Page 24 of The Sacrifice

Hadley stirs in my arms and babbles, causing me to jump and drop the hat. “Shit.” It bounces onto another one, and four others topple to the floor. Hadley’s face puckers. “Don’t cry, baby. I’m sorry. I should have gotten your bottle first.”

Or not even come into his room. Yes. That was the right answer to this question.

I slap the hats back and rush to the stairs like the hounds of hell are after me. My bare feet clap on the wooden risers.

After I grab her bottle from the kitchen, she claps her delicate hands onto the plastic, closes her eyes, and sighs. “There you go, sweet girl.”

A wave of peace and contentment slips over me. When I’m holding her, I don’t feel driven to do anything else but enjoy her. That never happened to me with my other placements. In the past, I could keep my head on straight and my heart out of it.

The doorbell rings. Yes, please, let that be the furniture.

I’ve been stuck in Jackson’s house for three days without a car seat. The one Roxanne brought didn’t have the base. Who knows if she even had a base in her car? I could have left when Jackson was home, but I’ve been too afraid to leave him with her.

Yeah, right. That’s it. You don’t want to leave either of them because you’re afraid they don’t need you.

I pad across the floor and yank open the door. Tate, Jackson’s brother, stands on the welcome mat. The instinct to slam the door shut and run in the other direction is fierce, but I stay. “Hi.”

“Mia?” His eyebrows raise almost to his hairline. “Ah, hi. I didn’t realize Jackson had company. Can you get him for me?”

“Um….”Shit. What do I say?Jackson didn’t go over the protocol,if my family stops by unannounced,you should say…. And clearly, we should have had that conversation because I’m about to flub this all up. I lick my lips and straighten my shoulders. “He’s not here right now.”

He eyes me up and down, taking in the baby, my bare feet, and my lopsided bun. “Why are you here? You’re the last person I’d expect my brother to be hooking up with.”

“We aren’t.” But for some reason, the ideas are holding more and more appeal by the second.

Stop. He’s into loose party girls, not boring nannies. One kiss, and he’d fall asleep.

“I see.” His eyes narrow.Crap. This is going to blow up.“Can I come in?”

“Uh, sure.” I step out of his way, and Hadley lets go of the bottle. I grab it before it takes a header and splats on the floor. “I’m not sure when Jackson will be here.” I shut the door behind him. “He’s usually here by now.”

“He’s usually here by now?”

My face fills with heat. “Yes.”What in the hell do I do?

“I didn’t realize you had a child.” He tilts his head to the side and smiles. “She’s gorgeous. She looks just like my daughter did when she was a baby.”

“Yes, about that….” He looks at Hadley, then me, and back to the baby. “She’s not mine.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and widens his stance like he’s ready to fight someone. The lines of his neck cord and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

Electricity sparks in the air. Not the kind I feel when Jackson catches me watching him and Hadley together. This one feels like that one in the kitchen when I was acting like an asshole. Pure unadulterated anger. “I’m assuming this is my brother’s child, and Andrew conned you into solving Jackson’s problem for him.”

“Tate, how nice of you to stop by unannounced.” Jackson marches into the room from the kitchen. The hairs on my arms stand like a lightning bolt shot down from the sky and zapped me.

“I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from you this week.” Disapproval drips off Tate’s voice. “Keeping your mistakes to yourself?”

“My personal life is my business. Not yours.” Jackson grabs my shoulder and turns me away from Tate. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting him to show up.”

“It’s fine.” He rubs his thumb over my bare upper arm, and heat floods through me.

“No. It’s not. We should have talked about this to keep you from dealing with an awkward situation on your own.”

The sincerity in his voice and everything else that’s happened over the last few days, rocks me to the core. He’s not the same kid who irritated me back in high school. He’s grown up. That was nine years ago when he was a fourteen-year-old boy. And it’s not like my brother was innocent. He could have stopped Jackson or not been involved. It could have been Andrew’s idea in the first place.

“You should have told your brother that you had a child,” Tate growls.

I shift Hadley onto my shoulder and pat her back. If she gets upset and starts crying, it will not improve the situation.