Page 38 of Forced Proximity
“It’s not like I had much choice,” the man named Doc said. “I was just trying to help y’all so we could leave faster.”
“You could’ve waited a few seconds. It’s not like we’re in a real rush,” Finnian snapped.
“You may not be in a rush, but we are,” another one piped in. “It’s bad, Finnian. We need to get out of here.”
I wiped my tears. “I’m sorry. I’m fine.”
I forced myself to quit crying and gathered my pride. “I’m ready.”
The trek from the broken-down river house to civilization was a long one.
And the men were right.
It was bad.
What I imagined, and what I actually saw, were nowhere near the same thing.
I was showered, changed, and sitting on a couch with a little girl on one side of me, and the infant on the other.
I was mentally and physically exhausted, but I pulled myself together enough that they trusted me with the kids.
They being a man that they called Gunner, who’d brought his wife and his little girl along with him.
Gunner’s wife, Sutton, had smiled at me sadly and helped me get cleaned up. She’d let me borrow some clothes, and they’d let me borrow their hotel room to get clean.
I’d taken her up on her offer of clothes and food.
What I hadn’t done was expected her to trust me enough with her kid after she’d for sure heard about my meltdown at the cabin by the river.
But there I was, hanging out in a hotel room, while everyone else helped with the aftermath of the tornado and the plane crash.
But my brain had a burning question that needed answered, and the moment that Finnian showed up, dirty and more exhausted looking with a phone in his hand and a small smile on his face, I knew I had to ask him.
The toddler girl’s father came in shortly after Finnian and walked to his little girl, picking her up and cuddling her close.
He walked back out the hotel room door, and my brain just couldn’t compute.
The man holding the little girl, that I could now see outside the hotel room talking with a bigger group of big, scary man, definitely wasn’t the one who’d gone home with a little baby girl years ago.
Finnian stopped next to me and gently took the seat, his mouth open to speak.
But I beat him to it.
“What’s going on here?” I whispered to him. “I thought that the brown-headed one with the green eyes was her father.”
Audric.
The one that’d brought the formula and the breast milk with him earlier.
Finnian snorted. “That is a long story.”
“I can’t wait to hear it,” I whispered. “I’ve seriously been racking my brain trying to come up with the answer. I have nothing else to do but to obsess.”
He leaned backward, bumping me with his thighs as he slouched down low in his seat.
He was careful not to disturb the baby as he did.
“Long story short, Audric wasn’t the father. Gunner was—he’s the one that’s holding Lottie,” Finnian answered. “I have some good news.”
