Free Secrets by Leanne Davis Page B

Vanessa. She made every attempt to discreetly scoot her body parts far away from Vanessa. Vanessa hogged the passenger seat, sprawled as if she were six foot, not the barely five foot she was. Scott’s entire body was pressed against her. She could feel the flex of his thigh as he worked the accelerator. His elbow and forearm kept bumping into her as he turned the steering wheel.
    When they hit the main road and were cruising comfortably, Scott slipped his hand off the steering wheel to squeeze her lower thigh. Her heart leapt from her chest with wild beats. Why had he done that? Was that his way of telling her he wasn’t annoyed? That it was Vanessa who was annoyed? And as Sarah was quickly learning, whatever Vanessa’s mood was, she spilled it onto everyone around her.
    “Angie will be home by now. Take me straight home, Scotty.”
    Vanessa’s snide voice set Sarah’s teeth on edge. She almost snapped, now you care so much for your daughter’s welfare? At eight o’clock at night? She clenched her teeth from uttering what a bitch Vanessa was, and what kind of mother she was.
    Scott didn’t argue or point out the obvious that Vanessa could have skipped the boyfriend’s house and gone straight home with her pregnant daughter. Instead, he merely nodded and said, “Of course, that’s fine.”
    Sarah gritted her teeth, seething with anger at the bird-like woman who ruled over Scott with an iron fist. After another few moments of strained silence Sarah asked under the cover of the darkness, “Don’t you want to know how your daughter’s doctor’s appointment went?”
    Scott’s leg muscle tensed.
    “I talked with her.” Vanessa’s tone was tight.
    “Then you know the baby’s a girl?”
    Vanessa sucked in a breath. “I know now.”
    “Sorry. I assumed she’d have told you.”
    “Why do you care what my daughter tells me?”
    The truck was too small for this. Sarah felt claustrophobic all of a sudden, sandwiched in between two people who must be together in every sense of the word, otherwise why the devotion? The embrace? She was the interloper here, not Vanessa. And no matter what Scott claimed about Vanessa, he sanctified how she was by his devotion to her and her lack of mothering for Angie.
    Before she could answer, Scott mumbled, “Not now, Vanessa.”
    “But—”
    “But nothing! You don’t have a leg to stand on today, and you know it. You weren’t there, Sarah was.”
    Vanessa shifted and leaned into the door, her glare fierce on Scott. “I don’t need this shit from one of your three day conquests. You may think you’re something special, Sarah Langston, but you, and many more like you, are in and out of his bed on a weekly rotation.”
    The heat started in her neck and rose up her cheeks. Sarah stared straight ahead. She was glad for the darkness. She really didn’t want to know this about Scott. She didn’t want to learn that he wasn’t the man she admired so far in his devotion toward his young niece. She really didn’t need to know how much he had sex or who he had it with. Tonight, Scott was suddenly far more attractive than any man she had ever met. She didn’t want to contemplate Vanessa’s version of him.
    “Cut it out, Vanessa,” Scott said his tone quieter, threatening almost, after a few moments of chilly silence.
    “Why must I be subjected to your sex life telling me how I should mother?”
    Because she was there for said daughter when her mother wasn’t. Sarah wished she had the guts to say it out loud. But she didn’t. She tightened her fist to keep from saying more. And why did Vanessa keep insinuating she was having sex with Scott?
    “Shut up. I mean it.” Scott’s tone was tight.
    Vanessa shifted again. “Oh, I get it, I’m embarrassing you, aren’t I, Scotty? Well, isn’t this interesting.”
    Sarah pressed into herself as much as space would allow, trying now to not touch Scott, and keep away from Vanessa, the strain of which was killing her muscles. The