The tears streamed down Jessie’s face freely now, but she didn’t care. She brushed them away and continued talking as she walked. Now that the dam had broken, she felt powerless to stop the water’s flow.
“I don’t even have a job. If Patrick wants a custody battle, I can’t afford to fight him. I don’t even know if I want to be a mother right now, and that makes me feel so guilty.”
Jessie kicked a golf ball-sized rock. “I’m afraid I’ll be a horrible mother. I mean, what if I hurt my baby when I had my wrist x-rayed a couple weeks ago?”
“Didn’t they put a lead drape on you?”
“They did, but what if it wasn’t enough? And I colored my hair the other day. Isn’t that bad for my baby?”
“No, the hair color doesn’t get into your bloodstream, so it won’t harm the baby.”
Jessie continued to express all her concerns—some rational, but most irrational—while they walked.
Emily patiently listened to her vent, offering the occasional comment, but mostly remaining quiet.
By the time they’d returned to the house, Jessie still didn’t know what the future held, but ranting seemed to lift some of her burden.
Emily turned to her as she pulled her right heel up to her butt to stretch her quad. “You have plenty of time to figure things out. You don’t have to decide right away. But I still think you should make that plan of what you want your life to look like. Only now, you’re making it with your baby in mind.”
Jessie nodded, but inwardly she shook her head. Despite the pretty journal Robert had given her, she was even less eager, now, to write down what she wanted her future to look like.
Because no matter what she wrote, there was no chance now her life could turn out the way she wanted.
Chapter 21
Patrick pulled the ugly, smelly rental car up to the dinky auto repair shop in Providence. His lawyer had requested the car delivered to the county jail for Patrick and instructed him to drive straight back to Seattle.
But Patrick refused to spend four hours in this stinky car, especially when the GPS tracker on Jessica’s car said it was here.
He looked around as he climbed from the hideous greenish-brown car. There, behind a padlocked fence, sat Jessica’s Infiniti. He tugged the baseball cap he’d bought down low on his head. Knight’s Grocery was as much of a general store as it was a grocery store and didn’t carry name brand clothing, but he’d bought some clean clothes, at least. It wasn’t likely anyone around here would recognize him, but it would be just his luck to cross paths with Winters again. No, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Patrick wrinkled his nose at the smell of oil and grease as he walked into the garage. He shoved his hands into his pocket. Heaven forbid he touched something. He had enough of a stench clinging to his skin after a week in that cesspool they called a county jail. Spending the night in the Seattle jail with gang members had been disgraceful enough, but the past week with a psychotic drug addict as a cellmate had been horrendous.
“Can I help you?” A man with broad shoulders and dark red hair straightened up from under the hood of a car.
Patrick smiled and turned on the charm, even though it was the last thing he felt like doing. “I hope so...” He noted the name on the man’s shirt. “Scott. I’m here to pick up my car.”
The ginger-haired mechanic squared his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest as he glared at Patrick. Scott stood at least four inches taller than Patrick, and his broad shoulders were pure muscle.
“I’m here for the Infiniti Q50,” Patrick said, keeping his distance.
“Figured.”
What did that mean? What lies had Winters spread about him in this pit-stop of a town? As if Winters hadn’t taken enough from him already.
After everything Patrick had given Jessica, he couldn’t believe she’d thrown it all away to come back here.
“Could you please unlock the gate, so I can get my car?” Patrick spat.
“Can’t. Not ‘til you pay the impound fee at the sheriff’s office.”
“Impound fee?” It was all Patrick could do to keep from shouting.
He’d already paid the bondsman ten percent of his exorbitant bail as collateral, since his father refused to bail him out a second time.
Since Patrick didn’t have enough equity in the million-dollar home he’d purchased last year, he cashed in one of his investments to come up with the fifty grand.Such a waste.It had taken all week to free up the funds.
“Yep.” Scott made a point of looking at the clock covered in a layer of grime. “I close in thirty minutes.”
