- SEVEN -
RAEGAN -
It felt incredible to actually be clean. Not the hospital shower with their sterile-smelling soaps kind of clean, but the really and truly fresh kind. And blow-drying my hair! I haven’t done that in years, and I couldn’t believe how light and beautiful it felt. I almost felt spoiled, and then I laughed at myself in the mirror with how ridiculous that sounded.
When I entered the room, Braden and Kate were sitting with their legs crossed at the little dining table. I smiled when I saw how happy they were with their food. We were never given bad food, but it was portioned and all extremely health-conscious. I can’t say that I hated the idea of them growing up eating only lean meats and tons of vegetables and fruits, but they never got the opportunity to splurge—ever.
“Mama, Lane said this is a pancake! I think it’s my favoritest,” Braden said with his mouth full.
“Your most favorite,” I corrected with a smile.
“Mama, look at this! Have you ever had one?” Kate asked enthusiastically.
I laughed, “Yes, it’s called a donut. Did Lane only order sugar?”
“No, we ate eggs, bacon, and bananas already,” Braden informed me.
“You guys are going to get sick, if you don’t slow it down.” I pointed seriously at them and then gave a little smile before making my way to see where Lane had gone off to.
“So, you don’t hate me, doll?” I heard Lane’s deep ask. I halted in my steps, first wondering why I would hate him and second, why he called me doll.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to call every day, but I’ll do my best,” he continued. I then realized he was on the phone and since his back was facing me, I slipped out before he even knew I had been there. But before I was out of earshot, I heard, “Love you too, doll. Give the baby a kiss for me.”
I heard the phone click back in the receiver and Lane began walking around the room. I didn’t know what to think about that conversation. Did Lane have another family? I mean, when he basically implied he had been with another girl recently, I took it as a fling. Now I realized that may have been presumptuous of me. I guess it had felt like he was flirting with me and usually guys in relationships didn’t do that. I could have been wrong.
I had obviously been out of the game way too long. Hell, even before I was with Braden’s dad, I was probably never really ‘in the game.’ Question was did I even care if he were with someone else or not? I wanted to say no.
Maybe this was just me worrying about how the situation would affect Kate. When I saw Lane and Kate together, I had really hoped that they would be able to spend plenty of one-on-one time together so they could properly bond. It might be harder for Kate to adjust to another baby or a... stepmom. I hated that idea instantly.
With my spine stiffened, I walked back into the room and joined Lane. He was now seated at the table, trying to work a fork with his left hand. He was obviously right-handed, but that hand was currently secured in a sling against his body.
“This sucks,” he grumbled while practically glaring at his left hand, willing it to do as he demanded.
I sat down across from him and frowned, not knowing exactly how I should approach the matter. I was never the type to silently hold my problems inside. Why let something fester when you could just get it off your chest? He looked up at me and immediately realized my mood.
“I... I...” he stuttered. “I’m sorry?” he asked with complete confusion in his tone. I wanted to laugh at his ridiculous deer-in-the-headlights look. Typical male, jumping to an apology that he obviously had no idea what it was for.
“So, how is this going to work? I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before, but I just don’t know how well Kate will adjust. She needs you. Just you. Not a step-mom or a baby. I know that sounds awfully selfish, but I know her... and I know she’s going to need time. Too many people all at once—”
“Whoa, hold on,” he interrupted my ramblings, which were quickly becoming incoherent. I was thankful for his disruption because I didn’t know what else I could add to prove my point. “I’m confused...what... what the hell are we talking about here? Stepmom? Baby? You lost me.”
“Oh, are you going to ask Kate to call her ‘mom’?” I shrank back in my seat with that last word. I was mom.
“What is going on?!” he whisper-shouted, leaning toward me over the table.
I pointed across the room toward the phone. “The girl... that person you were talking to. Doll?” I cringed. “Sorry, I overheard.” I wrung my hands together under the table and felt guilty for eavesdropping.
“Ohhh,” he laughed. “Audrey is not my wife or girlfriend or anything like that, and her baby is definitely not mine. More like a niece.”
“So, Audrey is your sister?” I asked, feeling a bit of relief. For Kate, of course.
“By blood, no. By what matters, yes.”
“But you call her doll?”
“It’s a nickname.” He shrugged and sat back in his seat.
“It’s a pet name,” I informed him.
“Yeah, Jace says the same thing.” When I opened up my mouth to ask who Jace was, he answered my silent question. “Jace is her husband.”
“She has a husband and he lets you call his wife doll?” My mouth must have been wide in shock.
“She was mine first!” he responded defensively.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Right... and you don’t see how that would make people question it?”
“Outside of Jace, it’s never really been a problem. Look, I met Audrey right after I fled to San Diego to look for Kate. She was just this sad little helpless girl who also happened to be the strongest damn person I had ever met, but she just needed someone to tell her and show her. I, on the other hand, was in so much pain that I couldn’t even remember how to breathe. We helped each other. She’s my best friend.”
I took a deep breath in and out. “That’s actually really nice. I had a best friend like that.”
“Had?” he asked while shoving a spinach omelet into his mouth, practically whole.
“Well, I haven’t exactly seen her in a few years...”
“Shit... I’m an a*shole.”
“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t just… that. Braden’s dad kind of got most of our friends in the break-up.”
“Your friends went with the loser that ditched you with a kid?” He looked at me with extreme confusion.
“I guess I didn’t have the best kind of friends after all.”
“I’d say so,” he mumbled.
“So, you moved to San Diego?” I asked, hoping to change the subject as quickly as possible.
“Yeah, almost immediately after I saw that tape and figured out who Flores was. Ash hated me for not keeping our daughter safe. Hell, I hated me. It hurt to be around one another, and almost a month after you guys disappeared, we knew it was over between us. I think Kate was really the only thing keeping us together anyway. Once she was gone... what was the point?”
“That’s so sad.”
“That’s what happens when you get married just because you got a girl pregnant.” I sighed heavily. “I sound like a total a*shole, especially since... she’s not even here anymore.”
“No, I just think you’re being honest,” I said, trying to console him. “At least you didn't ditch her.”
“I loved Ash, but I wasn’t in love with her. Corniest f*cking line ever, but I think it’s appropriate.”
I don’t know why but that made me chuckle. It was all so sad, but at the same time he still had this great outlook about himself.
“So, no luck in San Diego,” I stated. It wasn’t a question because obviously he hadn’t found us.
“No luck where it counted, I guess. I did run across Flores a handful of times, but I could never get close enough to pinpoint where he lived.”
“I don’t think it would have mattered. We were on some kind of weird island. With all of his guys, it would have been impossible to access it.” My words must have stunned him because his fork froze midway to his mouth and then he let it clatter to the plate below. I watched as he used one hand to push away from the table and walk out of the room.
“Okay...” I said to myself. That was strange.
Lane quickly returned to the room with determination in his eyes. Under his unrestricted arm, he carried a silver laptop.
“Those two are passed out in there. I think they’re in some kind of food coma,” he chuckled under his breath while placing the laptop on a small, cleared spot of the table.
I watched as he typed away on the computer in front of him. The lines on his forehead creased with purpose. He looked so stern in that moment and I couldn’t help but laugh. His face was filled with such severe emotions that it took him a second to wipe it away as he looked up at me in question.
“So serious,” I grunted, trying to imitate his stern face.
He laughed softly and returned to his typing with less concern etched into his eyes. I stood up and began moving the plates back to the rolling cart. I had taken a few bites of my food, but I just didn’t have a very big appetite. Lane pulled the chair I had been sitting in next to him and patted it, indicating he wanted me to rejoin him.
“Where were you guys?” he questioned.
I looked at his screen and saw that he had pulled up a Google map. Wow, those sure had advanced in the last four years.
“I didn’t exactly have a GPS or anyone around who would tell me where we were. Sorry.” I felt terrible that I couldn’t help, but I didn’t really want to focus on where we had been. My only concern was where we would be going now.
I watched the little map as he zoomed in and out of the area around Tijuana. Something hit me as soon as I saw the leg of land that extended south of the United States.
“Oh! Once we reached land off the island, it took us three hours to drive into San Diego.” I gave him the only piece of information I could remember that could possibly be valuable.
“Shit, that’s extremely helpful, babe.” He immediately began clicking things on the computer, but I remained frozen by that last word. Babe. Nickname or pet name? It had flowed off of his tongue so easily, but his excitement had added a bit of heat to it. Surely, I was overthinking it. Babe.
“I believe you guys might have been on Isla Montague. The distance seems about right, but there are virtually no pictures of this place. Which I guess would make sense...” He began rambling and I figured it was more to himself than me, because once again, I didn’t want to talk about where I had been. But something else occurred to me that might be helpful.
“The house was right next to a lighthouse, which definitely didn’t work anymore. I saw that thing every night out my window and it never turned on.”
He pushed the computer in my direction and pointed to a picture on the screen. “Was this the lighthouse?” I stared at the beat-up, old, square-shaped building that had always towered over me. I’d daydreamed about climbing up to the top of that thing many times. I just wanted to know what it would feel like to have the wind blowing in my face from that high up. One time, the thought of what it would feel like to fall to the earth from the top had entered my mind. I’d quickly chased it away with a series of jumping jacks and sit-ups, but that nasty little thought always had a way of getting in my mind when I was feeling the most stir-crazy.
“Yep.” I couldn’t look at it anymore.
“This place looks like it’s just a bunch of sand and dirt. No houses, or at least none that I can find pictures of.”
I stood from my chair and walked toward the window. “That picture has to be old. There’s a house there now. A very big one. The walls are the color of sand so maybe it blends in well. I don’t know...” My voice had begun to take on a panicked tone, and I could feel my chest closing in on my lungs. Seeing that damn lighthouse made me feel as if I were stuck in that room again. “I just...” Deep breath in. “Don’t see the need to look at those pictures.” Deep breath out.
Where had all the air in the room gone? Was I the only one that couldn’t seem to find the oxygen? In. Out. In. Out. I glanced back at Lane, who appeared to be breathing just fine. My lungs began to squeeze with an excruciating tightness, and all I could see was that damn lighthouse.
I sprang for the sliding glass door and threw it open. The balcony was small, but it had plenty of fresh air to spare. And no lighthouses in sight. Hopefully, it wasn’t lighthouses in general that brought this out in me—just that one. My hands gripped the railing until my knuckles turned a sickly pale color.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Two hands extended out on either side of me and grabbed the railing inches away from my own hands. I felt his heat behind me, but we didn’t touch.
“Hey, breathe. You’re okay. I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear soothingly, as if I were about to jump over the side. “I’m sorry. That was too early for you. I just got a little eager.”
“It’s not your fault. I just don’t want to ever see that again.”
“You won’t. I promise.”
I wondered at his words. What did he mean? Promise was a powerful word. Was he promising to always keep me safe from those people? Surely not. Or was it an empty promise, meaning that I was here now and they wouldn’t get me again? God forbid. I wouldn’t survive it again.
“Why do you care where we were? We’re here now.”
“Because I intend for them all to pay,” he practically growled.
I nodded my head in silence, because what else was there to say? He was mad that they had taken his daughter from him. I didn’t think there was any way in talking him out of his need for justice. In a way, I thought we deserved it.
“We should get ready to go to the station. I want to get this over with,” I told him, still speaking out to the street and feeling his heat radiate into the skin of my back.
“I’d rather make sure you’re okay right now. The station can wait, for all I care. Besides, they’re sleeping so peacefully in there.” His voice was gentle and his calm demeanor was coming back. I just wanted to melt against him and soak in his tranquility. He didn’t seem like the type to ever raise his voice unless someone were to really get him heated up. I liked that.
“I’m okay,” I responded with what I hoped had been a convincing voice. I pushed off of the railing and a solid stomach met my back. The height difference between us meant my ass had hit his thighs and all of the areas in between were melded against me.
I wanted to rejoice in the contact. Real, honest-to-goodness male contact. I craved it. But it wasn’t real, was it? This was just an odd situation the both of us had been thrown into, and we were only here because of the kids. I obviously felt the need to overthink every aspect of my life lately.
He finally let his hands fall away from either side of me and I suddenly realized that his sling was off again. I turned to face him with a reprimand on my lips.
“Why is your sling off? Are you trying to pull all of your stitches out?” I walked past him back into the room. My hands scooped up the discarded sling off his chair and pushed it toward him. “Leave it on.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckled. My eyes couldn’t look away as he gently placed his arm back into the canvas fabric of the sling. His body stretched as he pulled the strap up and around his neck. His chest was so wide I could tell the strap was on its last bit of Velcro. When his arm was fully immobilized once again, he looked down at me with a smirk. “Better?”
Maybe when I knew he hadn’t damaged himself any further. “Let me check it.” I walked forward and reached up to pull his shirt aside, but there was no way with my height that I would be able to see over his shoulder.
I used his good arm to hoist myself up onto the chair next to us and smiled when I got a clear view. I stretched the neck of his navy cotton t-shirt over and very carefully peeled one edge of his bandage aside. Everything looked as if it were still where it should be. I gently pushed the gauze back in place and reminded myself that we both needed to change out our dressings soon.
“You’re lucky. It’s all still intact.” I looked down at his face and nearly gasped at the image below. My breasts had been directly in front of Lane’s face, and he’d made no attempt to look anywhere else. “Seriously, Lane?” I pushed his good shoulder and stepped down, trying hard not to trail my fingers down him as I went.
He laughed and shook his head while shrugging his shoulders. “I’m a guy. It’s my only excuse.” He continued to laugh. “It was all just… right there!”
“Perv,” I scolded him, but my laugh told him I really wasn’t that mad. “Time to wake the kids up.”
I walked toward the connecting room, but my sudden descent and quick movements had left me a little light-headed. I continued walking until I was in the next room so I could grab a hold of the dresser and control the spinning in my head without Lane’s concerned glare. Once my vision cleared and the room stopped whirling, I sighed in relief and began packing up our bag to head out.