They both sounded terrible, and since when did he have to make choices? He thought the whole got-tortured-by-jihadist thing would have bought him more time, but his sister looked serious.
“Baby.” Dealing with Janine when she thought she knew how to do something was awful. She used to tell him he was throwing the football wrong when she’d never played. Not once. “I’ll hold the baby.”
Angie nodded and strode away.
He looked down at the kid. It happened so fast. Surely there was someone who would take him.
He was at a family function. Everyone held babies at these things. They passed them around like candy.
He glanced around but no one was close. They were all in little clusters, all talking and having a great time.
A short cry grabbed his attention.
He looked down and Nicky was staring up at him with big wide eyes and a trembling mouth that let him know he could do much worse than that little cry if he didn’t get what he needed.
“I thought your mom was breastfeeding.”
Like the baby would answer him.
Damn it. He winced as the answer hit him. “She probably pumped and now it’s in the bottle, and I know I’m supposed to be cool with everything, but it’s gross, kid. She’s my sister. Nothing is supposed to come out of her boobs. It’s like she doesn’t have boobs.”
That mouth opened again, and he’d been right. Nicky could amp it up when he wanted to.
Still no one came to his rescue.
Deke had that ick-came-out-of-his-sister’s-boobs bottle in his nephew’s mouth as fast as he could.
Someone would save him. No one was going to leave him sitting here with a baby. He was fucked up. He wasn’t supposed to hold sweet little helpless babies.
He’d been helpless. Like this baby.
Nicky’s chubby hands came up and over Deke’s as though he wanted to make sure the bottle stayed right where it was. As if he wanted his uncle to stay right where he was.
Here. With his family.
He had been helpless. He’d been a baby, and his father had held him and fed him and changed him. His mother hadn’t cared that he couldn’t fight, couldn’t take care of himself.
He was a grown man, but did that matter?
Something loosened inside him in that moment, something that previously made his chest tight. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t matter.
He sat there, staring into his nephew’s eyes. He hadn’t really looked at the kid before. He had Angie’s eyes.
The future was right there. Right in his hands.
“Hey, do you want me to take him?” His father was there. “Nicky can be a handful.”
Deke stared down at his nephew, who was managing to grin around the nipple. The kid was cute. “Nah. I’m good. I could use some water though.”
He might try the pills. What could it hurt? It would make his parents feel better. It wouldn’t be for him. It was for them.
His father jogged off, obviously eager to help.
Deke sat back, a weird peace coming over him.
He still wished he could have seen Maddie, but maybe it was all for the best.
When his sister Ashley exchanged Nicky for her daughter, he grumbled.
But he fed that one, too.
Chapter One
Fourteen years later
Dallas, TX
Madeline Hill stood outside the upscale apartment building and stared up.
Deke was in that building. He lived right here according to all her research. Fourteenth floor. All she had to do was walk in, find the elevator, search for 14B, and knock on his door. He would open it and she would see him.
Or she could knock and knock and he wouldn’t answer because he was on a date or out with friends or he could see her through the peephole and hide because she hadn’t seen him since she’d left for college.
Weariness battled with adrenaline, and it was making her feel like the world was about to explode. Of course, she was the one who’d pushed that button, so she had no one to blame but herself.
Her cell phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket like it was a lifeline, praying it was her mom or dad or even work. Anything that would give her another fifteen or twenty minutes before she had to explain to Deke why she needed his help.
Before he probably laughed at her and told her to take a hike.
She grimaced at the name. Daniel Gray was her latest experiment in modern-day dating. She’d put herself out there on a dating app specifically made for men and women in high tech and science fields. After a couple of truly awful experiences where dumbass men tried to explain her own field of expertise to her, she’d matched with Dan. He was in biotech and a good listener. Five dates in and he hadn’t even tried to make a move on her. It was comforting. He was easy to be around.
She was totally uninterested in him. She wished she wasn’t, wished he could be the guy who made her heart race, but the chemistry wasn’t there.
She let the call go to voice mail. She wasn’t going to ghost the guy, but it wasn’t a love match.
Would it be if she gave it time? If he’d come into her life before she’d found herself here, standing on the precipice of being near Deke again?
Not that it would matter. They’d made their choices a very long time ago, and she was at peace with the fact that Deke had done her a favor. He’d been right to break it off, and she was grateful to him. Over the last couple of years she’d even gotten to the point that she didn’t think about him every day. Once or twice a year she got wistful about him, but she’d moved on.
This was a mistake. Bringing him back into her life was a huge mistake, and maybe one she couldn’t afford.
A text came over her screen, this one from her boss. Nolan Byrne. He was one of the world’s most successful inventors.
And Maddie was worried he was also a killer. He was the very reason she was standing here.
Thanks for the new reports. Good work on the interface. It looks like we’re on track for launch. Changing the world, baby!
He called everyone baby. Men. Women. His cat. She didn’t read a thing into it. He was a genius, and she’d learned oftentimes genius came with weird habits. Male geniuses were especially likely to indulge their own oddities. The women, well, they were still women, and there were expectations even on the most gifted. She stood on the steps that led to the building and quickly typed her response.
Awesome. I’m super excited about it.
One of the ways to deal with Nolan was to be as over-the-top enthusiastic as he was. She sometimes thought of him as the tech version of Willy Wonka, and the rest of them were Oompa-Loompas just trying to get by while making all the candy and singing all the songs.
I’m excited about meeting your guy and getting into that club. Enjoy your vacay, M. See you back here on Monday. I’ll take your guy to lunch. N signing off!
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She grimaced and sent off a quick round of smiley face emojis and little suns since she was supposed to be in Sedona on a girls trip this weekend, not visiting her long-lost ex-boyfriend who might be the only person in the world who could get her out of the corner she’d placed herself in.
Why, why, why had she done something this freaking dumb?
She was going to lose her job and if she did, she might never find out what Nolan was up to.