Chapter 5
After making sure McKenzie was safely in her car seat, Delilah climbed into the car and started the engine. This was a nice place, out at the edges of town. No neighbors in view, quiet and peaceful. It almost looked like her fantasy cabin in the forest. But she was glad to be leaving.
Before she even got into reverse, the man came up and knocked on her window. Delilah rolled it down, grateful that McKenzie hadn”t started crying yet. Small miracle. Delilah gave the guy a brief smile. “Yes?”
”If you need anything, call me,” he said. ”I just texted you with my phone number.”
Delilah looked at him more carefully than she had before. His eyes were unique, a yellowish brown. They also looked guarded.
”What did you say your name was again?” Delilah asked.
He looked taken aback. ”I didn”t. I”m Ben Channing.”
”Great. Thanks.” She rolled up her window again. Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Ben Grumpypants Channing.
McKenzie fussed in the back seat. Delilah wished her perfect, beautiful daughter would take a pacifier. When McKenzie was two weeks old, Delilah had desperately purchased every brand of pacifier available at the store. McKenzie had wanted nothing to do with any of them.
While she drove and McKenzie fussed, tears coursed down Delilah”s cheeks. Back in the day, what felt like one million years ago, Delilah had thought she had known what it meant to be tired. She had stayed out too late, partied too hard, and she’d thought fatigue had been the price.
That had not been real fatigue. Having an infant who woke you up every two hours—that was fatigue. True exhaustion.
But it wasn”t Delilah’s exhaustion that made her cry right now. Maybe fatigue was part of it, but it wasn”t all of it. She couldn”t believe that Chase was dead. When McKenzie had been born, and Delilah had wondered if Chase would want to know, she had rationalized that she and Chase had been together at a different time in her life. It had been a fun time, and responsibility hadn”t really factored into it.
His brother, Ben, had been surly. It was obvious he didn”t want to give her any details about Chase”s death. An accident, he’d said. But what kind? Car accident? Rock climbing accident? Had Chase been savaged by one of the mountain lions that roamed the area? She didn”t know, and likely, she never would. She had no claim on Chase—she hadn”t had a claim on him a year ago, and she didn”t have a claim now.
She sniffled. Now her baby girl didn”t even have a chance to know her father.
She pictured Chase as she drove. His bright, dancing ocean-green eyes. His easy smile as he lifted up a bottle of beer and toasted her. The heat of his skin, and the way his muscles had rippled beneath her touch. He had been so alive. Alive, and carefree.
She didn”t even know what the word carefree meant anymore. Pregnancy had catapulted her into responsibility. She’d stopped drinking, stopped staying out late, stopped partying.
McKenzie finally quieted. Delilah checked the mirror and saw that she was sleeping again. McKenzie”s little nap in Chase’s driveway hadn”t lasted very long.
Delilah remembered that wish she’d had yesterday, when she had seen McKenzie smile for the first time. She wanted somebody to share this joy with. She wanted somebody who could appreciate McKenzie as much as she did. She had hoped Chase, with his easy smile and dancing eyes, might be that person. He wasn’t the person for Delilah—she was no fool, and she knew they had never been in love. But he could’ve been there for McKenzie.
Her eyes filled with tears again, but she carefully wiped them away. She could be sad, sure, but she also had work to do. Once they got home, Delilah would do some tummy time with McKenzie. That”s what the doctor had recommended, tummy time, music, and even books. Tomorrow after work, Delilah could get some board books from the library.
She could be sad that Chase had died, but she had to keep on moving forward for her little girl.
She reached her rental house and pulled into the driveway. McKenzie was still asleep. Delilah dreaded waking her, so she turned off the engine and quietly, slowly pulled the emergency brake. As carefully as possible, Delilah eased her seat back as far as it would go. She could just close her eyes right here in the driveway and, like the baby, take a nap.
* * *
She sat up with a jolt,gasping. Her phone”s rhythmic buzzing had woken her. She looked down at the caller ID and saw a local number, so she tapped the screen to answer.
”Hello?” she asked, keeping her voice quiet.
”Is this Delilah?” a woman”s voice asked.
”Yes, this is she.”
”Delilah, this is Janine from Tykes Palace. I reviewed your application this morning.”
Delilah waited. Dare she hope? Yes, dammit, she dared hope. Hope was all she had right now. ”Is everything in order?” she asked. ”I took my time with it and proofread it, but if I missed anything, I can fix it right away.”
Janine gave a little laugh. ”No, everything is perfect. I was wondering, how soon can you start?”
Delilah”s mind whirled. Her supervisor at the rental car agency knew that she was looking for a new job. He had already told her that she was free to go as soon as she found something. Likely, he was tired of Delilah’s breaks to pump breast milk—a task that had to be completed in his personal office thanks to a federal law that ensured Delilah would get breaks in a private place that wasn’t a bathroom. He had to leave the room every time Delilah needed to pump.
”I can start immediately,” Delilah said. ”As long as it’s still okay that I bring McKenzie with me.”
”A baby girl?” Janine asked.
“Yes,” Delilah said with a smile.
“Ooh, I love baby girls,” Janine said. ”We kept trying for a girl, but we ended up with four boys.”
”Whoa,” Delilah said.
”I know, right?” Janine laughed.
The sound of her laughter was a balm to Delilah”s soul. She realized she hadn”t heard enough laughter lately.
“Anyway, yes, you can bring McKenzie with you,” Janine said. ”Can you come in tomorrow?”
”Yes I can,” Delilah said. ”What time?”
“Usually, I”d like you here at nine. But since I want to go over some background check information and share policies on safety, and get started with first aid training, would eight o”clock be too early?”
Nothing was too early for a new job—the job that would start making her dreams come true. ”I”ll be there at eight,” Delilah said, smiling.
She got the address and instructions on where to park, and she and Janine got off the phone.
Wow, so maybe finding Chase hadn”t worked out at all like she had planned, but at least she had a new job lined up. Things were getting better. She and McKenzie were not only going to survive, they were going to thrive and kick ass.
McKenzie started gurgling in the back, for once not waking up with a cry. It was a sign of more good things to come.
”Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” Delilah said. She climbed out of the car and unlocked the carrier from the car seat base. She balanced it and the diaper bag on one arm, then grabbed her wallet with the other.
”Heck yes, things are looking up,” she said to McKenzie.
McKenzie looked up at her with those blue-green eyes.
”Yes, mama,” Delilah continued, “I have a new job, and you get to come with me now.”
A grin spread across Delilah”s face as she realized the best part of this news—no more pumping her breast milk and storing it for McKenzie to drink at daycare. She let out a loud whoop and startled some birds in the trees nearby. Laughing, she twirled once with McKenzie in her carrier, then marched up the front steps to the door.
Suddenly, she stopped. The door was open a crack.
Had she left it unlocked? There was the stereotype that new mothers couldn”t remember to do anything, from locking up the house to turning off the stove to putting on socks in the morning. But she was pretty sure she had locked the door. She always locked the door—it was a habit. But she couldn’t remember locking it.
She moved McKenzie”s carrier away from the door, putting herself in between whatever might be inside and her baby. She looked more closely at the door jamb and saw that it was torn—someone had forced the door open, ruining the little metal part where the lock was supposed to slide in. It must”ve taken some strength.
She peered through the crack. The scum chair had been overturned and its stuffing pulled out. Someone had yanked every single kitchen drawer from its home and emptied them over the floor. The cabinets gaped open and their contents, as few of them as there had been, lay scattered over the kitchen counters and floor. Even the refrigerator had been emptied and its door dangled open.
Delilah didn”t need to see any more. She backed away from the house, took out her phone, and called the police.