It wasn’t as if she had aspirations to take over the role of Livana’s mother. God, she’d been so focused on just keeping her baby alive. But if she were to examine her dreams of the future, they did include her daughter. Losing Livana had left a hole inside her, and perhaps that hole would always be there, but she needed to see her child. Needed to understand Livana’s relationship with her adoptive mother.
At the end of the hall, she paused at the doorway of the waiting room, halted by the hiccuping sobs tumbling from within. Across the room, Josh sat on a couch between his parents with their backs to the door. Their heads bowed together, their private huddle enveloped by a chorus of whispered prayers.
It was four in the morning. Her stomach hurt at the thought of them waiting for her. They should’ve gone home. Of course, Josh would never leave without her. But would they be together the next day? Or next month? Would he go back to school, live with his parents, work the farm, and become a minister?
What was her place in his life? She was a master at rope bondage. She could crack a whip without splitting skin. She knew how to suck a cock. As for the Bible, well, that was just an anthology of well-written fairytales. She wasn’t a minister’s wife.
He clasped his mother’s frail shoulder, his broad back twice the size of hers. At least, they let him put clothes on before hauling him to the station. They hadn’t given her the option.
Emily Carter’s graying brown hair had unraveled from her bun. Her flowery collared smock dress fell loosely around her skeletal frame. The woman Liv used to watch through binoculars had lost a lot of weight.
Guilt landed like a bullet in Liv’s stomach. She’d caused his poor mother so much grief.
Daniel Carter grasped his son’s neck. The humped curve of his spine and the weathered skin on his nape reminded that most of his sixty-six years had been spent beneath the unforgiving Texan sun. Silver peppered his full head of black hair, and she knew if he turned around she’d see Josh’s pale green eyes in the older man’s face.
The sight of the three of them together, praying, and crying happy tears produced a sharp pain in the back of her throat. For a flickering moment, she entertained an unrealistic desire to receive some of the love they shared between them, but she didn’t deserve it. Taking him from his parents was the most selfish thing she’d ever done, but she would never regret choosing him.
She lingered in the doorway, unsure where to go or what to do. Should she interrupt their private reunion? Her fingers shook as she adjusted the clingy top over her nipples. The bottom hem reached just below her ass. One of the detectives had offered her his suit jacket. Now she regretted declining it. She resembled a homeless skank.
The truth in that thought clawed through her chest and burned her eyes. She was homeless. Also penniless, jobless, and without a family. Hell, she didn’t even have a change of clothes. Aching for Mom, miserable on her lonely side of the room, she backed out of the doorway.
What the fuck was wrong with her? She was free. Livana was safe. Josh’s parents had their son back.
Pull your balls out of your cunt.
Van’s words steeled her strides down the hallway. She’d wait on the bench at the end of the hall until Josh was ready. Her toes pinched in her boots, and her stupid eyes burned with stupid tears. She slapped at her cheeks and pretended she couldn’t hear the desolate echo of her heart in her ears.
Halfway to her destination, an arm hooked around her waist. She gasped and inhaled Josh’s clean familiar scent. Tension shuddered from her body. She let her head fall back on his shoulder and compulsively reached for his hand at her hip. Christ, she hadn’t realized how badly she needed him to hold her.
“What are you doing?” His breath caressed her ear, and his other arm crossed her chest.
She turned in his embrace, wrapped an arm around his muscled back, and pressed her palm to his whiskered jaw, savoring his heat seeping into her skin.
“I don’t know where I’m going.” Her nose thickened with tears. Fucking hell, she was sniveling.
“Hey, it’s okay.” He was heartbreakingly beautiful, even more so when he regarded her as if he were searching, not her eyes but what lay behind them. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” He touched a knuckle under her chin and raised it. “The worst is behind us. It’s just you and me. Everything else is trivial. Got it?”
Her insecurities dimmed in the intensity of his gaze. She traced the curve of his bottom lip. “How do you do that?”
With his arm braced around her, he dipped two fingers inside the front of her dress and pinched her nipple. Leaning in, he kissed the corner of her parted lips. “I’m a horny slut, remember?” He adjusted her top, twined their fingers, and led her back to the waiting room. “Time to meet my parents.” He peeked back at her, grinning.
She shook her head and followed that gorgeous, confident smile. She’d follow him anywhere, even if it was to meet his parents with her tits creeping out of the minidress.
“Mom, Dad, this is Liv.”
The air shifted with the horrified widening of their eyes. Judgmental energy prickled over her cleavage and down her legs. They didn’t openly gawk at her body. It was a flash, a gasp, a quick glance away.
Holding their chins stiffly upward, their eyes locked on Josh as if another
