She sobbed on her breath. “I used to be mad at Wayne, too. He just signs a paper and goes off his merry way. No child support. No stretch marks. No sleepless nights. But then I realized something else, too.”
“What’s that?” Using his thumbs, Dan wiped her tears away.
“He’ll never experience the joy of hearing his first words. Never see his drawings when he comes home. Never help him build a sandcastle at the beach.”
Dan’s steady gaze bored into her and Kimber was again reminded he carried a bird of prey within him. “I want to be a part of all that with you, Kimber.”
She licked her lips. The conversation had turned so serious so quickly she struggled to keep up. “What happened about to all the reasons to keep us on the outside?”
“Losing my eye. Losing the sky. It felt like I was only half a man. I never had a family that loved me. Never had a place to call home.” His eyelid closed, giving him an almost vulnerable look. If a six-and-a-half-foot-tall hawk shifter could ever look less than deadly.
Eye still closed he pulled her tight against him. “Finding you was like finding a home. Don’t make me go back out into the cold, baby.”
“Never,” Kimber vowed. She wiped away her tears and the ones that slipped down Dan’s lean cheek. “Now, let’s pack up our son and get to the hospital.”
“Our son? Damn, I like the way that sounds.”
. After getting Anthony packed up in his rear-facing car seat, Dan got behind the wheel headed down the mountain towards the highway.
His phone chirped so he handed it to Kimber.
“You trust me with your cellphone?” she asked, a devilish grin playing on her face.
Dan grinned at her. “Of course.”
Kimber unlocked the phone and took a selfie. “Hm. It’s Quinn. Everyone is at the hospital. Jenna is fine. Flo is on the way. Just waiting for us and Hadley wants to examine Anthony.”
Dan nodded. “So, everything we already knew.”
“Pretty much.”
Dan
The hospital was a blur of activity as they searched for Jenna.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Flo said, holding onto her niece’s hand. “Dan! Jenna said you found her. Oh, thank you so much.” The older woman propelled herself into Dan’s arms for a hug.
Dan looked a little helplessly at Kimber before hugging Flo. “We’re family, right? We come together to help.”
Hunter gave him a sidearm hug. “Thanks, man. For finding my nephew.” Strong hands reached for the infant in the carrier. “Let me get him for you, Kim.”
Kimber’s hands tightened before she let it go. “Sorry, didn’t mean to do a tug of war with you.”
Anthony let out a little mewl of discontent and Hunter was blocked by his aunt. “Let me have him,” Lacey said, wriggling free of Quinn’s arms to get to the little boy.
But Hadley beat Lacey to the carrier. “I need to examine him,” she said.
“Fine.” Lacey pouted and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “But when you’re done, I get to hold him.”
Dan exchanged a glance with Kimber. “Think it’s always going to be like this?”
She smiled and slipped her hand into his. “We’re family.”
“A loud family. Full of smelly bears.”
“I heard that, bird brain,” Hunter shot back.
“And mutts,” Dan continued.
“Keep it up, buzzard,” Quinn said.
But Dan only grinned. “Where’s the cat?”
“He’s waiting patiently in the waiting room,” the nurse said as she entered the room. “Which is where all of you should be. Shoo. Go!” She waved her hands and tried to get everyone out of Jenna’s room. “Family only.”
“This is our family,” Flo said, shoulders straightening.
Quinn came up behind her and hugged her. “Let me get these guys out of here. Hadley, when you’re done checking out the baby, can you stay with Flo? Makes sure she and Jenna understand everything.” He got most of them out of the small, curtained off room.
Hadley nodded as she handed Anthony off to Lacey. “He looks good and healthy,” she said to Kimber. “But he was outside for a long time today. If he comes down with a cold or anything, let me know right away.”
Jenna began crying again, guilt riding hard at her words. “Hey,” Dan said, coming forward and kneeling by the bed. He took Jenna and Flo’s hands in his own. “You did a good thing taking him out for a walk. You kept him safe and warm after you fell. You did the right thing, okay? No more tears.”
Chin still wobbling, Jenna nodded. “I’m scared,” she confessed.
Flo bustled around the other side of the bed and hugged the teenager.
“They’ll need to do surgery,” the nurse explained. “The ankle is broken in two places.”
Dan nodded and looked down at the floor. “You’re in the best place you can be. With the best people looking at your ankle. But if you or your aunt wants a second opinion, you let us know, okay?”
He raised a finger to touch his eye patch. “It’s scary being hurt. Not knowing what the future will hold. But you’re a strong girl. Resilient. And surrounded by a loud family.”
“Thank you,” Jenna said, tightening her hand in his. “For finding us. For being nice.”
Dan brushed a gentlemanly kiss on the back of her knuckles. “You kept our son safe. Thank you.”
He stood, nodded to the nurse, and left. One hand on Kimber’s low back.
“You must really like that term,” she teased, looking up at him.
Lost in thought, Dan wasn’t sure what she meant. “What term?”
“Our son.”
Dan smiled broadly. “Yeah, it’s got a good ring to it, doesn’t it?”
Chapter Nine
Kimber
“So, what happens now?” Kimber asked as she curled next to Dan on the not-quite-big-enough full-sized bed. Anthony was sound asleep in his crib, and the baby monitor notified them of every little moan and whisper.
“I’ll call your boss in the morning. See about finding us a house.”
Kimber gasped and looked horrified. “Oh shit! My boss. I completely forgot about work. Do you think Rafe will fire me?”
Dan shook his head. “We had an emergency. I’m sure he’ll understand. And if he doesn’t?” Dan shrugged. “You’ll find another part-time job.”
Kimber nodded and yawned. She wondered what the deal was with Melody and her boss, but sleep pulled at her.
“A house?”
“I lived pretty frugally while I was in the Shifter Forces. I watched a lot of guys blow their money on fast cars and faster women.”
She smiled a little wistfully. “Did you have your share of women, too?” Kimber acutely felt the difference in their life experience level. He’d been and seen so much, and she was a college dropout living in a friend’s cabin.
“No, I mean, I dated. No one special. Not until you.”
She smiled, glad for the darkness to hide her silly grin. “I’m glad we’re here. Together.”
“Me, too.” Dan turned on his side. One strong arm pulled Kimber next to him, spoon style while the other arm pillowed her head. “With an area for a pottery studio.”
Kimber sighed at the feeling of his warm chest pressed against her back. “How did you get into pottery?” She traced the powerful lines of his fingers as they splayed across her hip and belly.
“One of my foster moms did it. I wasn’t there very long, but that’s how I was introduced to it. I picked up a few classes through the years. But started doing it in earnest as part of my therapy after I lost my eye.”
“How does that work?” Was that Dan’s cock pressing against her bottom? She wiggled her bottom and felt him twitch in response. Kimber wished she had the energy to make love to Dan, but the long and eventful day made her feel boneless and weak.
“Throwing clay is all about feel.” His hands massaged her hips, demonstrating he was all about doing things by feel. “In
fact, the first lesson we had to throw blindfolded.”
“That must have been scary. To lose your eye and then put on a blindfold.” For the first time, Kimber recognized what he’d been through. What he’d overcome. His strength in the face of his fear humbled her.
“Yes and no.” Dan lifted one shoulder in response to her question before massaging her side with his hand and finally cupping one of Kimber’s breasts. She smiled and arched her back in response. Damn, he was good at doing things by feel.
“Going blindfold let me know what would happen if I lost both eyes. Made me grateful as fuck that I could see at all. And it helped knowing sight was only a hand movement away.”
“You’re very brave. Both for going into the Shifter Forces and for how you’ve coped afterward. With your disability.”
Dan kissed the back of her neck. “I’m not disabled. I’ve been given great gifts. I’ve been injured, but I can’t look at it like that. If I did, I might start feeling sorry for myself. I just push through, baby.”
A tear slipped out of Kimber’s eye, pooling on the powerful forearm beneath her head. She fought to keep her voice light. “That’s good to know. Now, stop distracting me.” She held his roaming hand. “Tell me more about pottery.”
He snorted, and Kimber had the feeling the last thing on his mind was pottery. “When you’re throwing, centering the clay is extremely important. It amazed me how often my brain would prioritize my visual intake of information over my sensory intake with my hands.
“For example, the clay would look centered, so I would start making the pot. But as I worked, I could tell it wasn’t centered, to begin with. When you’re blindfolded, you feel every single little quirk. You can tell when it’s off-center just a tiny little bit. The blindfold forced me to be more sensitive to that part of the process.”
“That’s kind of cool.”
“Uh huh,” he said, nibbling on the back of her neck. Kimber giggled in response and exposed her neck for further kisses. Maybe she had the energy after all.
Dan
Her body was like warm clay in his arms. Exquisitely responsive to his touch. “I don’t need lights on to make love to you.”
He felt her smile. “But who will make sure I’m in the center of the wheel?”
“Oh, that sassy mouth is going to be the end of you.” He tugged her under him and pulled her knees up until they straddled his hips.
“This mouth?” she teased with a little laugh, pursing her lips and running he soft, puffy lips against the column of his neck.
Dan ground his hips into her warm core, separated by a thin pair of panties. She was beautiful beneath him. Warm. Willing. Generous hips to nestle between.
“Marry me.”
Wait. What? Had he really just blurted out a proposal like that? But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.
She stilled beneath him, jaw-dropping. “What did you say?”
“Marry me,” he repeated.
Her jaw moved as though trying to form words. “You can’t be…I can’t… We don’t… You’re…”
His eyebrow raised as his hear began beating solidly in his heart. “It’s a yes or no question, Kimber. You don’t need to recite a term paper on it.” After all, they’d been through, would her answer be no?
She swallowed hard and met his steady gaze. He’d never proposed to anyone, and if this was the response, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to again. On a scale of zero to sucking balls, this definitely sucked balls.
“You’re a shifter. You aren’t allowed to get married.” Kimber ducked her face, refusing to meet his gaze.
“Then we do a commitment ceremony. But the end is still the same. I want you forever, Kimber. Unless you don’t want me?”
Dan was proud of the fact that he kept the pain out of his voice. The anger out of his muscles. She loved him. He was sure of it. And yet, she still stalled. Although he loved being able to fly, he wouldn’t have minded trading flight for the ability to read minds.
“That’s a huge decision. You’ve only known me a few months.”
“I’ve seen you scared. Pregnant. I was there for the birth of your son. Our son. I already know you’ve got a sassy mouth that will need lots of kissing. What more is there to know?”
Kimber shook her head, but he could see the suggestion was making sense to her. “Well, when you put it that romantically…”
Using one finger, he lifted her chin forcing their gazes to meet. “I never thought I’d marry. Never dreamed of it. And although I won’t push until you’re ready, I have plans to make you my wife in every sense of the word.”
One corner of Kimber’s mouth quirked up. “Except literally since we can’t get married.”
Dan shook his head. “That’s for courts to decide sometime down the road. This is us. A man. A woman. A child.”
“What about love?”
The vulnerability in her voice almost did him in. He was such an idiot. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “I love you, Kimber. I thought you knew?”
She wiped at tears the slipped down her cheeks as she rolled her eyes in annoyance. “How would I know that, you crazy pirate. You never told me!”
“A pirate, huh?” He lifted his hand to touch his sealed eyelid. “Argh, matey. I lurve ya’ to pieces, lassie. Be me bride?”
She laughed. “That is the worst pirate accent I’ve ever heard. You sound like a drunk Scot pretending to be a pirate.”
“Making fun of me, are ya’ woman?” he demanded, sitting up and hoisting her into his arms. “I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget.”
“Don’t you dare!” she squawked as he turned her over his knee.
“Are you going to sass me?” he demanded, tapping her lightly over her pale cotton panties.
“Define sass,” she asked, looking over her shoulder and laughing.
Dan tapped her a little harder.
“Okay, Okay. I won’t give you any backtalk. Much. Unless you need it.” But they were both laughing as they tussled on the bed.
She sat up, straddling his hips, and Dan saw her mind was already made. “Yes,” she said with a decisive nod. “I love you. I’ll marry you.”
Dan’s hand soothed her warm bottom. “And you’ll stop with the cheek?”
Kimber threw her head back and laughed. “Never,” she promised, loping her arms around his neck and kissing him.
“Good,” he said with a satisfied grin before tugging on her panties. “How badly do you want these to stay whole?”
“Those old things?” she asked, tossing her hair and smiling saucily at him.
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” he said, seconds before snapping them off her hips.
Chapter Ten
Kimber
The diner was quiet as the women sat around looking at wedding books and planning the upcoming ceremony. Dan took Anthony to look at houses with Rafe while the women sat around the Lunchbucket.
Melody was pensive as she looked through a cookbook and planned the reception. Kimber didn’t want anything big. A cookout at the resort would have been fine, but she appreciated everyone’s efforts.
“You’ll do my hair and make-up, right, Mel?” Kimber asked.
Melody blinked, looking dazed. “What? Oh, sure, sweetie.”
“You’re so young,” Flo said. “You’d look beautiful in something like that.” She pointed to a gem-encrusted wedding gown.
“At that price? It had better come with a brand-new car,” Kimber muttered.
Lacey snorted at the comment. Kimber looked at her friend through the fringe of her hair. Of all of them, Lacey and Quinn were the only ones who hadn’t had any kind of celebration. Curiosity was like a cat, burning inside Kimber, but she kept her mouth shut. If Lacey wanted to have something formal, she would.
It wasn’t any of Kimber’s business anyway.”
“I could probably make you something like this,” Jenna offered shyly. She pointed to a simple strapless dress. “Sati
n is hard to work with, but I made my prom dresses. I’m pretty good. We could have a blue satin dress with white eyelet over it. Give you that bridal white while including something blue.”
The girl’s offer was humbling. “That’s so sweet, Jenna. Thank you. But I’m not sure we have the time to make something.” Kimber felt her cheeks grow warm. “Dan wants a ceremony in a week. Two tops. I thought we’d all drive over to Ashville and look to see what I can find on the rack.”
“Don’t think you can all take off,” Mel threatened from behind the counter.
“Shut up, Mel,” Flo called over one shoulder. “This is women’s business, so unless you want us all talking menstruation, nursing, and female orgasms, I suggest you shut up.”
Mel grumbled but didn’t say anything further.
“Aunt Flo?” Jenna began.
“Yeah, sugar?”
“Is there something going on between you and Mel?”
Flo choked on her water while Lacey and Hadley hid grins behind their hands.
“Good lord, me and that old coot? Never!”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Jenna teased in a sing-song voice.
The bell over the door jangled, alerting Flo she had a customer. She stood and straightened her pink polyester waitress uniform. “Hey, darling, welcome to Silver Fells, North Carolina. Just one today?”
“Actually, I was hoping you could help me. I’m looking for someone.”
Kimber’s heart beat a little faster in her chest, and she looked up. She felt the blood rush out of her face.
“What is it?” Hadley demanded. “Honey, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s Wayne,” she mouthed.
Lacey looked up at and narrowed her eyes at the newcomer while Flo showed him to his seat. “Wayne Dupree?” she demanded, her voice rising. She stood up, stepping over Jenna’s cast.
Wayne looked up, his face registering the group of women in the big, circular booth at the end. “I’m Wayne Dupree,” he said.
Kimber still had her back to him as panic coursed through her. Her hands shook as she took a nervous sip of water. Why was he here? What did he want?
A Home for her Hawk Page 6
