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Dad hadn’t dropped my car off yet like he’d said he would, and I wasn’t going to go ask him for it. I had some savings, and I could put a down payment on a vehicle if I needed to. I didn’t want anything from my father, especially if he was going to be an asshole about Maverick.
But he’d said he was going to let me have the car the day before. Muttering a curse under my breath, I grabbed my cell phone and realized I hadn’t turned it back on. As soon as it lit up, I saw a text from my mom telling me to call her because she needed to talk to me ASAP.
Frowning, I hit connect without hesitating.
“Where are you?” she demanded, sounding out of breath.
“At Maverick’s,” I told her. “Kind of hard for me to go anywhere right now without a car.”
“He still hasn’t dropped it off?” she growled. “I’m going to kill him when I get home.”
“It’s fine,” I tried to soothe. “I’ll just buy my own car. I have savings, and the money Grandpa Hank put in my trust fund will be mine soon.”
“You’re keeping the car we bought for you,” she argued. “Stop trying to be all adult and shut up for a second, little girl.”
Her tone was full of sass, and I found myself fighting a grin. “Okay. What’s up?”
“I think Delaney might have traveled up this way. I don’t know if she’s looking for me, or if she’s just running scared from that motherfucker—” She broke off abruptly and inhaled sharply. “I’ve never wanted to put a bullet in someone more than this guy, River.”
The quaver in her voice had me sitting up straighter. My mom wasn’t a crier. I could count the times I’d seen her shed a tear on one hand with fingers to spare. That she was fighting tears now told me just how frayed her emotions were over the need to find her niece.
“It’s going to be okay, Mom,” I promised. “We’ll find her.”
“I told you I don’t want you pulled into this. Tony is dangerous. He’s already got men out looking for Delaney.”
I rolled my eyes, thankful she couldn’t see me. “Fine. You will find her. You and Aunt Raven,” I amended.
“I know I’ll find her. I just hope I can do so before Tony does.” She blew out a frustrated sigh. “All right, enough of my pity party. Colt said you weren’t feeling well. Is it that stomach bug going around?”
My hand automatically went to my belly. “Not really,” I whispered, fighting the quaver in my own voice now.
The silence that filled my ear was loud as she tried to decipher what that meant. “Okay, little girl. I’m going to need more information than that,” she muttered after a moment. “Did you have a bug or not?”
“Mom,” I whispered, blinking back tears. “I…”
“River, baby, what’s wrong?” she whispered back.
“I…” I clenched my eyes closed. “I had a miscarriage.”
“Ah, honey. I’m so sorry.” There was more than a quaver in her voice now. I heard her sniffling, and when she spoke again, her voice was just as choked as mine. “I…I had a miscarriage before we got pregnant with you, so I know you’re hurting right now, my baby.”
“I-I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not something we talk about.” I heard her blow her nose. “It took a lot out of me, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to try for another baby because I was scared. But you surprised me. It was the best surprise of my life, but afterward… I don’t know, I guess I had a little PTSD, but I couldn’t chance feeling that way again. So, we decided one kid was enough.”
I’d never asked why I was an only child before, especially since my parents had always been all over each other. Now that I knew the reason, it made sense. Mom wasn’t the type of person to let emotions rule her, but if she’d felt even half of what I was feeling right then, I knew it must have scared the hell out of her.
Knowing she’d gone through something like me and understood what it felt like, I found myself telling her everything that happened.
“Are you okay now, though?” she rushed to ask. “The bleeding, the pain?”
“I’m good, except this emptiness that I feel deep in my soul,” I confessed.
“I know right now it might not seem like it, but it does get better,” she promised. “It might take a while, but one day it will just be a dull ache and not the painful throb it is today”
“I hope so,” I murmured. “I just want to keep myself busy so I don’t have to constantly think about it. I was going to go into the shop and see if there’s anything that needs to be done, but Mav is asleep and I don’t have a car at the moment.”
“I’ll call your dad right now and make him bring it to you.”
