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7
KAYLA
It was all my fault. Everything up to this point had been caused by my carelessness.
In my defense, it had been a stressful few hours, which completely threw me off my game. And then finding out my baby was missing…God, the absolute terror. It was like time had seized, and everything important in my world had shattered. I couldn’t do so much as draw in a breath, or I was going to start hyperventilating.
I should never have left him.
When Monty came back to town, all I could think about was getting him as far away from Hunter as possible. I didn’t even think that perhaps he could be working with a partner, someone who could snatch Hunter when I was gone.
And now that he had my son in his clutches, the only thing I could think of was to plead for him back. I was prepared to do anything, things like getting on my knees and bartering away my own life for his, but Monty had looked at me in confusion as if he had no idea what I was talking about.
At this point, as he stared down at Hunter in shock, I couldn’t help but think that maybe he was telling the truth.
“He’s my son,” Monty repeated. “Isn’t he?”
Instinct and self-preservation dictated that I deny it instantly. I shook my head, but it wasn’t enough. I had to come up with an explanation for why they looked so alike.Quick, I thought.Come up with something.
But no excuses came to my mind. The resemblance between them was uncanny in both coloring and facial expressions. Hunter was also a perpetually happy child, and when he smiled, a dimple appeared on his cheek, the same dimple that was on Monty’s cheeks. There was no way I could deny his parenthood, and it was part of the reason I had kept him hidden for so long.
It could be coincidental, I told myself, so I opened my mouth to form an excuse. “He’s not—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” Monty growled and speared me with an angry look that had me taking a step back. It struck me that this was the first time I had ever truly seen Monty angry. His hazel eyes usually glinted with amusement, but rage had turned his expression a frosty emerald, his gaze nearly like the Arctic. Instinctively, I took another step back, covering my son with my hand in case Monty chose to attack.
“He’s not your son,” I said firmly this time.
He looked up at me and gave me an incredulous look. “Are you serious with this? He looks exactly like me.”
“That’s just by chance,” I said. “His father had all the same features you do. It’s just a coincidence.”
“Then how do you explain the fact that he has the same birthmark as my little brother and late mother, huh?”
Shit. I glanced down at Hunter, who was still making baby sounds and trying to grab my hand to put in his mouth. I’d always wondered about the water droplet birthmark on his neck because, as far as I knew, no one in my family had it. I hadn’t seen it on Monty either, so I assumed it was just a fluke of nature and hadn’t thought much to cover it up.
“So you’re going to try and tell me that if I demanded a paternity test right now, I wouldn’t turn up as the father of the child?” Monty growled, his voice like steel.
Shit.
I felt caught with no way to escape. Though I was by no means a shrinking violet, Monty was still significantly larger than I was and could easily overpower me and snatch the baby away if he wanted to. The only safety I had was the policeman standing there and looking between the two of us curiously.
“Is there some type of problem here?” he asked.
I glanced at Monty. His jaw clenched and moved before he answered, “No, officer. There’s no problem.”
The officer eyed him suspiciously and didn’t look like he believed him, but then he glanced at the clock and nodded anyway.
“Alright. It’s getting pretty late, but I’ll need y’all to come in latest tomorrow and give your full statements.”
“Of course, officer," I responded. “Has Ella been here to give her version of events?”
“If you're talking about the babysitter, the answer is no. Not after she called,” he said.
I nodded. I would deal with that later. “How did you find him?”
“We put out an APB, but before we could even get it active, we received a report that someone mentioned a missing child in a stroller at the supermarket.”
“Ella said she left him in her car,” I stated. “How on earth did he end up at the supermarket?”
