Page 86 of Wife Number One

“Come on. We’re done here for now. Let’s go back up to the main house.”

She nodded, and I picked up the two black garbage bags full of trash and hauled them over my shoulder. On the way, I threw more random facts at her. “Did you know a blue whale’s tongue weighs as much as a baby elephant?”

They were all useless, stupid things I’d distracted myself with when I’d been a kid who didn’t want to participate in the real world. The real world sucked. Thinking about weird stuff made it suck just a little less.

Queenie and Aloha were out in front of the clubhouse when we made it back up there, and Queenie put a hand over her heart. “Lawd, baby girl. Where on earth you been? Thank God your mama fell asleep on the couch and didn’t realize you were missing.”

Hayley Jade ducked her head subserviently.

That bothered me.

“She wasn’t missing.” I tossed the bags into the dumpster at the far corner of the clubhouse. “She was with me. Weren’t you, Hayley Jade?”

She nodded quickly but still didn’t lift her eyes.

Queenie tried again, her voice softer this time now she wasn’t panicking over the kid’s whereabouts. “You want to go play with some toys? None of the other kids are here today, so you have them all to yourself.”

Hayley Jade looked up at me.

I tried to decipher her expression, but I didn’t know how to read kids. She wasn’t making a move for the toys though, so I guessed she didn’t want to play by herself.

“I’m going into town to buy some new sheets and pillows for the cabin.” Kara wasn’t going to be sleeping under a fucking dog blanket ever again. Nor could she be sleeping in my bed since I clearly couldn’t be trusted. She had nothing here. No clothes or underwear or toiletries. Maybe I could find some of that shit while I was at it.

I glanced over at Hayley Jade. “You want to come?”

The cute grin that spread across her face told me she did.

Queenie frowned. “Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Kara is asleep. Fell asleep on the couch sitting up, poor thing. She’s had a rough couple days.”

“All the more reason for me and Hayley Jade to let her get some rest, right then, kid?”

She nodded enthusiastically.

Queenie shook her head. “You aren’t putting that child on your bike, Hawk.”

I glared at her, insulted. “Do I look that stupid?”

“Yes,” Aloha shot back with a grin.

I flipped him the bird then looked to Hayley Jade. “Come on. Let’s go.” On instinct, I held a hand out to her.

Before I could think about what I was doing, her small fingers wrapped around mine. Warm and clenching my fingers tightly.

“Never in a million years did I think I’d ever see Hawk holding a little girl’s hand like that,” Queenie muttered to Aloha when my back was turned.

Aloha answered just as quietly. “He never had Kara’s daughter to hold before now.”

“I heard that,” I called back. I yanked open the door to the van and hoisted Hayley Jade up into the passenger seat and clicked the seat belt across her chest.

“Then tell me he’s wrong,” Queenie called. “You hate Rebel’s and Bliss’s kids.”

I didn’t hate them. I just didn’t care about them.

I slid into the driver’s seat and glanced over at Hayley Jade.

Her hair was light, but everything else about her reminded me of Kara.

And Kara had always been real fucking hard not to care about.

---