Page 76 of Roads Behind Us
I put my truck into Drive and steered with one hand while I held the basket handle with the other, trying to avoid potholes and checking every other second to make sure the baby hadn’t decided to jump out. He didn’t seem like he’d be able to command his little body that effectively quite yet, but I had no idea how old he was or what babies did. The only baby I’d ever been around was Mrs. Ortiz’s granddaughter when I was nine years old, and then I’d held a couple of my dad’s employee’s kids years ago at the company Christmas party.
I was so not equipped for this; my little freak out about being a mother figure to Athena was so spot on, it made me sick to my stomach.
Bax’s kitchen door banged against the wall when I pushed it open with my hip.
He stood in front of the sink, leaning on one crutch and slowly swiping the scratchy side of a sponge around the pan in the sink he’d used to make eggs. He was humming. Seriously out of tune humming.
“Bax.”
On my way in the door, I noticed the extra cabin key wasn’t hanging from the hook like it had been every other time I went in or out of the house. It was possible someone had knocked it behind the garbage can below, but with the basket in my hand and the memory of the car kicking dirt behind it as it drove away, I had my doubts.
“Did you forget you wanted to kiss me again?” Bax asked with a goofy smile on his lips, still facing the window over the sink looking out at a view of the barn.
“Where’s Athena? Has she left for school yet?”
He turned when he heard the breathless sound of my voice. My heart was still pounding.
“Yeah, Abey picked her—” Bax stopped mid-sentence, confused at my question, but then he zeroed in on the delivery in my hand. The dish sponge splattered on the floor, and the whites of Bax’s eyes showed as he looked at the baby, like the kid really was a bomb.
I set the basket on his kitchen table, and he swung his wet hand toward it, pointing at the baby with a shaking finger. “What is that?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bax
“It’s a baby,” Bea stated simply, like that explained away the fact that there was a baby in my house.
She looked like a completely different woman than the one I’d made love to early this morning. I saw real fear etched into her usually confident features.
“He was in my cabin alone. The car. The car from the other week and the man with long hair, he just left him! Clay and I watched him drive away. I bet that’s who took the key, but he couldn’t leave through the front door because of the crew.”
“Him? What key?”
Just then, the baby let out a cry, and he opened his eyes. They were the same blue I’d seen in my youngest brother’s eyes my whole life. The same blue I saw when I looked in a mirror. The kid was the spitting image of Dixon.
“I think it was your brother, Dixon. Is that possible?” Bea lifted the kid and tucked him into the crook of her arm. He whimpered and cried harder as she swayed from side to side, shushing him. “Bax, look in the basket. There’s an envelope. I didn’t notice it till now.” When I didn’t move, Bea stepped closer to the basket. “It’s addressed to you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” Like she knew instinctively not to get too close to me with the baby in her arms, she held the note out to me and waited for me to take it from her hand.
The letter had been sealed in a thin, nearly see-through, white envelope, and my name had been scribbled on the front in Dixon’s chicken-scratch handwriting.
Panic swirled in my chest, and the sight of Bea comforting a baby wasn’t helping.
Somebody else needed to come and deal with this. I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop shaking. I whispered, “Can you call my sister?”
Afraid she hadn’t heard me, I looked up, and finally Bea said, “Of course.”
I hadn’t hid the panic as well as I’d hoped. Bea had no clue what was wrong with me, but she knew it was something if the worried look on her face was anything to go by. She fumbled her phone, trying to unlock it and search for Abey’s contact while she bounced the baby.
Trying not to crush it in my hand, I pulled my own phone from my pocket and leaned on my crutch. I swiveled on my foot, turning away from Bea, and opened my contacts. I hit Dixon’s name with my thumb so forcefully, I was surprised the screen didn’t crack.
For more than a year, my family’s and my calls had gone unanswered, but today, surprisingly, my brother answered, and my temper got the better of me. “What the fuck, Dixon!”
It took him a minute, but he said, “You can take care of him, Bax. You’re a good dad. I’m not. I can’t do it.”
I lowered my voice so Bea wouldn’t hear. “You knew what this would do to me. Goddamn you.”
