Dance Away with Me(20)

Tess sat on the other side of the lounge. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t speak. He stopped writing. “They want the baby’s name.”

Tess got up from her chair and walked toward him. She took the clipboard. Took his pen. Wrote something, then handed everything back to him.

Wren Bianca North.

Not right, but good enough.

The nurse came to get them, but he stayed where he was while Tess followed her. Minutes ticked by. He shifted in his seat. He was a hard man. Not sentimental. He put his identity into his work. Only there. That was the way he lived. The way he wanted to live. And now this.

Tess appeared with the baby. He tried not to look at either one of them.

They were silent in the elevator

Eventually, the doors opened. As they passed through the lobby, people smiled, seeing them as loving parents bringing their precious newborn home. He wanted to run. Get away from everyone. He wanted things the way they used to be when he could block out the world with his brushes and spray cans, his posters, stencils, and murals. When a new commission, a new gallery exhibition, a new army of critics praising his work meant something.

When he still knew who he was and what his work meant.

He left Tess long enough to pull her car up to the hospital entrance. Yesterday he’d retrieved her keys from her cabin and hired a kid who worked at the gas station to take care of the rest—installing a car seat and getting her car from Tempest to the hospital. He had his own car here. Tess would have to take the baby with her.

Anything else was unthinkable.





Chapter Five




Tess white-knuckled it all the way to Tempest. She’d never been a nervous driver, but then she’d never had a newborn strapped in her backseat. Fortunately, a newborn who was asleep, but that could change at any moment.

More than her deathbed promise to Bianca had made her agree to do this. There was something else. Something selfish she was only beginning to understand. Because Wren needed all her attention, Tess could go for an hour or more without thinking about Trav. This fragile infant had brought her a sliver of respite.

She glanced into the rearview mirror for a fruitless view of the baby. Nothing. She understood why it was best for infant car seats to face the rear, but she’d already pulled off the road twice to make certain Wren was still breathing. She fought the urge to pull over a third time.

The battered sign for the tempest women’s alliance slipped by. She drove carefully up the bumpy mountain road to the cabin. North had left first, and he was supposed to meet her here, but there was no sign of his dirty white Land Cruiser.

The baby had slumped into the very corner of the car seat, her lavender beanie askew on her doll-size head. She awakened as Tess took her out. She didn’t look happy, and by the time Tess had them both inside, she’d begun to cry, an unnaturally piercing sound coming from such a small body. “Shhh . . . Give me a chance, will you?”

The cabin was cold. Cold and damp. North was supposed to have turned on the small furnace and unloaded the things she’d asked him to order, but he hadn’t done it. She only had the starter kit of the supplies the hospital had sent her off with, along with a handmade dark green baby sling that her favorite of the NICU nurses had given her as a gift. She was furious with him for not following through. Wren, in the meantime, had ratcheted up her crying.

Tess set her down long enough to take off her jacket, unbutton her blouse, and slip into the preemie sling. She repositioned the baby against her bare skin, Wren’s cheek to her breast, and draped them both in the shawl she retrieved from the back of the couch. It wasn’t yet time for another bottle, so she walked the perimeters of the cabin until the motion lulled the baby back to sleep. All the time, she fumed about North’s absence. Only after Wren quieted did she go into the closet behind the kitchen to investigate the furnace.

It wasn’t working, and she couldn’t exactly crawl around on the floor to investigate with a baby on her body. The lack of heat in the cabin worried her. How could she keep Wren warm? Where was North? Caring for Wren was supposed to be a two-way street, but all the traffic was running in one direction. Was it possible he’d intended all along to dump the baby on her and take off?

Wren awakened and began to fuss. Tess dug out one of the preemie bottles. As she poured in an ounce of formula, she thought of her own breasts. “Sorry,” she whispered. “You’ll have to make do with this.”

Feeding was hard work for Wren, who tended to fall back to sleep after a few tugs. Tess gave her the time she needed, burping her gently and keeping her elevated. When it was finally over, they were both exhausted. Tess propped herself up and settled on the couch, tucking the shawl more tightly around them.

She felt Wren’s heartbeat against her skin. Saw the quiver in her tiny, seashell eyelids. Heard her soft, sweet breaths. Maybe North had a flat tire. More likely, he’d fled back to Manhattan. She drifted off to sleep

The blood tugged at her calves, rose to her waist. Bianca screamed.

Tess had to get to her. Had to save her. But the blood wouldn’t let her move. She struggled against its force. Her legs were gone. Her arms. Bianca slipped into the red pool.

She awakened with a gasp. She rubbed her eyes, trying to shake off the ugly nightmare, and heard a car pull up outside. She looked at her phone. Two hours had passed.

But instead of North, Phish came through the cabin door. He wore an ancient boho hippie pullover and carried a white pastry bag, his scraggly gray ponytail hanging down his back. “Hey, Tess.” He wiped his sneakers on the rug inside the door and gestured toward the baby. “This sure is screwin’ up the work schedule. Michelle is all over me to hire her sister.”