I glanced at the nail clippers, but there was no way in hell I could use them on a sleeping baby, let alone one that was squirming.
Not knowing what else to do, I closed the door, walked around to the driver’s side, and slid behind the wheel. I began driving, hoping he was one of those kids who fell asleep while riding.
Thirty minutes later, I decided it wasn’t going to happen as Joseph continued to squall.
Spotting a community playground, I pulled in and parked. I quickly exited the car and retrieved him from his car seat. “Come on, buddy,” I whispered, taking him in my arms. “It’s okay.” He sputtered as he tried to catch his breath, his hand gripping my dress shirt. He quieted and pulled against the fabric of my shirt as he lowered his head and rubbed his face across my chest. “Are you sleepy?”
I lifted him higher on my chest, and he laid his head down on my shoulder. Patting his back, I walked toward a long row of swings, and I sank into the one on the end, loose pebbles crunching under my feet. I rocked him back and forth, my feet never leaving the ground as I glanced up at the chains and hoped they were sturdy enough to hold my weight.
The playground wasn’t busy, and I only saw two other kids on it. They looked like sisters, and they were climbing on the monkey bars, swinging with great enthusiasm as they called to their mother to watch.
Joseph grew still, and I realized he was asleep, his breathing deep and steady. For the life of me, I didn’t know how women did it. I’d only been with Joseph for a couple of hours, and I was flat out exhausted and more than ready to turn him back over to his mother.
Shit, no wonder Jessica looked so rough.
While working at Flex Appeal, I would often spot people who were working out, ready to step in and help them if they tried to lift more weight than they could handle. I felt a little like I was spotting for Jessica, helping her when things had gotten out of control. But unlike spotting at the gym, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew nothing about children and had no desire to have any.
And no wonder.
This little twenty-pounder had kicked my ass.
He lifted his head, but his eyes were still closed. Without warning, he turned his face toward mine and burrowed into my neck.
With a soft sigh, he settled back down, and for the briefest moment, I wondered what it would be like to have a son.
Chapter 3
Lifting Weights
Paxton
I was used to lifting weights. What I wasn’t used to was holding on to a tiny bundle, terrified that if I made the slightest movement, he would wake up from his peaceful slumber, open his tiny mouth, and emit screams loud enough to cause shock waves across the country.
I didn’t know how many hours I had sat in my parked car, this pint-sized being nestled against my chest, but the sun had long since set. My arms ached from sitting motionless, and I had the strangest recollection of playing freeze tag with Cade and Evan when we were growing up. Cade and I would often talk Evan into being it while we ran in circles around him. Sometimes, I would let him tag me, just to make him feel like winning wasn’t totally impossible, and Cade would torment me by making me wait an eternity before he would finally unfreeze me. The game usually ended with Evan giving up, and it took all of five minutes before Cade and I found a new way to torture our little brother.
But right now, Joseph was the one handing out the torture. Or to be more exact, it was his mother. I slowly shifted in the seat, attempting to alleviate the pressure on my spine, when my phone rang.
Please be her.
Moving slowly, I picked the phone up from the dash and answered. “Hello.”
“Paxton?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t make bail. I’m going to talk to the judge on Monday to see if he will release me on my own recognizance.”
“What do you mean you can’t make bail?” I asked, keeping my voice low and even, so I could communicate my desperation without waking her baby.
She sighed, and I thought she sounded as exhausted as I felt. “I mean I don’t have five hundred dollars. I’ll have to wait till I talk to the judge.”
“Jess, you have to get out of jail. I know nothing about these little….” I glanced down at his small head. “…creatures.”
“Maybe your mother will help you.”
No way in hell was I driving back to Creekview alone with a baby. “I’m coming to get you.”
“I don’t have any money, Paxton.”
“I do.” And it was worth every penny of the bail money to relieve me of my duty by putting this one safely in the hands of his mother again.
“I don’t know when I can pay you back,” she said.
“You don’t have to worry about paying it back. When you show up at your court date, they’ll refund the money. I can get it back then.”
She didn’t respond, and I knew Jessica. She was mulling everything over in her head, trying to come to terms with the entire situation.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes.” I hung up, not giving her the chance to refuse the money.
Slowly, I slid out of the passenger side of the car and placed Joseph in his car seat, feeling damn proud of myself when I managed to fasten him in without waking him.
“Let’s go get your mommy,” I whispered. I paused a moment, watching his face in the dim overhead light glowing from the interior as he worked his lips around an imaginary pacifier. His chubby cheeks jiggled with the movement, and I took a step back and softly shut the door.
Five minutes later, I pulled up to an ATM machine in the drive-through of a local bank. After making a withdrawal, I drove to the county jail, pulled into a parking spot, and killed the ignition. I glanced in the backseat, wondering if I could manage to get Joseph out of the car seat without waking him up.
I got out of the car, closing the door as quietly as I could, and walked around to his side. With my hand on the door handle, I hesitated, saying a silent prayer that he would sleep until I could hand him off to his mother. I opened the door and paused before daring to continue. When he didn’t stir, I carefully unclasped the seat belt and raised it over his head. He began working his mouth, and I stood motionless until he settled back down. I gently scooped him out of the seat, making sure I supported his head. I laid him against my shoulder and pushed the door with just enough force that it partially latched. One quick shove, and it closed completely.
I let out a small pent-up breath when he didn’t waken. Crossing the parking lot, I entered the glass door of the county jail.
“Can I help you?” a tall, skinny man who stood behind the counter asked.
“I need to bail someone out.”
He pointed down the hallway to my right. “First door on the left.”
Following his directions, I opened the door and stepped into a small room with wood paneling and a small glass window that peered into an office on the other side of the wall. A bell alerted my arrival, and a heavyset, plain-looking woman with short, curly hair turned to look at me through the window. “Who you looking to bail out, honey?” she asked. Her eyes appeared small in her round face, and she focused them on me.
“Jessica Beacham.”
As I headed toward the window, she glanced down at her paperwork and flipped through a couple of sheets before finding Jessica’s information. “Five hundred.”
I grabbed the money I had retrieved from the ATM, counted through it, and handed it to her. I watched as she counted the money and wrote me a receipt. “Here you go. Have a seat, and we’ll send her out in a jiffy.”
Turning to see a man sitting quietly at a small table in the corner, I took a seat in one of the metal folding chairs lined along the wall. A moment later, the door opened and a jail employee escorted a thirty-something-year-old guy who was sporting a mullet into the room. He immediately joined the man in the corner. “About damn time you got here,” Mullet Man squawked angrily.
“If you don’t like it, stop getting arrested,” the elderly man in the corner told
him.
“I wasn’t doing shit,” Mullet Man yelled. “They had no reason to arrest me.”
Joseph squirmed, and I had the thought that if Mullet Man woke him, I was going to be pissed.
Joseph bobbed his head up, and when I glanced at his crumpled face, I knew it was all over. He started out with a low wail, which quickly escalated into a full-blown fit. I tried patting his back, but it didn’t faze him. He was mad, and I glared at Mullet Man in the corner, fighting the urge to confront him with a pair of scissors and a right hook.
Standing, I paced back and forth, bouncing Joseph as I watched the minutes tick by on the plain white clock on the wall.
The woman on the other side of the glass window gave me a look of sympathy and called, “It shouldn’t be much longer.”
I gave her a slight smile and a nod before focusing my attention on the tiny squawk box in my arms.
Joseph’s eyes squeezed shut, and his face turned bright red. I couldn’t blame him for being pissed. Hell, I was pissed, too.
His screams ended abruptly, and his mouth opened, his tongue curling as he erupted into another coughing fit. I felt sorry for the little guy, but I had no idea what to do to calm him.
The door opened, and the same jail employee who had escorted Mullet Man in the room now brought in Jessica.
My relief was instant.
Her brow furrowed in concern as she reached for Joseph and pulled him into her protective embrace. “Shh,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Mommy’s here.” Her entire body bounced up and down as she patted his back and cooed softly in his ear.
I raked my hands through my hair and exhaled, glad that I had been relieved of baby duty.
All three of us were ready to get the hell out of the jailhouse.
We sat in the car with the doors open, the warm summer night breeze washing over us as Jessica fed Joseph his bottle. When he finished, she lifted him to her shoulder and burped him.
“When’s the last time you changed his diaper?”
I shot her a what-the-hell look.
“You didn’t change his diaper?”
“Do I look like I know what to do with one of those?” I asked, motioning to Joseph. “I told you I don’t do kids, so you can’t say you weren’t well aware of my limitations going into this.”
She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? You couldn’t take five minutes to change his diaper?”
“Hey, I kept him alive, didn’t I?”
With shadows playing on her face, her expression softened as she resigned herself to the idea that I wasn’t manny material. “Thanks for coming to get him,” she said barely above a whisper. She closed her eyes, and her brows drew together in concern as she pursed her lips. “If you could just do me one last favor and take me to get my car, then you’ll never have to hear from me again.”
“Of course.” Hell, I didn’t want anything to do with Jessica, but I wasn’t that much of a prick that I would come all this way and refuse to make sure she got home.
She fastened the baby in his seat, and we both buckled up. I drove to the drugstore where Jess had gotten arrested. Her car was the only one in the parking lot.
I pulled in beside it and cut off the ignition. “I’ll put him in your car for you.”
After unfastening the seat belt, I lifted the car seat that cradled a sleeping Joseph out of the backseat and transferred it to her car. She opened the front door and dropped the diaper bag in the passenger seat. We both gently closed the doors to her car and turned to face each other.
“Thanks again,” she said. “I’ll send you the money as soon as I can.”
I nodded and then glanced around the empty parking lot. “I’m going to follow you home since it’s so late—just to make sure.”
“That’s okay. We’ll be fine.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
She cocked her head and examined me a moment. “All right. If that’s what you want….”
We both got in our cars, and I waited for her to crank the ignition. After a couple of minutes, I wondered what was taking her so long.
I heard a noise and watched as she got out of the car. What in the hell was she doing?
She walked to the front of the car and opened the hood. I stepped out of my car and met her at the front of hers. “What’s going on?”
She wiggled the battery cables. “Sometimes it won’t start until the cables get a better connection.”
“You drive your baby around in a car that doesn’t always start?”
She answered without taking her eyes off the cables as she twisted them on tighter. “Don’t see that I have much choice. It’s the only car I have.”
I watched as she slid behind the wheel and tried to start the car again. This time the engine roared to life, and I closed the hood and went back to my car.
Ten minutes later, I followed her up a steep hill into her apartment complex. I parked a couple of spaces away from her, mentally calculating how many hours of sleep I could get before I had to get up early, so that I could open the gym.
I went to her vehicle. With the diaper bag hanging on her side, she now had Joseph’s door open.
“Hand me the bag, and I’ll carry it for you while you carry him in.” This time she didn’t try to stop me as she immediately handed me the diaper bag.
It amazed me how tenderly she plucked him from the seat, her movements so smooth that Joseph didn’t seem to notice he was in transit. I followed her along a sidewalk illuminated by light posts until we entered a short hallway on the ground floor. There were four doors, two on each side, and she paused a few feet away, facing the first one on the left.
Surprised that she stopped so far away, my eyes followed hers, and that’s when I saw it. I couldn’t read it because the lighting was dim and we stood too far away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked when she made no move to continue.
She stood frozen, her peculiar behavior piquing my interest even more.
I walked up beside her and gazed at her profile. She was transfixed by the piece of paper attached to her front door.
Stepping closer, I read it, a seven-day notice for non-payment of rent.
“Is this your apartment?” I asked, verifying that this notice was meant for her.
She gave me a slight nod.
“You haven’t paid your rent?”
She pulled her keys out of her front pocket and walked past me. “You’re a damn genius,” she muttered. Fumbling with her key, she tried to insert it but failed miserably.
“Here, give it to me,” I instructed, wrapping my fingers around hers until she relinquished her hold on the key.
I inserted it and opened the door, pushing it open and standing back so she could enter first. After she flipped the light on, I peeled the notice from the front door and followed her in, closing the door behind us.
Her apartment was small, and her furniture was outdated. The couch, a horrible shade of gold that looked straight out of the ‘70s, slumped in the middle. Two battered end tables flanked it on each end.
“Okay, you’re home. I’m just going to set this notice right here with the diaper bag.” I deposited the diaper bag on the couch and laid the notice on top of it.
She turned to face me, exhaustion evident on her face. “Thank you, Paxton. As promised, you’ll never hear from me again.”
I gazed at her a moment, wondering if I should say something else, but in the end, she was right. She was no longer my problem and hadn’t been for a very long time. It would be best if I was on my way.
“Well, I’m going to go. Good luck, Jess.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded her head, dismissing me. Joseph slept in her arms, content to be with his mother. I gazed at both of them one last time and left.
As I drove out of the apartment complex, my mind drifted back to the time that Jessica and I had spent together. We had been inseparable, and she had been my first love. My only love.
But all that love turned to hatred when I f
ound out that I had been easily replaced—by my own brother, no less.
Damn. It’d been seven years. I was over her. I was over the searing pain that had scalded my insides as if I’d drunk a pint of molten steel.
I punched the gas. I needed to get out of Kentucky. I needed to get away from her.
Whatever trouble she’d gotten herself into was not my concern.
A single mother with a sick baby who’d been arrested and served an eviction notice wasn’t my problem.
She’d always been a smart girl. What in the hell had happened to her that she would allow herself to fall into such dire circumstances? She’d had a full scholarship, for crying out loud.
Shit.
A nagging I couldn’t shake ate at my insides as I pulled up to a stop sign under a bright streetlamp. It was late, and traffic was virtually nonexistent.
I don’t know how long I sat there, staring into the darkness.
I envisioned the dark circles under her eyes. It was obvious she hadn’t slept well in days. And now she had an arrest and an eviction hanging over her head, too.
Damn it.
I should go.
I felt like I had a maniacal devil on one shoulder and a luminous angel on the other. An internal tug of war ensued, and in the end, all I could think was I should turn around because it was Jess, and then I’d think I should keep going because it was Jess.
When she and I were dating, I wore my hair a little longer than my current cut. The ends would cover the back of my neck, and when Jess would sit in my lap, she would drape her arm on my shoulder and play with the hair at my nape, rhythmically raking her fingers through it while we talked about whatever was going on in our lives at the time.
I had loved the feeling of her weight in my lap, her fingers on my skin, her soft voice filling my ears.
It was a feeling I’d been searching for ever since she and I had split.
Betrayed (Whiskey Nights #4) Page 3