“She’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” I reach out to him out of instinct before realizing I shouldn’t.
My hand hovers an inch above his leg before I pull it back and turn to look out the window.
It’s been ten months since I’ve seen him, and I’m as comfortable as ever. His presence is a bubble of safety. The wild side he thinks I should fear does nothing but calm me. I can’t pinpoint what it is about Hayes that has me trusting him completely, but I do.
Wringing my fingers in my lap, I watch the sagebrush fly by until we reach a cluster of houses in the middle of the desert. At the edge of the club’s compound is a neighborhood that might as well have been plucked from the Vegas suburbs and placed in the middle of the desert.
Hayes pulls to a stop in front of a house near the end that’s not nearly as well-maintained as the others. Chipped paint flakes from the siding, and a small,decorative floral piece hangs at an angle on one of the porch beams.
I’m still staring at the crack in one of the stairs leading to the front door when Hayes pops my door open, making me jump. If he notices my overreaction, he doesn’t say anything, moving to Charlie’s door next. He pops it open and starts tugging at her seat.
When it doesn’t budge, he pulls back. “I’m not sure how you work that thing.”
“It’s this button.” I lean past him and press the button that detaches the car seat from the base.
“Right.” He clears his throat, making room for me to pull her out of the car while he grabs our bags.
His eyes dart back and forth from our suitcases to Charlie, and it hits me just how much my uncle took from him. It’s more than time he’ll never get back. Hayes doesn’t know what she needs or when, how much formula she drinks, or something simple as how to work her car seat.
She’s a stranger to him, and it’s my uncle’s fault.
Or is it mine?
I’m the one who didn’t try to escape sooner.
Guilt gnaws at me as my gaze drops to the ground. “So, this is your house?”
The wooden stairs creak beneath his boots. “It was my father’s. It was passed on to me after he died, but I don’t live here.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Stepping inside, I’m met with outdated, dusty furniture.
“Don’t be. Hedeserved it.”
My eyebrows pinch, but he doesn’t elaborate. Clearly, Hayes was not close with his father, and the stiffness in his shoulders tells me now isn’t the time to ask him why.
I look around, noting that there’s no sense of Hayes in this house. Pictures have been removed from the frames, and the surfaces are bare. Wallpaper is peeling. The furniture is outdated—the style is at least a few decades old.
It’s more of a mausoleum than a home.
“I never stay here,” he says when he catches me staring at the dusty living room. “Sorry it’s a mess.”
“It’s fine.”
After all, anything is better than the cage I’ve spent the past ten months locked up in. Opulence means nothing when it’s masking a prison. I’ll take dust and old furniture over that nightmare any day.
Charlie wiggles as I lift her out of her car seat, and she immediately spits out her pacifier, searching for her bottle.
“I can go in the other room if you want privacy feeding her,” Hayes offers, watching her squirm.
“It’s okay, she drinks formula. I tried breastfeeding, but she wouldn’t latch on, and I wasn’t producing enough milk. Between her colic and my blocked ducts, we really struggled those first four weeks. She was losing weight and supplementing turned into a full-time thing…” I stop myself, realizing I’m rambling about breastfeeding struggles. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to know all that.”
His ridiculously beautiful eyes still make me nervous to the point that I can’t stop talking.
“Hey.” He walks over, lifting my chin with the gentlest touch. “Idowant to hear about it. I’m not going to lie and tell you I know what I’m doing with any of this, because I don’t. But I’m willing to learn. For you and for her. And the only way I’m going to do that is to hear about everything.”
I swallow hard as he pulls his hand back, and I believe he actually means it. “Okay… Well, breastfeeding didn’t work for me, and I know people say that it’s what’s best for the baby, but Charlie started losing too much weight, so I switched.”
“As long as she’s eating now, that’s all that matters.”
