Forever His Baby

by Airicka Phoenix

  “I can’t believe he kept this hidden all these years.” He set the photo down to mash the heels of his hands into the backs of his eyelids. “Why didn’t he show me?”

  Lily shook her head as her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I think maybe because he was worried it too would get destroyed? Whatever the reason,” she added quickly when Sloan’s expression drew together in sorrow and confusion. “It’s not hidden anymore.”

  Sloan swallowed her response with another brisk nod of his head. His attention was pulled back to the photo, to his mother’s smiling face. The tips of his fingers skimmed the smooth glass, outlining the windblown wisps of her hair and the curve of her pinkened cheeks. Pain was a dark painting across the canvas of his face and Lily nearly wept. Her insides thrummed as though his suffering were hers.

  “You lied.”

  With a deep, rattling inhale, Sloan rose to his feet with the photo in hand and moved to one of the end tables bracketing the sofa. He placed the frame down as though it were made of the finest china and adjusted the picture so it overlooked the entire room.

  “What?” Lily wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

  Sloan returned to their mound of blankets and crouched in front of her. His fingers were warm tracing the line of her face. The firelight shone through his hair and illuminated the intense passion in his eyes.

  “You said your gift was small compared to what I’ve given you, but that … that was…” he trailed off, his head rocking ever so slightly from side to side. “You can’t imagine what this means to me.”

  Her hands reached for him, framed his beautiful face and she drew him down to her.

  The fire had died to a pile of crumbling embers, casting the room in a slight chill when Lily came awake. Her back screamed in protest at being in the same position on the hard ground. It was as though the layers of blanket had grown impossibly thin in the few hours she’d been sleeping, leaving her resting on scraps of paper towels.

  Her mangled cry of pain alerted Sloan and he jerked awake instantaneously. His hands found her in the dark.

  “Lil?” The blankets rustled as he shoved up onto his elbow. “What’s wrong?”

  Gritting her teeth through the fingers of agony splintering up and down the full length of her spine, Lily pushed upright. She gasped as those same fingers clawed the underside of her belly.

  “Lily?” Sloan’s hands splayed over the ones she’d pressed into the bump.

  “I’m okay,” she choked. “The baby doesn’t like sleeping on the floor.”

  “Okay.” His arms found their way around her, scooping her up and cradling her against his chest. “Let’s get you both to bed.”

  Lily didn’t argue when he hauled her upstairs and gingerly dumped her down onto their bed. He left her there as he returned downstairs to grab their things and double check the fire. Lily was curled up on the cool mattress, absently rubbing the tension tightening the skin stretching over her stomach. A smile played on her lips.

  “Feeling better?”

  Sloan marched back into the room, arms laden with pillows and blankets. He dumped everything on the floor next to the bed and began arranging everything around Lily.

  “Much.” She sighed and shimmied her way upwards to rest her head on the pillow Sloan positioned against the headboard. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  Sloan crawled into bed beside her and drew the blankets up and around them both. “You didn’t. I was already up.”

  Chuckling at his outright lie, Lily let herself get drawn into his arms and tucked like the perfect puzzle piece into his side. She nuzzled the bare width of his chest with her cheek before resting it over his heartbeat and closing her eyes.

  But sleep never came for her. She lay awake, listening to the groans of the house withstanding the snowstorm outside and the low rumble of Sloan’s snores. Lily raised her head and peered up at his shadowed, slumbering features with a sense of longing. Except, now that she was awake, her body was acutely aware of needing to pee and then getting a drink and no amount of trying to ignore the needs was helping.

  With a reluctant sigh, she wiggled free of Sloan’s possessive embrace and padded out of the room, hitting the bathroom first. The chill followed her progression to the stairs and she wished she’d thought to grab her robe. The camisole and panties were no cover to the winter worming its way into the house. She made a mental note to look into proper insulation. Of all the many years she’d spent sleeping over, she could never recall it being so damn cold.

  The floorboards creaked beneath her weight all the way downstairs. Icy air swirled around her ankles like manacles. She hissed through her teeth as she was met with a solid wall of cold, like standing too close to a giant cube of ice. The fine hairs along the back of her neck rose and she shuddered. Her arms instinctively pulled around her, attempting to draw heat from her own body and failing.

  A board squeaked and she wasn’t sure who was more surprised by the unexpected sound, her, or the figure standing in the middle of the living room, holding the photo Lily had given Sloan only hours earlier.

  “Who are you?” She staggered back a step, hoping to get to the stairs before the man could get to her. Instinctively, her hands went to her stomach, as though protecting it from the intruder’s gaze. “What are you doing here?”

  The figure straightened, or at least, attempted to. The gesture seemed to throw him off balance. He staggered, hitting the end table with his hip. He grabbed the back of the sofa to remain upright, the photo still in his grasp.

  “Where did you get this?” The voice was gruff, edged with an angry slur.

  Somewhere to her right, something banged. Lily jumped and gave a yelp of surprise as her attention was redirected momentarily in the direction of the front door.

  Pale light spilled across the foyer. A flurry of snow blew into the house in a cloud of white swirls. The sudden chill in the air suddenly made sense, but that wasn’t her biggest concern.

  “I asked you a question, girl!” The hulking figure launched himself forward, using the sofa to guide him across the room towards her. “Where did you get this?”

  “You … you need to leave!” Lily ordered, struggling to keep calm, and more importantly, keep him away from her baby. “I’ll scream.”

  The man lurched sideways as he heaved himself away from his crutch. Light lanced across the glossy black frame he raised over his head.

  “You think you can tell me what to do, you stupid little bitch? This is my house! My wife paid for this shit hole. Who the fuck are you?”

  Somehow, knowing who he was, didn’t make the situation better. If anything, knowing only intensified the bitter tang roiling at the back of her throat.

  Jacob McClain was a big man in every way that made him dangerous. Years of alcohol abuse hadn’t shrunk his massive frame, if anything, he had swelled to an even greater bulk. He was taller, even now when Lily was no longer a little girl looking up into the bloodshot eyes of a disheveled and angry man. If anything he scared her more now than he ever had in the past.

  “Mr. McClain…”

  “I asked you a question!” he roared and lunged at her.

  Lily screamed and slammed into the wall in her haste to get out of his path.

  He was on her then. One meaty hand clamped over her throat, stifling all sound as he leaned into her. Lily’s hands never strayed from their possessive grip around her midsection, not even to protect herself when he jerked her to him and then thrust her back with enough strength to bounce the back of her skull off the wall with a dull thud that she barely felt.

  His breath reeked of cheap beer and rot. The foul odor of it raked across Lily’s face.

  “Stupid cunt!” he sneered viciously, speckling her face with his spittle.

  “Please,” she croaked. “Please, don’t.”

  The picture was brought up again for her to see. “Where did this come from?”

  Windpipe blocked, Lily couldn’t answer even if she had wanted.

>   “Answer me!”

  Violent starbursts exploded across her vision in a multitude of colors that bled together until she was sure she would be sick. There was a vague recollection of something crunching as it shattered against the side of her head. Then there was nothing except nausea and pain. Something thick and sticky ran along the side of her face, blinding her as it puddled over the back of her closed eyelid. It took her a moment to realize she was on the floor, curled on her side as the monster loomed over her, a dark shadow of rage. A gut churning terror washed through her as her mind screamed, begging him silently not to kick her. Her own legs curled upwards, protecting her stomach the best she could while struggling not to pass out.

  “Answer—”

  The second figure appeared out of nowhere. It launched itself off the stairs, straight at the man standing over her. The two crashed onto the floor in a heap of black. Lily scrambled up and backwards only to come up against the wall. A loud buzzing had started between her ears that muffled the thud of fist pounding on meat. The crunch of bones shattering. The grunts of pain.

  Her hands shook violently as she raised them to swipe away the blood pouring down her temple and off her chin. A few feet away, the picture of Sloan and Cole lay in shattered pieces across the hardwood. There was blood staining the jagged shards that appeared black in the darkness. She had a sickening feeling it was hers.

  “You son of a bitch!” Sloan’s roar brought her back to the pair not too far away. “You think you can come into my home and put your hands on what’s mine?”

  There was a scuffle as the figure on top pushed to his feet, hauling the second figure up with him by the front of his jacket. But only halfway. Then there was a crack and the figure on his knees flew backwards to lay sprawled across the floor once more.

  Sloan followed, his fury a thick, black wave pouring off him. He grabbed his father again, by the back of his collar this time, and dragged him to the front door. He forcibly shoved his father down the stairs and out of the house.

  “If you ever come back, I will bury you in the fields out back,” Sloan promised with a savagery that stunned Lily. “And I won’t kill you first, but you’ll wish I had.”

  With that, he slammed the door and slammed every bolt into place before he was running across the room. He paused only once to switch on a lamp before he was in front of her.

  “Lily?”

  His eyes were frantic, his hands unsteady as he took her face between them. There was blood spattered across his face that wasn’t his, or hers. His knuckles were battered and bleeding. The pupils of his eyes were enormous, practically swallowing the irises and the fire was white hot behind them.

  “I … I think I’m okay.” But her voice wobbled with tears.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  She caught his arm before he could leave her. “I’m okay.”

  “No! You need to get seen. There’s a cut on your head and the baby—”

  “Is fine,” she promised when some of the color left his face. “He didn’t hurt the baby.”

  Even while his shoulders relaxed, the determination remained behind his gaze. “You’re still going to get checked. Come on.”

  She didn’t argue when he pulled her up into his arms and carried her upstairs. He set her on the bed while he went to dampen a rag and return. He cleaned the blood off her face and pressed the cloth to the gash against the side of her head.

  Lily winced.

  “What happened?” he asked, probably to distract her.

  Lily moistened her lips. “I got up to pee and get a drink. I went downstairs and he was just there. The front door was open and he was holding the picture. He kept asking where I got it and then he came at me.”

  Sloan’s nostrils flared. The muscles along his jaw bunched rapidly like he was barely keeping it together. Yet his free hand continued to gently stroke her hair, the side not caked in blood, without faltering.

  “I’ll deal with him,” he promised. “I won’t let him near you again.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as he replaced his hand with hers on the cloth and hurried to the dresser.

  He glanced back, his confusion evident on his face. “For what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sloan yanked out jeans and a sweater and quickly threw them on. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Lily. You did nothing wrong.”

  While she knew he was right, she couldn’t help feeling as though she were somehow responsible for the tension hardening his mouth.

  With his help, Lily dressed and he bundled her into the Mustang. They drove through the heavy winds and swirling snow towards the hospital. Lily watched the stretch of black all around for signs of Jacob McClain, but he was gone.

  The cut wasn’t deep. By the time they arrived and got it checked, it had already stopped bleeding. The weary-eyed doctor checked her over from head to toe on Sloan’s insistence and finally gave her a clean bill of health, minus the cut on her head. He told her to take it easy and get some rest, but he also told Sloan to keep an eye on her for signs of dizziness, or nausea.

  It was nearing dawn by the time they returned home. Neither paused for anything as they climbed upstairs and crawled back into bed, fully clothed.

  Chapter Ten ~ Sloan

  Sloan woke the next morning to find Lily curled up against his chest. His right arm had gone numb, having been tucked beneath her the entire time, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as he gingerly shifted off his back and onto his side. He drew her further against him. With his free hand, he combed through her hair, pushing the strands off her cheek. Most if it was still crusted with dried blood and caught on his fingers. The red had turned her pale hair a sick shade of orange on that one side. Yet, despite that, she slept soundly, like nothing in the world bothered her, while Sloan had to swallow the urge to hunt down his father and follow through with his promise.

  Memories of waking to find Lily absent from bed and then the scream that had torn him across the room hissed through him like an agitated viper. He hadn’t known what to expect when he had reached the bottom step, but it hadn’t been to find Lily curled up on the floor with his father towering over her. The sight had ripped through Sloan with a fury that had momentarily paralyzed him to everything else. He had launched himself at the man who had terrorized Sloan his entire life. Sloan had never fought back in fear of retaliation, and the possibility of Cole getting hurt in the process. But that fear had evaporated the moment his father had hurt Lily. Sloan would have killed him had his need to check on Lily not been as hot and wild as his thirst for blood. Throwing Jacob McClain out had been the most Sloan could do. And it hadn’t been enough.

  It wouldn’t be enough.

  Careful not to rouse her, Sloan slipped free of Lily’s embrace, folded the sheets firmly around her and made his way downstairs. He paused over the shattered remains of Lily’s Christmas present to him and bent to pick it up.

  His mother continued to smile up at him, forever frozen in that moment. Lily’s blood smeared half the side of the glass, but the picture remained untouched.

  Sloan carried it to the kitchen and turned the broken pieces into the trash bin. Then he freed the picture and tossed the frame away. He held it gingerly, as though the picture itself were a priceless artifact that required a careful hand.

  Sloan had been fifteen when his mother had taken her last breath in that hospital room. His father hadn’t been there, but Cole had been asleep in one of the plastic chairs. Sloan had stood next to the bed, next to his mother’s limp hand, studying her face while she slept. In those last days, she had looked nothing like the woman Sloan had seen puttering around in the kitchen, laughing and singing. Her face had been bleached of color, the skin pulled tight over sharp bones. Her sleek mane of blonde hair had fallen out several chemo sessions before and her head had been wrapped in a lavender scarf. She had almost looked comfortable.

  “I can feel you thinking, little man.”

  Sloan had
jerked in surprise at the soft, raspy voice. His gaze had swung away from the pipes and tubes protruding from the arm closest to him. The skin there had reminded him of someone having sucked the juices from a grape, leaving the flesh sagging around the pit; she had lost too much weight, too fast.

  She was watching him, her eyelids barely open all the way. She no longer had eyelashes and the blue of her eyes had dulled to a washed out gray. But they were still his mother’s eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay, baby boy,” she whispered to him, not because Cole was sleeping and it was nearly three in the morning. That was what her voice had become, a whisper.

  “You’re going to die,” Sloan told her. “You’re going to leave us with him.”

  Pain that had nothing to do with the disease consuming her organs flickered over her face. Her white lips pursed and she turned her hand over for his.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The guilt had torn him apart. It hadn’t been up to her. She hadn’t wanted to leave them. Blaming her wouldn’t make him, or her, feel better. She had already hung on much longer than the doctors had predicted.

  “You’re strong,” she told him. “So much stronger than I ever was. You will protect your little brother and one day, everything will be okay.”

  Sloan hadn’t understood what she meant until the lawyer had shown up on their doorstep the day after the funeral. His mother had never had much money. That which she had, his father had already taken from her. But somehow, without his father knowing, she had taken out a life insurance policy on herself and she had named Sloan as her recipient, but only when he turned eighteen. His father had torn the house apart in his mindless rage. He destroyed everything that had once belonged to the woman who had given him two sons and sixteen years of her life. Sloan had barely gotten Cole shoved under the bed when his father was on him. That had been the worst beating Sloan had ever received. There had been moments he was sure his father would kill him. But he had lived. The broken bones had mended and bruises had faded. Most of the time, he was even able to forget the excruciating pain if he really tried.