“Thank you, sir,” the poor girl behind the counter said with a forced smile, hand shaking as she passed me the receipt. I was sure I looked like a complete freak who’d walked in off the street—all pissy and surly and biting out instructions to her.
Wasn’t her fault my dad was an asshole.
“Thank you,” I managed with a tight smile as I headed back out into the heated day. The air here was always thick and soggy and like walking into a wall. Just as I was getting ready to cross the street back to my car, I glanced to the right and that was when I saw her.
Or maybe it was the awareness that stopped me in my tracks and drew my gaze her direction.
And God, I couldn’t look away as she walked toward me, floating down the sidewalk, insanely gorgeous waves of blonde bouncing around her as she smiled the brightest smile, lighting up the world in the seconds before she encroached on it and took it in the grips of her raging storm.
An enigma.
A hurricane.
Emotion whipped around me, a frenzied stir of energy that crackled through the air.
And for the second time today, I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut, this time my attention locked on who Shea was holding hands with.
Mounds of tight blonde ringlet curls.
Caramel eyes.
A tiny smile big enough to shatter the Earth.
My eyes traveled back to Shea’s and she fell to a stop just feet in front of me when she noticed me. I watched the movement of her throat as she slowly swallowed, then protectively squeezed the little girl’s hand.
Holy shit.
Shea had a kid.
SEBASTIAN STOOD THREE FEET away from me with horror etched all over his striking face.
This was the exact reason why I didn’t say anything, why I never bothered to try, because their reactions were always the same.
But this time? This time it hurt.
Because it was Sebastian.
Because I wanted him.
Ached for him.
More and more every day.
I gave my daughter’s hand a reassuring squeeze, my voice strained when I finally whispered, “Baz.”
His Adam’s apple grew prominent, and I trailed it as he swallowed hard. I could tell the way he was fighting to continue to look at me, the way he didn’t want to look at her, but couldn’t resist. His eyes continuously flitted between us, guarded when it landed on her and confused when he turned back to me.
Sadness billowed through me on gentle waves, soft nudges of reality prodding that I should have been more careful.
That I didn’t have time for distractions.
Apparently I didn’t have the heart for them, either.
My head tipped to the side, telling, reminding, pleading. I told you.
Yet he was the one who’d pursued it, the one who couldn’t let it go.
Now I’d be the one who paid for it.
“Hey.” The word was forced, his attention darting away before he chanced looking back at me. Something regretful flashed in his stormy eyes. “I…uh…” He rubbed his hand over his face, his smile tight when he took two steps back. “I’ll see you around, okay?”
Wow.
Okay.
I didn’t honor him with an answer.
He probably wouldn’t have waited around for one anyway. He ran across the street to a black car parked at the curb that looked just as mean as the bike he’d taken me out on two nights ago.
Dangerous.
I should have heeded all those warning bells that had gone off in every single one of my senses the second I’d seen him.
But I couldn’t look away then. And I couldn’t look away now. I stood staring while he jerked open the driver’s side door. He peered back at me for one fleeting moment before he slipped inside and slammed the door shut, closing himself off behind blackened glass and metal.
Emotion burned at my eyes.
“Mommy?”
My tiny girl looked up at me. My world. The reason I lived.
My butterfly.
Swallowing down the glimmers of pain, I smiled at her, squeezing her hand in mine. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”
Kallie swung her legs from where she sat at the edge of the kitchen counter. A big mixing bowl was at her side, and I stood guard over her while she dumped a measuring cup filled with sugar into the bowl. With wide, brown eyes, she watched as the grains sifted down into the growing mixture of dough.
She giggled when it emptied, little shoulders coming up to touch her chubby cheeks as she shook all over. “There we go, Momma! I did it!”
I kissed her button nose, lightly poked her in the belly. “You did it.”
She had to be the cutest thing that had ever graced God’s Earth, my sweet girl who sat right in the same spot where my most cherished childhood memories had taken place, the same spot where I’d stood next to my grandmother on the tall step chair, working at her side.
I knew at only four, there was little chance she’d remember these moments, but I hoped they were the foundation of memories, the basis of something beautiful that would forever fill her heart with love and joy.