Chapter Twenty-Four
Pru
Sleep fades quickly as the sound of Scarlett’s cries fill the room. I open my eyes and see the early morning sun peeking through the window. I turn my head, my eyes landing on a jean clad Hack walking through the door. He is babbling to a crying Scarlett while pushing her bassinet into the room. Last night was the first night she didn’t sleep in here with us. Every other night, he has brought her and her bassinet in, so she could sleep at the end of our bed.
Sitting up, I reach over the side of the bed and grab Hack’s discarded tee to pull on. “Sounds like you’ve got a hungry little girl on your hands.”
“Yeah,” he says with a smile, pulling our daughter out of her bed. “Gidget said it’s been about four hours since her last bottle.”
I watch as he reaches in the bassinet and pulls out a fresh bottle that I can only assume Gidget made for her. Whispering something I cannot hear to Scarlett, he walks to the door and uses his boot to kick it shut. Then, he comes to sit beside me on the bed and puts the bottle to her lips. Her cries die a quick death as sounds of her suckling hits my ears.
“I enjoyed having time alone with you last night,” Hack says, shooting me a wink. “But we need to get a baby monitor before we do it again. I don’t like not being able to hear her during the night.”
I simply nod, agreeing with him completely. If we were back at my house, things would be different. But at the clubhouse, I don’t know everyone and like having our daughter close.
When Scarlett’s sucking starts to slow, Hack pulls the bottle from her mouth and lays her against his bare shoulder to burp. “When we get our own place, she can sleep in her room. I’m gonna set up a video monitor, where we can hear and see everything she does.”
“Our own place?” I ask, my voice going up an octave.
“I’m not fucking around this time. I’m gonna put a ring on your finger and get us a place of our own to live in,” he says, rubbing circles over Scarlett’s back. “I’ve looked at some of the realtors’ sites online and found a few houses I think you’ll like. Before we go see them, I wanna talk to the old man that lives down the road from Smoke. He’s nearing eighty and spends more time at his son’s place than his own. I’m thinking, if the price is right, he’ll sell. The house will need some work, but I think you’d be happier living by Gidget.”
Placing a shaking hand against his chest, I ask, “What are you talking about?”
“I love you, and you love me,” he states, looking into my eyes. “I’m not letting you and our little princess leave me. We’re gonna be a family, and I’m gonna make you and Scarlett the happiest girls in the world.”
“Okay,” I say as warmth spreads throughout my chest.
Hack cocks a brow and asks, “You aren’t gonna bitch about going back to your place, about needing to get back to work and school?”
I spend a minute or two thinking on his words. He’s right; I should probably be throwing a fit right now. He’s planning my life for me, making choices about things that we should be deciding on together. But, no matter how I look at the situation, I can’t see a downside when I will go to bed with him by my side every night.
Biting down on my lip, I shrug my shoulders. “I would love to have Scarlett grow up in a decent house. You lived with me, so you know my house is a dump. It would be nice for her to have a home that didn’t need plastic on the windows every winter just to keep the cold out, and I would love having a house where I didn’t snag my toe on loose carpet every time I walk in my living room.”
“What about school, your job?” he asks as he wipes a dribble of milk from Scarlett’s chin then places the bottle back to her lips.
“I no longer have a job. Considering I was just earning minimum wage and tips, I’ll probably be able to find something just as good or better here,” I reply with a shrug. “As for school, I had to take a leave of absence after the doctor put me on bed rest. When I get back on my feet, I can transfer to a cosmetology school in Nashville.”
His deep blue eyes burn into mine when he asks, “So, you gonna give life with me a chance, see if it works?”
Running a hand over Scarlett’s head, I place a kiss against Hack’s beard-covered chin. “I’m not taking any chances. I already know this is gonna work.”
Before he can respond, his phone chimes with a text. Maneuvering his arms around, he somehow holds our daughter and her bottle with one hand, while his other grabs his phone off the nightstand. He reads his message before laying it back down.
“I’ve gotta get going,” he says, handing Scarlett to me.
I take over feeding our little girl without ever moving the bottle from her lips. “You’re going to get Mom, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, baby. We are,” he answers, getting up from the bed and walking over to the dresser to pull out a clean tee.
When he mentioned going to get her last night, I blew it off, not wanting to have to deal with it at the time. After giving up so much of my life to her shit, I wanted one night that was free of her. This morning, there is no choice but to talk about it.
“I have a key to her apartment,” I tell him, motioning my head to my purse that is currently hanging off the knob of the closet door. “Hand me my purse, and I’ll give it to you.”
The little girl in me feels a bit guilty for helping Hack get his hands on my mother, but the woman in me shakes it off. This is my man, Scarlett’s father, and our future. If there is something I can do to help, I will do it.
He does what I say, setting the purse right beside me on the bed. “You don’t have to do this. We’ll be able to get her without a key.”
“This will make it easier,” I say, passing the baby to him. “As early as it is, she’ll still be sleeping. You can go in and get her before she even knows you’re there.”
“It’ll make it easier, but you still don’t have to do it.” He pulls the nearly empty bottle from Scarlett’s mouth and brings her to his shoulder to be burped again.
I pull out my keys and work Mom’s off my key ring. I also grab my phone and send him a long and detailed message. With that done, I just sit and wait for him to finish burping our daughter and lay her sleeping body back in her bassinet.
As soon as he is done, I hand him the key. “She may not have come home last night, and I have no idea where she would be. Like I told you before, I don’t know her friends. I sent you a text of the bars she frequents. I don’t know the addresses, but I added the name of the streets they’re on.”
“That’ll help,” he says with a nod of his head.
“The apartment to the right of Mom’s is Mrs. Lowe’s. She’s damn near deaf, but she always has her face plastered to the window. If she sees anything suspicious, she won’t hesitate to call the cops,” I explain, wanting him to have as much information as possible. “Unless something has changed in the last few weeks, the apartment on the other side is empty. The last tenants moved out right before Scarlett was born. Mom said the apartment manager was having the walls painted and new carpet put in before renting it out again. That could mean there are a bunch of workers there, so you need to be careful of what they see and hear, too.”
Hack bends forward, cupping my face. “I knew you were strong but had no idea how fucking strong. You are gonna be a great old lady.”
“Hell yeah, I am,” I reply, trying to hide the anguish inside of me with humor.
A smile spreads across his face as he brings his lips to mine. This kiss is sweet and gentle, holding none of the heat from last night. It holds something even better, a promise of a wonderful future.
His phone dings with another text, so he pulls back and grabs it off the bed. His eyes scan it quickly before he says, “I’ve gotta go, baby. The sooner we hit the road, the sooner we can get our asses back home.”
Fear fills me as I wrap my hand around his. “Be careful, please. Mom is a little crazy on her good days, but she is a complete nutcase the rest of the time.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, Pru,” he says, in no way responding to my fear-filled words.
With that, he heads to the door. As he walks out and shuts it behind him, I lay my head against the pillow and close my eyes. There’s no way I’ll be going to sleep again, but I decide lying in a warm bed is better than pacing the floor.
Twenty minutes or so pass before my phone dings. I grab it and open a text from Hack; Love you.
Love you, I respond, finding my first bit of peace since he walked out the door.