by Crystal Dawn
He thought about what he had noticed in her apartment and what was missing. It hadn’t been big enough for two adults and a child. The smell of an adult male was missing and there was nothing in sight that indicated one stayed there. He figured her husband traveled with his work and he would think that excused him from caring for his family. It didn’t as far as Ros was concerned and he itched to teach the man a lesson.
Chapter 2
Her Life
Jen was a little embarrassed that Ros had seen the place she and Danny called home. At least it was clean, and they made it work. They had gotten over the part where he would be surprised making tomorrow easier for all of them. Life had been hard on her and Danny. Steve had been a wonderful husband and she had loved him. Theirs has been a sweet love, not the fire and flame you read about in the sexy romance novels. It had been good, gentle, and satisfying. Losing him had hurt, still hurt five months later.
The baby had been a surprise. She hadn’t thought she was with child but after passing out at work, Doctor Raker had broke the news to her. She had never liked him before, but he had told her the clinic would see to all her prenatal care and deliver the baby when the time came. It had been surprising since they didn’t normally do anything for their patients once they conceived so why would they do it for an employee. Still it was nice of them so she decided Raker was a nicer man than she had originally thought. He even let Danny stay with her when he got out of school at noon.
She knew they didn’t like it but she had told them she would have to quit for lack of a babysitter so they made an exception for her. Dr. Raker said she did a good job and they didn’t want to lose her. She thought it was odd, but with little job experience no one else would hire her. They only paid minimum wage, but it was better than nothing at all. She got Danny ready for bed, she loved that little boy more than anything.
They settled in and he asked for a story. He didn’t have many books but Jen remembered many stories that her mom had told her when she was young. Her mother had been a good parent until her dad died and then the drink and poor choices with men had basically deprived her of a parent in her teenage years. She missed her mom, not the drunk that had an unending line of men moving through her life, but the mother of her youth. That mother had been loving, sweet, and had cared for her more than for the bottle that ruled her life now.
She’d met Steve in high school her junior year and his senior year. He’d signed up as soon as he graduated and they’d married before he left. Danny had been born just before Christmas the year she graduated. Steve had been so proud of that little boy, he would have been proud of this child too. Six months ago, Steve had walked on to the plane headed to Afghanistan. Two months later he had returned carried back in a body bag. She had cried for a solid week, she still cried when she thought of him dying so far from home, her, and their son.
Tears slipped down her cheeks and she turned away from Danny trying to get her emotions under control. She felt Danny’s little arms wrap around her hugging her and supporting her emotionally. He was such a good little boy. Loving, sweet, and except for those big blue eyes he’d gotten from her, he was the picture of his dad.
She told him the story of King Arthur. He loved tales of swords, kings, and sorcery. It was just the first part where King Arthur pulled the sword from the stone. Danny’s eyes just couldn’t stay open any longer. That was okay because she was tired herself and they had plans for a big breakfast the next day. She lay down hugging her little boy. She wasn’t sure where the baby would sleep once he came, but she would worry about that later. Right now she was just tired and for the first time in a long while, her stomach was full.
Knock, knock. She heard the sound and recognized it came from the door but for a moment she couldn’t think what to do about it. She heard Danny open the door, but it wasn’t until she heard Ros’s deep sexy voice that she realized she had company, she wasn’t dressed properly yet, and that Danny had already let Ros in their apartment.
She sat up quickly and hurried to get something better than a sleep T-shirt to wear but Ros was right there in front of her. Her face was so hot she could fry an egg on it. She was only half dressed and she caught the way Ros was checking her out.
“Sorry I wasn’t up yet. I usually get up earlier than this. Do you mind if Danny entertains you while I get dressed?”
He smiled, damn he was sexy. She was so out of her element here with a guy that looked like an underwear model. Not that Steve hadn’t been attractive. He had been but he had been normal, like the boy next door.
“Sorry, I’m a little early,” he admitted. She noticed he had two full bags of groceries with him.
“You shouldn’t have brought all that.”
“Don’t you need to get dressed?” he asked immediately making her remember she was still in her night gown.
She grabbed something to wear out of the dresser and hurried to the bathroom. She heard Ros and Danny talking and laughing as she closed the door. She showered and dressed in record time. She entered the other room to the smell of coffee and bacon. Ros was cooking breakfast for them. It made her feel guilty that he had bought the food and now even had to do the cooking.
“You shouldn’t have. What can I do to help?”
“Fix yourself a cup of coffee and you can keep me company while I finish up,” he said with his usual charming smile.
“I’m not suppose to drink caffeine.”
“I’ve been told one cup a day won’t hurt a thing.”
“I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
“Okay, you win,” he said holding his hands up in surrender. “Why don’t you have a cup of milk instead. I brought some. I’m making gravy for the biscuits.”
“Okay, that sounds good,” she said as she got a cup and poured some milk. “Looks like you’re making a big spread.”
Ros winked at her. “I eat a lot. More than you might expect.” She looked at him unconvinced, but he’d make her a believer. Gods ate more food than body builders. They had high metabolism and other things that just ran through food.
He fixed a plate for Danny. “Thank you, Ros. It’s cool that you can cook. I can cook too.”
“You do? What can you cook?”
“I make cereal and toast, but Mama says she’ll teach me more soon. Ain’t that right Mama?”
“Isn’t that right? You do very well and we’ll work on peanut butter and jelly next.”
“See, Ros?”
“Why, yes I do. If you get that peanut butter and jelly down, you can teach me how to do it.”
“You don’t know how?” Danny asked suspiciously.
“I’m just not very good at it. I make a mess when I put it all together.”
“Okay, I’ll help you out.”
“We’d better start eating,” Ros said as he handed Jen her plate and carried his, piled high, to the table.
They sat down and ate. It was comfortable until Jen thought about eating meals just like this with Steve. He had even cooked once in a while. There had been a few things he enjoyed cooking. She tried to hide the tears, but Ros saw them.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” he whispered, his voice soft.
“Mama does that when she thinks about my daddy,” Danny said.
“I’m sorry. It’s nothing,” Jen said as she tried to smile but didn’t quite pull it off.
“Where is he?”
“He’s in heaven with the angels,” Danny said.
“I’m sorry,” Ros said not knowing what else to say or do in the face of Jen’s sadness. He turned toward her and gave her a hug. Danny got up and came around and tried to put his arms around both of them.
“Hugs help,” he whispered to Ros. Ros felt like crying himself.
He understood the situation now and he planned to try to help, if she would let him. He had noticed she was a proud woman and tried to do what she could herself, but it was clear to him that she needed help. He would give her that help because he wanted to. He liked them, her an
d the boy. He wasn’t sure what drew him to her, only that something did. The kid, hell anyone would like him. Lu would get a real kick out of Danny if he had a chance to meet him. A plan was forming in Ros’s mind. They would get to know each other and then when his mission was done, he would talk her into coming with him. They would be a family, her, the boy, and him. The more he thought about it, the more right it felt.
She pulled away her tears under control. Danny was done eating and he went to get a coloring book and a big box of crayons. Ros started to clear the table. “Oh, no you don’t. You cooked, I’ll do the dishes.”
“How about I help so we can play a game with Danny when we’re done?”
“I want to play a game, Mama!” Danny said right away.
Jen shot Ros a look of disapproval but he had won the right to help with the dishes. He was learning how to get around her a little at a time and Danny was a great partner to do it with. She was a little irritated at him but by the time they were done and they sat down to play Go Fish, she was over it. Ros lost and Jen won, but Danny didn’t seem to mind.
“Mama and me take turns winning. Don’t worry Ros, you’ll get better,” Danny said comfortingly as he patted Ros’s arm. Ros didn’t mind losing, it wasn’t like he had ever played that game before. He was enjoying himself, win or lose.
Jen suggested they go to the park so Danny could have fun on the playground. He and Jen took turns pushing him on the swing and catching him at the bottom of the slide. He carried a tired Danny home and wondered if Jen usually had to carry him like that. She was too little and too pregnant to be doing that. She might hurt herself. He needed to find out more about what was going on at Jen’s office so he could finish this mission and talk her into going to Olympus with him.
The more time he spent with her, the more they bonded. He already knew there was no way he could leave her behind. He carried Danny in and laid him on the bed. He took off his shoes and socks so he’d be comfortable and wouldn’t get the bed dirty. He wanted to tuck Jen into bed too or maybe just go to bed with her. The desire for her as a female was there too and her condition didn’t dampen it any. He knew it was too soon, so he would wait, but he wouldn’t like it. She walked him to the door and he stole a kiss. She looked shocked but didn’t protest.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispered. She just nodded, that was good enough for him.
Chapter 3
New Beginnings
Raker liked the set up at New Beginnings. He had planned out everything himself and that made it safer and more productive than it had been at Origins. He knew what he was doing so even with less money than they had ever had before, he was making things work. He had a few naïve females like that one, …oh yeah, her name was Jen or something like that. She worked for peanuts and actually did a good job. She was doing more of a job than she knew by carrying their latest baby god. Raker had knocked her out with a simple poke. The drug had been fast acting and the procedure went without a hitch. Now the baby she carried was growing at a rapid rate.
When she was ready to give birth, the baby would be theirs. They would simply tell her it had died at birth and she would never know otherwise. He had up to four breeders at each facility thankful for the prenatal and birth benefits their jobs gave them. He was thankful for gullible women. By letting them work for him but taking care of themselves, he was getting free brood mares. He chuckled gleefully to himself. He really was a criminal mastermind even if he went largely unappreciated. That was another stroke of genius, they all thought he was just a doctor but he actually ran the whole company through his personal assistant.
Dorito or whatever her name was, she was set up to take the fall if they were ever caught. Poor stupid girl was so grateful that he let her work from home so she could stay with her terminal mother. It saved her having someone stay with her mother and as long as she did everything he needed, he didn’t care where the bitch was anyway. Even he had to admit she was the best personal assistant he had ever had. She worked around the clock, holidays, weekends, whatever it took so she could work from home. He took advantage of her and she was so grateful.
The average person was a fool and just there for people like him to manipulate and use. She was probably some cross-eyed, bucktoothed, fat girl with a wart on the end of her nose. He’d never met her and had no need to as long as she did what she was told and kept his operation going. The dishonest and illegal stuff, he did himself over the phone or personally. It was a good thing most of the business was legitimate or wrapped in a pretty bow as a charity that no one would look at twice. As if he would ever do charity. The world was there to serve him, not the other way around.
Dorita, or Dori, as she was called by family and friends, sat at her mom’s bedside wondering for the hundredth time if today would be the last one. Her mother’s sweet face was wracked with pain and her breath rattled in her chest. She felt guilty, eaten up with guilt even, for wishing her mom would find peace. First it had been cancer that had taken its toll on her normally strong mother, now it was the infections that the cancer and the treatment had loosed on her. With all her power used up in the fight against the cancer, the other things were eating her up alive. Now pneumonia was ravaging her and the doctor held out little hope. Dr. Marcose had said that a swift end would be a mercy. He said many people didn’t live to be seventy-five.
Dori was only twenty three, a late in life gift to her parents. They had given up on ever having a child, but her mother had always claimed to be grateful she had come along. Her dad had died four years ago. He’d been eighty one and ten years older than her mom. She suspected her mom wanted nothing more than to join him and only hung on because Dori wouldn’t let her go. It was because she couldn’t let her go. Without her mom, she would be completely alone in life. She had no relatives, at least none that she knew of, and since she had been her mother’s caretaker since she’d gotten her associate degree in business, she had no friends.
It had been three years where her mother had gone downhill, rebounded slightly, then continued downhill. Her mom looked old and tired. The will to go on had long since left but she knew Dori needed her and she just waited for a sign that she could move on. Dori just couldn’t give her the permission she sought. She wanted to, but the thought of being alone in life was terrifying.
The life they had might not seem like much but they did the best they could. Her boss, Raker, must be bipolar, Dori was sure of it. He was hateful, critical, demanding, and self serving to an extreme. A terrible person, or so it seemed but then he would give employees prenatal care and delivery. He allowed one of the secretaries to keep her child with her at work when he wasn’t in school and he allowed Dori to work from home so she could take care of her mom. The man was full of contrasts and surprises. Dori shivered as she thought of what must be going on in that man’s mind.
She made a call to try to get Jen Jones some of the benefits she was entitled to as a widow. Raker had called her concerned that Jen might lose her baby due to lack of nourishment. Those people at the veteran’s benefits could be hard to deal with. Maybe it came from dealing with nothing but people who were enduring loss and change in their lives. Thankfully, she got a good one this time and Jen would now have someone looking out for her. Dori couldn’t imagine being a widow with a small child and a baby on the way. Maybe sometimes it was better to be alone. She wondered how things were going for Jen and her boy right now.
Jen held Danny in a tight hug even as he wriggled trying to get loose. It made no sense but when Ros had left, she had felt so alone. She hardly knew him but she had grown close to him at an alarming rate and she noticed Danny had as well. Ros was likeable, friendly, sweet, gorgeous-oh, no, where had that come from? He was the kind of person that would make a great best friend. Or a lover, what! Oh, no, where the hell had these naughty thoughts come from?
Best not to think, because every time she did, she thought of his lips, his broad chest, and his big bulge-shit, that was something else not to think
about! Today was when she and Danny spent time together. They usually cooked some things from scratch like cupcakes. As soon as he woke up from his nap, she pulled him into the kitchen. They would cook and have fun so hopefully her lips would stop tingling from that innocent kiss that Ros had given her as he left.
She woke up completely as the alarm went off, perfect timing. Maybe today would be a good day. She woke up Danny and sent him to the bathroom to get ready. She went to the kitchen where she heated up some leftovers from yesterday’s big breakfast. Ros had brought so much food but he’d refused to take any back with him. He had said keep it or throw it out. There was no choice there, she would use it to feed them for a week. It still didn’t stop her from feeling guilty but she had to admit that dizzy spells had eased now that she was eating regularly and Danny’s tummy didn’t rumble any more. It was a relief not to choose between feeding Danny or eating herself because of the baby.
Once they were ready and she got Danny on the bus, she would go right by Ros on her way to work. She was both nervous and excited about seeing him. She went passed the corner Ros usually hung out at, but another guy was standing there in the big red suit. Had he left them? Well, not them, but the job? She nearly cried to think he’d left without saying goodbye. Especially to Danny, he’d gotten attached to Ros in the last few days. It wouldn’t matter to her except she wanted to thank him. That was all. She went on to work but the light had gone out of her day.
She was still friendly and efficient, but she didn’t have the same enthusiasm she usually projected to the patients she dealt with. “What’s wrong, Jen?” Mrs. Newman asked. She was one of the older patients giving it one last shot to become pregnant. “You seem rather down.”
