“Pretty fuckinghorrible.”
Denise rolled over and faced away from him. She pulled his arm over her waist and gripped his wrist. Maybe talking about these things was easier if she couldn’t see him. “Her mom and my mom are sisters. We were driving to North Carolina from Florida and decided to surprise them on the way since they lived in South Carolina. Their house was trashed. No food. Garbage everywhere. I remember Sarah stank to high heaven and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a bath. My dad lost his shit. Beat the crap out of my aunt’s husband and told my aunt we were taking Sarah and she’d have to call the cops if she wanted to try to stop him. My parents went to court for custody the next year. It wasuncontested.”
She was playing with his fingers and he couldn’t help but let his mind wander to other things he’d like her to play with, but it wasn’t thetime.
“I’ll tell you what I can aboutEddie.”
“That’s not why I’m here,Denise.”
“I know that. Sarah worked really hard to get away from him and to give those kids the love and happiness she never really had.” She shook her head. “I’ll help how I can, but nothing can happen to those kids. I won’t put them in a position where that’s even apossibility.”
He kissed the back of her head. “You won’t haveto.”
Chapter 11
Denise blinkedin the early morning light and scrunched up her swollen face. Her sinuses were stuffed and her forehead felt like someone had beaned her in the center of it a hammer. Plus, her stomach was a little queasy, probably because she hadn’t had much to eat at the wake lastnight.
Shit. Kaden and Kimber. Grabbing for her phone on the nightstand, she unlocked it and revealed a screen full of texts fromBree.
How’re thedogs?
Are youokay?
Please answer me. I’m starting toworry.
Sending thecavalry.
Then this morning: Sleep in.Taking the kids forpancakes.
Mortification was an ugly bedfellow. A sneak-out-the-next-morning-without-trying-to-find-your-underwear, pretend-it-never-happened kind of ugly. Holy bejeezus, she’d made an ass out ofherself.
A low, snuffling snore came from behind her and she froze.Please let that be Sprocket.Except she’d left Sprocket with the kids. She eased onto her back and stared at Chris still sleeping in the bed next to her. Maybe if she slunk down under the covers, she’d find a portal to a parallel dimension where she hadn’t lost her shit in the middle of a thunderstorm, hadn’t cried after sex, and wasn’t currently fighting a wave of nausea brought on by either hunger or extreme embarrassment. It was hard to tell which was the drivingforce.
He’d stayed though. Even when she’d turned into a certifiable basket case. Even after she’d given him what promised to be an impressive blackeye.
He rolled to his stomach and bunched the pillow under his head. Blinking his eyes a few times, he finally left them cracked in a sultry, half-opengaze.
“Morning,” he mumbled. “What time isit?”
“Almosteight.”
“M’kay. Thirty more minutes.” He shut his eyesagain.
There was no stopping the smile at hisadorableness.
“You’re staring atme.”
“Just looking,” shesaid.
A few seconds passed and he blinked his eyes and closed themagain.
“What happened to your leg?” she asked. The scar was still red and not one he’d had before heleft.
He sighed and turned to his side to face her, bunching the pillow under his head. “We had two agents undercover with the Anarchists. They’d missed a couple of check-ins, which was unusual. I was sent in as the brother of one of the agents. My cover was I was trying to find him because our dad was sick. I kept getting the runaround on where my agentswere.”
His eyes were on her, but his gaze was focused inward like he was watching the reel of events play in his mind while giving her the highlights. “Their bodies turned up in a landfill. They’d both been shot execution-style and thrown away like garbage. One of the agents was awoman.”
The last statement hung in the air. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. This conversation had gotten way heavier than she’dintended.
