Now me? I wasn’t a fan of drugs and so long as the gangs running them stayed away from me and mine, I’d leave them alone. I’d also done a favour a few years ago for one of the men in charge of the South End. I’d found the man who’d assaulted his sister and delivered him to them.
They thought they owed me and I let them think that, but I’d never call in that favour. Not when I’d taken a predator off the streets.
“Did Aunt Jess get in touch with her?”
Uncle Sean leans his shoulder against the wall next to me and nods. “She did, and she’ll be starting at the bakery next week. You know she won’t be able to work full time with a little one, right?”
That was the other thing that galled me. She’d had a baby with the motherfucker. A baby that she’d had to birth by herself because he was too busy getting his end away with another woman to care that his current one was bringing his child into the world. But that had been nearly fifteen months ago. I’d watched as she’d struggled for the last year, basically being asingle mother while still being attached to the fecker. That’s how much notice he took of his daughter.
“Mmh,” I nod and watch as she tugs a car seat out from the back of her beat up rust bucket of a car and traipses tiredly up the steps of a run-down house.
You could see that she’d tried to make it prettier by planting flowers and hanging pretty curtains in the window, but a shit box was a shit box no matter how you dressed it up.
“I’ve arranged for a place at a local nursery for her, fully paid as part of her wages.”
Uncle Sean chuckles, “Thought of everything, haven’t you lad?”
When her door shuts, I turn with my uncle, and we walk slowly down the path towards where we were parked. It’s getting late and she’s in for the night, and if I have my way her man won’t be home tonight. Or any other night from now on.
“Just about I reckon.” I answer, taking my keys out of my pocket. I stop at my bike and swing a leg over it as I wait for my uncle to get in his car. He opens his window and leans on it as he waits for me to continue. I never have to explain shit to Uncle Sean; he just seems to know. “I’ve got to figure out how to get her out of this area and into the house next door to me. I’ll only relax once she’s there.”
Uncle Sean nods, “You’ll figure it out son.” He clicks his tongue then asks, “And the baby?”
I shrug, “The babe is part of her.”
He nods; he knows that it doesn’t bother me who the babe’s father is. As far as I’m concerned once he’s gone, the only father she’ll ever know is me.
CHAPTER 2
MOIRA
Exhaustion pulls at me as I park my car in front of the house. That’s all it is. A house. Not a home, no matter how much I’ve tried to make it one.
A snuffling sound has me flicking my eyes to the rear-view mirror and the small, sweet face reflected there. She’s the reason I’m making hard decisions. Decisions that I should have made years ago, before I got involved with Harry. Before I allowed him to whittle away at my self-esteem until I was half the woman I used to be, not that I was much of one to start with. Not when I’d been taught from childhood that it was better to be quiet and keep out of the way.
I wish I’d had this opportunity before I let him persuade me that a baby was what we needed.
I learned long ago to know better than to wish for things.
Not that I regretted Mikayla, far from it. As far as I was concerned, she was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Where I wasn’t strong enough to get myself out, I was strong enough to not want my daughter to grow up in a toxic environment.
When Mikayla snuffled again, I knew she’d be waking soon. Opening my door and stepping out into the cool evening air, I knew that it wouldn’t be long until she was screaming to be fed.
Opening her door, I reach in and release the safety catch on her car seat. She’d not be able to use this for much longer, she was getting too heavy for it.
As I stand up, grasping the handle of her car seat, I feel it. That feeling that I’m being watched. I’ve felt it for years. Scanning around, I don’t see anything, but I know he’s there. I always know, and not for the reason I’m sure most would think.
Not because he scares me, quite the opposite. When he’s there, I never worry about my safety.
And my stalker is definitely male, because I’d caught a glimpse of him over a year ago when I’d gone into labour with Mikayla. I’d woken up in the hospital and caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man watching me, and that same feeling of safety had enveloped me. I’d been so out of it on pain killers that at first, thought I imagined it, but I knew in my heart that I hadn’t.
I’ve always known from the first moment I’d felt his watchful gaze that he was there to protect me, and I have a feeling it’s because of him that I was offered a job today. A job that I couldn’t turn down.
Not only because the money that was offered was more than I’d ever hoped to earn elsewhere, but also because it came with childcare covered for Mikayla. Of course, the person that offered it to me wasn’t him. No. He sent someone in his stead, but I knew it was him, and I knew of his family. You couldn’t live where I did and not know the O’Shea family.
It wasn’t that they were a bad family as such. They never went after anyone who didn’t deserve it, but they were a tight knit bunch. Which is why when Jess O’Shea had first approached me regarding the job offer, I’d been surprised.
But I was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The fact that she’d come to me in my hour of need should have surprised me but somehow it didn’t, not with my benevolent stalker watching my every move.
