Chapter 2
Tears blurredthe road in front of her as Maya drove away from the mountain rescue centre where she’d just left her three-month-old nephew. Doubts had set in almost the second she turned her back, but walking away was the only way to keep Tyrique safe from the people who’d murdered her sister.
She spent weeks searching for the man her sister had slept with last year and finally traced him back to this small village in the middle of nowhere. And that hadn’t been easy. It had taken weeks of retracing her sister’s movements until she’d tracked her to a book festival that had happened close by. Then it was a rigorous process of talking to everyone she could until she found out he worked for the mountain rescue place. Turned out that having a baby as cute as her nephew around had opened doors that a single person would find slammed in their face.
She had no desire to meet Tyrique’s father or explain everything, but her sister said he knew about his son and had told her he didn’t want anything to do with little Tyrique. Not that her sister could be trusted. Years of living with her sister’s fantasies had taught her to take every word past her lips with a grain of salt.
Yet seeing him from afar she hadn’t got the vibe of a man who’d turn his back on his flesh and blood. His features were strong, with high cheekbones, mesmerising brown eyes, and short-cropped hair. He could have the world at his feet as handsome as he was. Not that she was attracted to him at all. He was her nephew’s father, that was all, and she needed him to care for his son while she avenged her sister.
Maya had relied on her gut most of her life. Trusting it had kept her safe more times than she could count, and her gut said Allen Brown would care for his son and step up.
God, she hoped so because this was the biggest risk. Not going after the drug dealers who’d killed her sister but trusting a stranger with her precious nephew. If something happened to her, she just prayed Tyrique had a good life filled with love. Surely a man who worked search and rescue was a good person.
Shaking her head, she drove to the closest big town of Hereford and booked herself into a cheap hotel for the night. She should head back to her sister’s place and face the music, but something held her back, the desire to stay close to Tyrique.
One night, that was all she needed, and then she’d go back to Birmingham. Back to her sister’s flat and try and figure out why she was killed and what the hell she’d gotten herself into this time.
Grabbing some water and snacks from the vending machine, she headed to her room and flicked the television on low, needing the background noise to stop the silence from being so loud in her head.
Checking her phone, she saw the air tag she’d slipped into Tyrique’s baby bag was active and showed him at the mountain rescue centre still. Was that a good sign or not? She’d waited until she saw his father walking back towards the door and it wasn’t like he could miss Tyrique. Was it?
God, what had she done? What was she thinking leaving an innocent baby alone on the mountains? Sinking to the bed, she rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her head in her hands. What kind of parent would she be if she couldn’t even get this right? Her belly hollowed out and she felt nausea swirl.
Rushing to the bathroom, she dropped to her knees and retched, her empty stomach cramping with the action. Sweat dotted her forehead and her heart hammered as she held the edge of the toilet and heaved.
When she was sure she was done, she sat back on her calves and, with a shaky hand, flushed the toilet. Standing on legs that felt like jelly, she washed her hands and face and scrubbed her teeth.
Glancing in the mirror, she noted the tired circles around her eyes and the way her curly black hair hung limp. She considered herself lucky, she had her mother’s high cheekbones and her Liberian father’s colouring. At five feet six, she was tall enough to wear heels but short enough not to struggle with clothes like her almost six-foot sister had. She and Rose had the same light brown skin and dark eyes, but her sister looked like their father and had very little of their mother in her.
She blinked wide as the reality of never seeing Rose again pinched deep in her chest. When Tyrique was around, she was so busy caring for him and trying to keep them alive that she didn’t have time to grieve. Now with nothing but the low, monotone drone of the TV to distract her, her grief and pain overwhelmed her.
She was all alone, except for Tyrique. Her parents were dead. Her sister had been murdered, and she felt adrift, like her anchor had been pulled and she was floating with no direction. Exhaustion was like a weighted blanket she couldn’t get out from under. But there was also anger.
How could Rose get involved with drug dealers when she had a baby to care for? Maya knew intellectually that drug addiction and mental health problems weren’t her sister’s fault, but right now she couldn’t make her heart accept it.
How could she be so stupid, so reckless?
Pulling off her clothes, she slipped into the shower, careful to keep her hair dry. She needed to feel clean but didn’t have the energy to dry her thick mane of hair. As she soaped her skin, she thought about her next move.
She’d go back to her sister’s place and wait for the dealer to show up again, the man who’d threatened Tyrique’s life if she didn’t agree to work off her sister’s debt. She’d been so brazen, so confident when she told him to fuck off, but a literal knife to her nephew’s throat had quickly made her agree.
He’d sneered, thinking he had her then, and had thrown a small wrap at her like he was bestowing some generous gift on her. As he and his two friends walked out of the smashed-up front door, people had watched with no reaction. As if a broken-down door and three huge, menacing men walking out of a woman’s flat were normal. Perhaps it was, but not for her. That was when her new career as a dancer for the creeps had begun, but she was a fighter and she’d find a way out of this.
Drying off from her shower, Maya pulled on jeans and a hoodie and shoved her feet into biker boots. Not how she would have slept in the past but, if the last few months had taught her anything, it was that it paid to always be ready to run.
Deciding some tea might help calm her nerves, she went through the small selection until she found chamomile. As it steeped in the hot water, she forced some almonds down and checked the air tag again. Still at the mountain rescue place but it had moved from the spot she left it. That was good, right?
Second-guessing herself wasn’t something she usually did, or it hadn’t been, but it seemed it was all she did now. All her life, she’d always had a plan, had known what she wanted, and what steps she’d needed to take to achieve her goal of becoming a Civil Engineer.
All her life, she had marvelled at the structures of bridges and dams, and she knew, even as a young girl, that she wanted to design structures like that. And she’d done it. She’d landed her dream job at twenty-six. Then, a year in, everything had imploded.
Now, she was a single parent, alone and being forced to dance in a G-string for pervy old men with grabby hands. Exhaustion tugged at her eyes, and she closed them for just a moment, letting the responsibilities that dragged at her like tar go for just a minute.
The next thing she knew a loud noise startled her out of her slumber. Maya sat up suddenly, disorientated for a second as she took in the strange room, and her gaze looked for Tyrique until everything crashed back into her.
A pounding on the door was followed by the deep demand for her to open up. Dread and fear skittered up her spine and she wondered if the same drug-dealing asshole, who’d threatened her and Tyrique, had found her.
“Open the damn door, Miss Sharp.”
The deep voice made a shiver move over her skin, and it wasn’t an unpleasant one. That voice was deep and smooth, and she wondered what it would sound like first thing in the morning.
Pushing off the bed, she brushed her hand over her hair to smooth out some of the knots from sleeping on it and headed to the door. Sliding the chain across, because she wasn’t an idiot, she pulled open the door a few inches.
A gasp left her in an unladylike squeak as she encountered the furious face of her nephew’s father, and he did not look happy.
“Open the damn door before I break it down.”
Her initial surprise was quickly replaced with pissed-off indignation. Stepping back, she slammed the door, threw back the chain and yanked the door open, arms folded as she blocked the door and peered around him.
“How the hell did you find me?” She’d been careful, she was sure of it.
“You didn’t hide very well.”
She was insulted but then it struck her that something might be wrong with her nephew. “Is Tyrique okay?”
She saw his eye twitch as he mirrored her position, crossing his huge arms over his impressive chest. She angled her neck up, trying not to show how intimidating she found him. He was huge, well over six feet with wide shoulders, trim hips, and thighs that made her have all kinds of thoughts.
“The child is fine.”
Maya felt her anger bristle against her skin. “The child?”
“Yes, the child you abandoned is fine. Being cared for by responsible people, not some flake.”
“Me? A flake?” Maya pointed a finger at her chest and watched his eyes follow the movement before his hot gaze fell on her lips. Ignoring the heat that slid through her at his hungry look, she glared.
“Yes, you were the one who dumped a child with strangers.”
“I did not dump Tyrique with strangers. I left him with his notably absent father.”
He cocked his head, a mocking gaze on his arrogantly handsome face. “And who might that be, spitfire?”
Maya threw her hands up. “You, you dumb jerk.”
“Well, that remains to be seen. I have a DNA test being run right now, but regardless, you don’t know me and I sure as hell don’t know you.”
“But you knew Rose well enough to put a baby in her and then turn your back on her.”
His perfectly arched brows shifted into his hairline in indignation. “Firstly, I did not intentionally put a baby in Rose, and it remains to be seen if I did. Secondly, I did not turn my back on anyone.”
“So, what do you call it when a man finds out he is a father and says he wants nothing to do with the child?”
“I call it bullshit. I haven’t spoken to Rose since the night we spent together and she sure as shit never told me I had a son.”
Doubt crept in, mellowing her anger as she saw the truth in his face. She didn’t know this man, but she would bet her favourite trainers that he was telling the truth, which was clearly more than her sister had done.
Her fight left her making her shoulders sag. “Really?”
He shook his head as his lips pursed. “Yeah. Pretty sure I’d remember that conversation.”
Maya stepped back from the door. “Do you want to come in?”
“Doesn’t seem smart to let a strange man into your room when you’re alone.”
“You gonna defile me in some way?”
Maya wanted to snatch the words back the second they left her mouth, her eyes shooting to his face for his reaction. A smirk played over his lips before he pushed past her and into the small room.
God, what had she done?