Free Deceive (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #2) by Michelle Irwin Page B

clenched my fists to stop myself from touching her and walked around to the driver’s side.
    “Everyone okay?” I asked when they were both loaded up and had their seat belts on.
    Phoebe nodded from the back, but I was starting to get concerned about her; she was a definite shade of green.
    “What did she eat?” Alyssa asked as I drove. “I only saw her with one small thickshake, some chips and then half a sundae.”
    I stared at the road. “Actually, I got her another thickshake while you were on the phone.”
    “Declan!” Alyssa groaned. “Does she look like she’s big enough to fit two thickshakes in?”
    She turned to the backseat and stroked Phoebe’s hair.
    “I’m sorry. She said she wanted another one, and well, I couldn’t say no to her.”
    Alyssa bit her lip and looked back at Phoebe. I got the feeling the topic wasn’t closed but she didn’t want to say anything in front of our daughter. She stroked Phoebe’s hair again. “Do you have a sore tummy?”
    Phoebe nodded and her bottom lip wobbled.
    “Don’t worry sweetie, we’ll be home soon then you can lie down for a bit,” Alyssa said. “Declan, pull over!” she cried out a second later.
    She said it with such urgency there was no way I could refuse. As soon as the car was safely on the side of the road Alyssa ripped open her door and pulled open the back door to get to Phoebe but it was too late. A stream of milky vomit came pouring out of Phoebe’s mouth and down her front. The smell was wretched and a small part of my brain immediately worried about the state of the seats. It was just lucky that it wasn’t my car.
    “Fuck!” I shouted as an instinctive reaction.
    I climbed out of my seat too, pulling it forward to give more room in the back. Alyssa and I juggled our way through the vomit to pull Phoebe from the car seat.
    “You help her, and I’ll see what I can do about cleaning this up,” I said. I pulled my shirt off and used it to soak up as much of the vomit as I could from the baby seat.
    The floors could wait until we got back to Alyssa’s house, but I didn’t want Phoebe to have to ride the rest of the way home in a pool of sick. As Alyssa loaded a still wet, and quite miserable-looking, Phoebe back into the car seat, I wound down all the windows so that we’d be getting fresh air into the car because quite frankly the smell was making me feel utterly nauseous.
    I smiled apologetically at Alyssa and she just shook her head slightly. I could have sworn she uttered the word, “Honestly,” under her breath.
    A short, quiet, stinky ride later we were in front of Alyssa’s house. She ran to the door and unlocked it returning with half a dozen old towels. “You better clean the car out before it gets too dry. I’ll take care of Phoebe.”
    I felt a little insulted that she wanted me to worry more about the car than I did about Phoebe, but ignored it because I knew she was a bit pissed at me for giving Phoebe that extra thickshake.
    I cleaned the interior of the car as best I could, pulling the once lovely new car seat out and hosing it off. Then I dampened one of the towels, spotting it on the cloth seats to soak up the rest of the vomit. It took me close to half an hour to finish. When I was satisfied I’d cleaned up as much I could, I opened the car right up and left it to dry. I bundled the towels up, together with my vomit-soaked shirt, and took them back inside.
    I stood waiting for Alyssa in the living room, feeling self-conscious because I didn’t have a shirt on. I could hear her down the hall, singing softly to Phoebe. Then I heard the song finish and Alyssa whisper, “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
    “Okay. I love you very much, Mummy,” Phoebe’s small voice called.
    “I love you too, sweetie.”
    Their simple, honest declarations of love warmed my heart but at the same time made me feel like an intruder in their home. I waited at the end of the hall as Alyssa walked out of Phoebe’s room, a