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The bar was doing well. Last year I’d purchased the building next door which housed a bookshop and bakery. I’d bought out the elderly couple that owned the bookshop since they were trying to sell the business. It was nearly as profitable as the bar, but I did have some money saved up.
I could buy a house, something we could raise our kid in together.
But even though I held her hand in mine, we weren’t together. We were just in this together.
“I promise I’m going to make this right,” I said without meaning the words be said aloud.
She looked over at me, her eyes somewhat glossy with tears. “I know.”
“This would look nice on you,” Sierra hummed as she held up a sage green work shirt.
“We’re not here for me,” I reminded her for probably the eighth time as I followed her around Costco’s clothing department. It was the closest place to the hospital, and we had roughly twenty minutes to spare before her appointment.
“My mom would keel over if she knew I was shopping for clothes at a bulk food store.” She chuckled, putting the shirt in the cart and moving on to the next section. “Maybe I should call her.”
I snorted, unable to stop myself. She unfurled a pair of Wrangler jeans and held them up to me. “What size is your waist?”
“Get back to the Women’s section,” I teased, snatching the jeans from her hands and tossed them lazily back on the shelf. She gave me a sarcastic pout and fluttered away.
Ten minutes later, Sierra had new jeans, leggings, pants, and a few shirts and sweaters. Socks and underwear. I noticed she totally ignored the area where baby clothes were folded neatly. I’d barely glanced at that area was well, my stomach in a tight knot as I pushed the cart toward the check-out stands.
“Is that all you need?”
“Yeah,” she said softly, and pulled out her purse.
“You didn’t put anything in the safe like I told you to, did you?”
“I don’t really like having to depend on people,” she said sharply, a hint of annoyance in her voice as we waited our turn to pay. “I spent my entire life being dependent on my parents, not allowed to work.”
“Where’d you get the money then?”
“I have—had,a trust fund. I took out as much as I could from an ATM before I left and that’s it.”
And she couldn’t use any credit cards she had now, or withdraw more money, not when her parents were looking for her and watching those accounts to try to track her movements.
“I’d like to get a job. I have a degree.”
“In what?”
“Communications.” She smiled with a burst of pride. “My parents thought it was a waste because they didn’t ever think I’d be working. I don’t have any job experience, though, so it’s practically useless.”
We moved up in line.
“I own a bookstore. It’s in the building next to the bar, across the alley. Cara is the only employee right now. If you really wanted to earn some money I could… set you up there a few times a week.”
“Okay.” She grinned, and my chest shuttered a bit at the excitement behind her eyes.
“But,” I said firmly, tossing the clothes on the conveyer belt, “part time. And you won’t be doing any heavy lifting.”
“That’s fine,” she beamed, not bothering to put a damper on her excitement.
“Fine, then,” I said gruffly. “But your money away, Sierra.”
She did as she was told, for once, and I paid for the clothes, even the clothing she’d snuck in for me.
We walked back out to the truck, and while she got inside right away, I stood near the bed of the truck and looked across the parking lot to where the hospital rose in the distance.
What if something was wrong? What if we got there, and the baby was… There was no baby, not anymore?
