Chapter 4
[Trinity]
It’s been four days, maybe five, since Mirabelle came to me. The days and nights are running together because I have not been sleeping.
While Stone sorted out the background of Marissa Olsen and the mysterious nanny, Mirabelle remained with me. Then, child protective services returned, wanting to know how I’d like to proceed with Mirabelle.
The answer was instant. Adoption, please.
Baby Girl was going to become Mirabelle Mary Rivers.
I hadn’t kept my maiden name when I married Dart. I’d been proud to be his wife, excited about the idea. The new name felt like a fresh start, which was silly, really, because I wasn’t any different than I’d been before I married him.
But I was certainly different after the divorce.
And while I introduced myself to everyone as Trinity Haven, legally, my name remained Trinity Rivers.
In the NICU, babies are often put on intense schedules for feeding and sleeping, the two necessities for growing stronger when a baby is premature, as Mirabelle had been.
She’d been born a month earlier than her due date, but she hadn’t needed the intensive care unit for long.
Her development showed no signs of distress or delay.
Just a normal five-week-old at this point.
Because of her schedule, Mirabelle needed to eat every three hours around the clock, and I woke up from her small cry just after ten.
After lifting her sleepy form out of the bassinet that belonged to my brother Clint when his daughter was an infant, I carry Mirabelle down the dark staircase and along the hallway leading toward the kitchen.
Then . . . I stop right before my toes cross into the room at the back of the house.
A cold chill runs down my spine.
Certain I am imagining things, I take a hesitant step backward, not even turning around to retrace the distance. As if I can reverse time. My second step is a slightly longer stride, setting my foot quietly behind me, so as not to disturb what I really hope I imagined. Or rather, who.
Fear doesn’t race through me as much as confusion.
Like, why would well-worn cowboy boots on manly feet be dangling over the armrest of the couch in my living room?
But with a shaky final step backward, keeping my back to the front door, I pause outside the archway into the living room and stare at the distinct shape of masculine boot-covered feet.
Boots I recognize because of a definitive mark on the bottom of the right sole. Like Andy was written on Woody in Toy Story, claiming the raggedy cowboy toy belonged to the young boy who owned him, my name is etched into the bottom of a boot.
Trinity.
I squint as bright moonlight beams through the front window, highlighting those size thirteens over the arm of my couch, noticing how much brighter my name looks on the bottom of that boot.
Like a permanent marker recently traced over the original engraving, etched with the sharp tip of a roofing nail one drunken night near a fire pit in the backyard of this house.
We’d just bought the place and worked long days to make it semi-livable. Dart built a fire in the yard for us to cook our dinner. Hot dogs and beans heated in a can.
To many more nights in our yard, he’d toasted to us, tapping his warmed tin against mine.
Later, he used the nail from our construction site to mark those old boots, telling me he belonged to me.
Heart and soul, house and footwear.
Always ridiculous.
And apparently, sleeping on my couch.
“What the fuck?” I shout, causing Mirabelle to flinch in my arms. Her tiny body curls against me like a little snail tucked into its shell home. The space against my shoulder and my chest is her comfort spot.
Dart jolts upright, forcing his feet to fall off the armrest and thud against the rug. He turns his head left to right like he searches for danger, then struggles to register his surroundings. With a hand on the back of the couch, he slowly turns toward me.
The gold in his eyes stands out, giving him a hawk-sharp gaze that narrows in on me.
“Jesus, Trin. You scared the piss out of me.”
I ignore his easy tone mingling with the casual way he’s sitting on that couch.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
With a shuddering mewl from Mirabelle, who shivers and shifts against me, Dart ignores my question to ask one of his own.
“Whose baby is that?”
“Mine,” I snap, running a protective hand up her back while straightening my spine. I hold my head high, claiming this child like he has my name written on his boots.
“When the fuck did you have a baby?” His gaze drops to my belly. His voice is a mix of shock, disbelief, and . . . hurt? Impossible.
He’d only be surprised to learn that I might have moved on, slept with someone else, and had a baby.
It could have happened, I’d argue. But it hadn’t. Not like he must think, as expressed in the lines across his forehead and the tightness around his mouth.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I counter, not giving in to his. He doesn’t need the truth. Not yet.
Slowly, he rises to his full height, taking one cautious step toward me before stopping. He slips his hands into his jeans’ pockets. The denim is worn and faded. He also wears a dark T-shirt with the emblem of a car manufacturer on it.
Dart is tall and lean but solid. His dark brown hair is a little longer and messier than he’d previously worn it. His biceps are muscular. His chest is wider than I remember. The tight shirt accentuates both areas on him.
Dammit. Why does he still look so good?
A thin layer of scruff on his jaw is unfamiliar. He used to keep his face clean. Racing standard, he’d told me in a message I hadn’t responded to but couldn’t help but listen to.
The first six months of separation were filled with disbelief.
One day we were arguing; the next, he was gone.
Despite his attempts at keeping up communication, I didn’t know what to say to him.
Eventually, I had to stop. Stop listening to messages. Stop reading texts. Just stop.
Near the one-year mark of his absence, I’d filed for divorce, signed the paperwork, and sent it to him to sign and mail in.
When the deed to the house arrived, along with a statement that the mortgage was paid in full, I wept for days. Not out of relief after more than a decade of struggling to make ends meet, but at the finality of it all.
We were over.
And he shouldn’t be here.
“Honey.” He chews his lower lip. “I’m home.
” His voice drops, sheepish while playful, and his arms spread wide before falling to his sides.
Those whiskey eyes, burnt orange with flecks of gold, give me a look that once dismantled all my ire when we argued over things, like who should take out the trash.
And dammit, I will not permit those eyes to have an effect on me now.
Thankfully, his gaze drops from my face to the floor, like he’s a child about to be scolded. Which he would deserve.
Instead, I keep it simple. “Get out.”
The words leap from my lips, bold and loud, like I’ve been waiting three long years just to kick him out, as if he hadn’t left me first.
His head sharply lifts, his shoulders falling. “Trin . . .”
“Don’t you Trin me. And don’t you dare sneak into my house and settle on my couch like you still live here.”
He sighs, turning his head to the side briefly before looking back at me again. Those eyes are fierce, frightening in a way that says he knows something I don’t.
“I do live here. This is my house.”
“This.” I stomp once and tighten my hold on Mirabelle. “Is my home.”
Dart pulls his hands from his pockets and takes a large step toward me, mouth falling open like he’s about to speak.
With the suddenness of his approach, I take a step back, and Mirabelle shudders again.
He glances at the baby and clamps his lips tightly, like he’s holding back words he knows he’ll regret.
Oblivious to the fight around her, but possibly sensing the tension within me, Mirabelle squirms. I hold onto her even tighter, like I want to be that snail, coiling into a protective shell, and taking her along with me.
Dart tilts his head to the side, letting his gaze rest on Mirabelle. His eyes roam over the back of her downy-haired head and along the short length of her curved back to her little bottom, settled on the ledge of my forearm.
His shoulders fall even further. His eyes soften. He turns his head one more time.
The distance between us is a valley of vast separation and undeniable pain. Of questions without answers.
Over time, I no longer knew who to blame. I only knew I couldn’t continue to love him.
I had to stop loving him.
And he needs to leave.
As if he read my thoughts, he steps back toward the low table between the couch and two chairs, swipes a ball cap off it, and sets it on his head, tugging the bill low, shielding his eyes.
“I see I’m not welcome here this evening.”
Welcome here? Is he serious right now?
“However, I’ll be back tomorrow so we can talk.”
He steps toward me again, and this time I hold my ground, not moving back at the suddenness of his approach, not shifting to the side to allow him to pass.
He pauses next to me, the heat of his arm warming my bare shoulder. A spark tickles my skin. One I dismiss as familiarity. I’ve known this man most of my life and have . . . had been in love with him for almost two decades. Been his wife. But not anymore.
Still, I’m dizzy from the erratic rhythm of my heart, like I’ve twirled in place too many times. My pulse is so strong, I’m certain Mirabelle can feel it where her head nestles near the side of my neck. Even Dart might be able to detect the ragged beat.
Watching as his own chest rises and falls with staggered breaths as he stands beside me, I imagine chaos running rampant inside his chest as well.
“We’ll work this out,” he mutters, side-eyeing Mirabelle.
Work what out? I want to shout, but he steps toward the front door faster than the words can peel off my tongue.
There’s nothing left to work out.
It’s been three years. Over one thousand days and nights of working to get him out of my system.
But if he’s truly gone, why do I suddenly feel a scratch in my throat and an itch along my skin?
Dart walks out the front door, shuts it softly behind him, and sets the LOCK button on the automated keypad, explaining how he got in here, but not why he is here.
“I knew I should have changed the code,” I grumble aloud, also knowing why I didn’t.
But that’s a thought for another day.
For now, I’m left wondering why my heart feels like it is tearing in two again, watching him walk out.