Tygers

by Brenna Lyons

  “What respect is that to show your wife?” Prentice demanded with a sneer.

  “Katie is everything to me,” Keith challenged. “She is a grown woman and a formidable one at that. From what Mac said, that should not surprise you to hear.”

  Bugsy put a hand on Prentice’s shoulder to restrain him. “You understand that we worry about Katheryn?” he said by way of an explanation.

  “I understand that, but you have to understand this. I love her, and I would never hurt her, but we deserve a life without someone always over our shoulders.”

  Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Katheryn said that?” he asked in surprise.

  “She did.” Keith smiled grimly. “She doesn’t hold out much hope for it, but she expressed the wish that you’d turn into normal uncles—cookouts and birthday parties instead of APBs on her vehicle and background checks on her dates.” He shrugged and leaned back on the sink behind him.

  Bugsy met Bruce’s eyes and seemed to be considering something. “Isn’t this all a little fast?” he asked gently.

  Keith shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ve known each other for eighteen years. I’d venture to say that I know her better than you do despite your—means. I know the inside, what she thinks and feels. It’s more like we’ve been talking ourselves out of this for the last fifteen years or so, but we need it. So, we picked up where we left off.”

  “Why talk yourself out of it?” Prentice snapped at that slip of the tongue. “If you don’t want to be here—”

  The door swung open, and all four swung around to check out the new arrival. It wasn’t Mac as Keith expected. Rather, it was Katie. She strode through the gauntlet of stunned cops and kissed Keith on the cheek.

  “How did I know?” she asked grimly. “Your sudden disappearance had to be foul play.”

  Bruce looked at her in confusion. “How? I locked that door myself.”

  She smiled and slipped a dinner fork with a bent tine from the wrist of her dress, winking at Keith as she waved it over her shoulder. “What? You didn’t know I picked simple locks? You guys are slipping. I started that when I was thirteen.”

  “Katheryn, you can’t come in here.” Prentice asserted.

  Katie turned to face him, drawing Keith’s hand around her middle as she nestled her hair next to his cheek. “It’s okay, Prentice. I locked the door behind me. Besides, it’s not the first time I’ve seen the inside of a men’s room.”

  Prentice darkened.

  She sighed and continued. “I never had much respect for a male-only area.”

  Keith bit back a laugh, but the smirk was there and there was no stopping it. Prentice fairly snarled at him, and Keith’s laugh escaped.

  “Don’t blame me,” he protested through his laughter. “She just has a way of following me at the most unexpected moments. I think she picked it up from you guys.”

  “Now,” Katie began pointedly, “if you’re done accosting my husband, we have a cake to cut.”

  Before she could pull away, Bruce raised his hand. “One more question and the booking’s over. I promise.”

  “All right,” she answered. “Fire away.”

  “Why did you two talk yourselves out of this for fifteen years only to end up here now?”

  Katie nodded in understanding. “Actually, I was talking myself out of it. Keith was talking himself out of hoping I’d ever come to my senses and marry him. I had—things to do that seemed important at the time. Believe me, if I had been living here all that time, we’d have ended up at that alter a long time ago.”

  Keith wrapped his other arm around her and squeezed gently. “You’re torturing me by telling me that,” he informed her quietly.

  Bruce cleared his throat. “Are you telling me that you kept this poor guy cooling his jets for fifteen years?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t ask him to wait for me,” she observed miserably.

  “I should turn you over my knee.” Bruce moved his eyes from her to Keith and winked. “You keep kissing her like you did at that church, Doc. You have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

  Bugsy smiled crookedly and raised his eyebrow. “If you’re smart, you’ll kiss her so that she regrets every minute of that fifteen years.”

  “I already do,” Katie assured them.

  Prentice nodded grudgingly. “Go for it, Doc.”

  Keith smiled wickedly. “Don’t mind if I do,” he commented as he turned Katie’s face up to his own.

  Katie’s eyes glittered in invitation as he brought his mouth down over hers, and she turned in his arms to fit herself to him. As her arms wrapped around his shoulders, Keith registered the fact that the other men were leaving.

  He pulled back and ran his hand over her neckline suggestively. “I can’t believe they left,” he admitted.

  “They’re standing guard outside the door,” Katie informed him.

  “Are you suggesting I stop?”

  “Can you?” she countered.

  “Keep from taking you on the bathroom floor in your wedding dress? Absolutely. I intend to make undressing you an art. Can I stop kissing you yet?” Keith’s smile spread as he dropped to brush his lips over hers. “Never.”

  Epilogue

  “Dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams shall be prophets.” Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

  K

  atie stared at the two bassinets nervously. She had to do it, but she was scared to death. There was no way Katie would be able to rest another night until she knew for sure.

  “Still worried?”

  She startled at the sound of Keith’s voice and looked at him sheepishly. “I though you were asleep.”

  “As you should be,” he chided her. Keith wrapped her in his arms and pulled Katie back to his chest. “Sleep when they sleep, remember?”

  Katie ran her cheek over the lush mat of curls on his chest. “It’s not that,” she began.

  “The apnea monitors are supposed to put you at ease not make you crazy. They haven’t even had an alarm in three days—and never one that didn’t snap them awake and screaming.”

  “No, Keith,” she pleaded quietly.

  At almost six weeks early, Steven and Sarah had a few breathing problems and were a SIDS risk. They had been on the monitors since shortly after birth and would be for another five or six months.

  Katie drank in the musky scent that identified him as uniquely Keith. “The monitors are fine,” she assured him as she ran her fingers through the curls.

  Keith groaned lightly. “No changing the subject, especially when the one you’re changing it to is one you’re not ready for yet,” he breathed near her ear.

  “Who says? I have no stitches, and I haven’t felt that nagging aching for almost two weeks.”

  “Please don’t tempt me,” he requested raggedly, though he ran his lips over her ear and nipped lightly at the lobe. “The babies are only four weeks old.”

  “You don’t have to wait six weeks. Sherry usually only lasts two or three,” Katie crooned as she bit lightly at his jaw.

  Keith cupped her hips and dragged her to him. Katie gasped as she felt how hard and ready he was. She missed this, and she wanted it.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Katie,” he explained.

  “You told me once that you like taking me slowly.”

  He nodded and looked at her hopefully.

  “I want that. I want you. A month is far too long.”

  Keith reached across her and dug a condom from the nightstand. He wavered for just a moment. “I won’t hurt you,” he promised. “Tell me, and I’ll stop. Promise me.”

  She nodded and pulled him down to kiss her. His hands roamed gently, and Katie sank into his handling.

  Keith groaned as his hands roamed the warm and wet depths of her. “Does it hurt?” he asked urgently.

  “God, no. I want you,” she breathed.

  “I can’t wait,” he decided as he backed away to roll on the condom. Positioned over her again, he hesitated a
gain, trying to control his wild need for her.

  Katie wrapped her legs around his hips. “Please, Keith. Don’t make me wait this time.”

  He pushed inside her gently, balling his fists in the sheet as he waited for word that he would have to stop. Katie pulled him further in and rose to run her lips over his shoulder. Keith took the hint and started moving inside her slowly. He sealed his mouth to hers and muted it as she cried out her release.

  Seconds later, Keith rumbled his own cry into her mouth and tensed in almost silent release. As his muscles unknotted, he rolled to his side and pulled her with him. “You’re right,” he whispered. “It’s been far too long.”

  “Is that sleeping baby sex?” she asked.

  “I think so. Not as bad as you’ve always heard, is it?”

  She stifled a giggle at that one, and he kissed her gently.

  “Now, what were you worried about?”

  Katie bit her lip and buried her face in his chest again, wishing that just once his memory for things like this would fail him.

  “Katie? No, we’re not doing this again. Tell me—whatever it is.”

  “You remember when I had Kyle destroy Ty?” she asked quietly.

  Oh, that was dumb. Like any of us are going to forget that in this lifetime. Kyle alone would have years of therapy out of it. His tigers went in a bonfire the night Ty was destroyed, and he was jumpy about them almost to the point that Keith would label it tigrisphobia—or some such thing.

  “You know I do.” He cupped her chin and drew her face up to his. When she met his eyes, Keith started. “Talk to me,” he pleaded.

  “I made Carol and Kyle let me check them.”

  He nodded. “To make sure Ty didn’t jump ship somehow. I remember, but you never checked me,” he noted.

  She bit her lip again.

  “Katie?”

  “I did check you,” Katie admitted. “When we arranged that little demonstration for Steven, I did a little exam to make sure you were all you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wasn’t sure it was possible, and I didn’t want to worry you. At any rate, you were clean.”

  Keith shivered at the thought. “Thank God. Then, it’s over, right?” he asked hopefully, but uncertainly.

  “I hope it is,” she answered quietly.

  His jaw tightened. “Tell me,” he ordered roughly. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

  “The four of us weren’t the only ones there, Keith.”

  He looked at her in confusion.

  “Steven and Sarah were there, too.” A single tear ran down her cheek. “I have to find out, but I’m terrified of what I might find. That’s why I put it off this long,” she admitted.

  “How long have you been worrying about this without telling me?” he demanded in a low voice.

  “The day I started feeling movement.”

  “Four months.” Keith took a deep breath and lowered his voice again. “Why didn’t you tell me? Do you have any idea what this has probably been doing to your health?”

  “Yes, I do. I could hardly stand the thought of it, can hardly stand it. You had no idea what the consequences were when you decided to have children with me. I did—or I should have. I should have taken care of Ty first, before I dragged our children into this. I didn’t consider the consequences. How could I make a mistake like that?” she asked miserably.

  “You’re human. Why then?”

  She looked at him in confusion.

  “Why did you start worrying then?” he qualified.

  “When I felt them move, I realized for the first time that I was carrying two little people—with minds of their own, and I had been carrying them when we got rid of Ty.”

  Keith pulled her to him and hugged her tightly. “You should have told me.”

  Katie nodded and ran her cheek over his chest again. It always comforted her to be held in his arms.

  “What can you do?”

  “For now? Check and hope there’s nothing to find. If I find something, I have until they’re three. I can’t do what needs done right now. They’re too little and fragile for that. I’m not sure I can do it at all.” Katie faltered. “Kyle would be eight. No, I’d have to do it,” she decided miserably.

  “Check them,” he ordered. “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again until I know.”

  “See why I was afraid to tell you?” she whispered.

  “No. No, I don’t. Please, do it. I’m with you either way. You know I am. You were your own person before Ty was destroyed, when he was in your mind. Our babies will be, too. Now, for the love of God, please check them.”

  Katie nodded stiffly and started to roll away from him, but Keith dragged her back to his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked fearfully.

  “Whatever you find, tell me the truth. Promise me. If you tell me they’re clean just to make me feel better—”

  “I won’t. I promise I won’t.” She wasn’t lying about that. After not telling him for so long, Katie owed Keith that much honesty. If the truth destroyed them— She pushed away the thought.

  She turned to the edge of the bed, sat up, and reached into Sarah’s bassinet. Katie reached into her daughter’s mind just as simply. Everything with a baby was so uncomplicated. No secrets, no lies, and no sign of that old bastard.

  Katie sighed in relief as she pulled her hand back. “Sarah is fine. You have my word on it.”

  Keith moved behind her and kissed her shoulder. “Now, Steven,” he urged her.

  She moved a few feet to her right to sit before the second bassinet, but Katie didn’t reach in immediately.

  Keith touched her arm lightly. “Please, Katie— Only you can. If I could, I would.”

  She nodded and reached her hand in unsteadily. Steven moved slightly, and she froze. Katie reached into his mind. The baby innocence was there for her to see. Then his mind sought out hers, and she sucked in her breath in shock. Tears pooled in her eyes as Katie pulled her hand back into her lap.

  Keith closed his hand on her shoulder as the first tear fell. “Ty?” he asked quietly.

  Katie met his eyes and smiled. “No. There’s no sign of Ty. It’s really over,” she assured him.

  He ran his hand over her cheek, stroking his thumb over the tears. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m certain. He’s really gone this time.”

  “Then, why the tears?”

  “Relief.” She laughed lightly. “And amusement.”

  “What’s so funny? I could use a good laugh.”

  “I’m going to have my hands full with Steven. Not three years from now— I mean, now. I thought I was prepared for anything, but What to Expect in the First Year doesn’t cover this.”

  “But, I thought you didn’t develop your powers until the age of three?” he asked in disbelief.

  “We have them. We just don’t usually know how to use them.”

  “He does?”

  Katie nodded.

  “Why?”

  “My little fireworks display lit up my entire body while he was forming.” She smiled crookedly. “Oops.”

  “Is this a problem?” he asked honestly.

  “He hasn’t learned everything yet. He’s going to know if you lie to him, and keep in mind that Steven might know things you don’t want or expect him to know, but he’s not going to wrap you around his little finger.”

  “Yes, he will. He already does.” He drew Katie into his lap. “He takes after his mother, and you wrap me around your little finger. Why shouldn’t our kids be the same?”

  “So, you think you’re nothing more that a glorified piece of jewelry?” she teased, turning to straddle his lap, facing him. “So,” Katie mused as she ran her flattened hands up his chest slowly, “is he a happy piece of jewelry?”

  Keith pulled her to him and ran a hand over her neck and chest. “Is that a challenge?” he asked.

  About the Author

  B

  renna Lyons
lives in Haverhill, MA with her husband, three children, and a zoo of pets. She was born and raised in the Hazelwood/Glenwood area of Pittsburgh, PA and spent thirteen years as a Navy wife, nine of them in Virginia Beach, VA.

  She is a poet and novelist who has a poem in the Treble Heart release of Full Moon Inheritance by Jacqueline Elliott. Brenna has twelve novels out with eXtasy Books, another eighteen contracted with them, and four more coming by early 2005 with her other publishers.

  Brenna enjoys the Society for Creative Anachronism and is a member of such groups as Broad Universe, EPIC and ERA.

  Brenna holds a BS in Accounting and a Certificate of Computer Programming. Why? An auditing teacher commented that she would either "make the perfect auditor or the perfect thief," and she had been writing for eleven years with little professional training -- in effect, a thief of attention by misdirection.

  She enjoys talking to readers and can be reached via her site at www.brennalyons.com