“I can’t fucking believe you right now.”
“Well, fucking believe it, baby,” he throws right back at me, pissing me off even more.
“Is this how it’s going to be? You make all the decisions and piss on what I want or think?” I know he wouldn’t. Even I think it’s stupid after the words have left my mouth, but I can’t help them. I won’t go back to the way my life was with Blake. I won’t allow someone else to dictate everything. I won’t fall in line ever again.
My chest rises, not backing down from my question. It’s shitty. I know it’s shitty, but he didn’t consult me. A phone is a huge decision. And not one that should have been made without us talking about it.
“You’re making a big deal out of something that isn’t a big deal.”
“And you didn’t answer my question.”
“It was a stupid question, and you know it. If you think I’m going to stop calling you on your shit, you’re wrong. If you think I’m going to make major decisions without you, you’re wrong.” He holds up his hand just as my mouth opens to speak. “Yes, I should have talked to you about it. But I didn’t. It’s done, Whitney. Let’s move on from it. From here on out, we’ll talk about things we want the girls to have and do.” He shuts up, clearly waiting for my response. A response I don’t give, so he prompts me. “Okay?”
My silence continues. Mainly because I know deep down he’s right, but I’m too stubborn to admit I might have overreacted.
“Whitney,” he warns.
“Kiss off.” And with that, I push past him, open the door, and walk out like the petulant child I’m acting.
A goddamn phone. Jesus fucking Christ. What’s next?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Shane Braden
“Oh. My. Gosh.” Her little palms go to her cheeks. Emersyn’s mouth forms an “o” as she takes in all the sparkling jewelry. “Shaney, everything is so pretty.” Her head tips back, looking up at me. “Ain’t everything so pretty?”
“Isn’t everything so pretty,” I correct. Whitney is damn set on correcting her grammar. She’s three. I don’t see what the point is, but if her mother is going to do it then I need to stand behind her and help. Even if the woman hasn’t uttered one word to me since Saturday afternoon. Two days and she’s still putting up a hard front. “I guess.”
“There is no guessing about jewry.” She cocks her hip to the side giving me a serious look. “All jewry is pretty.”
“Jewelry,” I correct.
She turns, giving me her backside as she walks up to one of the clear cases in front of us. “Why are we here?”
“I have to pick something up. And remember, you promise not to say anything about where we’ve been to your mom or Everly. Right?”
I scoop her off the floor, placing her on the glass countertop above the jewelry cases. I think her eyes get even bigger as she looks down at everything.
“Surprise. I remember.” Her head pops up for all of two-seconds. “My lips sealed.”
“And why are your lips sealed?”
“Because we don’t want to spoil anybody’s surprises.” Her head shakes side to side, making her curls swing. “I like surprises. You like surprises?”
“Yep.”
I don’t, but there is no way I need her thinking about spilling the beans. I should have taken her to that Mommy’s Day Out thing Whitney drops her off at once a week, but I thought the two of us could use time alone together. She may not be my daughter biologically, but I still want to bond with her as if she were.
She was the first one I saw last year when I found Whitney on Facebook. I think I loved Emersyn even then. I didn’t know her. I knew she was another man’s daughter. But I also knew she was a part of Whitney. And there isn’t any part of that woman I don’t love. She can act all kinds of mad if she wants to. She can go a week without speaking to me if she wants, but I still love her. I know she loves me. In the end, that’s all that matters.
“Hi, can I help you?” a man greets us as he walks from a back room behind the jewelry counter. He’s shorter than I am and probably twice as old. He’s wearing a navy dress suit. His hair is solid white. He’s not the man I dealt with last week when I picked out the ring, so my guess he’s the dad of Bradford and Son Family Jewelry.
“We want everything.” Emersyn looks up, serious as a heart attack. I smile. The older man laughs.
“You’re in trouble with this one,” he tells me. I’m inclined to agree. “I’m Bradford Collins. The owner.” He sticks his hand out for me to shake.
“Shane Braden.” I grip his hand briefly.
“Ah.” My name must ring bells. “You have a ring order to pick up, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Give me one moment. It’s in the back. I need to make sure it has been cleaned. I’ll be right back.”
“Sure. Take your time. We’re in no rush.”
Mr. Collins heads back to where he must have been when we walked in. There’s no one else in the jewelry shop as I take in the rest of the small room. It’s an old establishment, or so Gavin, my boss, babbled on about when I told him my plans to ask Whitney to marry me. She’s not divorced yet, but that doesn’t mean she can’t wear my ring until it’s official. And once it is . . .
“Shaney,” Emersyn draws out my name, bringing my attention to her. Glancing down, I see she isn’t looking at me. Her head is still down, and she’s drawing circles on the glass with her fingers.
“Yeah, monk?” I ask, alarm setting in. The way she said my name isn’t her usual bubbly, happy self. She sounds sad.
“Why you want to be Evlee’s dad and not mine?”
Her question halts my breathing. I don’t know how to respond to that. Does she want to be my daughter? I already thought she was, even though officially I’ll be her stepdad when Whitney marries me. Does she want to call me dad like Everly just started doing?
I pick her up off the counter, bringing her to my front. She wraps her legs around me, but her face is still downcast, and her hair is hiding her eyes from me.
“Look at me.” She obeys immediately, her head snapping up. “What do you mean, Em?”
“You Evlee’s dad now. She calls you that, but you not mine. Do you not like me like you like her?”
“Baby girl.” I squeeze her. “I love you, Emersyn Rose.”
“But why you not my daddy? My other daddy not as nice as you.”
Air rushes out of my lungs, making me feel as though I’ve been punched in the gut. What the hell?
“Emersyn.” My voice comes out too harsh, making her jump in my arms. I’ve never spoken to a child like that. I’ve always had a soft, patient voice with kids, but then my patients aren’t exactly my own. “Sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“What I do wrong?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Here you go.” I look up as the jeweler walks back up.
Taking the box, I slide Emersyn to my side. “Thanks.” I nod in his direction.
I’d say more, but I’m more worried about the little angel in my arms than being polite to a man I just spent a good chunk of my savings with. Worth every penny, though.
Exiting the shop, I walk down the sidewalk to the end of the block. There’s a street vendor with a couple of tables and chairs. After buying her a cone of chocolate ice cream, I plop her onto the top of the wrought iron table, and then I sit in the chair opposite her.
I pop the top on the ring box. “What do you think?” I ask, flipping it around to show her.
She swallows her ice cream, some already dripping down her chin, but I didn’t grab any napkins so there isn’t much I can do to clean it off.
“That for Momma?” She gives me a wide, teeth covered in chocolate, grin.
“Yes, and you cannot tell her. Okay?”
“I not. It’s real pretty.”
“Em,” I prompt, waiting for her to look at me. When she doesn’t stop staring at the ring like it’s candy, I close the box an
d pocket it. She looks up then. “I do want to be your daddy. And with that ring, I’m going to ask your mom to marry me. Is that okay with you?”
“Then I can call you dad like Evlee?”
“Monkey, you can call me anything you want, whenever you want. You can call me dad, or keep calling me Shaney. That’s up to you. But I’d be honored if you decide you want me to be your dad.”
“Then I want you to be my dad, and I don’t want to go back to my daddy’s house ever again.” She shakes her head profusely.
“Earlier, when we were in the shop with all the pretty jewelry you said your daddy wasn’t very nice. Why isn’t he nice, monkey?” The doctor in me can’t help but probe, questioning everything this child is saying and trying to decipher it.
“He yells. A lot. And I don’t like it when he says bad things about Momma or Evlee or you.” I’m about to try to explain things when her eyebrows turn in, and she gets a mean look on her face. “And I don’t like when hurts my arms. He’s a meanie, and I don’t want to go back.”
Alarm bells sound in my head as goose bumps ripple up my spine.
“Hurts your arms how?”
She sits her cone on the table. It falls over, the ice cream dripping out and onto the table. She doesn’t seem to notice or even care. Leaning forward, she grabs onto my biceps and tries her hardest to shake me.
More alarms go off and anger spikes.
“He does that when I tell him to stop saying bad things.”
As much as I’d love to find something—anything—to get all of Blake’s rights stripped from him; to get him out of Whitney and the girls lives forever, I don’t want it to be because of this. I don’t want this little angel to have been abused physically or mentally in any way.
The distinct text tone I set for work sounds off, stopping my thoughts and telling me the Chief Resident on call in the Emergency Department has sent me a text message. That typically only means one thing: I have to go into work on my day off.
ED Phone: Can you run up here for a sec?
Me: Sure. Be there in twenty.
Odd. Usually, Roderick gives me some form of a heads up or tells me why I’m needed.
“Kiddo, you want to come to work with me for a bit?”
Her eyes light up, and her mouth falls open, but no sound comes out, then she starts clapping her hands and bobbing her head.
Her excitement makes me chuckle, but I’m looking forward to this time next month when I’ll be rotating back in the children’s clinic instead of the ER. That place will wear on a person’s soul. And at least in the clinic, I’ll have better hours—all daytime hours—and weekends off, meaning I’ll get more time with my family. Maybe my parents are right. Maybe I need to try general pediatrics for a couple of years. I’ve already missed too much time. At least that way I’d be home for dinner every night and my weekends spent making memories with the three most important people in my life.
I grab her off the table, bringing her to my hip, then I tap my pocket making sure the little black ring box is secured. That ring is going to set our family on course to a solid future.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Whitney Lane
“The results were positive.” She smiles. “Congr—”
“Say what?” That’s impossible.
“You’re pregnant, Mrs. Lane.”
Those words are still playing on repeat as I pull up to the school to get Everly. It’s still early in the afternoon. After I had left the clinic, there wasn’t a need to go to the pharmacy, and I wasn’t feeling up to running the couple of errands I told Shane I would do before I picked up our daughter at the normal time they get out.
So here I sit, still in a daze. Confused. How on earth am I pregnant? I’ve been on birth control regularly since after Emersyn was born.
Should I really be surprised though? Emersyn was the result of failed birth control. Hell, maybe that should have told me to always use two forms of pregnancy prevention. I figured it was a fluke with her. I figured there was no way it could happen again. Fuck, what are the chances . . .?
If I’m honest with myself, I’m not entirely sure I’m unhappy about this. Shock? Yes. Definitely. But upset or mad? No.
It’s Shane’s baby. That I’m sure of. Blake and I haven’t had sex in months. Shane and I, on the other hand, have been fucking like rabbits for the past two weeks. It’s still early. I don’t feel pregnant. Then again, I never did with Everly either. I was eight weeks along when I even found out about her.
Oh, wow, things should have been different.
I brace my hands on the steering wheel, wrapping my fingers around the leather, letting a big breath of air flow out of my mouth. I don’t want to think about the past. I want the future.
I’ve been a bitch too. And for no reason. I’m over the phone. Sure, it’s ridiculous for a ten-year-old, but I get why he did it—why he needs it. He has lost so much time. Time he’ll never get back, and if knowing where she is helps ease a weight off his chest, then who the fuck am I to say no.
A good girlfriend would have understood his need from the start. A good person wouldn’t have made such a big deal of it. A woman wouldn’t have acted like a fucking child.
Thinking back upon my reaction, I’m embarrassed. I shouldn’t be. It’s Shane. My Shane. My good, understanding, amazing man that loves all my crazy—has always loved my crazy, and will always love my crazy.
I shut the ignition off and get out of the car.
I came straight here to get Everly, so I could get home to tell Shane the news.
I don’t know how he’s going to react. We aren’t married. I’m not even divorced and won’t be for three months. But something tells me he’s going to be happy about this. He would have been happy about Everly even though we were still teenagers. And this is his chance to be a father from the beginning.
The more I think about it, the happier I’m getting.
I pull the glass door open, walking inside and stopping just to the left of the building’s entrance at the secretary’s office.
“Hi,” I say to a young girl. She’s not the normal lady that’s always here. She may even be a high school kid. “I’m here to checkout my daughter.”
She looks up from her phone. Yeah, she has to be a high schooler.
“What’s her teacher’s name?”
“Mrs. Parks.”
“And her name?”
“Everly Lane.”
Her body jerks back a few inches and her eyes do this crazy, confused thing. “I’m pretty sure her dad picked her up half an hour ago I think.” She stands, grabs the clipboard in front of me and scrutinizes the page.
Shane didn’t say he would pick her up. In fact, we discussed me getting her even though he’s off. He wanted to spend a few hours alone with Emersyn. He thinks he needs to bond with her. Which is great and all, but I already know she loves him as much as he loves her.
“Yep.” She says. “It’s right here. He signed her out at 1:10.”
She hands me the clipboard. The last spot, sure enough, has Everly’s name scribbled down, but I don’t have to look at his signature to know who it belongs to. I know that handwriting. I know his handwriting.
I gasp.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
Why did Blake check her out? Why does Blake have my daughter? She isn’t his daughter. Oh my God! Where’s my daughter?
“Ma’am?” she calls again, but I don’t have to time to yell or scream for her or whoever let someone that wasn’t her father take her. I removed his name from the list of people allowed to pick her up. The school was very understanding after I explained and showed them the court documentation giving me full custody of her.
I stumble backward, turning and running out of the school.
What purpose could he have had for taking her without my permission? Nothing is adding up. There is no logical answer coming to mind.
I left my purse in the car, which is where my phone is.
Running, I mak
e it to the parking lot and into my car in less than a minute from finding out my daughter wasn’t where I thought she was.
I practically fall into the vehicle, tripping over my feet trying to get in. Once I find my cell, I unlock it, calling him without checking the text message that’s showing up as a pop-up message on the home screen.
No answer. I call again.
Still no answer. What the fuck?
Chills run down my spine as my finger hovers above the text message app. I open it, seeing it’s from him.
Blake: I’m done playing games. Get your ass and my daughter to this address. NOW. 348 N. Brooks Road Collierville TN 38017.
That’s just east of us, outside the city of Memphis.
Why is he there? Why does he have Everly there? Or does he?
What the fuck is going on?
I toss my phone, hearing it land on the floorboard of the passenger seat. I don’t care. I need to find my daughter and get her away from him. My blood is boiling. He’s taken this shit too far. This isn’t a game to me. This is my daughter’s life he is trying to dangle in front of me, trying to scare me.
He’s not going to fucking scare me. All he’s done is fuck with momma bears cub. I see crimson and I’m going to rip that motherfuckers heart out with my bare hands. I’m going to make him wish he never laid eyes on me.
And then . . . then I’m going to do everything in my power to see that he never comes within sight of either of my children. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care how many different judges we have to go in front of. I’m not above begging. I’ll beg. I’ll plead. Hell, maybe I’ll even find a way to blackmail one. I’m not above it. Not when it comes to my kids. I’d do anything for my girls. Anything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Shane Braden
“This is fun.”
“What’s fun?” I ask Emersyn, walking through the automatic entrance doors to the ER.
More Than Memories: A Second Chance Standalone Romance Page 26