Chapter 2
two
. . .
Riley
Vanessa is beautiful, but the thing I like most about her is her take-charge attitude. Within ten minutes, we have an action plan and find a lab that will do a same-day paternity test.
I’m positive Alberto Gonzales is the father. I may not have been at the bar that night, but Carter swore up and down it was him. She had no reason to lie—not about that, at least.
Emmy hasn’t left my arms this entire time, content to hang out with me rather than explore her new home.
What am I going to do when I can’t see her every day?
When I don’t get her chubby baby snuggles each morning.
My throat spasms, so tight I can barely breathe.
I don’t want to cry. I refuse to cry in front of this man who gets to keep the last remaining member of my family.
But I’m not above crying where he can’t see me. “May I use your bathroom?”
Alberto nods. “Down the hall, to the left.”
He doesn’t make any move to take his child from me, though, staring blankly instead.
Vanessa stands, reaching for Emmy. “Let me hold her for you.”
Somehow, passing over the baby to another woman is ten times easier than the thought of giving her to him.
I rush to the bathroom, practically slamming the door behind me, then sink onto the closed toilet seat and cover my face with my hands. I don’t want to do this, but I know all the reasons I have to.
A sob bubbles up in my throat, and I move to cover my mouth before it escapes. Tears streak down my cheeks, faster than I can wipe them away with the sodden tissue he gave me. Scrambling for a strip of toilet paper, I wipe my eyes again and again, but there’s nothing I can do to stop the flow.
I miss my sister. I need my sister. But she’s gone. And she’s the one who got us into this mess.
From the very start, I told her she needed to be honest with him. Alberto had the right to know he had a child, and she deserved to know her father. But I know how scared Carter was of losing the one person who was supposed to love her unconditionally.
Except me. She was my best friend, my other half, ever since we met while living with a terrible foster family when I was twelve and she was fourteen. I wasn’t enough for her, though.
She stayed with the Burkes for seven weeks; I was there for four and a half months. We stayed in touch, and when I went to high school, we reconnected. From that point on, we were inseparable. We looked out for each other.
Fuck, I miss her so much. She was there one moment, and then she was gone. I’m glad Emmy wasn’t in the car with her; I don’t know what I’d do if I lost them both.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I try to pull myself together. I can do this. I can do hard things. Or so I thought. The waterworks start all over again, and I can’t muffle my choking sob.
A soft knock raps on the bathroom door. “Riley?”
It’s him.
“Are you okay?” His voice is quiet, concerned.
“I’m fine.”
Through the heavy wood separating us, I hear him exhale a long, drawn-out sigh. “Okay.”
His passivity makes my blood boil. He’s not behaving the way I expected him to. Every day for the last week, I scripted and replayed this entire conversation in my head, and none of it is going according to plan. He’s supposed to fight back. Argue. Do anything besides accept this.
I fling open the bathroom door, not making any attempt to hide my tear-stained face.
“What do you want?”
His eyes widen as he takes me in, his posture defeated. “I wanted to check on you. I know this must be difficult for you.”
“Do you?” I demand. “Do you have any idea what I’m going through?”
“I know if my sibling was suddenly gone, I’d be a mess,” he murmurs. His soulful brown eyes catch mine, holding my gaze. “And if I were about to lose my last link to them, I don’t know how I’d survive it. So, yeah, I have an idea.”
A fresh wave of tears clings to my eyelashes. “I’m not okay,” I admit. “I don’t know how to be okay with any of this.”
He reaches for my hand, tugging me from the bathroom, and I follow him limply. Surprise ripples through me when he pulls me into his arms, wrapping them around me.
“What are you doing?” I mumble into his chest. His hard, sturdy, muscular chest.
“You looked like you needed a hug.” He tightens his hold around me to the point I can barely breathe, but it’s sort of… perfect. “Has anyone hugged you since everything happened?”
I shake my head against his pecs. I’m getting tears and snot all over his soft T-shirt, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
This man is a complete stranger to me. But I soak in the comfort he’s offering.
He smells like cedar and firewood, with a hint of spice I can’t identify. Like a bonfire on a warm summer night, or a roaring fire in the cold of winter. His strong arms are wrapped securely around me, and he’s not letting go.
This is nice, but it can’t last forever.
So I pull myself away, swiping at my eyes. “I know you have no reason to trust me… but Emmy is my last remaining link to my sister. Please don’t shut me out of her life.”
To my surprise, he takes my hand in his. “Why don’t you come chat with Vanessa? She has an idea.”
The woman is rocking Emmy as we approach, and her eyes fall to our linked hands. My face heats and I pull my hand free. I don’t know this man. I have no claim to him.
But for one moment, one perfect minute, I wasn’t alone in this world.
I take Emmy into my arms again, inhaling her sweet baby scent. Her chubby arms cling to my neck, and the tears threaten to fall again.
“Presuming everything checks out with the paternity test,” Vanessa says, “we still have a few problems.”
My eyebrows dart up into my hairline. “Like what?”
“Like I’m about to leave for a road trip,” he says. His voice is rough, and he clears his throat. “If she’s mine…” He blows out a breath. “If she’s mine, I’ll do right by her. I’ll do everything I need to. But like I said earlier, I travel for work three-quarters of the year.”
Oh. Right. I hadn’t thought about that.
“You live in Arizona,” Vanessa adds.
My stomach sinks. “I can’t afford to fly out here more than once a year. Twice, maybe.”
Alberto shakes his head. “How attached are you to Arizona? Would you be willing to relocate?”
“I’m going to need you to spell this out for me.” My tone is slow and measured, each word dragged up from the depth of my heart. I don’t want to let myself hope. It would hurt too much if I’m wrong. “Because if you’re saying what I think you’re saying…”
“I need a nanny, or at least someone to stay with Emmy while I’m gone, and someone else for daytime. And I’m gone a lot,” he says. “You don’t want to leave her. I get that. And I don’t blame you one bit. I wouldn’t want to leave her, either.”
Swallowing, I study Emmy’s perfect little face, then raise my eyes to his. “What does this mean?”
“You would move here. You would live here, so there’s minimal disruption to her routine,” Vanessa cuts in. “He’d pay you a salary, along with free room and board, and you’d take care of her.”
“My job…”
“I can pay you better,” he says, full of cocky confidence.
“It’s not about the money. I have a career. I have an apartment.”
“One you can’t afford.” His eyes pin me to the spot. “You said it yourself, you don’t want to leave her. And I need help.”
Blowing out a breath, I consider my options. I don’t have very many. Give up my last remaining link to my sister, or a job in a field I’ve worked my ass off to get to, but don’t actually love.
“I don’t want to be a nanny forever,” I say. “I’m okay with it for now, until she’s bigger. But—”
“We can revisit it in the offseason,” he suggests. “I’ll be home more and won’t need as much help. I don’t have time during the season to fuck around with someone I don’t trust.”
“But you trust me?” I scoff in disbelief. He’s got to be shitting me; I’m a complete stranger, and he wants to leave his kid with me? Have me move into his house?
He laughs. “No. I don’t.”
At least he’s honest about it.
“But you’re all Emmy knows, and I can’t disrupt her life any more than has already happened. At least for now, you’re my only option.”
Somehow, that makes me feel better about this. He’s backed into a corner; he doesn’t want this, just as much as I don’t.
Emmy starts to fuss, and Alberto’s eyes widen.
“Can I…” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Can I hold her?”
Even though it kills me to let her go, I know it’s the right thing to do.
We both stand, and I slowly slide her into his massive arms. He immediately moves to support her bottom and her back, and her chubby hands cling to him.
He shifts her, and I’m afraid he’s going to drop her, but he adjusts his grasp to hold her more securely.
One thick finger runs over her hand, and she grabs at his index finger with her strong grip.
His eyes well up, and his throat works.
“Hi, Emmy,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m your daddy.”