Page 25 of Make You Mine

“Shit,” I gasp. I stagger to a stop at a wooden bench, clutching the stroller’s handle to steady myself.

I’ve pushed too far.

Fumbling with one hand, I dig through my tote bag for my insulin pen, my fingers clumsy and shaking. The bag tips sideways, spilling its contents onto the damp grass—my wallet, Emmett’s pacifier, a mushed banana, my phone.

“Damn it…” I mutter, dropping to my knees. My vision warps again as I try to steady the pen in my hand. I brace my palm on the bench beside me and take a few shallow breaths. Emmett kicks lightly in the stroller, making a soft cooing noise that only fuels my panic. I can’t fall apart when it’s just the two of us and no one else is around.

When Willow’s missing. She needs me?—

“I’VE FOUND HER!”

Chelsea’s voice booms across the park grounds like a siren. Heads snap in her direction as she runs toward the center of the park, waving an arm in the air.

“I’ve got her! She’s here!”

For a moment, everything slows down—the chaos, the pounding in my head, the sense of panic that had exploded inside me. It gradually sinks in that she’s been found safe and unharmed.

Overwhelming relief crashes over me, so swift and sharp it leaves me lightheaded. The insulin pen slips from my hand into the grass as I slump back against the bench. My legs won’t hold me. Every muscle shudders. Not just from the blood sugar spike, but from the panic leaving my body all at once…

“Do you have any idea how close I was to losing it? I’m not even angry, I’m—no, scratch that. Iamangry,” Declan says hours later. We’re finally home, locked away in our bedroom. “You should’ve said something the second your head started pounding. Three-oh-four? Bloody brilliant, Amerie. Really top marks.”

“I didn’t exactly have time to announce it, Declan. My daughter was missing and my blood sugar wasn’t at the top of my damn list.”

“I told you that cupcake looked too good to be sugar-free. I should’ve trusted my gut and binned it the second I saw it in your hand.”

“Theyweresugar-free. The other diabetics ate theirs without any issues. It just turns out…” I sigh, giving a shrug. “A regular one slipped into the sugar-free batch. It happened to be mine. It was a mistake. Accidents happen.”

He scoffs, pacing the foot of our bed. “Some ruddy accident.”

“Can we not argue about this too?” I ask. “I think we’ve bitten each other’s heads off enough for one day. We already blamed each other enough about Willow missing.”

He doesn’t say anything right away, his jaw clenched.

It might seem like he’s furious with me, but I know better than to believe he is. Declan is naturally protective of those he cares about, so when Willow goes missing and I have a blood sugar scare, it feels like a failure on his part.

He’s angry with himself, frustrated that he hadn’t been able to stop either from happening. Earlier I overheard him on the phone with the café; he was chewing them out for making such a mistake with the cupcakes. They swore up and down they don’t know how a regular cupcake got mixed in with a batch of sugar-free ones, but he threatened to crush their business should it ever happen again.

He’d been just as worked up about Willow wandering off.

Chelsea says she found her on the far side of the park, where there’s a garden and pond to feed the ducks. Willow claims a man dressed as a clown had been offering ice cream.

No such clown had been hired by Arlo’s mother for the birthday party or anyone else at the park. No vendors were approved at all to be selling food or any kind of sweets on the grounds.

Declan spent almost two hours searching the area with police for the man. He never said it aloud, but a part of him hoped he got to the man before the authorities did.

We’ve badgered Willow over what happened during the ten minutes she was missing. She’s given the same answer each and every time.

“Nothing, Mommy,” she squeaks. “The clown said he had ice cream. But then he walked away. So I went to look… andthere were flowers! So many pretty ones, just like ours! But even more!”

We’ve given her the stranger danger talk several more times, hammering home how she’s not supposed to talk to strangers, let alone go wandering off. She teared up and apologized, insisting she had only gone to the park gardens, because she wasn’t sure how to get back to the other side.

The entire situation… feels like a mess.

I sigh and get up from my side of the bed. “I’m going to go check on the kids.”

Declan catches my arm on my way out, holding me back. A flicker of guilt passes over his face. “You scared the hell out of me. Don’t do that again, Amerie. I love you.”

I mouth it back to him and then leave the room.

---