Chapter 15
Anya
He’d hardly looked at the baby.
Parker paced in the kitchen, trying to get the camera footage to pull up on his phone.
“Tell me again what she said to you,” he said, eyes locked on his screen.
I repeated it for the third time in the past ten minutes and was waiting for something, anything from the man in the kitchen. His face was still pale from shock, and he’d tugged on a Voyagers shirt while I brought the car seat inside and unhooked the baby. The warm, writhing little bundle in my arms was halfway asleep again, and I rocked back and forth, watching him battle the heavy weight of his eyelids with an ache in my chest the size of an elephant.
Parker cursed under his breath. “I don’t know how this stupid fucking app works. Why won’t it let me back up?”
I shifted the baby in my arms and looked over his shoulder. “Tap those little dots right there in the top corner.” I pointed at his screen. “Now select the time you want to see right there.”
He gave a quick, tight nod.
“Did you read the letter?” I asked quietly.
Parker bit down on his bottom lip while he scrolled through camera footage. “Just the first couple of lines.”
The baby’s eyes finally closed, and I eased him back into his car seat, rocking it a few times to ensure he stayed asleep. The letter was shoved back in the diaper bag, along with a can of formula, a dozen diapers, two pacifiers, and a couple of outfits.
The girl claimed, in the short, clearly hastily written letter, that she got pregnant after she slept with Parker about ten months earlier. The baby was born four weeks premature. She had no family, no support, and struggled with depression and anxiety even before she’d gotten pregnant. Postpartum hit her hard. She was scared. Scared she’d hurt herself. Accidentally hurt the baby. When she saw the news of our marriage, it felt like the sign she needed. The baby was ours now, she said. She didn’t want money. She didn’t want to see him. What she wanted was for him to have a better life than she could give him.
Please don’t try to find me, she said. Please. Just love him the way he deserves. I can’t do that for him.
There was more, but my heart hurt too much to keep reading.
“There,” Parker said, leaning in to squint at the screen.
He tilted it toward me, and when I saw her standing by the gate, I nodded. “That’s her. She knocked after she set the baby down. God, what if I hadn’t been down here? There’s no way it would’ve woken us up.”
Parker’s jaw tightened, and he cut me a quick, intense look, but it disappeared just as fast as it had appeared. Still, I felt it down to my toes.
“Do you remember her?” I asked carefully.
He swallowed. “No.”
I closed my eyes. “She … she said something at the end of the letter.”
His head snapped in my direction. “What?”
“She said you’d just gotten your tattoo,” I answered quietly. “The birds. She said it was still covered, and she had to leave for work before you woke up, but she saw it in the morning.”
“Fuck,” he breathed, tossing his phone onto the counter with an angry clatter. He set his hands down on the island and hung his head, ribs expanding as he took a few deep breaths. “Fuck . That was right before … I remember looking at pictures in that apartment before I left to see if I remembered who …” He straightened, face blank and eyes dead. “I can’t do this.”
At the empty tone, my head reared back. “What do you mean you can’t do this?”
Parker strode out of the kitchen and disappeared back toward his bedroom.
I covered my mouth and fought a wave of fear that trickled up my spine. It wasn’t even my past literally showing up at the doorstep, and I wasn’t sure I could do this either.
“Think,” I whispered. “Think, Anya.”
The baby was still sleeping.
Leo, I corrected. Leo was still sleeping. She’d never used his name in the letter, but the birth certificate was in the bag too. Parker was listed as the father, and I blew out a slow breath while my mind raced. The temptation to call my parents was strong, but they were hours away, and we had some more immediate needs.
I pulled out my phone and tapped on the newest contact I’d added. She picked up right away.
“Hey, sunshine. What can I do for you?”
“Louise,” I said, and I cursed the tremble in my voice. “I can’t leave right now, and we need … we need some things.”
“What happened?”
I glanced back at the car seat, gently touching one of his little socked feet. “I hope you’re sitting down.”
Ninety minutes later, Louise was bringing the last of the bags into the house. Parker was still in his room, and I had a very hungry Leo giving me an impressive display of his lung capacity. Spike sat on a dining room chair and watched the chaos unfold with a general look of disdain.
I was trying to measure the correct amount of formula into a bottle while I rocked the screaming baby. “I know, sweetheart,” I cooed. “I’m trying to move fast, I promise.”
Louise hustled into the kitchen and gestured for the baby. Her face melted when she had him in her arms. “Oh my stars, look at his little face.” Her eyes glossed over. “Aren’t you just perfect, honey?”
“Thank you for coming,” I told her.
Louise gave me a sad smile. “Has he come out of the bedroom yet?”
I shook my head as I got the scoop leveled off correctly. Once the bottle was capped, I shook it to dissolve the powder with my finger over the opening of the nipple. Once it was mixed, I tested the temperature on my wrist, then handed it to Louise.
The second she brushed Leo’s cheek with the bottle, he latched on hungrily. We both sighed loudly.
“You’ve done that before,” she commented with a small smile.
“I was ten and fifteen when my two younger sisters were born. I know my way around a newborn.”
She gave me a knowing look. “I think that’s going to come in handy right now.”
With a tight throat, I watched her stare lovingly into his face. “What do we do? Parker’s name is on the birth certificate. She doesn’t want to be found.”
Louise tilted her head toward the family room, and I followed her, picking a seat in the corner of the L-shaped couch while she chose one of the rocking armchairs next to the fireplace. “You take care of him. Parker can get a paternity test if he wants, but this young lady isn’t out for money. It’s not benefiting her to lie about anything.” Louise dragged a gentle finger down the slope of his little nose. “This young man needs someone to love him right now. And I believe the two of you can do that.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be here that long,” I pointed out quietly.
Her eyes were full of understanding when she looked up at me. “I know, honey.”
I rubbed my forehead and sighed. “Parker’s complicated, isn’t he? I don’t know what to do with him any more than that baby.”
It didn’t feel prudent to tell Louise that I’d let him screw my actual brains out earlier that day. In light of this giant life curveball, suddenly, that romp in the bedroom felt increasingly naive and silly and … troublesome.
It was chasing pleasure in a situation where I still felt unsteady. Maybe Parker did too. And that wasn’t going to help either of us.
Something about Parker made me lose my head. That was becoming abundantly clear. And I couldn’t help but worry that it wasn’t a good thing, no matter how good he’d made me feel.
Louise was quiet for a few moments, smiling faintly when Leo let out an angry squawk when she shifted her arms and the bottle popped out.
“Parker’s heart is broken, honey. Not in the same way yours was but broken all the same.” A tear slid down her cheek when she looked up at me. “This baby is straight from that time when he was chasing anything to fix those broken pieces. His baggage is a living, breathing human, making him remember how empty he was for all those months.”
“He can’t hide from that, though.” I shook my head, staring up at the stairs that led to the bedrooms like I could magically conjure his stubborn ass. “That doesn’t help anything.”
“No. But it’s easier said than done getting through to that man.” She nodded to the bags. “Now, why don’t you get that bassinet out? My daughter said it’ll be perfect until you can find something permanent.”
The stack she’d brought with her was impressive. A huge box of diapers, a bin of clothes that her youngest grandson had just grown out of, a couple more cans of formula, baby soap, wipes, and one of those activity mats.
I gave her a wry look. “And where am I setting that bassinet?”
“Oh, that’s not for me to say,” Louise answered, an imperious arch to her brow that I quite liked. “You can’t force him with something this precious. People have broken far less fragile things when they can’t get their head screwed on straight. But he might need a little tough love from his wife.”
I snorted. “Let me guess, you’re going to take your leave of us before that happens.”
She smiled serenely. “I’m no fool. I’ll check back in the morning to see if you need anything. You still plan on heading out to his mom’s after breakfast?”
God, his family. I sank my head into my hands and groaned. “I don’t even know.”
“Well …” Louise sighed. “One good thing I’ll say about all this.”
I lifted my head. “What?”
She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, easing the bottle out of his mouth and shifting him to her shoulder to pat his back.
“Little Leo here just stole all your thunder, sunshine. I don’t think anyone will be watching you too closely now.”
“True.”
“Or,” she amended. “They’ll be even more curious since you’re now raising his surprise son together with no warning, and they’ll watch you like a hawk to see how you’re going to react because this family is notoriously protective of their own.”
I gave her a long look. “Does that feel helpful?”
“Nope.”