I nearly dialed 911 on the tattooed teenager holding a screaming baby inside an empty 1 AM laundromat. Then his bag tore open, and my stomach sank with utter shame.

forward.

Jackson took one step back.

“Don’t,” he said.

She stopped immediately.

“I won’t touch her,” Rachel said. “Not unless you say I can.”

“You don’t get near her.”

“Jack, please.”

“No.”

His voice was no longer flat.

It was shaking.

“You don’t get to disappear for two years and then show up on Nana Martha’s porch with papers like you misplaced a sweater.”

Emma continue reading …