Second Chance Baby (Crescent Cove #18)

Chapter 20

TWENTY

He pressed his lips together until they turned white. “ Go? I thought we were getting your stuff from the city tonight. You know, the first day of the rest of our lives bullshit.”

“Yeah. I still want to do that absolutely.” I tried to smile. “Just I have to do something really important first.”

Slowly nodding, he murmured, “Okay. Just as long as you promise to tell me when you’re getting scared. Even if you can’t tell me why yet, just make sure you always let me know you’re feeling afraid. I’ll do my best to listen, no matter what.”

“I will try my hardest to do that. I promise.” I rubbed my arms as the wind lifted, skittering the crunchy leaves that lined the walkway. “I have no way of going back to undo what I did. All I can do is go forward. I can trust myself to make different choices this time, because I want to. Because people I love feel the same for me and are trusting me to do my best to live differently. Getting lost in self-loathing doesn’t make our current reality any better. It just makes the chances of me making the same wrong choices again that much higher.” I blew out a breath, studying him intently. His knitted eyebrows as he thought through what I’d said made my chest hurt, but I didn’t take any of it back. I couldn’t. “Though I want to go get my stuff in the city with you tonight, there’s someone I need to see and talk to first. While knowing you trust me to come back and do what I said I would do. I love you, Travis, and I love our girl, but I can’t put myself last again. That’s only a recipe for losing myself, which makes it more likely I’ll make mistakes I can’t stand one more time. Do you trust me?”

Before he could speak, I held up a hand. “I know I have no right to ask. But I need to know you have my back.”

His hesitation to answer proved to me he was taking the question seriously. Evaluating every bit of it before he answered. “I do. One hundred percent. So, go see whoever you need to, and I’ll be waiting at home whenever you’re done. Then we will go to the city.” His lips quirked. “Maybe I’ll do a quick Trolls and Scooby-doo search while I wait for you. It’s not a full Halloween season if my older brother doesn’t ticket me, you know?”

I amazed myself by laughing. And it wasn’t forced or fake, either. “Yeah, Amerie will be so happy that you’re trying. You don’t have to kill yourself to find them. We’re already breaking the cycle,” I added quietly. “The no dad in the house scenario is ending for good with us. So, we’re already fucking ahead.”

“We are. And the no mom one is ending too. So, as far as I’m concerned, we’re rocking this shit.” He framed my face in his palms and gave me a soft kiss. “I love you so much, and I’m so fucking proud of you. I’m sorry I never said that enough. But I always was.”

I reached up to flick away the tear on his lashes. Thank God for him. And thank God I’d been smart enough to find my way back to him. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Well, other than taking too long to eat that delicious chili.” I reached down to pat my belly, noting the interest in his gaze that had his lips curving and flashing his dimples. “I’ll be home in not too long,” I promised, leaning up to give him a quick kiss.

“Holding you to it,” he said as he stepped back. “Want me to bring you back home so you can take your car?”

“Oh, yeah, duh, good point. No, can you drop me at Lacey’s? I’ll have her bring me back when we’re done.”

Though he quickly blinked it away, relief flared in his eyes for a moment before he nodded. “Sure thing.”

I took a step then looked behind me at the closed front door. “I’m just going to give Care Bear one more goodbye hug before we go. The first one was too quick.”

His smile spread across his face. “Take your time.”

After running back inside to hug my girl once more, hanging on so long she finally lightly pushed me away with a laugh, I ran back out to the truck. Travis was still smiling as he tapped his thumbs on the wheel in time to Thriller playing through his speakers.

While he drove, I looked up the address of my older sister’s house on GPS. Instead of letting it tell him where to go, I read each of the directions to him on the text list. Stop here. Turn left. Turn right. Yada, yada.

“Reminds me of the old days,” he said with a grin, reaching over to squeeze my knee under the hem of my flirty dress.

“Sure does. Back when we’d take road trips for fun. Just as a way to waste a weekend, driving wherever we felt like. Right there, at the end of the block behind that huge maple.” I bit my lip, noting that I needed to help my sister with her overgrown hedges. They’d grown up to the point that it was almost impossible to see the windows of her screened-in porch, where a cheerful jack-o-lantern light glowed in the darkness.

“I’ll bring over my trimmer,” he said quietly, squeezing my knee for a different reason this time. “Won’t take but a couple minutes.”

“We can both do it. Or I can rake while you trim.”

“Sounds like a plan. Now go before I kidnap you and tie you up in this truck to have my dastardly way with you.”

“Sounds like my kind of night,” I said with a grin before I opened the door and hopped down.

I watched him reverse then waved until I couldn’t see his taillights anymore. I hurried up my sister’s couple of steps, avoiding the broken board in the middle of the top one. I knocked on the porch doors, then realized she probably couldn’t hear me due to the loud Dua Lipa music pouring out into the night from inside. I pulled open one of the creaky doors before crossing the porch and ringing the glowing doorbell.

“It’s your favorite sister out here, Lace.” I tried to lift my voice over the music.

I wasn’t sure I’d succeeded until I heard my sister’s faint reply. “Bridget?”

I laughed as she threw open the door. “Do you have another sister I don’t know about?”

“Not that I know of.” She opened the door and looked out, peering around with obvious confusion. “Just you? Where’s Travis and Carrington?”

“Yeah, I need to talk to you. Carrington’s spending the night at her grandparents’ place while Travis and I go down to the city to clean out my apartment. Not the smartest to do it at night but my place is here, so there’s no reason to wait.”

Lacey waved a hand. “Just turn on a lot of lights. You’ll be fine. Not like you damaged the place with your crazy raves or something.” With a laugh, she drew me into her arms, the smell of lemon furniture polish wafting over me as we hugged. “Sorry, cleaning my ass off. The place turns into a sty so damn fast.”

“You think this qualifies as a sty, Lace?” Wonder lined my words as I glanced around her painfully neat home. Nothing seemed out of place to my eye. No stray magazines or newspapers or even electronics, no random toys that belonged to humans or pets. Even all the couch pillows seemed perfectly orderly and fluffed, as if the room had just been tidied up by a fleet of cleaning elves. The coffee table in front of the couch had been polished to a high sheen. Even the end tables were gleaming, without a spot of dust to be seen anywhere. “You definitely didn’t learn this attention to detail from mama. I don’t think she even owned a duster.”

“Definitely not. She always claimed she was allergic to polish.” Lacey shrugged and aimed her mini hand vac at the couch cushions. Only looking closer allowed me to notice the light layer of golden fur scattered here and there. “Was as good an excuse as any, I suppose. It wasn’t as if I liked cleaning the trailer, either. Though I always liked vacuuming.” She shrugged and used the mini vac on crumbs between the cushions. “I liked that you could see results right away.”

I peered around the corner at the hallway, currently mostly clean except for the pair of kid’s skates tipped over on their sides and what looked like a frisbee tossed in the corner. “Hey, where’s Biscuit? And Amerie?”

“Biscuit is probably hiding from the vacuum. He’s no fan of it. Amerie went to her friend’s house, though she wants to see all of your Halloween decorations lit up at night soon. Seeing them in the daytime just isn’t the same, she informed me.”

I laughed. “She does have a point. Travis is trying to abide by her wishes, by the way.”

“What wishes?”

“She asked Carrington if we could add some Trolls to the display, and maybe we could add a dog too, so Biscuit doesn’t feel left out. Travis is looking for Scooby-Doo to accommodate her.”

My sister’s smile faltered before leaving her face entirely. “This is where I’d ask if he has any brothers, but I know they’re all taken, or not local. Dammit. My timing always sucks.”

“What happened to the new boyfriend I heard you had?”

“He’s already out of the picture. Good riddance.” She waved a hand. “He didn’t want to deal with kids at his age.”

I couldn’t hold back my wince. “What is his age, dare I ask?”

“Twenty-eight. First younger guy I dated.” She blew out a breath. “Not making that mistake again.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry. If that’s how he thinks, he doesn’t deserve you, Lace.”

“So, you’re sure Travis doesn’t have any hidden unmarried half-brothers?”

“Sorry, no, but apparently, he has a ton of hot lookalike cousins. Well, I’m just guessing on the hot lookalike part, but his father apparently has four brothers.” I waggled my brows at her, but she only continued vacuuming the couch in lackluster sweeps. “Want me to introduce you? One of them wants to talk to Christian about becoming a cop here as part of his inseminate a willing woman plan. Interested?”

“Sure,” she said glumly. “Why not try something or someone new?”

“Did you hear what I said? His cousin, Cam, apparently just heard the lore about the Cove and has decided he wants his own woman and kid, since evidently, they’re so easy to come by here. Can’t wait to hear about the local woman who will put him in his place. Lore or not, relationships are not that easy to come by. We only wish.”

Lacey dropped to the couch, lowering her chin to her hand. “Yeah, he’s going to get schooled soon enough, and as far as I’m concerned, he definitely needs to be. You don’t just get one by showing up at the right time, dude. There’s so much more involved in making a relationship work.” She held up a hand. “Not that I’ve ever been successful at making one work, mind you, but so I’ve heard, anyway.”

“You can say that again.” I gave in and sat down beside her, leaning over to press my forehead to her shoulder. “Trust me, I’m no expert, but I have to say I don’t think we were given many tools to learn how to love ourselves, never mind loving someone else or trying to care for them.”

“Did mom tell you too that we were the reason Dad left?”

I drew back in horror. “No way. She told you that too?”

She nodded, letting out a stuttering breath. “She sure did. I told myself she didn’t do that shit with you because you were always her gorgeous, perfect little girl, but then when you basically alluded to it not long after you set up that shoot with Travis…”

“I did?” I flopped back against the cushions. “I didn’t even realize that I had.”

“The problem with the self-talk tapes we have played over and over throughout our lives is eventually, we don’t even really fully hear the words anymore. Our hearts and minds already recognize the truth.”

“I guess so. Why I’m so grateful for Travis’s parents being big into therapy now. If they need it and they’re so well-adjusted, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

“There’s always hope, sis, and I regret I wasn’t more focused on you back in the day. I was a selfish teenager and assumed it was every girl for herself. You were mom’s kid, not mine, so therefore, you weren’t my responsibility. I look back, and I can’t believe I was ever so mean. I loved you, but I was more worried about myself.”

“Lace, we were both kids. We didn’t have a clue what we were doing on any level. Remember that whole not having tools thing? We could barely handle ourselves, never mind anyone else.” I swallowed deeply. “We both did the best we could, as hard as that is to accept.”

She laughed self-consciously. “Talk about a bitter truth pill right there. After losing every man I ever cared about, then getting pregnant with Amerie and having to figure out raising her on my own, I finally understood how my self-absorption had so messed you up. You could’ve had everything but somehow you didn’t, and I partially blame myself.” She lowered her head and scrubbed her palms over her eyes. I didn’t see any tears, but I definitely heard them in her voice. “If I’d been a good sounding board back then, maybe things would have been different for you, and hell, for me too. But I wasn’t. And I want to say I’m sorry. You never deserved that.”

I sidled closer to her on the couch and drew her into my arms for a hug. “We both made mistakes, but you know what the important part is? We are still sisters. We’re still trying. And God willing, our girls will grow up turning to each other, maybe even in better ways than we ever did. Far as I’m concerned, we’re winning at life.”

She laughed mistily, nodding, as she eased back. “I never did the therapy thing, since I figured I had friends to talk to so that was good enough. But maybe something more formal would be even more beneficial. Amerie has done so well with her smaller classes at school. The nice thing is that she also has a kind of personal advisor as part of that. Just so she can get her feelings out when she needs to.”

“Oh, that’s great. I hope it’s helping her.”

“Seems to be. And maybe if I talk to someone, maybe it would help me too.” She took a bolstering breath, throwing back her shoulders. “Did you say Travis’s mom has someone she recommends?”

I nodded. “JoAnn and Hank are doing couples’ therapy, but I’d assume she would be good on a personal basis too. You can always try her out and see if she’s a fit and then go from there, maybe?”

Lacey smiled tentatively. “I sure can. Thank you. So, since you’re moving all your stuff to the Cove later tonight, I assume that’s a good sign for you and Travis?”

“Yeah. We’re trying too. Sharing all the stuff we skipped the first time around, you know?”

“I do know, in theory. But no man has ever looked at me how Travis looks at you.” She released a watery sigh. “Since it’s too quiet, which always makes me nervous, want to help me look for Biscuit?”

“I sure will.” I stood up and held out an arm to her. “Then once we find them, I’ll help you finish cleaning up too before I’ll ask for a ride home since I have an important date tonight.”

Lacey grinned. “You sure do. Not jealous. Not even a little bit.” She rolled her eyes as she stood to offer me her arm. “Okay, that’s a lie. Big time.”

“Hey, you don’t know what your future holds, either. There might be a wonderful guy just waiting around the next corner for you.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right. You think everyone has your kind of luck?”

I drew her closer. “I am pretty lucky. But it’s your turn to get some of that luck too. Trust your little sister. Think I have an in with the universe just lately, and I’ll put in a good word for you.”