Page 84 of Daddy’s Fortitude

She had about two hours before she could catch the bus back.

Walking down the street, she wondered what she could do for the next few hours. She hoped that Ammo hadn’t noticed she was missing, but she was too chicken to check her phone.

If he did notice her gone, she was going to be in big trouble.

She spotted the park Charlie had taken her to a few times at Christmas. The park would be lit up with fairy lights, and it would always seem so magical. There would be people selling hot chocolate and mulled wine, and they’d walk around looking at the lights.

Once upon a time, things had been good between her and Charlie. She just wished she could pinpoint where it all went wrong, so she wouldn’t make that mistake again.

No, she wasn’t going to blame herself. That was her grandmother’s teachings, to always blame herself for everything that went wrong, because it could never possibly be her husband’s fault. This time it was Charlie’s fault. Well, maybe there was some blame on her part. It took two to tango after all. But he was the one who’d chosen to cheat on her. He was the one who’d chosen to lie.

She spotted the playground which was currently empty. Wandering over, she stood on the old-fashioned merry-go-round and pushed it with her toe. It might be old and rusty, but she loved this thing. She drew Kevin out of her hair and placed him in her handbag on the ground next to the merry-go-round.

Then she held onto the bar and pushed it faster and faster.

As it spun around, she slid onto her bottom, then her back, and laid down.

Closing her eyes, she held her arms out. It felt like she was flying, like she was free, and she found herself smiling as the merry-go-round continued to move around and around.

Why couldn’t her life be this carefree anymore?

Then suddenly, it came to a stop, and she opened her eyes. What had happened? What was going on?

The sun became blocked as someone loomed over her.

Uh-oh.

25

Ammo hadn’t believed his eyes when he’d walked into the bedroom to find that she was gone.

To his surprise, the first thing he’d felt wasn’t anger, but rather fear.

He didn’t like not knowing where she was or what she was doing. He didn’t like her being out and about without him to keep her safe.

Then his brain had kicked in, and he’d realized that he could track her through her phone. He’d had to contact Miles for help since he hadn’t enabled the tracking feature on her phone. But it hadn’t taken Miles long to locate her.

He’d driven too fast on his way over here. He was just lucky that he hadn’t been caught.

But he had to admit that the last thing he thought he’d find was her lying on her back on a merry-go-round, going round and round.

Was this why she’d come here, to go on this merry-go-round? It made no sense. Surely there was a playground in Greasy Knob. Although maybe she didn’t want anyone seeing her playing on the equipment.

But why wouldn’t she tell him that she wanted to go out for a while?

Probably because you wouldn’t have allowed it.

Perhaps he’d been a bit overbearing in his demands, but she’d scared him last night. Getting that call from Jeremy had been terrifying. He wasn’t sure he’d ever driven so fast in his life, even faster than he’d driven here today.

His heart had been pounding, his forehead sweating. Ammo wasn’t a guy that felt fear. He didn’t exactly have anything to lose—no family, no ties, just Zander, and that crazy bunch of people that he lived with.

When you really had nothing, there was nothing to fear.

So the fear he’d felt last night as he’d raced into the supermarket and saw her lying there on the ground, pale as a sheet and shaky had been unexpected, and if he was honest, it had kind of rocked him.

It had made him think twice about how he felt about her, about what he was doing here, and about what would happen when the time came to part ways.

Yeah, he wasn’t the relationship sort of guy. And yet he was starting to think that walking away from her wasn’t quite an option anymore.