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“Then replace it with something better.” Her pretty features didn’t soften, they firmed. “If we don’t take chances in life, we’re avoiding it, not living it. I don’t want that for you, and I don’t think you really want that either.”
Champion
MY PHONE RANG as I climbed into my Lincoln Navigator. I started the engine and let the Bluetooth pick up the call.
I wasn’t planning on answering. I was on a mission. After an uncomfortable phone call to Mercedes, I had Electra’s phone number and her address. I was planning on delivering that spanking shortly. But seeing the caller ID on the dash display, I took the call.
“Fucking hell, Electra,” I snapped. “Don’t you ever run away from me again. We aren’t temporary.” I got her note, and I dismissed it. I might not know what the hell I was doing, but I knew I wanted her and needed her to figure it out. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I do.” A soft feminine voice said that I didn’t recognize. “You sound different than you do on television. Angry. By the way, this isn’t Electra.”
I almost smiled, because of course I had gathered that much. “Who is this?”
“Ally Catherine Stewart,” she said. “I’m Electra’s roommate.”
“Is she okay?” I asked, my breath catching.
“Yes,” Ally said softly, and I exhaled my relief. “But she’s tired and sleeping in her room. Where are you right now?”
That was a strange question, but I answered it. Something about this phone call was making the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“I’m in my SUV, about to head to your apartment.” I backed out of the driveway after hitting the button to open the gate. “Why do you ask?”
“Well ...” She sucked in a breath. “I wanted to be sure you were sitting down, and you are, obviously, because you’re in a vehicle and can’t drive standing up, or at least not in any car that I know of, maybe a Segway, but—”
“Ally, honey.” I cut in, not knowing what to do with all that as I steered the Navigator away from my house. “Can you fo—”
“I always wished you’d call me that,” she said, interrupting. “Nice sounding, though, not exasperated.”
What in the ever-loving hell?
“You think I’m a psycho.” Her volume went softer.
I was beginning to think that Electra’s roommate was on drugs. I’d missed the signs with Carlotta. I was over-sensitized to them now.
“I’m not,” Ally said. “Not a psycho, I mean. I just babble when I get nervous.”
“Why are you nervous?” I asked, shaking my head at the bizarreness of this phone call as I entered the freeway. Thankfully, the Northwest Highway and their apartment was only a couple of exits away.
“But I guess I’m kinda of eccentric, or my mother says I am, and I’m not a boy, so in your mind, I’m sure that’s another strike against me.” Her stream-of-conscious speech was so random, I could barely follow it. “But I don’t care what my mother says, I’ve always wanted to meet you.”
My head spun, but my body started to tingle. “Who is your mother, honey?”
“Carlotta Stewart Remington Smith Knox Henderson, but I just kept my mother’s first husband’s name. She had so many after him, it didn’t make sense to change it every time, right?”
I swerved into another lane. The car occupying it swerved to avoid a collision and honked at me. My heart pounded so hard I heard it in my ears and felt it throbbing in my toes.
“You’re Carlotta’s child?”
“Yes, and I’m your daughter too.”
Holy fucking shit. My world tilted on its axis.
My head spinning, I yanked the steering wheel hard and pulled off at the very next exit that I’d almost passed. Shaking, I somehow managed to make it to a bank parking lot. Locating an empty space, I cut the engine.
“Your mother. Carlotta.” I swallowed hard. “She didn’t have the baby ... our baby,” I said slowly and carefully so Ally would know that this was impossible. “We were in high school. I had just signed a big scholarship. Our parents were against the pregnancy. Carlotta told me she had an abortion.”
“She didn’t. She lied to you, to me too. She told me you knew about me,” she whispered. “But that you didn’t want anything to do with me because I was a girl and not a boy.”
