Page 26 of Still Burning

Her eyes scanned my face, as if she would find some hidden emotion hiding there. I didn’t even have regret. Not where he was concerned.

“You didn’t go to his funeral?”

“No, I didn’t. The man I called Dad had been dead to me for a long time. He wasn’t at Mom’s funeral.”

She remembered that. When he hadn’t come, it had been just one more insult to my mom.

She nodded and laid her head back on my chest. “You’re right. He didn’t,” she said softly.

I ran my fingers through her silky locks, completely satisfied to hold her.

When I had been younger and I thought about having kids one day, I’d always imagined a little girl or boy with Salem’s blue eyes and dark hair. She was the only woman I wanted to have kids with. This wasn’t an ideal situation, but I wouldn’t ignore the baby. And I still wanted the family I’d once thought I would have. Salem would be a wonderful mother and stepmother. We’d discuss it eventually.

Right now, I didn’t want to share her. I had too much lost time to make up.

10

Salem

Rome had taken me riding out to his property again. We’d also gotten ice cream from the place he had taken me to when I was a teenager and to a bookstore so I could get some books to read over the next week. I missed the library I had on my iPad, and I wanted some of my things, but until they knew who had been tracking me, I couldn’t go to my apartment.

The oddest part of staying here with him was the limbo. It was like going on a long trip and leaving all your important things behind. Except I didn’t know when I’d go back.

There were days I’d give anything to have my own space—not to get away from Rome, but from the constant reminder that he was going to have a baby. Nixie was around a lot, and if I was in the room, all she did was talk about the baby. She couldn’t wait for the ultrasound to find out its gender. I knew that was coming up today or tomorrow, but I did my best to block her out.

Admitting to myself that I was jealous made me feel like a bad person. Just because I couldn’t have a baby—Rome’s baby or Eamon’s—didn’t mean I shouldn’t be happy for someone else. But I wasn’t. I lived with a constant ache in my chest.

When I was with Rome, it was as if the baby didn’t exist. He made me laugh and reminded me what it felt like to smile. I knew he loved me. He’d shown me how much in so many ways, not just in words.

But even when I was in his arms and he held me tightly, it was in the back of my mind. He’d share a child with another woman. Something I couldn’t give him. That was a sorrow that was slowly spreading inside me, and I couldn’t seem to stop it. No amount of pep talking I did to myself made it better.

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted my thoughts, and I turned my head to look at it from where I sat on the sofa. Rome had left twenty minutes ago to go to the club meeting or church or whatever. He had told me to wait here and that he’d come get me for a ride in two hours. I hadn’t argued. Going to see if Goldie or Nina was here meant the possibility of running into Nixie, and I didn’t want that today if I could avoid it.

Standing up, I walked over to the door, wondering if that could be Nina or Goldie coming to get me out of hiding. That was what Nina had called it the other morning when I went down for breakfast. She had accused me of hiding and said I needed to face Nixie down and not let her think she had won anything because she didn’t. But I disagreed. She’d won Rome’s baby. Something I’d give anything to have.

When I opened the door, the sight of Nixie soured my mood further. I was going to have to get over this. She’d be in Rome’s life forever. I couldn’t let her appearance spoil my day. But how I got over it was the question.

“Can we talk?” she asked, and I realized she’d been crying.

Stepping back into the room, I nodded and waited for her to come inside and close the door. I had painted her as the bad guy when, in reality, she was barely older than a college student and pregnant with a man’s baby who didn’t want anything to do with her. I’d been pregnant and unwanted once for a month, and I’d been terrified.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, concern now pushing away the other emotions I felt when around her.

She raised an eyebrow. “No,” she replied. “I’m having theultrasound today,” she began, and tears filled her eyes again.

I waited, not sure what to say or how to comfort her. We weren’t exactly friends.

“And I’m going alone.” She gave me a tight smile. “I get to see my baby for the first time, and I have to do it alone. Do you have any idea how that feels?” She shook her head. “No, you don’t.”

But I did. I knew it all too well.

“Did you, uh, tell Rome about the ultrasound?” I asked, hating to say it because the idea of him there with her, watching their baby on that screen when I’d watched our baby, wishing he were there with me, only stirred up the agony all over again.

But I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even Nixie.

She let out a hard laugh and threw her hands up. “Of course I did. But he doesn’t care. He just nodded and walked off like I hadn’t said anything that concerned him.” She let out a small sob and wiped at the tears on her face. “I just…what if something is wrong and I’m there alone? I don’t want to be, and if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be. He would be with me. He might even be in love with me. We never had time before you showed up.”

There was a deep, searing pain lodged from my throat all the way to my stomach as I stared at her, listening to her. I knew what I had to do. What she needed and the baby deserved. I also knew that, one day, Rome would have regrets for missing this. When the baby was born and he held it for the first time, he was going to love it. He’d be an excellent father. I didn’t want to be the cause of any more of his regrets. Especially about this.

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