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Fuck. I’d been doing this dad stuff for less than an hour, and already I was failing.
“Here,” Charlotte said, swooping in to my rescue. She reached over and adjusted Savannah in my arms, then handed me the bottle. “You’re doing great.”
It didn’t feel that way. I sighed. “Do you want to take her?”
“I think you should keep going. I’ll do the burping afterward.”
Bottle done, Charlotte was good as her word and took Savannah away from me. I sat in the chair, watching her walk the baby around the perimeter of the kitchen and living room, cooing to her and getting her settled to sleep.
“Small steps,” I said, feeling useless as I watched a pro at work. Like I knew what the hell I was talking about. But still, she was my kid, and my instincts hadn’t led me wrong so far. Or, at least, it felt like she was my kid. I wanted proof, tangible proof, even if there was a connection there regardless. “I wonder how long DNA test results take,” I said, thinking out loud.
My original plan had been to come home, visit the cemetery, put flowers on my family’s graves and make my peace with it, then return to my SEAL team. I’d taken a week of leave. But now things had changed. First thing I’d need to do was move back my return date. It shouldn’t be a problem. I had plenty of time to take, since I never went on leave. No need, with nothing to come back to. A day here and there, sure, to blow off steam, but nothing longer. Not in ten years. But now…
"I need to push back my return date while I figure this out,” I continued.
Charlotte gave me a look from across the room—not angry, exactly, but definitely upset.
Shit. Had I said all that out loud too? Apparently.
Well, there was nothing I could do about it. I had to make plans. I couldn’t just go AWOL.
FOUR
“Come on, sleepy girl,” I said, carrying Savannah down the hall to my bedroom. “Let’s get you into bed.” I lowered her into the pack and play I used for a crib whenever she and Alexis came over, then straightened, arranging the blanket over her so she wouldn’t get cold.
God. The thought of poor Alexis made my chest clench with grief. I looked up at the ceiling and whispered, “I’ll take care of her, I promise. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”
Then I gazed back down at the baby, already sleeping soundly. She looked so peaceful and adorable it made my heart ache. I blinked hard, getting myself together. I wouldn’t fall apart. Icouldn’t. Savannah needed me, and there was too much to do.
I needed to get the baby more clothes. And supplies. And toys. I should write this down so I didn’t forget, my brain already filled with things I needed to do for the tavern. At least the baby had a safe place to sleep and me to take care of her. Hopefully, that would be enough until we got the rest figured out.
I headed back to the living room for paper and a pen and found Gabe at the kitchen table, still sitting exactly where I’d left him earlier, looking about as shellshocked as I felt. Poor guy. He’d had his entire world rocked in the span of about three hours. Taking pity on him, I wandered over and opened the fridge. “Are you hungry? Want something to drink?”
It took him a moment to respond. “I have some questions.”
“Okay.” I took a seat across from him and picked up my phone. “Let me order us a pizza first, since I haven’t eaten all day.”
Usually, I just popped a frozen one in the oven, but since Gabe was here, I figured I’d splurge on delivery. When I put the phone down, I clasped my hands atop the table, feeling out of sorts. Not defensive, exactly, but… wary. Yep. Wary was a good word for it. I hadn’t seen this guy since high school, and I didn’t like the way he made me feel …studied. Like he was sizing me up even thoughIwas the one who should be profilinghim. “Okay. You’ve got thirty minutes. Ask away.”
“When did Alexis come here?” He shifted in the chair to face me, tiny lines of tension near the corners of his mouth. Strangely enough, it only made him hotter. Not that I was looking, because I wasn’t. Nope. “I met her last June in DC when I was on leave, but she told me she was from Pennsylvania, not West Virginia.”
Right.Focus, Charlotte. Focus.
I coughed, then nodded. “Alexis came into Rhodes Tavern ten months ago, already four months pregnant, looking for a job. We became friends.” I twitched slightly from the sudden stab of grief in my chest at the reminder that she was gone. “Best friends. Like sisters, really. We told each other everything. She didn’t seem to have anyone else. One night, Alexis told me about her ex-boyfriend who beat her up and put her in the hospital, threatened her, stalked her.” Mentioning it now made what happened to her seem even more obvious. “Then, another time, she told me about this sweet Navy SEAL she’d met one night after she and her ex had broken up. She said she hoped you were Savannah’s father.”
Gabe shook his head, then raked a hand through his hair, like he was still having a hard time wrapping his head around it all. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I was a mess at the moment, too. “I don’t know about the sweet part,” he said. “But I remember that night. We had a great, uh, connection.” He looked like he blushed at the admission. “The next morning her phone kept blowing up with calls and texts from her ex and I just walked away. Didn’t want all that drama on leave, you know?” His expression clouded over with regret. “Jesus. Why the hell did I walk away?”
“Hey, you didn’t know.” Without thinking, I reached across the table to take his hand. He looked so distraught that it was easy to sympathize with the guy. My fingertips tingled from the heat of his skin, but I didn’t move away. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“No,” he said, staring down at the table. “But I feel like I could’ve donesomething. Maybe things would be different?”
Our eyes locked at the thought, but I shook my head. I couldn’t let him take the blame.
“Stop, don’t beat yourself up.” I sat back, letting him go and crossing my arms, more in self-defense than anything else. Touching him had been a mistake, since now I seemed to be even more aware of him. I needed to forget this ridiculous zing through my bloodstream. It was distracting, and we had serious things to discuss.
We sat for a moment or two in silence, time stretching as we took in everything that had happened and everything that was left unanswered. I picked at the edge of the wooden table, frowning. “The police let me into Alexis’s house earlier, to grab some extra diapers and stuff for Savannah for the next few days. It was a mess. But considering it was supposed to be a robbery, I thought it was weird that whoever it was—the person who killed her—didn’t take her laptop. It was new and expensive and just sitting right there on the coffee table.” I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering that awful scene. “What was even weirder, though, was that right beside the computer were a bunch of smashed picture frames, mainly with pictures of Alexis and Savannah in them. Seemed pretty random for a thief with no connection to the victim, right?”
I paused a moment before putting words to my darkest fear about all this, the one that had haunted me since I’d pulled up at the crime scene. I whispered it, low and rough from lack of oxygen, because suddenly it was hard to breathe. “What if her ex found her?”
