away.”
My stomach wrenched. Why did that hurt? And not the idea of her looking like Tessa—I’d accepted that fun fact weeks ago. But the idea of Heath gawking at her seared in a way I had no right to feel.
“I’m sure she’s beautiful,” I mumbled and shifted awkwardly in my seat.
His head swung in my direction, his lips tight and an eyebrow arched in curiosity.
“I just mean, if she looks like Tessa, she has to be gorgeous.” I smiled.
His hands tensed around the steering wheel. “Don’t do that,” he said roughly.
My head snapped back at his tone. “Do what?”
“Put on that fake-ass smile and lie to me.”
“I’m sorry. What?” I snipped, glancing back at Tessa and finding her astutely listening to our conversation. I smiled and tossed her a wink.
She smiled back, but it never reached her eyes.
“See? You’re even teaching her to do it,” he said—again roughly.
I cocked my head to the side, leaned an elbow on the console, and hissed, “What is your problem?”
“Don’t placate me with a smile,” he replied curtly. “Open your mouth and tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Nothing is bothering me except your attitude.”
Tipping his gaze to the rearview mirror, he asked, “And what about you, sweet girl? You worried about something back there?”
She looked at me with wide eyes and instantly shook her head. “No.”
Crap. She was scared. Guilt pooled in my stomach. She’d seen way too much in her young life. If I wanted her to feel comfortable with Heath, it was definitely going to be a lead-by-example kind of thing.
I sucked in a deep breath as he pulled to a stop at a red light.
“I wasn’t placating you with a smile,” I lied.
He twisted in his seat to face me, resting his muscular forearm on the steering wheel.
I focused on Tessa to avoid his gaze—and his sexy forearm—before continuing. “I’m just nervous about meeting Elisabeth, and I look like…well.” I waved my hands over my face and down my scrub-covered body. “Like this.”
I cautioned a glance back in his direction, but his face was unreadable.
Slowly and purposely, he raked his eyes over me from head to toe, a chill spreading over my skin in their wake.
When he got back to my face, he licked his lips and told me, “You look like a survivor, Clare. And the minute you find something ugly in that is the moment we have problems.”
Shit. That felt good. And, if he had stopped there, I probably could have made it the rest of the way without tears. But he didn’t stop there.
“Tessa,” he called. “How do you think your mama looks today?”
“She beautiful,” she answered.
He smiled and tossed me a wink. “Your girl’s got good taste.”
She did. But only because she’d always liked him.
My chin began to quiver as I fought tears back. “Thanks, Heath.”
“You can’t thank me for the truth.”
He was wrong. But I didn’t have the words to correct him.
The light turned green and he slowly accelerated. However, a dirty and broken piece of me would forever be left at that stoplight. He’d taken it from me and replaced it with something to be proud of. The tiniest smile pulled at my lips as a single tear rolled down my cheek.
“Elisabeth and Roman are both good people, Clare,” he said, misreading my overflowing emotions. “I wouldn’t be taking you there if I didn’t know that.”
I nodded and peered out the window. I felt his eyes on me every so often, but he didn’t speak the rest of the drive, allowing me my own moment of privacy even as he sat directly beside me. It was the kindest thing he could have done. And it stripped another piece of my filth and left it on the side of a Georgia road.
Right where it belonged.
Ten minutes later, Heath followed an identical black SUV down a private drive. I found immediate comfort in the lack of a gate.
Sure, there was nothing to keep someone out.
But there was also nothing to keep me locked inside.
A large but somewhat modest, considering who Roman was, old, white Victorian house with dark-blue accents stood tall in the middle of a decent-sized private lot. The yard was far bigger than ours—no, Walt’s—but the grass and the flowerbed needed some serious help.
And then I saw
her. Standing on the front porch, her arms folded over her chest to ward off the November chill, her side pressed into Roman’s chest, his mouth at her temple, anxiety etched in her face.
I hadn’t been wrong; she was beautiful. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a pang of jealousy hit me. This was her life. The worst that had probably ever happened to her was having shitty grass and an overgrown flowerbed. I didn’t want her to see my baby. To be able to offer her something I couldn’t—stability.
There she stood, in her designer dress and heels, with a man who adored her and had probably never lifted a hand to her.
She was a better version of me—better than I’d ever be.
My heart lurched into my throat. “I can’t do this.”
“Then we’ll wait until you can,” Heath said, putting the car in park, but he left the engine running.
I kept my eyes glued to her as she turned and asked Roman something.
Even from yards away, her resemblance to Tessa was uncanny, and it hurt so fucking badly. In that moment, regardless of what I’d wished over the last few weeks, I selfishly didn’t want her to be Tessa’s biological mother anymore.
That was my job.
The anxiety started in my hands, gradually working its way up until it engulfed my entire body.
“Breathe,” I heard Heath say, and I momentarily managed to drag my eyes off Elisabeth.
Concern painted his handsome face, but it was his comforting blue eyes that cut through my panic.
I exhaled on a sob as I threw my arms around his neck. “I can’t do this.”
“Shit,” I heard him mutter as I buried my face in his neck. His left arm wrapped around my shoulders, but I felt his body angle forward and his right arm reach into the back seat. “It’s okay, sweet girl,” he soothed. “Everything’s fine.”
I lifted my head an inch and saw his hand patting Tessa’s leg. The silent tears streaming from her eyes immediately sobered me.
“Hey. Hey. Hey,” I cooed, sitting up and drying my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“You cryin’,” she squeaked, swiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I lifted my gaze to Heath, who was studying us both warily.
“Right. Well…” I took a deep breath and did my best to collect myself. “I’m happy, baby. This is where we’ll be staying for a while.” I motioned out the window. “We’ll be safe here. Remember Roman? He’s going to let us stay with him and his wife.”
She looked out the window then to Heath for a beat before looking back at me. “Luke, too?”
I smiled, and it wasn’t even fake. “Yeah, baby. Heath is going to stay too.”
She nodded, her little body visibly relaxing into her car seat.
I sighed and squeezed his arm.
Then I jumped seven hundred feet in the air—though that might be an exaggeration—when Tessa screamed, “Dog!”
“Easy,” Heath urged, pointing out the window to where a little Yorkie was trotting toward our SUV, yipping with every step.
I closed my eyes and wrung my hands in my lap. “I suck at this calm thing.”
“Maybe we should check YouTube, just in case.”
My eyes popped open and I found him watching me with a sly grin.
“It couldn’t hurt.” I offered him a weak smile.
“You ready?”
I shook my head and sucked in a deep breath. “No,” I sighed. “But I guess I can’t live in a government-issued SUV forever.”
He grinned wider, causing a flutter in my stomach. “Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t have a bathroom. But I could run you through the carwash once a week.”
I unbuckled my seat belt. “Watch out. You find a way to rig up Wi-Fi for Tessa’s iPad and I might take you up on that.”
He shrugged and offered, “She can use my phone.”
There weren’t even words to express what a good guy he was. And not just because he was taking care of me and my daughter, but because he found moments to make me forget that I needed anyone to take care of me and my daughter at all.
“Mama! Dog!” Tessa squealed.
I held his gaze and felt another damaged piece of myself fall away. “I think I’m ready,” I whispered.
His smile faded as he searched my face. “Be sure, Clare. We’re in no rush.”
I jerked a thumb toward Tessa. “I think Cesar Millan back there would disagree with you.”
“Mama! Dog. Look, Luke. Dog!”
His eyes danced with humor. “I have no idea who that is.”
I laughed and shoved my door open. “Then you should probably leave the dog whispering to me.”
He turned the ignition off and opened his door. After folding out, he stretched his bulky frame before leaning back into the car, asking, “You sure you’re good?”
Another broken piece of me hit the ground as I stood on my own two feet.
“I am now.”
“Loretta!” I called after the dog as she jogged toward Clare’s car.
“Let her go,” Roman mumbled into my hair. “She can be the welcoming committee.”
“What if they don’t like dogs?”
His shoulders shook as he chuckled. “I’m relatively sure Light can hold his own against a twelve-pound Yorkie.”
He had a point, but I was about to lose my mind. They’d been sitting in the car for a solid five minutes. My nerves were shot. What if Clare had changed her mind?
The DEA had been at our house all morning, inspecting the security and chatting with Leo, who had somehow managed to arrive at my front door before I’d even rolled out of bed. Not that I’d slept. I’d spent the night fretting about Roman. Despite that I hadn’t had him back for long, that bed felt entirely too big without him.
When he arrived home only an hour earlier, I was a wreck. It was Roman though. He wrapped me in his arms and talked me off the ledge of insanity. I was still a nervous wreck, but it was at least manageable with him at my side.
“Oh God,” I mumbled when I saw the passenger’s door to the SUV open, which was quickly followed by the driver’s side.
“Play it cool, Lis. She’s skittish.”
Right. Cool. I could do cool.
A child’s voice came from inside the SUV. “Look! Look, Mama. Dog!”
I could so not do cool. I couldn’t even do kinda cool. Big, fat, ugly tears sprang from my eyes.
“Not exactly what I meant, baby,” Roman said, pulling me into his chest.
“I’m sorry. I just…” The words died in my mouth as I caught sight of a woman who was only recognizable as a woman by her shoulder-length, blond hair, and her small frame. “Holy shit,” I breathed, bile creeping up the back of my throat.
“She’s fine,” Roman assured.
I stepped out of his arms. “She is not fine,” I corrected, starting toward her.
I only made it a few steps before her eyes—or at least I assumed it was her eyes, as one was so swollen I couldn’t even see the whites—landed on me.
For the way she looked, I had no idea how it was possible, but a blinding smile covered her face. It only faltered for the briefest of seconds when our gazes met.
I returned her smile and awkwardly lifted my hand in a finger wave.
She looked up at Heath as I heard the rumble of his deep voice, but I couldn’t make out what he said to her.
She nodded, shut the car door, and then headed my way.
With every step she took in my direction, my nerves intensified. What started as a knot in my stomach quickly became a raging ache that threatened to overtake me.
By the time she stopped a few feet in front of me, I wasn’t sure I would even be able to speak past the lump in my throat.
Somehow, I managed. “I think I might puke.”
Yep. I was the queen of first impressions.
She blinked.
“I mean, I’m really nervous right now.”
Her swollen lips twitched. “Me too.”
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, extending a hand. “I’m Elisabeth.”
She took it in a gentle shake. “Clare.”
Her voice was so soft and feminine, but not at all timid like I’d expected. Actually, she seemed to be keeping her shit together better than I was.
Still holding her hand, I said, “So, Roman told me to play it cool, but I’m not going to lie—I have no idea how to do that. I’m failing miserably.”
Her mouth curved up. “I’m no expert, either. I lost it in the SUV when we pulled up.”
I smiled. “Is it wrong for me to admit that you saying that makes me feel better?”
She giggled before it caught in her throat. She nervously toyed with the bottom of her oversized scrub top. “I know I’m supposed to be introducing myself and saying thank you for having us at your home. But is it wrong for me to admit that the only thing I want to know is if and when you’re planning to take her away from me?” Her chin quivered as tears filled her eyes.
“No,” I gasped, adamantly shaking my head. I released her hand and folded her into a hug.
She came willingly, both of us bursting into tears.
“I won’t take her from you. I swear on my life,” I vowed.
Her body shook, but she held me tight.
I backed away and carefully palmed each side of her battered face, her blue gaze meeting my green. “I lost my son, Clare. No mother deserves that.”
“She’s all I have,” she pleaded unnecessarily.
“We will not take her from you,” I swore.
“It’s just—”
“I give you my word. We will not take her from you. We want her safe, but I promise you we want the same thing for you. Roman told me a long time ago that biology doesn’t make families. Love makes families. She’s your daughter. You carried her. You’ve kept her safe. We just want to be part of her life.”
She sucked in a shaky breath and searched my face. “I always thought she looked like me.”
I lowered a hand and tapped a finger over her heart. “She does in here. Everything she is on the inside is your doing.”
She laughed without humor and backed out of my reach. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing at this point. She’s been through a lot.”
“But she’s here now. And that was your doing, too.”
The Complete Retrieval Duet Page 23
