Tattoos covered both of his forearms, which didn’t exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about him.
Nerves had me shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “Who wants to know?”
“We’re here to help you vacate Tassie Johnson’s condo,” the black man said, his words sounding like a threat.
I chuckled nervously as I met his stern gaze. “Excuse me?”
“It’s time you leave,” he told me. “And never come back.”
“This is my home.” I pressed my face to my daughter’s. “Our home. You wouldn’t take a mother and child from their home, would you?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Cain,” the white man said. “We’re simply following orders.”
“Whose orders? The court’s—or Tassie’s?”
“It’s time,” the black man began, “for you to leave. Tassie will send you your things.”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet of her?” I retorted sarcastically. “You want me out of here? You show me a court order. This is America. You can’t just kick me out of my own home.”
Neither man seemed swayed by what I said. In fact, they both took a menacing step toward me.
“Wait!” I cried. “Don’t do this.”
“It’s time for you to leave,” the black man said again.
Was that the extent of his vocabulary? Was he a robot programmed to say only six words?
The men took another step in unison, now invading my personal space. “But—but you can’t,” I sputtered, clutching Rayna to my chest while trying to block the men from getting to my condo door. They weren’t just big—they could easily compete in sumo wrestling.
The big, bald, white guy wrapped his fingers around my upper arm. “Hey!” I protested. “You can’t touch me! That’s assault!”
“Then move out of the way,” the man said.
Rayna began to cry. Tears filled my own eyes.
“But this is our home. Don’t you have a heart? How—how can you be so cold?” I cradled Rayna’s head to my shoulder to comfort her as she cried. Neither man batted an eye. I wondered if Tassie had hired them from Rent-A-Thug.
“I have a baby,” I went on. “You can actually kick me out of my home with no concern at all for my child?”
“We have our orders,” the men said in unison.
“Please,” I begged, as Rayna cried louder. “Please, have a heart.” One man took hold of my left arm, the other my right arm, which was secured around Rayna. “No,” I said defiantly. “Nooo!”
I backed up until my body was against the door. I wriggled around, fighting to free myself. And then my eyes popped open. It took me a good couple of seconds to realize that I was in my bed, and that a pair of over-steroided thugs weren’t in the room with me. I was sitting up, my body tangled in my sheets.
I’d been dreaming. Thank God.
I let out a relieved chuckle.
But my relief was short-lived. Because reality came crashing down on my shoulders, knocking me backward onto the pillow. Tassie Johnson, my late fiancé’s estranged wife, wanted me out of the home I’d shared with her husband. Yes, it’s a crazy and convoluted story, but I didn’t know that Eli Johnson, my fiancé, was still legally married at the time I was involved with him. He’d romanced me, seduced me, then proposed. We’d moved in together and had been planning a life together. How was I to know that he had an estranged wife and a couple kids somewhere? But Tassie didn’t believe me—or maybe she did, and she just didn’t care. All I knew was that as his official widow, she was making my life hell regarding the property I’d shared with Eli.
Tassie had insisted that I buy out her husband’s share of the condo, an all but impossible feat for a single mother like me. But despite the unlikelihood of me coming up with that kind of cash, I had. Only now that I’d come up with a way to buy her out and get her off my back, she up and changed her mind…and changed the game.
The sound of my door opening drew my gaze in that direction. The moment Rayna saw me, her face erupted in a smile.
Mine did, too.
“Mommy!” she cried, and sprinted toward me on the bed.
“Morning, sweetheart.” I reached for my daughter and pulled her onto the bed with me. I hugged her against my chest tightly.
“It’s morning,” Rayna went on, her way of telling me that it was time for me to get out of bed.
“Yes, it’s morning,” I agreed, then glanced at the clock—7:12 a.m.
It was the perfect time to get up—if I was heading to work. But it was a Sunday morning, the perfect time to sleep in.
My nightmare had gotten me up, and now that Rayna was awake, I was up for the day.
I lay down with Rayna, tucking her against my side. Maybe we’d both drift off.
“Mommy?” Rayna said, her little voice sounding serious.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Want Daddy.”
“Oh, baby.” I hugged her small frame. “I know you do.”
Eli hadn’t just been my fiancé, he’d been a father figure to my daughter, whose own father had abandoned her while I’d been pregnant. Since Eli’s death a few months earlier, Rayna hadn’t really asked for him much. I knew she missed his presence, and I’d tried to explain to her about heaven, but I also knew that she was too young to really understand that he’d never be coming back.
“Want Daddy come home,” she said.
“I know, baby. We miss him a lot. And I’m sure he misses us, too. But we can’t feel sad about that, remember? Because he’s in heaven, a very beautiful place, and he’s happy there.”
“Want to go heaven,” Rayna said, pouting.
“You will, one day. One day, we all will go to heaven. And you’ll see daddy again.”
Given the adulterous circumstances of Eli’s passing and the numerous lies he’d told me, I doubted we’d be reunited beyond the pearly gates. But Rayna didn’t need to know that. She never needed to know the ugly truth about what had happened. Some things, children deserved to be protected from.
I pressed my lips to Rayna’s forehead, feeling a moment of sadness for her sake. Eli’s public and scandalous death had thrown my life into upheaval and I guess, because of that, I’d had to quickly put the pain of his betrayal—being killed while in the arms of another woman—behind me. Certainly for my daughter’s sake, because she’d needed me to be strong.
But I felt for her, worried for how she was dealing with Eli’s sudden loss in her tiny
