Gavin’s uneaten chicken sandwich sat in front of him, while he and Kristy watched Scarlett play with Aiden on the restaurant’s playground. Two weeks ago, he hadn’t known any of them. The enormity of it all made his head hurt. Well, that and the half bottle of whiskey he’d swallowed last night.

Scarlett picked Aiden up and twirled him around. He could hear his son’s happy giggles through the glass of the restaurant. She had that effect on people. He’d been in a dark place when she’d returned from her errands last night, and she’d loved him back toward the light.

Another twirl, another giggle, and his damn heart barely fit in his ribcage.

“You gonna eat those?” Kristy pointed to his untouched fries.

“They’re all yours.” She looked like she needed every available calorie on the table and then some.

“Thanks.” She snatched the fries and wasted no time devouring them. In a t-shirt and shorts, beat-up tennis shoes and no make-up, she looked about sixteen years old. He threw pain relievers back with a slug of soda.

“How old are you?”

“Your private detective didn’t tell you?” There was venom in the words, tempered, but they definitely had a bite to them.

“I didn’t ask, and if he did, I don’t remember.”

“Twenty-one,” she said, but wouldn’t meet his eyes.

He knocked his knuckles on the table once to get her attention. “Really?”

“Fine. I’m nineteen.”

Aiden was almost two, so she’d been solely responsible for him since she was seventeen. His gut twisted around the anger that had lived there since he found out about Johnny’s deception. All the things that could’ve gone wrong raced through his head. “How did you support yourself and Aiden?”

She shrugged and dragged three fries through a river of ketchup. “Tara left me some money.”

“How much did Johnny give her?”

“Half a mil.”

“Five hundred thousand dollars?”

“Yeah.” She wiped her hands on a napkin and reached into Aiden’s diaper bag, withdrew a manila envelope, and slid it across the table.

The crinkle of the envelope opening and Kristy slurping the last of her drink were the only sounds in the nearly empty fast-food joint. He set the packet down and wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, then pulled out a stack of legal-looking papers.

It was a contract stating that Tara would receive half a million dollars in exchange for her silence about the baby. It also stated that she couldn’t come after him for more money and that he would never try to gain custody of the child. Johnny had forged his signature.

He fisted his hands and counted to ten…then twenty…then thirty.

Johnny, I’m going to kick your ass in the afterlife.

Guilt slapped him. It was clear by the contract language that his best friend and brother had, in a really screwed-up way, been trying to protect him. Even so, the anger was bitter to swallow.

He pointed to the last paper in the stack. “That’s not my signature. I’ve never seen this before in my life.”

Kristy threw her wadded up napkin onto the table, then crossed her arms defiantly. “That’s not my problem. I’m the one who takes care of him, who takes him to the doctor and stays up with him when he’s sick. Me. Not you. Not Tara.”

She was right, she’d done it all and done it by herself. “How did you get medical care for him without Tara around?”

“Can I have your sandwich too?” She reached out and nabbed it without permission.

Changing the subject, like that would work, such a rookie mistake. “Kristy?” He gave her his Delinquent glare.

“Tara used some of the money to buy a new identity.”

“Why?”

She rolled her eyes with all the force of her nineteen-year-old self. “Bad people were after her. I told you this.”

He’d forgotten. A horrible thought crashed into his head. “Are you and Aiden in danger?”

“No.” She began to tear the napkin to pieces.

“But you were?”

She shrugged. “I gave them what money I had left, and they stopped harassing me. That was two years ago, and I haven’t heard from them since.” She seemed to realize how vulnerable her admission made her. His back went ramrod straight. “We’re fine. I handled it. Just like I’ve handled everything else that pertains to Aiden and me.”

The small amount of food he’d eaten threatened to make a reappearance. She must’ve been scared shitless. He was scared shitless for them. The first thing that had to be done was to get them out of that hole they lived in and into someplace safe.

Kristy seemed to be unaware of the bomb blast she’d ignited. “Anyway, I used her old driver’s license and social security card to get the things I need for Aiden,” she mumbled into her soda.

“And you haven’t been caught?”

“No. We look enough alike for me to pass as her.”

Did she have any idea how much trouble she could get into? Probably not. There’d be time to deal with her fraud later, but he would need to get someone on it ASAP. The second item on the list, keep Kristy’s ass out of jail.

He wanted her protected in case this ever came back on her. It wasn’t her fault, she was just trying to survive and keep his son alive. He understood and respected the hell out of her for it.

“Anyway, Tara is now Sasha Strong. Doesn’t matter, good riddance is what I say. I want an ice cream cone now.”

She might say she didn’t care, but he could read the hurt in her eyes. He’d let her off the hook for now and pass the name, Sasha Strong, to Jack. He shoved the sleeves of his Henley up his arms. “Do you know where she is?”

“After the bad guy, there was a rapper, then another bad guy, and now she’s livin’ with some professional football player in Florida. Supposedly they’re getting married.”

He looked at her, then out the window to Aiden, and shook his head.

She let out a sigh as big as Nevada. “Yeah. I know.”

They were silent for a long moment. Tara had screwed them both over and not given one damn about it either.

Kristy squared her shoulders. “So what do you want?”

“You have to ask?”

“Yes.”

“I want my son. I know you’re attached to him, and I’d never cut you out of his life, but he’s my son, and he belongs with me.”

Wrong thing to say. Gavin knew it the minute he saw fire flash in Kristy’s eyes.

“You’re his father, huh? Where exactly were you when I was sitting in the ER all night while he ran a raging fever? Or when I was getting two hours of sleep at a stretch for the first six months of his life? And when I was trying to decide which was more crucial—food or medicine? You arrogant ass.” She yanked her purse and Aiden’s baby backpack from the seat beside her.

He gripped the backpack and held on. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was out of line. Please don’t leave.”

If looks could kill, he’d have been cut to ribbons. She sat slowly. “I. Am. His. Mother. The only one he’s ever known, and I will not just hand him over to you. We don’t even know if he’s really yours. I know he’s mine. So get your fancy lawyers, I’m not scared of you.”

The set of her jaw and her rigid posture told him she absolutely wasn’t afraid of him. “I want a DNA test.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her gaze held a calculating glint.

“Fine.” He wasn’t afraid of her either.

“I’ve heard those things can take a couple of months to get the results. A lot can happen in a couple of months.”

“It can, but if you go to a private lab, you can get them back in one to three days.”

She choked on her drink. “One to three days?”

“We’re not enemies, Kristy. We both want what’s best for Aiden. Can we at least agree on that?”

“I can agree that I want what’s best for him.”

They weren’t getting anywhere this way. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What did you want to do with your life before you unexpectedly became Aiden’s mother?”

She picked at her nail. “It doesn’t matter. I have Aiden, nothing else matters.”

“But what if it did matter? What would you want?”

She fiddled with the group of bracelets on her wrist. “I wanted to study marketing. I’d already been accepted to UNLV. I was considered a junior because of dual credit classes I’d taken in high school. But then Tara had the baby…and now I have Aiden. Dreams change.”

“Tell me about it.” He watched his wife and his son chase after each other. Who could have predicted he’d be sitting here wondering about the safety of playground equipment, and how fast he could get his wife back into bed. Life was weird and a little awesome.

“You can’t seriously be thinking you’re going to raise Aiden with your lifestyle. I mean, what? You’ll have a kid-sized room set up for him on the tour bus?” She threw the obliterated napkin on the table. “You have no idea what you’re asking for. It’s hard as hell. You worry all the time. You have to watch him all the time. You’re responsible for him all the time. How are you going to do that?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“You and her?” She jerked her head toward the window. “From what I saw on TV, this relationship seems sketchy at best.”

Their relationship might have been sketchy in the beginning, but not now. He and Scarlett were solid. She got him, and he got her. A smile split his face when he saw Aiden gave Scarlett a kiss on the cheek. This would work. He knew it. “We’ll handle it.”

* * *

Scarlett wanted this little boy worse than she’d wanted anything in her whole life. From the moment he’d taken her hand, she’d fallen completely in love.

It made no sense. Absolutely no sense at all, but love was funny that way.

She loved Gavin. The epitome of the kind of man she’d avoided her whole life, the kind of man that sang the same song as her soul. He and this towheaded child, with his cupid’s bow mouth, dimples, and a face that could go from serious to joyful in a heartbeat, had crashed through her defenses, and she was head over heels. Neither of them was on her meticulous life list. But they’d both barreled in and shredded that list to pieces. And she couldn’t be happier.

“Play.” Aiden pulled her hand toward the slide.

She laughed at his order. “Okay, little man. I’ll play with you.”

He climbed the small ladder of the playscape while she stood behind him. When he positioned himself in the right place, he pointed to the bottom of the slide. “Catch.”

“Alright.” She snatched him up to keep him from hitting the ground. If happiness had a sound, it was the way his giggles rang off the walls of the enclosed playground.

“Again, again.” His short legs worked double time to get back to the ladder.

They spent the better part of half an hour this way, and every time she caught him and swung him into the air he squealed with glee.

It amazed her how many of Gavin’s mannerisms the kid had, the way he lifted one side of his mouth when he was about to slide like he was about to do the most amazing thing possible. Or how he cocked his head when she talked to him, and how his little brow wrinkled when she told him they needed to rest and drink some water. Except for the dimples and the white-blond hair, he was the spitting image of his father. She knew Gavin was talking to Kristy about a DNA test, but it was only a formality.

“Hey, hey. I got a mushtush.” His grin was too much.

“What, Aiden? What do you have?” He was speaking English, but she didn’t speak toddler.

He pointed to his upper lip where there was a thin line of milk. “I got a muchtush.”

“Oh, a mustache.” She laughed, and he beamed. “It’s a very nice mustache.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, then jumped down and ran for the tiny house in the middle of the play area.

“Hey.”

“My name is Scarlett, Aiden. Can you say that?”

“No.”

“Can you try?”

He huffed like she’d asked him to clean the toilet. Clearly, he had some of his aunt’s mannerisms too. “Scawit.”

She ruffled his hair. “Close enough.”

He shrieked and ran into the maze, then poked his head out. “Where is the boy?”

“The boy?”

“The biiiiig boy.” He puffed his chest out and spread his arms as wide as possible.

Gavin. “He’s inside.”

“With Kiki?”

“Yes, he’s with your Aunt Kristy.”

He spun plastic blocks attached to the metal rods. “Can he play?”

Her heart almost burst. Gavin would love it so much if Aiden asked him to play. “Why don’t you go ask?”

She opened the door and watched through the window as Gavin’s mini-me ran up to the table and asked his question. The two reactions to that request couldn’t have been farther apart. Kristy turned as white as a sheet, and Gavin’s face lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July.

He got up and turned to Kristy and said something. She shook her head. With a shrug, he turned to Aiden, who held out a pudgy little hand. The Fourth of July look turned into something completely different. Like he’d hit the game-winning homerun in the World Series, on his birthday, while receiving a Grammy and opening the best Christmas present he’d ever been given.

Her husband and his son. Happiness, fear, devotion, anxiety, and love slipped over her heart in a waterfall of tenderness.

Tears she hadn’t expected blurred the scene. When they came through the door, she gave Gavin a thumbs up. The matching grins on both boys were cuter than anything she’d ever seen.

“Come play, Scawit.”

“I will in a minute. You play with Gavin for a bit. I need to rest.” No way would she take this moment from her husband. She sat at a table on the perimeter of the play area. At first, Gavin was tentative and overly careful, but Aiden quickly put an end to that. Soon they were both laughing and running around like crazy men. Unlike her, Gavin crawled up the bigger slides and went down with Aiden between his legs.

It could be this way. She saw it all play out in her imagination. Their life. The three of them, together for always.

Her phone signaled an incoming text. Without looking at the sender, she opened the message and gasped.

Another picture.

In it, she sat on a metal bench bolted to the wall, with a gang banger named Lil Roxy on one side and a homeless woman named Wanda on the other. Both rested their heads on Scarlett’s shoulders, sound asleep. It was hard to see all the details because of the cell bars, but her black pantyhose were ripped, her red curls were a riotous tangled mess, and her mascara-ringed eyes still held the same horror as in the previous picture.

Below the picture was another message from her tormentor. You meet the most interesting people in jail – Poppy. :-)

That effin’ smiley face emoji must be the new sign of the devil.

She was doomed. There’d be no coming back from these pictures. She looked at the boy who’d stolen her heart and the man who owned it and knew she’d never be more than an acquaintance to one and a memory for the other.