“What the fuck?” Ellis growled, getting my attention. I’d known him for long enough to see how tense he was, and I knew if I didn’t stop him, he’d hunt Larry down before I could get to him.
“No,” I told him firmly. When he looked at me, I shook my head slightly and then looked back at Tabby. “Where is he?”
“No one knows,” she replied, looking worried. “I don’t want to leave them. In fact, I even thought about just packing up what she needs and taking her to stay at mine. What if he comes back or sends her back? You didn’t see her, it was like she was possessed or something,” she said this almost like she was saying it to herself. I knew that look well, and if you asked me she was possessed. “Do you guys know her?”
A forced laugh came out of Ellis at that question. “You could say that. In fact, you could…”
“She’s well known in the area for a variety of reasons,” I interrupted, giving him a warning look. “I’ll help Jose get an order of protection, and we’ll take it from there. We know a guy who can increase the security and get cameras put in, so that’s not an issue either.”
“No one will get to her,” Ellis added firmly. “We’ll make sure of it.”
“He’s not coming back,” Jose mumbled, alerting us to the fact she’d woken up and heard all of it. “He doesn’t want anything to do with Olivia or me, and he’s free now to do what he wants, so that’s what he’ll do.”
“But what if he does?” Tabby asked her sister. “What if he hurts you or the baby? What if she does?”
This raised a question for me – did Jose know who Rita was to me? Granted, I didn’t associate with her or her mom, but it wasn’t really a secret as far as I was aware. People knew I didn’t like her and wanted nothing to do with her sure, but they still knew that my dad had married her mother. Taking her in, I realized that she was as oblivious as her sister was.
I needed to tell them both and soon, but I wasn’t going to do it today after everything they’d been through. I’d tell them tomorrow when I came back to check on them and bring them breakfast. That was my plan.
TabbyThe next morning…
Having a baby was hard. I hadn’t even given birth to her, and I was exhausted. Olivia had woken up every other hour through the night to be fed, and after we realized she wasn’t getting enough from Jose we’d moved onto the formula she’d cleverly bought just in case. This had involved sterilizing bottles after removing them from their packaging, reading the instructions on everything, looking it all up online when I couldn’t figure it out… it had been a nightmare, but I’d gotten there. In the end I’d sent Jose back to bed and taken over it when she’d almost fallen asleep with a scoop of formula in her hand. Olivia had gone back to sleep each time quickly, but it had left me unable to sleep until my anxiety from it all had calmed down. Just as I was falling asleep, it had started all over again. Doing all of this one handed wasn’t easy either, but I’m not going to lie, I felt like a champ that I’d done it all with no mishaps.
Which led me to now and wondering why someone was knocking on the door in the middle of the night.
Looking at the face of my watch, I groaned when I saw that it was eight o’clock in the morning. Rolling off the couch, I got to my feet and weaved over to the door, wrenching it open. What I got was a blinding light in my face that had me shielding it with my arms, and hissing when the sunlight hit me right in the eyes through a small gap between them.
“Be warned, if you’re selling something, asking for something, here to cause trouble, or here for anything that involves the use of a brain, I will kill you slowly. And I’ll do it with the broken breast pump on the table over there. FYI I broke it when I used it on the last person who came around to sell…” I broke off my rant when I smelled my addiction. This smell could calm my PMS, it could calm my rage when someone stole my parking spot as I was pulling in. It could even calm me down when I was doing a dumbass diet that deprived me of all the necessities in life. Coffee. “Is that…?”
Lowering an arm, I blinked slowly as my eyes adjusted to the light and focused on the man in front of me holding a holder with takeaway cups in it – the sheriff who’d demanded last night that I call him Dave. Behind him stood Ellis who looked like he hadn’t slept all night and needed coffee as badly as I did.