Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(61)

Her pink velvet armchair. Boxes and boxes of clothes and shoes and accessories. He was giving her literally everything in the house that was hers. He had erased her from his home.

About halfway through, maybe because they were moving so quickly and there was so much to be done, Adrienne started to kind of forget the wrenching pain her father had just caused her. Badger passed her with a big box of shoes. He grinned and called her a clothes horse, and she swatted a playful punch at him and called him a butthead. At that moment, she inadvertently locked eyes with her father. She saw hurt there.

And she was glad. Her satisfaction at his pain was positively restorative. Adrienne had never been vindictive. She’d never held a grudge. She did not hate or wish ill on people. Not because she was such a wonderful person, it turned out, but because she’d never had sufficient cause. Now, she had sufficient cause, and her father’s pain made her feel better. A part of her wanted to stop and think about that, consider if she wanted to be that kind of person. The rest of her kicked that part in the ear and went on with the hate and anger. It felt good. It helped.

She skipped down the porch steps and went to the van for another load. When Badger passed her again, coming the other way, she pretended to throw the box she was carrying at him. “Here—think fast!” And she laughed. Then she turned and made sure her ‘father’ had seen her play in the face of his abandonment. He had. Good.

Shannon had been sitting in one of the rocking chairs on the porch while they’d unloaded. She was gigantic and in no condition to be moving anything, hardly even herself. She still had two months to go, but Adrienne had no idea how she could get two months bigger.

Twice, while they’d been doing the normal circuit of moving—in with boxes, out for more—Adrienne had noticed Shannon look a little flushed and sweaty. Once, she’d passed Show squatting in front of her rocker, checking on her. But she insisted she was okay, just uncomfortable, vying for territory with two other people. Badger ran and brought her water.

A few minutes later, Adrienne and Show were in the back of the van. Two pieces left—the mirror for her dresser, and a last box of books. Adrienne had the books already, so Show picked up the mirror.

“You doin’, okay, little one? Hard day.”

“I really am okay. Right now, anyway. I am. You think I could think of you as my dad? You have room for one more? Or would that be weird?”

“Not weird at all. You’re already my girl.” He kissed her head.

And then Shannon screamed Show’s name.

He threw the mirror to the floor of the van, where it shattered, and tore hell back to his wife.

Adrienne followed, still carrying her box of books. She set it on the ground and ran when she saw that a crowd had gathered around Shannon.

Her water had broken. Far too early.

“We gotta get to Tasha. Right now.” As Show lifted her into his arms, Shannon reached out and grabbed at Adrienne. She looked terrified and in no small amount of pain. “Come? Will you come?”

Adrienne was shocked. Her mind starting to go numb, she nodded.

“Thank you.”

On their way to Shannon’s SUV, Adrienne paused at the man who’d been her father. “You can go now.”

Then she followed Show and Shannon.

As she was sliding into the back seat, Badger grabbed the car door and leaned in. “I’ll make sure he goes. Don’t worry. I love you.”

She smiled and pulled the door closed.



oOo



Though her water had broken, and she’d started contractions, she hadn’t gone into active labor yet. At the clinic, Tasha had given her something to slow things down and sent them straight to the hospital.

Shannon was admitted immediately, for the rest of her pregnancy, and they were giving her a whole cocktail of drugs to try to keep her from going into labor, and to help the babies’ lungs finish doing whatever they had to do, and to keep everybody from getting an infection. They wanted to try to get her to thirty-four weeks. That was more than three weeks away.

Show was nearly psychotic with worry. Adrienne had never seen this big, steady man so out of control, not even when he’d been going after Badger. He yelled at everyone except Shannon and her. He threw things. If Shannon so much as winced he wanted to punch somebody.

They were threatening to have security take him away. Luckily, Shannon had already asked Adrienne to call Isaac and get him here to help, so, shortly after the threat of security, Isaac came into Shannon’s room and pulled Show out by his kutte.

Once Show was gone, Shannon was calm. Tired and uncomfortable, but calm. Considering the emotional mess she’d been for most of the pregnancy, Adrienne was surprised. Today had been a surprising day just in general.

“How are you, Ade?”

“Me? Don’t worry about me. You’re the one in the hospital.”

Shannon laughed. She was wan, but her beauty shone through anyway. “You know, I was constantly worried the first half of the pregnancy. I was worried something would be wrong, that I would do something wrong and hurt the baby—before I knew it was twins. Then when we knew it was twins, I was still worried about it all, but times two. But then we got the amnio results back, and everything was okay.

They’re healthy. Since then, every day I’ve felt a little more sure we’d be okay. I still feel that. They’ll hold on in there until they’re strong enough to be out here. I know it.”