Beard Up(17)

"I love it," she said. "I got it from one of the girls in nursing school and didn't think that I'd ever get a chance to put it on her because it was a preemie."

"Who knew babies came this small and were still healthy?" I questioned my wife.

"A lot more than you'd think," she admitted. "Though, ours was a little smaller than most healthy babies. She was four pounds, fifteen ounces. They also expect her to lose some of that over the next week while we establish a nursing routine."

I laid my hand over our baby's chest, felt the rise and fall of her breaths and wondered if life had ever been any more perfect.

The hot pink flowers on the blue sleeper were adorable against my girl's lightly tanned skin.

She had a head full of hair as thick as her mother's, well, mine too but I prefer to think about her looking like my beautiful wife. There wasn't a single thing about her that I would change.

"I love you, Sienna."


      ///
       
         
       
        

That was when my woman started to cry.

I didn't move from where I was sitting with Sienna in my lap, but I offered her my hand, and we stayed like that for a while, studying our baby's perfect features.

Not once did I think that one day, I wouldn't have this anymore.

Because if I had, I would've cherished it just a little bit more.





***


"You okay, man?"

I turned to find Jessie staring at me with worry clouding his eyes.

"My daughter had that same outfit," I cleared my throat, trying to get the catch in my voice to go the fuck away.

Jessie looked at his daughter, and his eyes softened. "We got it at the Goodwill," he murmured. "We couldn't find any clothes to fit her at any of our department stores."

I looked away and changed the subject.

"Anyway, I need to borrow Ellen," I repeated my earlier problem. "How much do you know about my old life, Jessie?"

Jessie shrugged. "Not much, to be honest. I know what you told everyone the night Naomi was hurt. That you had a wife and a kid, but they think you're dead."

I nodded.

"Here's the rest of the story."

I gave it to him in clinical terms, explaining my life over the last years since my death, not leaving out a single detail. Why? Because this man was going to give me his wife, and I wanted him to know exactly what he was getting into if he agreed to Ellen helping me.

And, unsurprisingly, Jessie nodded his agreement.

"What made her say yes to him?" he asked. "That doesn't sound like something someone like her would do."

I gritted my teeth.

"He threatened to have Sienna taken away from her due to negligence on her part," I said.

"How do you know?" Ellen asked.

"Camera feed," I answered. "We have her house under surveillance. Everything he says or does when he's over there will be recorded. Not to mention that, when we go to the game today, and I sit close to her, I'll hear their entire conversation because of the wire I'll be wearing."

Jessie nodded as if he understood.

"Good luck getting her to shut up during that game, though." Jessie grinned. "She hates baseball."





***


"I don't hate baseball," Ellen said two hours later. "I just highly dislike boring stuff. But if the game is good, then I should be fine."

They were losing by twelve runs at the end of the fourth inning. 

Ellen, surprisingly, wasn't anywhere near as annoying as Jessie made her out to be, though.

She was cute in a little sister kind of way, and the feeling made a pang of misery roll through me.

I hadn't just left my daughter and wife. I'd also left behind my sister.

Though, she was doing a hell of a lot better now that she was out of my parents' lives.

After a time, my sister had finally seen the light. Though, I hated how she'd seen the light when it came to my parents.

Audrey had been walking to her car after work when she'd been assaulted, and later raped, by a man in the parking lot. At the time, everyone had thought it was a random act of violence, but after doing some digging around, I found out that it had not been random, but it did have to do with my parents.

That hadn't been the rapist's cover story. He'd deliberately made her think that it had something to do with a member of the MC's wife when, in reality, that had just been a seed that was planted to steer the blame away from him.

Audrey had been treated like the prodigal child by my parents. She was their cover. She was essential to keeping up their appearance of ‘normal.' And they'd have done anything, absolutely anything, including having their only daughter get raped, to protect themselves from getting burned when the fire got too hot.