I blinked.
“Hadley,” I murmured. “I have a child, and I’m five weeks away from graduating,” I informed her. “What would you like me to do? Fuck it all up because you want me to go to some party?”
“It’s coffee, Tally. Fucking coffee. It’s not a party,” she snapped.
I looked at my friend, wondering where the sweet, kind and considerate Hadley had gone.
The person here now in my friend’s place was someone completely different.
Over the last six weeks, it’d turned into pure torture to be around her.
She was acting very different, and every time I told her I couldn’t go with her somewhere, she got all offended and hurt.
It wasn’t my fault I was a single mother…though, I guess it technically was.
I did have the sex that resulted in the pregnancy.
And it’s not like it was even good sex at that.
“Ladies,” that deep, smooth, sexy voice broke into my thoughts.
Speaking of sex.
“Dr. Tommy,” I said, hoping I sounded professional instead of all breathy and excited that he was talking to me.
I hadn’t had much chance to talk to him over the last few weeks.
The man had, however, starred in my dreams—day and nighttime alike.
He was all I could think about, and everything I still couldn’t have.
It’d been pure hell, and I hated the fact that I couldn’t talk to him like I wanted to if we had not been student and teacher.
We’d already crossed over that line, but it didn’t mean that we could continue to do so. The temptation was definitely there, though.
Even if I hadn’t seen him, I still thought about him. Constantly.
I’d kept myself super busy, picking my regular shifts back up at the convenience store—this time in one of Mama Moring’s other stores. This one was in a seedier part of town and was located just off the interstate.
The other store had been a total loss, and everything inside had been ruined due to the sudden intrusion of flood water into the store.
I wasn’t a hundred percent positive that Mama Moring hadn’t just found a job for me to do out of the kindness of her heart.
It didn’t matter, though. I was grateful. I had bills to pay, and I needed this job to pay them.
“How’s the house repair coming?” Dr. Tommy butted in.
I blinked, wondering how he knew about my house repair.
“Uhh,” I said. “It’s coming along okay, but it’s going to be difficult to fix.”
That is if it was even fixable at all.
My father and a few of his buddies had been out surveying the flooding when they’d come across my tiny house. It’d been in the center of a field right in the heart of the flood zone. While they did find it, it was another week before the water receded enough and they could get to it.
The first step into my home had been heartbreaking.
Everything that I’d worked so hard for was ruined. The blankets that I’d sewn for Tallulah were mildewed. All of her baby items that I’d wanted to save as keepsakes were broken and waterlogged.
That wasn’t it, though.
No, my father said that even though the house had been up out of the water due to the trailer it’d been built on, the entire floor needed to be replaced including the subfloor and the framing that the floor was built on.
My insurance company would only cover partial repairs due to the fact that I didn’t have flood insurance—and apparently, I was extremely lucky to get even that much.
None of this boded well for me.
I’d be living with my parents for the next year to be able to afford to pay for the repairs.
Needless to say, it was a touchy subject that I wasn’t in the mood to talk about.
If anyone besides Tommy had asked me about it, I would’ve immediately shut them down.
But I was so in love with Tommy that I would talk to him about practically anything, even my dreaded house situation and the shit that swirled around it.
“I met a contractor who does quality work and is willing to let me pay him in installments,” he looked at me carefully, his eyes taking in the bags under my eyes and the hollow look of my cheeks. “Are you okay?”
Hadley growled in frustration. “I’ll catch up to you in a few,” Hadley grunted as she walked away.
Tommy didn’t even lift his eyes from mine as Hadley flounced away, and I found myself grateful.
It was hard for any man not to watch Hadley walk away. She was beautiful and had a perfect body. One that anyone, man or woman, could appreciate.
Tommy, loyal man that he was, only had eyes for me.
“I’m okay,” I told him.
And I was. Mostly.
I was pining for a man I shouldn’t want, my daughter was sick again, but I was handling okay.
“Dr. Wild told me you had to take Tallulah to the ER yesterday,” Tommy continued. “Is she all right?”
Did he know everything?
“She had some sort of reaction to her medication,” I murmured. “We went to the doctor on Monday because she started wheezing, and they gave her a med that she’s never had before. We gave it to her later that day and hives immediately started to appear all over her body.”
Tommy winced.
“You’ll have to be very careful with anything in that class of medications from now on,” he murmured. “I heard that her father showed.”
I sighed.
He had shown up.
Why, I didn’t know, but he did. He’d left work and everything, surprising the ever-loving shit out of me. Though, I had a feeling that it had a lot to do with the woman he’d brought with him.
The woman who wanted my kid for herself.
I could see the gleam in her eye as she acted all concerned over Tallulah and her well-being.
The reality was that she didn’t want me in the picture at all. The only reason she wanted Tallulah was because she wanted Russell’s full attention, and didn’t like it when he had to divert it away from her when we were dealing with something related to our daughter.
I would’ve told her it wasn’t going to work, but she was being completely ridiculous about everything.
She’d even offered to take Tallulah home with her and keep her overnight while I caught up on my sleep.
I’d laughed right in her face.
There was no way in hell that I was going to let my daughter go home with them after she’d just had an allergic reaction to a medication she was taking for another serious medical condition.
She was crazy for thinking it, let alone asking it.
“You heard,” I guessed.
His eyes gleamed. “Yep.”
I groaned.
“She’s a fucking nut job,” I told him, looking around to see that we were alone.
Were we the last ones in the building?
How had that happened?
I looked at my watch and winced.
Tallulah was with my mom, and I had to go relieve her in an hour and a half.
Not to mention I still had to run to the grocery store, and then to the shop to exchange the rental for my car.
My car that was officially done.
Fifteen hundred dollars and a few favors later.
Not that I was worried that the man would ever cash those favors in.
I realized within moments of meeting the man, who Tommy had recommended to me, that he was a member of the same club as Tommy.