I Had a Baby without You novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Midnight Pie

"No," I said, too loud. "Not the gold bird. Go back to bed, Poppy."

She did not go back to bed.

She padded across the linoleum in her bare feet and stopped two feet from Roark Draycott's polished shoes.

He stood very still.

He turned his head until his ear pointed at her, the way he had at table forty.

"I'm Poppy," she said. "I'm four and a half. Are you a customer?"

"I'm hoping to be," he said.

His voice was careful, almost gentle.

"We don't have a menu at night," she told him. "Mama makes pie or she makes grilled cheese."

"What do you recommend?"

"Pie." She considered him. "You're really tall."

"So I'm told."

"Do you want to see my moon?"

She turned her head and pulled her curls back from her left ear.

I felt the blood leave my face.

Roark crouched in front of her, which still did not bring him down to her height, and looked at the little lantern-shaped mark.

He looked at it for a long time.

His face was a blank page.

"That's a good moon," he said at last.

"It's a birthmark. Mama says it's where the angel kissed me."

"She's right."

I reached them in two steps and swept Poppy into my arms.

"Bedtime. Now."

"But he wants pie!"

"He can have pie after you're asleep."

I carried her up the stairs and tucked the rabbit under her chin.

She was out in a minute, one fist curled in my shirt.

I stayed on the edge of her bed with my forehead against the wall.

Did he see it?

Could he see it?

In the cooler, Gretchen had said he would not know my face from a doorknob.

I had taken it for plain cruelty.

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