Page 35 of Wild Weekend
I tell her about the MC and the other old ladies and how they’ll be able to give advice and help when the baby comes.
“There’s a medical center in Hope that might have work, but you don’t need to work if you don’t want to. If you want to stay home and raise our kids, that’s fine too.”
“Kids?” Her eyebrows raise into the air.
I place a hand on her belly and feel the life growing in there. “We’re not stopping at one. I want a large family. We’re starting our own empire here. Let’s make it a big one.”
Stella smiles a tight smile and doesn’t say anything. She stops walking and turns to me. We’re next to a small park, and her face is half in shadow from a large tree that we’ve stopped under.
“I need to tell you something.”
My heart sinks. She’s changed her mind; she doesn’t want to come back with me. She really does want to raise the baby on her own.
“What is it?”
She opens her mouth to speak when a movement from the park catches my eye. I pull her toward me and put my finger to my lips to silence her.
A man walks down the pathway in the center of the park. His steps are quick, his hands are in his pockets, and he glances furtively around him from under a hoody. The tree shields us from view, and I pull Stella further into the shadows.
As the man in the hoody reaches the end of the path, another man steps out of the shadows. They nod to each other, and without speaking the man in the hoody sticks his hand out. They shake hands, exchanging something. The man steps back and blends into the shadows, while the hoody man jogs out of the park.
I pull Stella away from the park and back towards the hotel. I’ve got my phone out, and I note the name of the street as I put in a call to the police.
“Drug dealer,” I mouth to Stella. “Get inside the motel and don’t come out until I knock.”
She looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t argue.
Once she’s safely inside, I call the local police and tell them what I saw. I tell them exactly where they can find the dealer. They promise to send someone, and I hope they get the fucker.
When I get back to the hotel, Stella’s on the bed rubbing her belly thoughtfully.
“I hope they get that scum,” I mutter.
She nibbles on her nails. “Why are you so tough on drugs?”
I pace the room, the anger raging inside me. “Because they destroy lives.”
She looks upset, and I sit on the bed and take a deep breath to calm the rage. “Sorry, I’m not angry at you. I lost my sister to a drug overdose.”
Her face floods with sympathy, and she takes my hands. “I’m so sorry.”
There are tears in her eyes and that means something to me, that she feels my pain.
“After our parents passed, I went into the military. Cara was away at college, and I thought she was okay. She was my older sister and always seemed to have it together.”
I run a hand over my face at the painful memory. Cara was bubbly and outgoing. I didn’t understand until it was too late that her attitude hid an internal struggle.
“Her roommate told me that it started with smoking pot at frat parties. But after my parents died, she got into harder stuff. She was prescribed anti-depressants, and when they stopped her prescription, she found other ways to procure what she needed to numb the pain.
“Her roommate found her one night passed out and couldn’t revive her. The ambulance was called, but she was already gone. She had a combination of alcohol and Fentanyl in her system.”
I take a deep breath as the memory of that call floods my brain. I was posted in Afghanistan and didn’t hear about Cara until two days after she died. I came straight home, not believing that my bright sister could go out like that.
“The police found a stash in her room. Someone sold a vulnerable woman that shit, and I will never forgive them for it. Drug dealers are the scum of the earth. They should all be locked up with no chance of parole.”
My fist slams into my palm, and Stella jumps. She’s got her knees pulled up to her chest, and she’s gone pale.
I’m an idiot for getting angry and scaring her. I run my hands down her arms. She’s cold, and I need to get her into bed. “Are you okay?”
