Chapter 17 #2
Braking hard, I shut off the engine and lunged from the vehicle, hurrying toward the front door.
Yes, it was.
A baby in a pink cardigan with a hood, bundled inside a blanket inside a car seat looked up at me and promptly burst into shrieking tears.
“What the …” I gaped, looking up.
There was no one there.
Just my car in the drive.
I brought my phone up and tapped on my security system. There were the alerts I missed. Opening them, I saw that approximately twenty minutes ago, an old Vauxhall drove up and a brunette got out of the driver’s seat. I zoomed in again and let out another curse.
I knew that brunette.
Pamela. We’d had a casual fling for about six weeks. Almost two years ago. It was during the time Eilidh disappeared from my life after she overheard me telling Lewis our friendship didn’t mean anything.
My gaze moved from the video feed to the baby as Pamela took the car seat out of the back of the Vauxhall and left it at the door. She didn’t even glance back. Merely hurried into the vehicle and sped off.
She’d left a baby outside on a cold spring morning.
“Fuck.” I picked up the carrier. “Hey, cutie,” I shushed the crying baby as I pulled out my house keys and opened the door to bring her inside. “It’s all right, wee yin. We’ll get this figured out.”
A note tucked inside the baby’s blanket caught my eye as I carried her into the living space and set her on my dining table.
“Let’s have a look, eh, and see what this madness is all about.
” My soft words seemed to quiet her, and she watched me curiously as I opened the note.
“Eh, what does your mummy have to say?” Seeing my voice had calmed her, I read the note out loud, “Fyfe, she’s yours—” My heart jolted.
“Her name is Millie. I tried to take care of her by myself, but I can’t.
She’s better off with you. You can give her a comfortable, safe life.
Sorry for doing it this way. Take good care of her—Pamela.
” The note tumbled from my hand as I looked at the baby girl whose face crumpled as if she sensed my emotions.
She opened her tiny mouth and extremely loud noises squealed out of it. Millie sobbed like she was dying.
Oh fuck.
That’s when I smelled it.
“Have you pooped?” I leaned in and wrinkled my nose. “That is either a dangerous fart or you have cacked in your breeks, wee yin. And I bet you’re hungry too. Bugger. Fuck. Shit.” Panic coursed through me. “I should not be swearing in front of a baby.”
My immediate thought was I was fucked.
My second thought was to call Eilidh.
Third to call Lewis.
Fourth to call Callie.
A million thoughts flew through my head. Was Millie mine? I’d worn protection and Pamela had sworn she was on the pill. Not 100 percent effective but still. DNA test. I’d need to do a DNA test. Should I contact the police? I needed to get my team on tracking down Pamela.
First and foremost, however, I had to put my abject terror to one side because there was a wee girl in my house most likely hungry and she definitely needed her nappy changed.
“Right. Nappies. Supplies. Food.” I grabbed her car seat and snatched up my keys. “We can do this, Millie. You and I, we’ve got this.” My breathing was a bit shallow as we hurried from the house. “I know we’ve just met, but together we can do this.”
Her crying slowed to a whimper as I googled how to buckle the car seat into my vehicle.
“There. We’re intelligent human beings.” I tapped her nose and she sniffled, her fists curling angrily.
“Aye, I understand, wee babe. I’ve been sitting in shite of my own making for four weeks and it’s uncomfortable as fuck.
Let’s get you out of your shitty breeks and into a clean nappy.
” I brushed her cute chubby wee cheek with my knuckles and hurried into the driver’s seat.
As I pulled away from the house, I waited for my phone to connect to the car and then I called Walker Ironside, head of security at Ardnoch Estate, and told him an emergency had come up and I couldn’t make our meeting. I hung up before he could ask questions and drove to the supermarket in Thurso.
Trying to shop in a hurry while carrying a baby in a car seat was not ideal, but I prioritized the nappy change first, grabbed the supplies, and headed into the baby changing room in the supermarket.
Luckily for me, Lewis had forced me to change Harley’s nappy a few times in case I ever needed to do it when he or Callie wasn’t there.
I tried not to gag as I discarded the dirty nappy in the facilities and cleaned Millie’s red wee bum.
Now that I was changing her, she’d grown docile and quiet, gazing up at me with dark blue eyes filled with childish curiosity.
“That was a lot of shite, Millie,” I told her quietly.
“For such a tiny wee thing, you can shoot the poop.”
She giggled, like she understood me.
That’s when it hit me.
This wee human being might actually belong to me.
Holy fuck.
“Right, let’s not think too hard on that or I might have a panic attack and you need me in good working order, don’t you?”
Millie made a gurgling sound, as if in agreement.
“Aye, that’s what I thought.” New nappy on, I pulled her floral leggings back up and shirked her wee top over her rounded belly.
Soft wisps of dark hair, and lots of it, curled on her head beneath a white beanie hat and she had pale skin.
She was a beautiful wee thing and had her mother’s coloring.
I winced remembering how I’d been depressed at Eilidh’s distance and I’d met Pamela on a hookup app.
She’d just graduated and taken on a job as a solicitor in Inverness.
She wasn’t interested in a relationship, but the sex was good so we’d used each other for a few months.
Then one day she didn’t answer my text, so I just assumed she’d moved on.
Now I was thinking she’d found out she was bloody pregnant.
Doing the calculations, that put Millie at around eight or nine months.
Fucking hell.
A knock at the door had me bundling Millie back into her car seat.
Her face crumpled as soon as her bum touched the seat.
Before she could start wailing again, I lifted her into my arms and cuddled her against my chest. Her wee soft breaths puffed against my neck as she made some gurgling noises and rubbed her face against me. Settling.
Okay, she was tired of the car seat. Understood.
I opened the door as another impatient knock sounded.
Two women stood on the other side and one had a baby in her arms.
“So sorry. Her mum just dumped her on me with no supplies and she won’t go back in her car seat and I’m trying to get all the stuff together one-handed,” I blurted in an exasperated rush of words.
“Oh dear.” The childless woman, who looked to be around my mother’s age, stepped forward. “Let me help.” Before I could say anything, she’d gathered up the supplies I’d just bought and tucked them all into the car seat. “Can you manage like that? Or do you need some help?”
I gave her a grateful smile as I took the proffered car seat. “No, that’s great, thank you.”
“Good luck,” the younger woman said as I walked away.
First, I had to put the car seat in the car.
Millie was sleeping in my arms as I strode back into the supermarket and zeroed in on the baby aisle.
There seemed to be a million different kinds of formula and baby food.
Harley was fifteen months and ate vegetables and all kinds of things now, but when had that started?
I couldn’t think. Taking my phone out, I searched online, typing awkwardly with one hand.
According to Google, Millie was still on formula but she’d eat food too.
I should just get her formula and then drop her off at social services.
That was the right thing to do.
Looking down at her face, seeing the sweep of her dark lashes and her tiny wee lips pursing like a goldfish, a pang of panic shocked the fuck out of me.
If this wee girl was mine, I couldn’t abandon her.
Not like I’d been abandoned.
No … she was staying with me until I had the DNA results.
Decision made, I grabbed some formula and headed to the checkout.