Page 74 of Forsaken Trail (Runaway 4)

Aria followed, silently fuming. She leaned against the doorjamb as I took the cradle from the box, then unpacked the rocking chair. And once they were out of the way, I went about cleaning up the mess on the floor.

She didn’t say a word. Neither did I.

Aria stared. I worked.

Carrying the last piece of the dismantled crates to the garage, I returned to the nursery to find Aria gone. Along with the cradle.

“Damn it, woman.” I marched out of the nursery and to her bedroom.

She’d dragged the cradle to the foot of the bed where she sat, rocking it gently.

The cradle was wooden with sleek lines, simple but stylish. I thought she’d be proud that I’d picked something in a warm shade, especially when white and gray had been options.

“This is pretty,” she whispered.

“If you want something else, we can get something else.”

She shook her head and looked up to meet my gaze. All of the anger she’d been wearing earlier had disappeared. Somewhere during my trips to and from the garage, the fight had gone out of her.

I realized as I crossed the room to sit beside her that my anger had deflated too. “I’m sorry. I said it earl

ier. I meant it.”

“I know. You don’t say things you don’t mean.” She leaned into my side, her hair tickling my bare forearm. “I don’t want a nanny. I want to be the one to change diapers and puree baby food and get up in the middle of the night.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “No nanny. I’m going to be selfish and keep all of my baby’s moments for myself.”

“Just share some with me, okay?”

“You can have the poopy diapers.”

I chuckled. “So generous.”

“And I want a will. I want one ready the day he or she is born. If something happens to us, no matter what, Clara gets custody.”

My insides clenched. Just the idea that she—we—might not be there to see our child grow up made me sick. But Aria was right. This was important. “I’ll have my attorney draft it up tomorrow.”

She sat statue still, staring at the crib with her temple on my shoulder. “My parents didn’t have a will. To this day, it’s the one thing I haven’t been able to forgive them for. It wouldn’t have taken more than an hour or two. A phone call to a lawyer. But they put it off and then . . . they were gone.”

“We’ll have one,” I promised, then did my best not to tense because I didn’t want her to stop talking.

I knew only pieces of her history, the parts Clara had trusted me with over the years. But I wanted the full story and I wanted it from Aria. I wanted her to trust me with her past, like I’d trusted her with mine.

“Since they didn’t have a will, Clara and I became wards of the state while their estate was settled. We spent four weeks in foster care, waiting for family services to sort out where to stick us.”

“You ended up with an uncle, right?”

“Uncle Craig.” She shivered. “My mom’s stepbrother. They were estranged. My grandmother had been a single mom. She’d had Mom young. Then later she’d remarried a man a few years older, with a son. Her husband died but my grandma kept Craig. It was his senior year, I think. I didn’t know my grandma well. She died when Clara and I were babies. My dad’s parents were living in a retirement village outside of Phoenix, of all places. Not that far from here.”

“And you didn’t go with them?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure that’s what Mom and Dad had expected to happen. But when my uncle offered to take us, family services thought it was for the best. He was younger and lived in Temecula too, so we wouldn’t have to move to a different town. And my dad’s parents didn’t put up a fight. They didn’t want us, not really.”

It broke my heart that she’d felt unwanted. That she’d been at the mercy of the adults in her life. I could relate. It had been crushing to feel like a pawn and a burden rather than a child.

“I will never go back to California.” Her voice turned cold like the air drifting in from the open patio doors. “Clara wants to go back. She’ll take the Cadillac and return because she needs that closure.”