He slows down, favoring his leg and holding out a hand. “Hey, Mika. It’s me, Thibault. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” My voice trembles.
He limps over to the bench and lowers himself onto it gradually, his weight making the wood groan in complaint. I’m grateful for his effort at trying not to jiggle it too much and wake the sleeping baby.
We sit there together and stare out at the swings in front of us, neither of us saying anything for a while. It gives me a chance to calm my heart and my nerves, to chase my tears away. I feel bad that I disappeared on him without leaving a note. Maybe he thought I left for the bus station. I wonder if he was sad about it.
“I thought I would take a little walk,” I say. There’s regret in my tone. I feel stupid and naïve. I’m worried about my ability to be a good mother.
“I’m sorry I didn’t leave you a phone you could use. That was stupid. You probably felt like a prisoner in my house.”
I put my hand on his arm, my palm cold and clammy in comparison to his warm, dry skin. “Don’t say that. I didn’t feel like a prisoner, I promise. Not exactly. I guess I just needed to think, and it was hard to do that in an unbiased way while I was surrounded by all of your stuff.” The photo album mocks me, all that happiness inside.
“I get it.” He sighs. “Don’t worry about it. You have to do what you have to do.”
“It’s just . . . you can be very overwhelming sometimes.”
“What do you mean?” He looks at me like he’s trying to study my expression. I can barely see his; it’s too dark out.
“You’re big, you’re strong, you have all your friends and family around you. And you’re really sure of yourself. And you’re also really sure about what you can do and what I need to do and what’s going to happen next. But the problem is I’m not so sure.”
His voice is soft. Caring. “Which part aren’t you sure about? Maybe I can say something to make you feel better.”
I sigh heavily, taking my time with responding because everything is a jumble in my head. “I need to leave. But whenever I picture doing that, I can’t figure out where I need to go. Where I can go. I have money but no contacts. No plan. You’ve offered to let me stay a little while, but your sister has two kids and she lives right next door. I’m worried about them. What if Pavel . . .” I can’t finish. Instead I shiver, and it’s not because of the temperature.
He nods. “I hear you. And that’s a concern I share with you, and probably my sister does too. But I have a solution to that problem if you’re interested in hearing it.”
I’m afraid to hope for too much. “Okay,” I say, tentatively. “What is it?”
“My family has a cabin out in the bayou. It’s not bad, as far as cabins go. I mean, it’s not a ramshackle place held together with mud, sticks, and old tires like some of them are, but it’s not ultrafancy, either.”
I’m picturing the place he says his cabin is not, tires and all; but even so, it seems way better than getting on a bus to nowhere. “Sounds . . . quaint.”
“It’s outside the city, and nobody knows it’s there. It’s got a bedroom, a bathroom, and a nice little kitchen. No TV, and hardly any cell signal, but it’s private. There’s no one else anywhere around.”
“So, no one knows about it except everyone on your team.”
“Yes, they know about it, but you can trust them. I’d stake my life on it. You have nothing to fear from any of them.”
I stare at him and shake my head. “It must be nice.” There’s that jealousy again. I hate how it keeps rearing its ugly head.
“What?”
“I don’t know . . . To have that much faith in somebody, maybe.”
He shrugs. “They’re my family.”
“You sound like Pavel.”
“In what way?” His voice has lost the caring touch.
“His people are all very loyal to him and each other. Part of it is because they’ve bought into the whole brotherhood thing like it’s a damn cult, but the other part is that if you screw them over, they kill you. There’re no questions asked, either; they just do it—bam—it’s an execution. That kind of ruthlessness inspires loyalty like I’ve never seen before. In the hospital, I was worried about what was going to happen to me and the baby, but now I’m also worried about what could happen to you and your family. If Pavel finds out you’re helping me, they’re all going to be in danger.”
He puts his arm over the back of the bench and turns toward me, clearing his throat before speaking. “Okay, I don’t want to be pushy, because I know you’re already feeling pretty overwhelmed, but I need you to understand something.”
I turn a little to face him. “I’m listening.”
He places his hand flat over his heart. “I have dedicated my entire adult life to working with the police, helping them solve crimes, and getting bad people off the street. It’s who I am. I’m not saying I’m a hero or that I’m perfect or that I don’t screw up sometimes, but I am saying that I don’t know anybody who will work harder than me to keep you and Tee safe. I helped bring him into the world, and I know it’s crazy to say, but I feel a responsibility toward him and to you. Can you understand where I’m coming from?”
“But it was all just bad luck!” I say, quickly becoming agitated. This man is a good person, and I know he means well, but I can picture so clearly the regret he’d have if helping me got someone he cared about hurt . . . or worse. “I hit you with my car! It’s not like you chose to be around me or involved with me. It’s not like you know me. I’m just some girl who almost ran you over, and you’re just the distracted dummy who got in my way, right? So, what I don’t get is how I go from being that girl to this person you want to protect at all costs. It doesn’t make any sense! You should be suing my butt off, not protecting it.” My head is spinning. I have no idea where all that came from, but I’m glad it’s out of me. Damn.
He throws his hands up. “Mika, I don’t believe in random events just floating through our lives. I believe everything happens for a reason. There’s a reason I decided to get up that morning and drive all the way over to Lotta Java when I haven’t been there in months. And there’s a reason you took a wrong turn and headed up that particular one-way street, driving like a crazy maniac.” He pauses, his volume going down a notch or two. “And I stepped off the curb at exactly the right moment, while I was distracted.”
“Wrong moment, you mean.”
“No, I mean the right moment. There’s a reason for all of it. You were correct when you yelled at me from inside your car—I should’ve looked both ways. But I didn’t. Normally I do, I swear it. All the time, I do. But on that day, at that moment, on that street, when you happened to be driving where you shouldn’t have, I didn’t. And then you hit me, and the rest is history.”
He takes a breath before finishing. “So . . . I have to ask myself, why did all of those little things arrange themselves in just that way, so I would be in the perfect position to see a pregnant lady about to give birth, at the precise moment she was having labor pains that made it impossible for her to continue driving?” He shakes his head, and I can see his smile in the lamplight coming from across the street. “You could have been one block ahead or one block behind where you were and I never would have seen it. You never would have hit me, and our paths would have never crossed. I believe it all happened because I was meant to bump into you—or be bumped into by you—so I could help you and the baby. What other explanation is there? Too many events had to roll out just perfectly for this to happen randomly. And if that’s true, then it means I have to keep helping you. I can’t help you give birth to a healthy boy and then drop you off at a gangster’s doorstep. It’s not me.” He runs his hands through his hair. “It’s just not me.” He pauses, his voice dropping off to almost nothing. “Not anymore.”
Tears come and won’t stop. He’s talking about fate and destiny and things that were meant to be, as if someone up there in heaven has a plan for me, and it includes p
utting good men like Thibault in my path to help me out. I don’t believe it. I’ve had too much bad luck in my life to believe I deserve the good kind. It’s more likely that the universe has a plan for Thibault, and it ain’t pretty. “Maybe both of our times have come, and this is destiny’s way of putting us both in the path of a killer.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t believe that. No way. I’m here to stay. I have more work to do on this earth. And one of my jobs, something I feel deep in my heart, is to make sure that you’re safe. That you can move on with your life with your baby and not worry about some Russian mobster sneaking up behind you and slitting your throat.” He hisses out a breath. “Jesus, I’m sorry. That was ugly.”
A bitter laugh moves past my tears. He’s a lot closer to describing my life than he realizes. “No, don’t apologize. Thanks for the graphic visual. Did you know that’s his preferred method of execution, or was it just a good guess?”
He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t know, but I do know lots of guys like him. They’re ruthless dirtbags begging to be taken down.” He picks up my hand and holds it lightly in his. I should probably pull away, but I don’t. It feels too good to have him touching me like this. “You’ve got the goods on Pavel. My team has agreed to help you out on the condition that I double-check all the facts you’ve given me and verify that they’re true.”
I sigh heavily, hurt that they don’t trust me, but understanding completely why they don’t. “I guess I can’t expect them to trust the word of a former prostitute, can I?”
He squeezes my hand gently. “First of all, don’t talk about yourself like that. Just because you were forced into doing a job, or you chose to do something to survive, it doesn’t make you a bad person. Second of all, I haven’t told anybody that part of your story. That’s your secret to share or not share, not mine.”
I look at him, staring at his profile for several minutes. I want to see into his head and his heart, find out what’s in there, learn what makes him tick. He’s complicated, stubborn, kind, firm, and sexy . . . all these things rolled into one solid man. His hand is strong. Callused. Safe. I’d be willing to bet every dime I have that he’s never used this hand in violence against a woman. It’s dangerously alluring. I could get addicted to this person sitting next to me. He’s so different from what I’ve known these last years. My last sexual experience was unpleasant, to say the least. I wonder what Thibault is like in bed. Is he gentle? An alpha male who calls all the shots? Rough? Adventurous? I will never know, but that won’t stop me from imagining. Dreaming. Wishing things could have been different. He said I’m not his type and I said he’s not mine, but the more time we spend talking, the more I think we could both be a little wrong about that.
“I have a confession,” I say. The words spill out of me before I can think to stop them.
“Another one?”
He’s trying to sound put out, which makes me smile and keep going when I shouldn’t. “Yes. One more.”
“Is it going to blow my mind?”
If he took my pulse right now, he’d know how crazy this is for me, to flirt with him. That’s what I’m doing. I’m flirting, God help me. “Probably.”
“Fine. Go ahead. Lay it on me. I’m ready.” He closes his eyes, pretending to be preparing himself.
I can’t stop staring at his mouth. Those lips of his . . . full, dark, a mystery. How would it feel to have them on mine? “I really want to kiss you right now,” I whisper.
He looks at me, shrugging. “So what’s stopping you?” He tugs on my hand and leans a little toward me.
I can’t believe it. He didn’t laugh at me or tell me to keep dreaming. He wants to kiss me too. “Things are already really complicated,” I say as I draw nearer. I can’t ignore the attraction between us. Not when we’re sitting out here in the dark on this bench with the real world a thousand miles away. “This will make it worse.”
“But I like complicated.”
“I’m beginning to think I do too.” We meet in the middle. Our lips touch . . .
And then the baby starts crying because he’s hungry and it’s way too late for him to be out in a neighborhood park. And I should know better.
Thibault groans a little and pulls away. “Another time,” he says. He stands on one leg and holds out his hand. “Are you ready to go home? Back to my place?”
I put my hand in his and lean on his strength so I can get my sore body off the bench. “Yes. It’s pretty damn cold out here, actually.” I laugh uncomfortably. I also have to pee so badly I can hardly stand it.
We walk together down the sidewalk. “You should always have a diaper bag with you when you leave, just in case Tee decides to have a blowout. My sister has had some real doozies with the twins. You can tuck a jacket in there for yourself, too, for those nights you want to take random walks to the park and the temperature drops.” He looks over at me and smiles.
“Whatever you say, Superman.”
He pauses. “Don’t call me that. I’m no superhero. I’m just a guy.”
I stop and look up at him, no longer joking. “I don’t know who told you that, but they were wrong. You’re definitely not just a guy.”
The baby squeaks again. “You want to feed him here?” he asks.
“I’d rather do it at your place.”
“Well, let’s go, then.”
He hobbles along next to me, and I find myself enjoying the sounds of the night that rise up around us—crickets and bats and owls calling out with their evening song—despite the fact that whatever we have between us is completely surrounded by a pretty gloomy reality. The idea of getting away from it all holds a strong appeal right now. I can picture being tucked away in a cabin in the bayou where no one could find me. I could be happy there, taking care of my son and figuring out our next steps. The only thing that would be missing would be Thibault. But I couldn’t expect him to join us there. His job ends when we’re safe.
“So when are you thinking I could go to your cabin?” I ask.
“How about tomorrow morning?”
“Sounds good to me.” I can’t believe how sad the idea of leaving Thibault behind makes me. That near-kiss has thrown me for a serious loop.
“And I didn’t mean that you’d go out there alone. I’ll go with you. My knee is shot right now anyway, so Ozzie—my business partner—told me to take a few weeks off until I have my surgery.”
“Don’t they need you at work, though?”
“We’re hiring a new guy who Dev’ll get up to speed real quick. They’ll be fine without me for a little while. We don’t have anything big on the books right now that needs me specifically.”
It almost pains me to say this, because I’m so used to being on my own and not depending on anyone, but I can’t keep it to myself. It feels too dishonest when he’s making such an effort. “I think I’d prefer that. For you to be there with me.”
“Good.”
I can hear the smile in his voice, and it chases away the chill of the night. I don’t need a jacket anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Our first stop on the way out of town is the local warehouse superstore. I’ve never been inside it before, although I’ve driven past it plenty of times. Thibault is driving; I guess it was just dumb luck that I hit his left leg and not the right one and that he has an automatic transmission.
“Do I need to get out?” I ask, looking up at the red, white, and blue sign and then at the parking lot jammed with cars and people moving fast with their shopping carts.
“You probably should. I’m going to stock up on food and stuff for the cabin, and I don’t know what you like to eat or what you might need.”
“You mean we’re not going to be eating bologna sandwiches for every meal?” I grin at him.
“Well, we might, if you keep that up.”
I bite the inside of my cheeks for a few seconds to make the smile go away. “I’m sorry. You’ve been taking great care of me, and here I am giving you a hard time ab
out it.”
“That’s okay,” he says as he shuts off the engine and gets out of the car. “I’m getting tired of sandwiches too.” He leaves the crutches in the car.
I set the baby seat in the cart and walk next to Thibault as he pushes it toward the entrance. “Do you want me to do that?” I ask, pointing at the cart. “Push that?”
“Nah. If you don’t mind, I’m kind of using it as a replacement for my crutches.”
“Oh. Yeah, okay. No problem. Push away.” I’m actually glad he’s taking over that duty; my whole body is sore from that walk to and from the park last night.
“I can’t believe I still feel so tired.” I rest my hand on the side of the cart, selfishly glad Thibault can’t go very fast, then hating myself for celebrating the injury I helped cause.
“I think it’s normal to feel tired and out of it. It’s only been a few days since this little guy did a number on you.” He pauses to poke the baby gently, smiling when he squirms around and squeezes out a bubble of gas. Thibault looks at me as we wait for our turn to enter the store. “If you want to go see a doctor before we leave, I’d be happy to bring you to one.”
“No, that’s all right. I’m sure this is totally normal. Too much walking around isn’t such a great idea, I think, but some is good. The nurses told me that in the hospital. This will be my exercise for the day.”
He leans over the cart and looks right at me. “You can wait in the car. Really, I can do this. And I can take Tee with me too, if you want. You can take a quick nap, maybe.”
I cuff him lightly on the arm. “I’m not weak, okay? I just . . . had a baby.”
He smiles and pushes the cart forward. “Okay, Miss Tough Stuff. Let’s go, then. If you get too tired, I’ll put you in the cart and push your . . . butt through the store.”
He was going to say big butt, I know he was. I turn around and look at my rear end. “What’s wrong with my butt?”