I knew, no matter what, they would stand for family.
Fear constricting my throat, I sat up and reached over to snag the crumpled letter I’d found in the front pocket of Everett’s diaper bag tonight. I’d been getting him ready for bed after Mom and I had been out running around most of the day picking up things that he would need.
A letter I didn’t think had been there before, though I wasn’t sure.
Everything had been so chaotic that night when he’d come into my life, the quick decision I’d made to come here as the dawn had been breaking. I’d grabbed a few things before we were in the car and headed for Alabama.
I studied the words in the lapping shadows that clawed through the room.
A whisper. A will.
A lie. A debt.
You can run. It doesn’t matter. I will collect.
A shudder rolled my spine.
I mean, what the fuck was this bullshit? A joke? Some kind of twisted threat? Some inconsequential thought she’d scribbled on a scrap of paper and then stuffed into the pocket and left it without realizing it was there?
Only thing I knew was I couldn’t stop the flash of Ashley’s face from blazing through my mind. The way she’d looked that night when I’d opened the door to find her frantic, trembling and shaking, this girl who I hadn’t seen in over two years who was shoving this kid into my arms.
A kid I’d never seen.
A kid who looked exactly like me.
The sheer terror in her eyes, the way she’d met mine with a plea.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I swear I never meant for this to happen. I . . . I . . . Take care of him. Please.” Her hand flew over her mouth and tears raced down her cheeks.
“Ashley,” I’d shouted as she’d turned to flee, no clue how to even hold the child in my arms, the weight of him foreign.
She whipped around to look at us from over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Two seconds later, she was gone, and I was suddenly a dad.
We already had plans to contact an attorney tomorrow.
Dad suggested it was the best way. Track her down and figure out what her intentions were. Get the gist of what her frame of mind was when she left him.
Of course, that meant I had to decide on what my intentions were, too.
Where I stood.
Long term.
Forever.
That and we had to get him immediate testing.
Nausea coiled in my stomach, this sickness I would never outrun clawing and ripping, like I could feel the rise of the disease that lived inside.
My teeth gritted, and I scruffed a hand over my face to break up the disorder. So I could see through the turmoil to the one thing that mattered. I pushed to my feet and eased over to the crib, this crazy feeling running a circuit through my body.
A connection like I’d only ever experienced once before in my life.
Knew firsthand how dangerous it was.
How that feeling could destroy.
The destruction that came when the bond was severed.
Warily, I peered down into the crib.
Everett was face down, his knees tucked up under him, his butt in the air, his little hands fisted in the sheets. Mouth moving like he was sucking something.
Affection and fear pulsed.
I couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Or maybe they were one in the same.
Intense.
Unrelenting.
Like a fist was driving itself right into the middle of my chest and tearing out my heart and giving it to this kid.
But that’s what this was, wasn’t it?
The sudden awareness that I’d give him my life.
Whatever bullshit his mother had gotten herself involved in? I was going to make sure it didn’t affect him.
That he would be safe.
Guilt stalked through my insides like a monster preying on the innocent. The selfishness of those nights. The way I’d been overcome with the desperation to do anything to erase the loneliness that had howled and begged.
Like fucking some other girl was going to erase the pain.
Blot out the loss of Frankie Leigh.
Fill up the vacancy.
Because of it . . . I’d done this.
I stared down at this child. Heart seizing in my chest, I sent up a thousand prayers that I hadn’t condemned him to the same life I’d endured.
That he would be spared.
That he hadn’t inherited this curse.
Consumed by it, I reached into his crib and picked him up, needing to feel his weight. The little motion-activated light Dad had set up to draw me from sleep in case he woke up in the middle of the night flickered to life in a dull haze.
Only thing it did was light up his cherub face.
These fucking chubby cheeks and double chin that I had the overpowering urge to kiss.
He barely stirred, just snuggled deeper into my hold.
I carried him back to my bed.