Chapter Eight

Grace

I chose the Best Western Aveline Bay, a shabby little motel about a mile from Cullen’s house.

At only fifty dollars a night, it wasn’t in the nicest section of town. But it had a free continental breakfast and I figured I could stretch Cullen’s money that way.

I settled Ella down in the rented playpen for her nap and set about filling the fridge with some of the items I’d taken from his house and organizing the cereals and dry foods in the kitchenette. Once that was done, I looked around the room, with its outdated furniture and boxy TV and wondered what the hell I was going to do next.

At the shelter, they’d told me I should apply for public assistance, which. They gave me a list of websites I needed to access. I’d have to use the computer at the public library, but of course, I’d have to wait until Ella woke up. I pulled out a newspaper I’d found in the lobby of the hotel and started to read through the Help Wanted ads. As if I could ever take a job paying minimum wage with a baby to watch.

As I was lying on my stomach on the bed, thinking this was hopeless, I was suddenly jarred by the loudest ringing of a phone I’d ever heard.

I jumped up, just as Ella started to wail.

Scooping up the receiver, I snapped, “Yeah?”

“Grace?”

It was Cullen.

I peered down at Ella and tucked her in, and she started sucking her thumb, nodding off again, thank God. I whispered, “What?”

“Great to hear from you, too, sweetheart.” His voice was gruff. Sexy. Relaxed. After last night, it seemed now all he had to do was speak and I felt myself getting wet.

“What do you want, Cullen?” I hissed out.

“You, baby.”

I gripped the receiver in my hand and fell back against the cushioned headboard. “Are you drunk?”

“No. But look. There’s been a change of plans. I think you’d be safer either leaving town altogether or coming back to my place.”

I straightened. “I’m not leaving,” I spit out immediately. I’d never been anywhere but here. Going away, with Ella? That scared me more than anything. But for him to suggest it, something must’ve been happened. “What’s going on?”

“Listen,” he said. “Just sit tight there. You’re at the Best Western?”

“Yes. Room two-ten.”

“Geez, could you have picked someplace better than that shithole? Bad part of town over there.”

“Didn’t want you accusing me of wasting your money.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh yes, you would,” I said with a bitter laugh. “You—”

“Hey, I don’t want to argue. I’ll be there later tonight. I got some stuff to do first.”

And he hung up without so much as a goodbye.

I would’ve slammed the phone down on the hook if Ella hadn’t been three feet away. Instead, I hung up quietly, stewing. Go here. Do this. Sit. Beg. He really did think women were his little puppies to command, didn’t he? So now he wanted me back in his house, a house that had gotten ripped apart by bullets because of his association with his stupid motorcycle gang.

Gee, thanks for the offer, but no thanks.

And yet, as I sat there, thinking about the way he’d made me feel last night, I knew I was powerless to actually say that to him.

I looked down at sleeping Ella. “Don’t let the way he talks to me fool you. Believe it or not,” I whispered to her, “your daddy used to be quite the romantic.”

My thoughts slipped to the past. Straddling the back of Cullen’s bike, my arms wrapped around his strong back, that was where I felt safe. Protected, Loved. Once, we rode off together to the beach, my tits were pressed up against him. Every once in a while, I’d let my hands roam over his body. My hands, my fingers gliding over the bulge of his cock through his jeans.

We’d parked on the side of the road and hand in hand, made our way to a secluded cove that he used to go to when he was younger, where the sand was as white and fine as powder. He had pulled out a blanket that I hadn’t known he’d brought. “You think you’re getting lucky?” I’d asked him, surprised.

A corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’m already lucky, baby,” he’d said. “I got you.”

He’d spread out the blanket, and we watched the sunset, arms wrapped around each other. We’d kissed like no one else existed, with the seagulls crying out in the distance, the waves lapping at our bare feet.

Then, he slowly undressed me, worshipping my body, taking care with his explorations, licking each and every part of me, before he’d slowly entered me. Buried deep inside me, he’d whispered how much I’d meant to him, as he fisted the blanket and gazed into my eyes. “And you got me,” he’d said. “You’ve always got me.”

Growing up, I never believed much in love. My parents fought all the time. My dad walked out when I was twelve, and my mother, desperate for a man to love her, invited a string of total losers into our house, most of whom wound up hitting on me. I was raped by one of them, and when my mother found out, she was so beside herself with guilt that she killed herself. If love existed, it was meant for other people, not me.

But that night was the first night ever that I could see my future. The first night I had believed I could find love. That I could be Cinderella and live the fairy tale.

That night, I’d been so happy, I cried. Cullen asked me what was wrong, and I just moved closer to his naked body and told him that nothing could possibly be wrong. I had been crying because everything was so right.

And then . . . then it all fell apart.

All it took was a couple of weeks for that fairy tale to crumble. For the dreams I’d been amassing in my head to be torn apart. Cullen started spending more and more time with his gang, and some days, he didn’t even come home.

I fell back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to trust Cullen completely again.

Not now.

I looked over at sleeping Ella, so sweet and angelic, her shriveled thumb at her little bow lips.

I had so much more to lose now.