Burn It Up(11)

“Bet you there’s leftovers,” she said, hanging up her coat.

“Bet you they’ll taste real good around four o’clock, when your daughter decides to wake us up.”

They walked to the den, where Casey would be making his bed once more. It was a comfy enough couch—a big old tan leather behemoth, probably as old as Abilene—but he had to be missing his apartment. And his freedom. And his privacy.

“I better head up and check on Mercy,” she said.

He nodded as he sat and unlaced his boots. “See you in the morning, hopefully. Though if you need any help, you know how to wake me.”

She smiled. “One good poke to the forehead. Night.”

“Night, Abilene.”

“Thanks again for the ride,” she said, and her smile felt shy when she offered it. She headed for the steps.

The door to her room was open, and she found Mercy sleeping peacefully in the crib. She switched off the baby monitor, officially relieving Christine of her duties. She changed into her pajamas and scrubbed her face in the guest bathroom, shut the door, climbed into bed.

Sleep while you can, she ordered herself. The peace could be over at any moment, shattered by that noise that filled her so wholly with both dread and maternal urgency—the first tentative coo that inevitably snowballed into a squall.

But sleep wasn’t coming. She lay in the darkness, trying to deep breathe, trying to think relaxing thoughts. But with the chaos of the bar gone and the distraction of the ride over, all that passed through her head were the what-ifs that surrounded tomorrow.

Today, she corrected. James would be released around ten in the morning.

The prison was ninety miles away. He could be in Fortuity by noon if he wanted to be. If he had his truck waiting for him and enough money for gas. How long would he need to find her? How long would it take to run into somebody who said, yeah, they’d seen a young brunette around, didn’t she just have a baby? Heard she was staying up at the ranch out east, they might say, and just like that . . .

Poof. Poof went her security. Poof went her secrets, if James saw fit to tell Vince or the Churches or Casey or anybody else about the way they’d met. Poof went custody of her child, maybe.

Maybe. Only maybe. She wasn’t that girl James had first met. She was good now. Wasn’t she? Better, at least. She was trying to be good. She worked hard, hadn’t had so much as a sip of beer since the moment she’d found out she was pregnant. It was almost impossible for a mother to lose custody to a father.

He couldn’t get her child taken away.

Could he?





Chapter 5


With sleep eluding her and lying in the dark producing nothing but waking nightmares, after twenty minutes, Abilene abandoned the covers and poked her head out the door.

A lamp was on in the den, and she crept onto the landing. Casey was lounging on the couch, tapping on his lit-up phone. He never failed to make her feel competent and secure when she needed those sensations most, and right now she craved reassurance like a fish craved water. She went back into her room and put on a bra and socks, left the door open in case Mercy woke, and padded to the steps.

Casey sat up as she reached his periphery. He glanced at his phone, then switched it off, screen going dark. “Thought you’d be out like a light in five minutes flat.”

He spoke softly, as all the Churches were sleeping. She loved when he did that. Normally he was a loud, brash man, not strong on the volume control, but she adored how his voice sounded in late-night moments like these. So close to a whisper. Soft in every way.

She shook her head. “Can’t sleep. Too much on my mind. Were you about to turn in?”

“Don’t have to. Hey, how about I start a fire? It’s kinda chilly down here.”

A fire did sound nice. She got settled on one end of the couch and pulled an afghan over her lap, watching Casey assembling wood and balled-up newspaper pages in the big stone hearth. His back flexed where his sweater pulled tight across his shoulders, leaving her warmer by a degree.

His lighter snicked, and as yellow flames licked at the wood, he joined her, peeling off his sweater and tossing it over the couch arm.

“How you feeling about tomorrow?” He kept the lighter in hand, running his thumb along its smooth silver corners, worrying the lid. He toyed with the thing on boring nights at the bar, too, and when he was trapped with the sleeping baby on his lap.

“A little scared,” she said. “To be honest, I’m trying not to think about it.”

Studying this man’s handsome face was certainly a welcome diversion. It was more than mere gratitude drawing her to him, she realized. There was a very real chance that once James was out, her past would follow suit. Everyone believed they were protecting her welfare—and they were. But James could hurt her worse by talking than by hitting her, and she bet he knew it.

Depending on how pissed James was, in a week or a month or who knew how long, Casey might know the truth about Abilene, and that would just about destroy her.

She knew she couldn’t ever be with this man. But she still felt for him—worse than ever, in fact. Going forward, she’d make better choices. Find herself a man as sweet as this one, minus the criminal record and all the secrets. But she couldn’t deny she still wanted him.

She eyed his mouth. And I don’t want much. Just a taste. Just a kiss. A farewell kiss, to say good-bye to her old habits, once and for all.