Page 32 of I'll Keep Her Safe

Her voice is so breathy, I have to shift in my seat. I’ve never felt more like a dirty old man than this moment, with her soft fingertips easing my pain, her warm breath on the back of my neck. I should not be enjoying this.

“That’s… yep.” My jaw locks so hard I can barely answer. I need her to stop.

She seems to sense this, because her fingertips leave my skin and she sits back. “Okay. Wait there.” She disappears from the room again and I drop my head into my hands.

What is wrong with me?

Sugar climbs into my lap, purring gently, as if to reassure me, but I’m not reassured in the slightest.

Poppy returns holding an object I don’t recognize. “It’s a cordless heating pad,” she tells me, pressing a button and lowering herself onto the sofa. “I use it for period cramps.” She presses the soft pad to my lower back, and warmth radiates from the spot. My eyes fall closed as the throbbing in my back momentarily subsides and my head clears.

“Thanks,” I murmur, not letting myself look at Poppy. “Thanks for… taking care of me.” My voice is strangely hoarse, my breathing uneven.

“You’re welcome.”

Her hand touches my shoulder, easing me to lie back on the sofa with the heating pad under my back. The sofa dips as she settles herself beside me with a little sigh, but I keep my eyes shut. I’m not prepared for the way she brushes a strand of hair from my forehead, and it’s such a tender touch that my heart clenches unexpectedly.

It’s more than being attracted to her, I realize. It’s the way she’s caring for me, so carefully. The way she wants to ease my pain. She cooks for me because that’s our agreement—that she cooks to stay here for free, even though I’ve told her that’s not necessary—but this… this is something else. She could have tossed the box of Advil at me and left. Hell, she could have left without even fetching me painkillers.

She’s trying to make me feel better. I can’t remember the last time someone tried to do that.

“Bailey,” Poppy whispers quietly, and my eyes fly open.

“What?”

She motions to my chest—specifically my left pec—where my daughter’s name is tattooed in script. “You have her name over your heart.”

I swallow. “Yes. I got it the day after we met.”

Poppy’s brow furrows, and she opens her mouth to speak, then seems to think better of it. She hands me my T-shirt, and I gingerly tug it back on. I shouldn’t say anything more, but the next words leave my mouth without my permission.

“I would have gotten it the day she was born, but I wasn’t given the choice.”

Poppy twists to face me properly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” I blow out a long breath, cringing. I shouldn’t tell her this. The back pain is making me delirious, but as I gaze at the open expression on her face, something in my chest unlocks, and I realize Iwantto tell her. I know she only means to ease my physical pain, but what if I shared the thing that hurt me the most? The thing that still hurts, even to this day?

“Bailey’s mom didn’t tell me I had a daughter until Bailey was twelve.”

Poppy eyes me for a moment, as if deciding whether to believe me, but there must be something on my face that convinces her I’m telling the truth because her mouth falls open. “What?”

I nod, pressing my eyes shut as my back spasms. Even Bailey doesn’t know this—a fact I agonize over daily. When I ran into her mom Brittany in Walgreens, thirteen years after we shared a few fun nights together, the last thing I expected was for a young girl to appear at her side and call her “Mom.” A girl with eyes the exact same color as mine.

When Brittany finally convinced the girl to wait in the car so we could talk, she confessed what I already knew: the girl—Bailey—was mine. My vision swam and my ears pounded as I stared at Brittany in shock.

“How could you not tell me I have a daughter?”

I’d expected some shame or remorse from Brittany, but she just shrugged. “I didn’t have your number.”

A disbelieving scoff escaped me. “Are you kidding? You knew where I worked. You could have found me. Why didn’t you?”

She shrugged again, as if I’d asked something as banal as what the weather was doing, and my initial shock gave way to anger.

“I don’t know, Wyatt.” She picked at one of her fake nails absently. “Maybe I figured you weren’t ready to be a dad. You were too immature.”

“I was nineteen!” I exploded. “Of course I was immature! But that doesn’t mean I should have missed out.” I dragged my hands through my hair, processing that I had a twelve-year-old daughter. Processing everything I’d missed. I’d always promised myself that I’d be nothing like my own dad, who was absent from my life from day one. That when I had my own kids, I’d be there for them.

It never occurred to me I might not be given the choice.

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