“Much different than your nursery, huh?” I kiss her cheek, breathing in her powdery lavender scent.
“Your daughter is beautiful.” An older woman in head to toe neon green Nike powerwalks past me with a wide grin, her eyes moving from Sadie to me and back.
“Thank you.” I nod.
She feels like mine, even if she’s not.
Cradling her in my arms, I study her face. I can’t decide if she looks like Beck or not. Sometimes I see it in her expressions. He still won’t open the envelope, and it’s not my place to push him.
Another temporary custody hearing is tomorrow, sparked by the fact that Eva signed away her parental rights. Beckham’s been a moody mess since last week, each day worse than the one before.
Losing Sadie would destroy him. I refuse to believe it’s going to happen.
Sadie smiles up at me, wrapping her fingers around my pinky. I make faces and tickle her beneath her chin until her legs get to kicking. She’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.
After playing for a bit, her tongue begins to click against her lips. She’s hungry. Pulling her diaper bag from beneath her stroller, I mix up a bottle, lean back on the bench, and feed her.
Sadie watches me intently, her belly filling by the second, and I squeeze in a bit of people watching. A twenty-something couple amble past, fingers intertwined, and my heart squeezes.
I lift the baby over my shoulder to burp, and circle my palms over her back, inhaling her once again. The judge is going to let her stay with Beckham no matter what. I know it in my heart of hearts. There’s no one else better suited to be her father. My eyes burn for a moment, but I push those doubts and fears away. I’ve been so preoccupied with keeping Beckham calm lately that I haven’t thought much about how it would make me feel to lose her.
Squeezing her a little tighter, I lower her into my arm again and place the bottle against her mouth.
A little boy blazes by on a bike, his mom chasing after him, calling for him to slow down. Watching to see if she ever catches up with him, I spot two familiar faces up ahead.
My heart lurches into my throat, and for a moment the wind is knocked out of me.
The couple grows closer, and I call them a couple because they’re unmistakably holding hands.
Each second passes in slow motion, bringing them closer. They don’t see me. Not yet. But they will.
Sucking in a deep breath, I stand up, Sadie in my arms, and in my best cordial tone say, “Hey, you two.”
Jeremiah and Carly’s younger sister, Carissa, freeze, spotting me at exactly the same moment. Their hands drop and their faces turn pale.
I strut across the wide asphalt path toward them, my heart breaking yet satisfied by the way Jeremiah squirms under my stare.
“What’s this?” My eyes dance between theirs.
Carissa turns to Jeremiah but he looks my way.
“How long?” My jaw sets harder than the knot in my stomach.
This explains Carly’s strange behavior last time we hung out. I thought it was odd how distant she’d been lately, but I chalked it up to the fact that I was busy dealing with Beckham and my new job. I thought maybe we were falling out of touch.
I suppose she felt caught between her loyalty to Jeremiah and her loyalty to me.
This was the last thing I ever expected.
“It wasn’t planned,” Jeremiah drawls. His tone is smooth and unwavering but the shift in his eyes tells me he’s nervous as hell. “Carissa’s been interning at the studio. We spent some late nights together. It just sort of evolved, Sam.”
I fight a bittersweet smile, staring at the young woman who likely ignited the doubt in the mind of my former fiancé. Carissa offered an excitement I could never give him.
She was the catalyst.
“We never wanted to hurt you.” Carissa bites her lip. I’ve been best friends with Carly since college, but I’d only been around Carissa a handful of times since she attended culinary school in California. “If it makes you feel any better, Carly won’t speak to me.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, stuck between wanting to smack him and thank my lucky stars. I now know that marrying him would’ve been the biggest mistake of my life.
“When did things…evolve…exactly?” I ask, not that it matters at this point, but I doubt I’ll get another chance to ask.
“O-oh, um,” Jeremiah stammers. His reaction confirms my assumptions. “I mean, we hung out a lot, but we didn’t really do anything until after you said you absolutely didn’t want to marry me.”
Carissa smacks him across the chest. “You make it sound like I’m some kind of consolation prize.”
His blue gaze darts between us. There’s nothing he can say that’s going to please us both.