She smiled. “One good poke to the forehead. Night.”
“Night, Abilene.”
“Thanks again for the ride,” she said, and her smile felt shy when she offered it. She headed for the steps.
The door to her room was open, and she found Mercy sleeping peacefully in the crib. She switched off the baby monitor, officially relieving Christine of her duties. She changed into her pajamas and scrubbed her face in the guest bathroom, shut the door, climbed into bed.
Sleep while you can, she ordered herself. The peace could be over at any moment, shattered by that noise that filled her so wholly with both dread and maternal urgency—the first tentative coo that inevitably snowballed into a squall.
But sleep wasn’t coming. She lay in the darkness, trying to deep breathe, trying to think relaxing thoughts. But with the chaos of the bar gone and the distraction of the ride over, all that passed through her head were the what-ifs that surrounded tomorrow.
Today, she corrected. James would be released around ten in the morning.
The prison was ninety miles away. He could be in Fortuity by noon if he wanted to be. If he had his truck waiting for him and enough money for gas. How long would he need to find her? How long would it take to run into somebody who said, yeah, they’d seen a young brunette around, didn’t she just have a baby? Heard she was staying up at the ranch out east, they might say, and just like that . . .
Poof. Poof went her security. Poof went her secrets, if James saw fit to tell Vince or the Churches or Casey or anybody else about the way they’d met. Poof went custody of her child, maybe.
Maybe. Only maybe. She wasn’t that girl James had first met. She was good now. Wasn’t she? Better, at least. She was trying to be good. She worked hard, hadn’t had so much as a sip of beer since the moment she’d found out she was pregnant. It was almost impossible for a mother to lose custody to a father.
He couldn’t get her child taken away.
Could he?
Chapter 5
With sleep eluding her and lying in the dark producing nothing but waking nightmares, after twenty minutes, Abilene abandoned the covers and poked her head out the door.
A lamp was on in the den, and she crept onto the landing. Casey was lounging on the couch, tapping on his lit-up phone. He never failed to make her feel competent and secure when she needed those sensations most, and right now she craved reassurance like a fish craved water. She went back into her room and put on a bra and socks, left the door open in case Mercy woke, and padded to the steps.
Casey sat up as she reached his periphery. He glanced at his phone, then switched it off, screen going dark. “Thought you’d be out like a light in five minutes flat.”
He spoke softly, as all the Churches were sleeping. She loved when he did that. Normally he was a loud, brash man, not strong on the volume control, but she adored how his voice sounded in late-night moments like these. So close to a whisper. Soft in every way.
She shook her head. “Can’t sleep. Too much on my mind. Were you about to turn in?”
“Don’t have to. Hey, how about I start a fire? It’s kinda chilly down here.”
A fire did sound nice. She got settled on one end of the couch and pulled an afghan over her lap, watching Casey assembling wood and balled-up newspaper pages in the big stone hearth. His back flexed where his sweater pulled tight across his shoulders, leaving her warmer by a degree.
His lighter snicked, and as yellow flames licked at the wood, he joined her, peeling off his sweater and tossing it over the couch arm.
“How you feeling about tomorrow?” He kept the lighter in hand, running his thumb along its smooth silver corners, worrying the lid. He toyed with the thing on boring nights at the bar, too, and when he was trapped with the sleeping baby on his lap.
“A little scared,” she said. “To be honest, I’m trying not to think about it.”
Studying this man’s handsome face was certainly a welcome diversion. It was more than mere gratitude drawing her to him, she realized. There was a very real chance that once James was out, her past would follow suit. Everyone believed they were protecting her welfare—and they were. But James could hurt her worse by talking than by hitting her, and she bet he knew it.
Depending on how pissed James was, in a week or a month or who knew how long, Casey might know the truth about Abilene, and that would just about destroy her.
She knew she couldn’t ever be with this man. But she still felt for him—worse than ever, in fact. Going forward, she’d make better choices. Find herself a man as sweet as this one, minus the criminal record and all the secrets. But she couldn’t deny she still wanted him.
She eyed his mouth. And I don’t want much. Just a taste. Just a kiss. A farewell kiss, to say good-bye to her old habits, once and for all.
He smirked, seeming to realize she was staring. “What?”
“Nothing. Just in my head.”
“If we weren’t on baby patrol, I’d take you out back and make you smoke a joint.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I’m not much for drugs.”
“Pot doesn’t count.”
“Pot also never solved anybody’s problems.”
“Nah, but it’ll shut your brain up real good.” He pocketed his lighter. “Damn, that sounds perfect, actually. Smoke a bowl, stare at the fireplace . . . Hardly anything better in the world than that. Not with your clothes on, anyhow.”
She laughed. “Sounds fun, I’ll admit.” The exact kind of fun she’d missed out on in her teenage years.
“Being a grown-up is such a drag sometimes.” Casey sighed.
“Tell me about it.” Again, she couldn’t help but imagine some different world, one in which she and Casey were the same age and had met in high school. Some world in which he’d maybe taken her virginity, been her date to prom, horrified her parents in ways that looked downright innocent, compared to reality . . .
Would he stop me, if I tried? Tried to kiss him? Tried to touch him? This felt like her last chance. Her last reckless mistake . . . Did that old crush still live inside him someplace, strong enough for him to maybe forget the baby and the danger and the fact that she was his employee, just for a little while? Make her feel like a sexual person again, remind her how good wanting someone could feel, and being wanted right back?
Heart pounding, she turned, bending her legs so her knees rested atop his thigh. She laid her arm along the couch, and her cheek on her shoulder, leaning a bit closer.
Casey seemed to take the move for exhaustion or vulnerability, and wrapped his own arm around her shoulders, giving her a little squeeze. It had been a long time since he’d touched her with this kind of casual ease. It reminded her of her final weeks of pregnancy, the nights they’d closed the bar together and he’d sometimes rub her aching back when there was a lull in orders. Not sexual, but friendly and familiar. Comforting.
Though tonight she wanted something more than comfort.
“Everything’s going to turn out okay,” he told her in that soft, fascinating, un-Casey-like voice. “Right now, this will probably be the worst of it. The waiting.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about tomorrow.”
“No?”
“I was thinking about how much things have changed, since last summer. Since I first met you.”
“No fucking kidding, huh?”
“You used to flirt with me,” she said, making sure he’d hear the smile in her tone, and know it wasn’t a complaint. “Shamelessly.”
“And you must have turned me down, like, eighty times.”
“I miss those days, sometimes.”
He sat up straighter, took his arm back, and met her eyes. “I still think you’re real pretty, you know. If things weren’t so different, I’d still be hitting on you, every chance I got. Wait—did that count as hitting on you? Don’t sue me for sexual harassment.”