Medical concerns?
I glowered at her. The momma bear in me was ready to rip her head clean off her neck. “Why?”
“Just curious is all. Jeez.” She wouldn’t take her eyes off my boy. “Has his eye color changed yet?”
“No.”
“When will you give him a bottle? I’m sure he’d do fine taking one.”
“Why do you care?”
Dad growled. “Emilee.”
“What? These are the strangest questions. Nosy at that.” I shifted on the sofa, tucking Little D’s blanket securely around him to block the witch’s view. At any moment, I’d escape to my bedroom.
Tami sighed. “You’re always so moody.”
“Well, yeah. I’m forced to stay here. Forced to endure the two of you.” I cut my eyes to Dad, letting the disdain flowing through my veins out.
“Can I hold him?” Tami put out her hands.
“No,” I snapped. Hold my baby?Over my dead body.I loathed this woman with a passion. “He’s still eating.”
“Maybe when he’s finished, you can hold him,” Dad told her as he tugged her into his arms. “Come help me in the kitchen. Supper is almost ready.” He shot me a dirty look.
Gah, he made me sick. Why he comforted that bimbo was beyond me. Tami didn’t like babies or kids. Anyone could see it. Whenever Little D fussed or the kids next door squealed with laughter playing out front, a pained expression would cross Tami’s face. She tried to hide it, but she didn’t fool me.
No chance in hell she’d get her talons on my son.
“Sure, big daddy.” Tami swung her hips, leaving the room.
Gag. If I’d already eaten, I’d barf onto the carpet. I despised hearing her callmydad “big daddy.”
Tami stopped to shoot me a dirty look over her shoulder.
“Bitch,” I whisper-shouted.
To that, she gave me the bird.
I rolled my eyes.Nice.
Tami was thirty-one, though you wouldn’t know it, given her immaturity. My dad was forty-six. She was closer to my age than his.
I hated the witch.
The hypocrisy of it all made me crazy. Dad could be with someone I found repulsive, but I couldn’t be with the father of my baby because he didn’t like him. The place reeked of double standards. It was nauseating.
I lifted off the sofa and went to my room, then closed and locked the door behind me. Those two could eat all the food and suck face without me. Tami would probably spend the night, then I’d have to listen to her exaggerated moans of pleasure.
My baby boy, baby mine… I hummed the Alison Krauss version of “Baby Mine,” fighting the urge to ugly cry as I died inside for the millionth time.
Next month would be a year since I last saw Danny. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take being without him. How could my dad do this to me?
Why have you let him do this to you?
I’d grown up a motorcycle club brat. There’d been firm rules. The life my dad had led as a member of the Knight’s Legion MC wasn’t like typical dads’. It was a scary, gritty world. He’d sheltered me the best he could though, to protect me from the dangers lurking around the club.
Before my mom died of breast cancer, Dad had promised her I wouldn’t end up with a biker. She had wanted me to have a “normal life,” something outside of the club. She’d feared I’d end up dead like Raul’s first wife, who’d been killed in a drive-by shooting when I was four. When I’d gotten older, Dad had forbidden me to even think of being with a biker.