Page 17 of Keegan's Promise

By the time he stalks back toward us, his arms full of what few belongings we have, I’m thinking about running just to keep him from getting his hands on me. He looks like he’s ready to commit murder.

“You’ve been living in the car,” he growls.

I glance down at my feet as shame crashes through me in a tidal wave.

“How long, Landry?”

“F-five months,” I whisper. “I pretended I was going into labor. When they took me back to examine me, I snuck out.” I was so fucking scared they were going to catch me, but I don’t tell him that. I don’t tell him that I was too scared to go to a hospital when I went into labor three weeks later, either.

An old country doctor and his wife delivered her in a spare bedroom at their house in New Mexico. We stayed with them for two weeks. Even though I couldn’t pay them, they were kinder to me than anyone else has been in a long time. They sent me on my way with a car seat, baby clothes, and five hundred dollars in my pocket.

One day, I’ll be able to pay it back.

Keegan looks like he wants to hit something as he digests the news. But he just touches my cheek gently and sighs before opening the back door of the truck. Once he tosses our stuff in, he quickly gets Lily’s car seat settled in, figuring out all the safety straps a lot faster than I did the first time.

He’s so gentle with her when I pass her to him. He kisses her little head before buckling her in and then helps lift me into the passenger side. His hands around my waist send a jolt through me.

He stares into my eyes for a long moment before releasing me. My heart pounds against my ribcage as I fumble with the seatbelt as he circles around the truck.

We don’t speak for several minutes as he drives. I don’t know what to say. I’m so damn tired of running. I’m tired of being afraid. This is the first time since that day in his arms where I feel…hope. And that’s a dangerous thing. But I feel it anyway.

“You aren’t driving that car anymore, Landry,” he finally murmurs, glancing over at me. “It’s not safe.”

“I…” I open my mouth to argue and then snap it closed and nod instead.

“I’ll get you a new one.”

“That isn’t necessary, Keegan.”

“It is,” he disagrees. “You need something safe, especially if you’ll be driving around with Lily in the car.”

My heart leaps into my throat, fear pinging through me. “Keegan, I…”

“I know what you want,” he says, his voice tight. “I know why you came. The answer is no, Landry. I’m not taking her so you can turn yourself over to them. You’re staying right here with her.”

“They’ll come for me,” I whisper, hands clenching into fists. “I can’t be anywhere near her when they come.”

“You aren’t leaving our daughter, baby.”

“You think that’s what I want?” I swallow hard, refusing to cry. “The whole time they kept me locked up, the only thing I thought about was getting her out…getting her to you so they couldn’t take her.”

“They aren’t taking her,” he growls, his hands white around the steering wheel. “And they aren’t taking you from me again, either.”

I stare at him with wide eyes.

“I’ve spent every day of the last year praying you’d come back into my life, sweetness. One day wasn’t enough. You’re mine. I knew it that day, and I’m even more certain of it now. I’m not letting those motherfuckers get their hands on you again now.”

“You don’t know them, Keegan. W-what they’re capable of. What they’ll do.” I shiver, squeezing my eyes closed. “As far as they’re concerned, I’m their property. In their eyes, that makes her their property too. And I stole her from them. They’ll never stop looking.”

For long moments, he doesn’t say anything. But I feel his hand in mine, gently prying my fist loose before he links our fingers together. Almost immediately, I feel calmer. Safer. Like I did back in Colorado a lifetime ago, when he wrapped me up in his arms and took me up to his room. For the first time in a year, I felt safe. I feel that way again now.

And just like then, it’s a dangerous feeling. Because I’m less safe now than I was then. And so is he. So long as I’m here, he and Lily will never be safe.

“I need you to trust me again like you did in Colorado, sweetness,” he murmurs, his voice a soft rumble threatening to annihilate my defenses. “I swear to you that they won’t get you and they won’t get Lily. But you have to trust me to keep you safe.”

I want to trust him. Everything in me screams at me to trust him. But how can I when it’s his life I’m gambling with? When it’s our daughter’s life?

How can I not?

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