Page 44 of Second Chance Baby

I’d make sure of it.

Right now, a Halloween shopping trip with my daughter and her dad was my focus. I didn’t want to miss a minute. I’d lost far too many.

Including an impromptu Care Bear concert in the car.

Travis grinned at her in the rearview mirror, shaking his head while she pretended to hold a microphone as she sang along to a current Taylor Swift song on the radio. I’d heard the song here and there, but listening to a 10-year-old singing about watching someone leaving because they were tired of her scheming was more than a little surreal.

Especially when the words hit a little too close to home.

Was I the anti-hero too? What did people think of me in the Cove for turning my back on my daughter to hide in the cutthroat modeling world?

Of course, the truth was much more nuanced than that. My twenties had been a whirlwind of unbalanced hormones post-pregnancy and intense anxiety along with so many other things that I’d never managed to voice. Or even face.

Travis and I were on an equal playing field there. We had both shut down from each other rather than communicating.

Mrs. Gunderson had seemed surprisingly understanding, considering she was a habitual gossip. Perhaps she didn’t want to scare me away.

I appreciated that. Not that anyone could convince me to leave now.

Even so, I knew all too well outsiders were quick to judge. Especially when it came to motherhood in a town like this one.

The idea of a solid family unit was incredibly potent in Crescent Cove. I’d dare call it a baby boom for all intents and purposes. Baby strollers were as plentiful as cars it seemed.

I loved babies too—well, children, which was why I’d become an elementary school teacher to begin with. I hadn’t foreseen having a baby would rock our relationship like it had. Somehow, we’d never discussed having kids even after being together for years. I’d assumed we would, after we got married and settled down.

Doing everything in the right order had been our unspoken plan. And then the plan had been blown to hell by what should have been the happiest accident ever.

I clicked back into the moment as Taylor sang about her daughter-in-law killing her for the money, I frowned.

“What a dark song,” I muttered. Not that the next lines were any better.

Was that true about me too? That I could stare directly into the sun but never in the mirror?

Was anyone rooting for the “Anti-Hero” here? Hell, was I even rooting for myself at this point?

For so long, I’d carried the guilt and remorse for everything I’d done. To the point I wasn’t even sure I had a proper read on the situation.

How could I?

A week ago, if someone had asked me how Travis felt about me, I would’ve said he tolerated me. Our last few years of meetings had been chilly at best. Before yesterday, I hadn’t seen him since spring. Not long in the grand scheme of things, but literal miles between how he’d treated me then to how we were now.

Was it just lust? Just a matter of right timing? Or was I being delusional?

The song switched to something else I didn’t recognize but Carrington kept singing with abandon, dancing in the backseat with no self-consciousness whatsoever. I was so glad for that, not that I could credit myself with teaching her to be that way. I had plenty of issues on that score, and being a model hadn’t lessened them, either.

Oddly, I seemed to be becoming more self-conscious as I aged instead of the other way around. Then again, it was hard enough being a woman in her thirties, never mind the modeling industry.

“What’s wrong?” Travis asked softly as he signaled to enter the highway.

I flipped down the visor mirror to check my face, wondering if how I was feeling was that obvious. My makeup was fine, though I needed more lipstick already. But I hadn’t bothered to retouch it since earlier.

I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d just enjoyed blending in amongst the people in my hometown. No one special.

True, Colette at the craft shop had mentioned our shoot yesterday, but no one else seemed to be chatting about it other than what Mrs. Gunderson had intimated with some sex bet. That we’d apparently helped her win?

Gossip in the Cove was no joke, and as bucolic as our town was, no one missed a chance to spin the wheel when it came to the rumor mill.

And Travis was still waiting for an answer, so I fumbled for the nearest thing that came to hand.