Even at half a head shorter, Josh holds my gaze with ease. Perhaps the idea he’s stepping up isn’t so absurd after all.
“You take care of my little sister when she gets here or I’m coming for you.”
He falls back a step, then turns and strides from the room, wagging a tail of followers as he goes.
A girl.
We’re having a baby girl.
My heart swells so much my legs turn to jelly, and I slump into the nearest chair, face in my hands to hide the fact I’m grinning like a fool.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
NADIA
My toes are freezing.My circulatory system has set up no-go areas in my body. Goodbye feeling anything in my fingers except aching cold. Same for my feet. Apparently, that’s too far away in the new union boss’s eyes.
It doesn’t help that during the past week, the nights have finally capitulated to the oncoming winter, getting so far down into the single digits that my body can remember what it’s like when there’s a morning frost. When I peer across the fields, I think there’s a hint of white that I don’t remember seeing before.
Maybe wishful thinking. Or whatever it’s called when a person doesn’t want the outcome but brings it into life by pure willpower all the same.
Dumb. That’s what it’s called. Dumb.
I snigger to myself, hook my hands into my armpits, and try to pretend that I’m sitting in front of a cosy fire instead of waiting in this freezing van by the side of the road, ready for any stray psychopath to come wandering past and stab me to death.
Woah. Time to rope that optimism back a bit.
I don’t recall being so doom and gloom minded when I was pregnant with Josh, but my life had been so shitty perhaps this level of atrocity in my thoughts was comparatively flowers and sunshine.
Mack shifts in his seat, tapping his fingers on the wheel. For a man who insisted on driving he seems well upset that he got his way.
“I can’t see them anywhere.”
Ah, yes. Mack of the blindingly obvious.
I’ve made his acquaintance far more often than I wanted to in these past weeks, putting all the final nails in the coffin of the plan, and… No. Wait. Gloomy brain is at it again because that definitely doesn’t sound like the right analogy. Metaphor. Whatever.
“Don’t worry. I can’t see them either so your eyesight’s A-okay.”
He grunts. It’s a very typical response for Mack. They range from the grunt of happiness when he saw a Mr Whippy van and discovered I keep a wealth of loose change in the cup holder to a grunt of death; at least I think that’s what he communicated to the last ‘assistant’ who failed to rent him the correct type of white van.
Luckily, Arlene, the assistant in question, wasn’t planning on working with him on any future projects.
Neither am I, though for entirely different reasons.
“You know if they don’t make the meeting point in the next fifteen minutes, it’s over. The rest of the men I hired down the track will disband and there’s no refund because you’re the one who failed to show.”
“Yes, Mack. You’ve already reminded me of the fact twice this evening.”
I twist and turn in my seat, scouring the view in each direction, hoping for a sign but there continues to be absolutely nothing. All along, I’ve known there are a thousand things that could go wrong. That any slight change in plans anywhere along the route—from a bribed corrections officer not turning up to work when they should to the council deciding to put roadworks in the wrong place—would nix everything and there won’t be another chance.
Note to self. When trying to spring a prisoner from a medium to high security facility, perhaps choose one who hasn’t recently tried to escape.
I mean, it’s almost like the staff in the joint don’t trust him.
Another reason occurs to me. Much as I don’t like to think about it, I probably should, even at this late stage.
Joshua doesn’t like my choice of a new stepdaddy. Not that we’rethatfar along in our relationship. If I were a reasonable person, I might even suggest the odds are stacked so high against us, we never will be. But I can be as unreasonable as the next person when I want to be. When to be anything else means I won’t end up with the life I now know I want. With the man I now know I want by my side.
