Page 80 of Derecho

“Ma didn’t say or do anything else?”

I racked my brain. I was looking at that fucking letter from Dakota, but... “Ma just swept her hand over Reid’s face and then kissed his cheek. Nothing else.”

“Oh, shit.” Colt’s eyes closed. “Ma should know better than that. She shouldn’t be kissing him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Babies don’t have any immune system. It’s fine for Lainey to be kissing him, he’s literally getting her antibodies when he nurses. But no one else should be kissing his face. I don’t think we ever had to tell Mom…”

“She must have just gotten swept up in the moment. Lainey should know she didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I’m gonna stop you right there. I agree, Ma would never do something to upset Lainey or put Reid in danger. But just because she didn’t know doesn’t mean Lainey’s feelings are wrong. If it was Violet, and she was upset about this…I’d be talking to Ma, and figuring out how to reassure the woman I love that everything was going to be okay. Their minds are rewired by pregnancy and birth to be on high alert, Lach. She’s probably struggling to keep her head above water with all the stress hormones her body is flooded with.”

“But I don’t know that everything is going to be okay. My mind is constantly screaming at me that I’m going to hurt them.”

“What do you mean?”

“All week, it’s just been…a struggle. Trying to not obsess over checking that everything is turned off. That the doors and windows are all locked. That they’re both still breathing. I asked Lainey to keep her door open so I can check on them during the night. I keep hearing this voice tell me if I don’t check, then they’ll be gone in the morning, and it’ll be my fault because I didn’t check.”

“Lach.” Colt’s hand landed on my shoulder, but I shrugged him off.

“How did I not know about the kissing thing?” I groaned. It killed me that I missed such a huge thing.

“Because you weren’t preparing to be a dad? Because you had all of a week and a half with Lainey here to wrap your mind around being responsible for the safety and well-being of a woman and her newborn? I don’t think it’s something people just know, so don’t beat yourself up about it.”

But I was preparing. That’s the problem. All the reading I did after Lainey got here. All the worrying. All the late night questions I searched on the internet. And it didn’t save her. It didn’t save her from my own family adding to her anxiety.

“Is this really about Lainey?”

“Yes,” I bit back at Colt. He didn’t get mad. The man was stone faced, but his eyes gave him away. “No. He wrote me. It’s been three pain-filled years, and I haven’t heard a goddamn thing from him just like I wanted. Just like I told him the last time I saw him. Why did he have to write to me?”

“Dakota?” My brother’s eyes were wide. It was clear in the terms of his deal with the federal government that he was not to have contact with me or Jessie.

“Yeah, fucking asshole.”

“What did it say? What did he say? Do you want me to turn it in?”

“He didn’t put his name on it. No return address. It’s typed up and everything. He had a guilty fucking conscious and wanted to absolve himself of what he did. And it said everything you’d think it would. He’s sorry for everything that happened. He’s thought about it every day since. The guilt is eating him alive. He misses our friendship.”

Colt groaned, running his hand over his jaw. “What are you gonna do?”

“Nothing. That letter is sitting crumpled on my countertop, and I want to use it to start a fire.”

“Good. Do it. Burn it and leave him in the past. That shit that happened, your accident, you’ve been doing so good. Don’t let him set you back.”

“I won’t.” And I meant it. Because I would have spiraled before. I would have let it eat me alive until the compulsions took over and I was stuck back inside my house. But I didn’t want Lainey and Reid to be stuck in that vortex with me.

Lachlan

Imade my way back inside about a half hour after Colt left. I needed a therapy session. My time with Sloane was usually grueling, but I had to process everything that had happened with someone not emotionally involved or related to me.

I was surprised to see the door to Lainey’s room cracked open, the light from the lamp on the side table casting a warm glow out into the hallway. I knocked, opening the door a little further to poke my head in. Lainey was nursing the baby, looking absolutely exhausted, and I knew it had been too long since she’d eaten. Hell, I was fixing her food when Mom stopped over, and she didn’t eat that. Her door had been shut when I brought dinner up, and Reid was…what the fuck had the book called it? Cluster feeding! The little goober was waking up what felt like every ten minutes to get more milk, and I could tell how much that was draining her.

“I’m gonna grab something from the kitchen,” I said as she finally looked up at me. I could instantly tell she’d been crying, her eyes were puffy and the end of her nose was red. “You want anything?”

“No, I’m good.” She winced, shifting Reid a bit on the pillow. “I’ll grab something in a bit if I feel up to it.”

“Okay.” I walked away, grabbing Lainey’s water bottle, knowing full well there was no way in hell I wasn’t making sure she actually ate something. So back downstairs I went.