11. Heidi

CHAPTER 11

Heidi

I t's been a long day and I'm so damn tired that every muscle in my body aches. But I smile as Cassie chatters when I pick her up at the school. She stays late for an after-school program which helps me out no end.

"Hey, Mom. Can we stop and get a cheeseburger and milkshake again?"

I groan silently and roll my eyes. She's been begging since the day after we went with Micah.

"Honey, not tonight. I'm really tired. And besides that, I've got meat out in the fridge to make tacos tonight."

She huffs and crosses her arms on her skinny chest. "Fine. But I bet Micah would take me."

I just bet he would. The man's a child too.

Not really fair but my body is driving me crazy and I can't sleep. Every part of me aches but it aches for him. I could work like today with no problems if I wasn't so damn distracted by his gorgeous ass wandering around. The way his biceps flexed when he hefted a long piece of wood on his broad shoulder. The grunt that makes me think of the way he sounded when he came down my throat.

He's killing me!

"That might be but he's not here. And I'm your mother so what I say goes." I wince when I say those words. Lord, I hate when people use that argument with their kids but sometimes it's all you've got.

I pull up outside the house and put the truck in park. "Come on. Let's go eat some tacos and then if you want we'll play some Mario Kart."

She scrambles out of the truck, screaming and running for the door. "Yay!"

I don't usually let her play video games until the weekend. We're usually too busy to play during the week.

"If only everybody was so easy to please," I huff under my breath.

I unlock the door and we walk inside. I almost have the door closed when it's ripped out of my hands and slammed into the wall. Slamming so hard that the edge cracks and the wall dents. I fall to the side and my head hits the doorjamb on the other side.

I fall to my knees and shake my head, fighting the blackness, struggling to stand and falling to the ground again.

"Mommy!"

My eyes sting with tears and my heart stops. "Cassie? Baby. It's okay."

A dark voice chuckles and I lift my head, crawling up to my feet and then standing, leaning on the wall. Something wet slips down my cheek and I lift my hand, pulling it away and groaning when I see the blood on my fingers. My hand shakes and I close my eyes, fighting the nausea.

I open my eyes and growl when I see Josh standing, holding onto Cassie's arm. Her little face is white and tears stream down her cheeks.

"Mom," she says, her voice thick with tears.

"It's okay, baby. I'm alright. It was an accident." Her face clears but I don't think she believes me and she's still jerking at her arm.

"That's right. Just a simple accident, huh, baby? I was just so excited to see the both of you that I pushed the door too hard." That smarmy damn voice. Jesus! I hate that voice. I forgot how much I hate that voice.

"Right." It takes everything in me to lie instead of running over and slamming into him.

The only thing stopping me is I don't trust him not to hurt Cassie. I lean my hand on the wall and creep around the room, wincing when his eyes never leave me.

"Why don't you sit down and we can talk, baby? Maybe Cassie can go take a bath or something."

"Why don't you go get the game ready for us, kiddo?" She nods and he finally lets go of her. She eyes him, distrust clear in her eyes. Her hand rubs at her arm and my whole body stings when I think of the way he held her.

But I nod at her and she dashes out of the room. Josh doesn't watch her but I see her grab something off of the floor as she streaks past us.

He never even glances at her and I sit down on the couch, watching him warily. I can see something in his pocket and I swear it's a gun. My breath hitches.

I never saw him with a gun but that doesn't mean he doesn't have one.

He grins at me, his whole attitude screaming cocky as hell and I really want to reach across and ram him with my whole body but my head still hurts and my ears are ringing with pain.

"Now, how have you been, wife?"

"I'm not your wife anymore, Josh."

His body stiffens and he glares at me as his hand slips down to pat that pocket. "You are my wife."

"We have a divorce that was finalized, Josh. Completely. We are no longer married. I don't know why you're having trouble remembering that all of a sudden but you wanted it as well as me."

His mouth turns down, sulky like a petulant child. "I didn't realize how much I love you."

I snort. "Please. If you loved me you wouldn't have called me names all the time."

"I just wanted you to live your best life. How the hell could you do that like you were?"

"I'm still the same, Josh. Nothing has changed." Something has changed. I don't intend to let this man steamroll me anymore. He means nothing to me.

"Something has changed. And I think that we should talk about it. I think you'll admit that we're good together and we should give this another shot."

Not bloody fucking likely. There's no way in hell I will ever let him back into my life.

But not one iota of my thoughts shows on my face as he begins pleading his case for us. Our future.

My eyes stay on his hand running along that damn pocket as my heavy head struggles to figure out how the hell we're going to get out of this mess.