Baby Doll(39)

Wes’s anger got the best of him, and he forgot about Lily for a split second.

“Jesus Christ, Abby, we’re having a goddamn baby. How is that not together?”

Abby watched Lily as hurt, disbelief, and then heartbroken resignation danced across her face.

“Lil, I can explain. I can…”

Lily took a step back, eyeing Abby’s swollen belly, then Wes’s face, and back again as if trying to put all the pieces together. Abby was crying now.

“Please, Lily, you have to know…”

Stone-faced, Lily moved over to the sofa and picked up Sky. “It doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t,” she said.

Abby wanted to tell Lily exactly what happened, but Lily turned her back on Abby and Wes as she addressed the rest of her family.

“I’m not feeling well and Sky’s exhausted. I think we both need some rest.”

She moved toward the stairs.

“Say we’re okay, Lily. Please. I need to know we’re okay,” Abby whispered as Lily passed her. But Lily didn’t say a word as she headed up the stairs.

Abby heard her grandparents and Mom moving around, dissecting what had occurred, but she wasn’t listening. She was staring at Wes.

“Abby, I’m sorry, I only came by to check on you, I never meant for it to happen like this. But now Lily knows and we can all move forward. She’ll understand. We’ll make her understand.”

She let Wes wrap his arms around her, let him feel her warmth, breathe in her scent. She hugged him tightly, pressing her body against his, the baby, his baby, pressed against his stomach. She wanted him to feel powerful and strong, like the big man he thought he was.

She leaned in so that only he could hear her. “I will never forgive you. If you come near Lily or me again, you will never see your baby. You hear me, Wes? Stay the f*ck away.”





CHAPTER NINETEEN


RICK


Yo, Hanson, you piece of shit, you’ve got a visitor.”

Rick sat up from his cot, eyeing the middle-aged, dopey-faced guard with disdain. Rick knew this guard. Fred something. He’d taught Fred’s two unremarkable sons, a couple of refrigerator-sized boys who thought they were hot shit because they could tackle other meatheads on a football field. He’d met Fred at Parents’ Night and he’d thought he was a prick then, acting like he knew literature when he’d probably never even cracked open a book.

Today though, Rick saw hatred in the man’s eyes. It didn’t bother him. There were lots of people like Fred, people afraid of taking risks. They ignored their baser desires, content to live ordinary, unfulfilled lives. Some people were destined to follow the rules; others were outliers, people who eschewed society’s moral conventions and went for what they wanted. Rick knew that Lily’s accusations would leave him a pariah in the eyes of many, but he was certain he’d have his supporters too. All misunderstood men did. Rick wasn’t interested in Fred though.

His attention was focused on the female guard, a trainee, he’d realized, who was in charge of fastening his handcuffs and ankle cuffs. She was a piggish-looking woman with a massive forehead, a weak chin, and a squat body that her polyester uniform only seemed to accentuate. Her bleach-blond hair was long and frizzy, and she was in serious need of professional styling. She was the kind of woman that a man would have to be blackout drunk to take to bed. Rick didn’t know her name yet. But she had basically saved his life. If she hadn’t stopped his beating, if she hadn’t intervened, warned the two men that their jobs were in jeopardy, Rick would have ended up in the ICU or maybe even a body bag. He hoped at some point to get a moment alone with her to thank her, but for now he was focused on his first visitor, his wife Missy. As Fred and the fat-assed guard led him toward the visiting room, Rick was curious to see how this would play out.

Finding a wife had always been a priority. His appetite, his sexual desires were not the norm. He’d been with plenty of girls in high school and none of them even scratched the surface of what he wanted. He was smart enough to know that he needed to be careful. If he was going to indulge—and he most certainly intended to do so—he needed to organize his life in a way that made that possible. Marriage was important. People trusted a married man. They viewed them as stable. The wedding band itself symbolized responsibility and commitment. It was the perfect disguise. After a brief stint in the army, he’d enrolled in college, using the GI bill to pay his way through school. He enjoyed plenty of the vapid coeds on campus, but as graduation neared, he’d realized it was time to start planning for the future. There were specific requirements for his bride-to-be. She needed to be attractive, but not so much that she would draw the attention of other men. She needed to be sexy enough for them to have an ordinary, active sex life. She needed to be book smart but not intuitive or perceptive or jealous by nature. She needed to have traditional views on marriage and family, and solid religious values.

He was lucky that even in this day and age, large public universities were still breeding grounds for girls with those specific traits. He thought the search for his future wife would be difficult. He’d had to take an elective and there was a psychology and human behavior course that he thought would be an easy A. He’d walked in and Missy instantly caught his eye. She was put together, well dressed, had a moneyed look about her. But it was her eagerness, like an untrained puppy, that really got his attention. Missy always sat in the front row, bombarding the professor with overly simplistic questions or complicating her own answers when called upon. It was clear she’d spent too much time watching Criminal Minds and Law and Order, determined to show her intelligence to the world. Her innocence and lack of intellect made her perfectly suited for his needs.