Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Prologue

There was, at times, only one way to completely lose yourself.

This was a fact that Trey Barnes knew all too well.

He’d spent a great deal of time losing himself to books, for instance—first as a reader, and then, as he’d gotten older, as a writer. He found other ways to lose himself, too. He liked to dabble in photography, although he was a bumbling amateur compared to his oldest brother, Zane. Still, it was a good way to while away an afternoon.

And he had loved to lose himself in the arms of his wife, Aliesha.

Now, though, all he had of her were memories . . . and that small infant on the other side of the glass, struggling for every breath.

“Mr. Barnes?”

He didn’t look at the nurse.

“Sir, why don’t you go home and get some rest?”

It was creeping up on ten. He’d been here since . . . hell. He’d come straight here after the funeral. Yeah, it had been a while. He’d taken every precious moment he could to be as close to his baby as possible. Not that he could do much more than stroke one small, frail hand.

Clayton Barnes, a mere three days old, was a tiny, little miracle from God. He’d been born more than two months early. Without the ventilator that was doing the breathing for him, he wouldn’t be alive.

“Mr. Barnes.”

Slowly, he looked away from the window and met the compassionate gaze of the nurse. She was older, her round face softened by time, and her eyes held his steadily.

She reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“You need rest,” she said gently. “You have to take care of yourself now . . . for him, if nothing else. You’re all he has.”

A knot settled in his throat, then he nodded. “Can I have another few minutes with him?”

“Of course.”

*   *   *

Once he left the neonatal intensive care unit and the hospital behind, he didn’t go home. Not yet.

There was no way he could sleep in their bed.

Their bed.

Aliesha . . .

Tears burned his eyes and he blinked them away as the road blurred in front of him.

His phone buzzed—it was still on silent mode from the funeral. It had too many ignored phone calls, too many unanswered messages and he planned on letting them go ignored. Unanswered. The only people he’d care to talk to were his family, and all of them knew where to track him down. He’d be at the hospital sixteen to eighteen hours a day for the foreseeable future.

For now, he didn’t want to be around anybody he knew. Anybody . . . or any place.

Taking the interstate downtown, he found a hotel. Somebody came out from behind the valet parking stand but Trey already had the door open. “Will you be checking in, sir?”

He gave a short nod and moved to the back, grabbing the bag his mother had packed so he could have clothes for after the funeral. He’d never changed. They’d come in handy now.

“Do you have any other luggage?”

“No.” He turned his keys over and went to head inside, but then looked back at the man. “Where’s the nearest bar?”

“There’s the hotel lounge, although it closes at eleven.”

“Aside from that?”

The man cocked his head and gestured west. “Take a left at the next block. You’ll find quite a few. Plenty of places open til midnight, some even later.”

Trey gave another nod and passed over a few of the bills he’d shoved inside his pocket earlier. He’d meant to get coffee, or something from the vending machines at the hospital. Meant to—forgot. Again.

Check-in was a short, silent affair. One thing about some of the more upscale hotels—they seemed to realize when somebody wasn’t in a mood to chat.

The lady at check-in apologetically told him the hotel was rather full due to an upcoming convention, although she did have a single open for only one night. The word convention had his gut turning—

. . . an accident . . . hospital as soon as possible . . .

Shoving the memories aside, he said hoarsely, “I just need it for the night.”

He’d figure something else out tomorrow.

Trey barely remembered the walk from the desk to the elevator to the room.

He barely remembered throwing his bag on the bed and stumbling back out.

It was all a blur, and then he was sitting down at the bar, his hand closed tightly around a glass.

It was a dive. He’d asked for whiskey, a double, neat, and it had come in a smudged glass, the fumes of whatever horse-piss they’d brought so strong, it might have doubled for rocket fuel.

He tossed it back and tapped his glass.

The bartender slid him a look but served him up another before disappearing to tend to everybody else jammed in at the bar, elbow deep.

“You look like you want to drink away your sorrows.”

Sighing, Trey lifted the glass and pressed it to his head. He closed his eyes and said, “Go away.”

“Aww . . .” A hand stroked down his arm. “Don’t go being like that.”

Jerking his arm away, he tugged his wallet out and fished out some bills—how much did whiskey cost in a dive like this? He didn’t know. He caught the bartender’s eye and held up two twenties.

“Get your change in a minute—”

“Keep it,” Trey said sourly as the woman on his left leaned in closer. The feel of her breasts, the scent of her, had something inside him going cold.

Aliesha—

He half stumbled away as days of grief, of guilt, crashed into him. He found a bare space of wall near the back of the bar, a painted-over window tucked up over his head. He rested there, taking another drink of whiskey, slower this time, grimacing at the almost painful bite of the cheapest, shittiest whiskey he’d ever had the misery to experience. Appropriate, he decided. Today was the most miserable, shittiest day of his life.

A tear squeezed out of the corner of his eye. He swiped at it with the heel of his hand, not giving a damn if anybody saw it. Then he tipped back the glass and had another sip.

“Hey.”

Cracking one eye open, he bit back a groan. It was the woman from the bar. At one time in the past, he would have given her a thorough look. Her hair was done in long, thick plaits that hung almost to her waist, while her hourglass curves were poured into a belly-baring shirt and a skirt that just barely skimmed the legal limit. A gold ring flashed from her navel and there was a piercing in her nose.

She looked like a woman capable of wicked things.

No doubt about it, she could make a man’s cock stand on end.

Now, though, all she did was angle her head to the side. “Look, I’m sorry if I came on too strong. You . . . hell, you look like you’re having a rough day. You want to talk about it?”

“No.” He closed his eyes again and had another long, hard pull of his drink, realized it was empty.

His head was also starting to spin. Usually two drinks wouldn’t do it, but he hadn’t eaten since the toast his mother had forced on him that morning. Not exactly the ideal dietary intake.

Didn’t matter. He could still think. If he could think, he wasn’t drunk enough.

Shouldering up off the wall, he went to cut around her.

She caught his arm and when he tried to pull away, she just gripped him tighter. “Come on,” she said, her voice firm. “If you’re going to get plastered, at least do it sitting down.”

He might have argued, except he was damn tired.

A few minutes later, he was in a booth.

She sat across from him and he watched listlessly as she picked up his glass and sniffed at it. “What is that, Old Grand-Dad? You trying to kill your stomach or what?” She flagged down one of the servers and Trey snorted.