One True Mate 4: Shifter's Innocent

by Lisa Ladew

  Cerise felt her own face split into a wide smile, one that nothing could dampen.

  Kaci was going to be ok. Cerise, with Beckett’s help, would get her home to her parents.

  After that, it didn’t matter what happened.

  Chapter 21

  Beckett strode toward the room, pulling the door key out of his pocket, feeling almost delirious, and completely light, like he could fly. After Kaci had smiled at him, Cerise had lit up like a thousand-watt bulb, meeting eyes with him for just a moment. The first smile he’d seen from either of them that had been for him. Kaci’s smile had been sweet and satisfying, like an entire cake baked just for him. Cerise’s had been all the icing in all the world, piled on top. And Rhen knew how much he liked the sweet stuff.

  Easy there, wolf, he cautioned himself. You got two smiles. That means almost nothing. You’ve still got to convince them to trust you, to let you in on their secrets, to let you help them. Buying a few jackets and shirts was nothing. He wanted to set them up for life, to pull them within his sphere of influence, making sure nothing could ever harm either of them again.

  He put the key card in the lock on the door, then thought better of it and moved out of the way, waving Kaci close. He showed her how to operate it, then handed the card to her. Her face lit up immediately and he stepped back to let her mess with it. Within seconds, she had it open, but pulled it closed to do it again, and again.

  Beckett leaned against the wall and watched Cerise as she watched Kaci, taking the time to really examine her features. Strawberry blonde hair, mussed from the wind, curling at the ends in a way he hadn’t noticed before. Maybe it had gotten wet from the snowflakes as they’d walked back. Gorgeous, perfectly pink lips that made him think of kissing her, smooth skin, a long, slim neck. Her body was hidden in the scrubs she wore, but he could see enough of it to know she had curves in all the right places. His own body responded immediately at his thoughts and he brought the bags in front of him. Nice job, perv, he lambasted himself. Way to think about a woman who wants nothing from but your help and friendship. Unless…

  He pushed all thoughts away about her being his mate. Even if she was, that meant nothing for now. First gain her trust, then learn her story, then help her out of whatever jam she was in, then figure out who she is to you.

  Beckett nodded to himself. Good fucking plan. One he would stick to, no matter what.

  ***

  When Kaci finally let them enter, Cerise couldn’t stifle her gasp. The room was open, immaculate, with a TV the size of the ones they’d seen in the houses they’d broken into facing the bed. She peeked first inside the bathroom, then past another door that was standing open. It had a second bed.

  “Do you two want this room, or that one?” Beckett asked from behind her.

  Kaci had already jumped on the one in the room they were in, snuggling into the luxurious pillows, wrapping the blanket around her.

  Cerise gave Beckett a shy smile, knowing she’d never be able to repay him for what he was doing for them. “This one.”

  “It’s yours,” he said, pushing into the other one to unpack the bags.

  Cerise turned to Kaci. “Kaci, take your shoes off on the bed.”

  Kaci sat up and pulled her feet under her body, holding onto the toes of the new purple shoes with both hands, shaking her head, a nervous expression on her face. Cerise sat next to her. “Lemon, no one is going to take those shoes from you, but you can’t wear them on the bed.”

  Beckett’s voice carried from the other room. “Those shoes are brand new. They won’t get anything dirty. I say let her keep them on if she wants to.”

  Kaci shot the open door a look of such relief that Cerise had to shake her head.

  “Ok,” she conceded. “Beckett’s paying, so if he says it’s ok…”

  Kaci beamed at her, then got up on her knees to whisper in her ear. “Do you think we can watch TV?”

  “Um.” She turned toward the room Beckett was in. “Can we watch TV?”

  Beckett filled the doorframe. “You don’t want to go swimming in the pool?”

  Cerise looked at Kaci questioningly.

  Kaci shook her head, her eyes on the big TV.

  Cerise turned back to Beckett, wondering if he’d be upset. He’d bought them both swimsuits. He shrugged. “Go ahead. Maybe tomorrow night we’ll hit a pool.”

  Cerise hid the doubtful expression on her face. By tomorrow they could be in Las Vegas if they drove all day. She would have to decide what to do then. Tell Beckett the truth and ask him (or push him) to take them to California? Or strike out without him. Maybe find another board like at the train station, with people offering rides. She knew now that their best chance was with Beckett, but there were so many reasons they shouldn’t stay with him, that he shouldn’t know where Kaci ended up.

  Beckett strode to the TV, fished underneath it, and came out with the remote. He brought it to Kaci and showed her how to use it, then handed it to her.

  How did he know that she’d never used a remote before? Was he just guessing? Again, she had that nagging feeling that he knew their story. It felt bad to her, like her own secrets did.

  She stood and strode to the far side of the room, pushing aside the curtains, gasping again quietly when she saw the window and the balcony. She’d never been so high up. Kaci would love it. She turned to call her over, but Kaci’s eyes were already bright, focused intently on the TV, changing channels so quickly Cerise couldn’t follow them. She opened her mouth to tell Kaci not to do that, then closed it. Why shouldn’t Kaci do that? She’d never had TV before, only one movie at a time from a DVD on a screen an eighth the size of this one. Let her do what she wanted. Like Beckett had with the elevator. They weren’t still riding it, were they? Kaci needed to explore in her own way.

  Beckett found a phone next to the bed Kaci was sitting on and picked up the handset. “Who wants room service?”

  They were going to eat again?

  Kaci reached out her hand slowly and touched Beckett’s wrist. When he looked at her, she pointed to herself. Beckett grinned down at Kaci and Cerise saw genuine pleasure on his face at Kaci’s response. It made her heart swim and her vision double.

  “Li’l bit wants room service, anybody else?”

  ***

  Cerise lifted her head from the pillow and peeked at the clock. 3:13 a.m. She hadn’t been sleeping, only going over every instance that she could remember in her life of pushing someone, looking at her experiences with new eyes, trying to glean something useful about her mysterious power. She looked at Kaci. Finally asleep, the remote control clutched in her hand, her shoes still on. Cerise got up, muted the TV so she could see by its light, but not hear it, and unlaced her shoes.

  Beckett appeared at the still open doorway, filling it completely. “She finally fell asleep?” His voice was soft, but still, Cerise jumped. She’d thought he had gone to sleep hours ago.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “And don’t worry, she didn’t keep me awake. I’m restless for some reason.” He looked toward the door of the room, as if double checking that all the locks were engaged, even though he’d already done that twice.

  Cerise couldn’t think of one word to say to that. Her heart banged loudly in her chest, and she wondered if he could hear it across the room. She continued to work on Kaci’s shoes, pulling them off and placing them next to the bed, so they’d be the first thing she saw in the morning.

  “Good night,” Beckett said.

  She took a deep breath. Stood straight. Faced him. “Good night, Beckett. And… I wanted to say…” How to say thank you to a man who had done so much for them? Especially when she didn’t know how much of it was from his own free will, and how much she’d somehow controlled.

  “Anytime,” he said, then tapped the underside of the brim of his cap with two fingers, and gave her a salute. He pulled the door closed as he left the room.

  Cerise walked to it, put her fingers on the lock that would ens
ure he couldn’t get into their room while they slept, pushing it to the right… but without enough force to actually engage it.

  She stood there thinking for a long time, then dropped her fingers, leaving the door unlocked.

  Chapter 22

  Cerise woke only a few hours later to the bed she shared with Kaci bouncing as Kaci thrashed about. She felt groggy, realizing in a few moments that she’d slept more deeply than usual, possibly from exhaustion, possibly from sleeping on a bed for the first time in a decade. When Myles and Sandra had fled New Mexico and brought her and Kaci to Illinois, they hadn’t bothered to get the girls beds to sleep on. Too busy drinking and drugging and screaming at each other.

  Startled, she pushed up onto her knees and looked around. The clock said 6:45. Kaci, still asleep, was whimpering and rolling, her lips pressed together so hard they were thin and white. Cerise had waited for the trauma of the shooting to surface, and here it was.

  Cerise lay a hand on her arm. “Shhhh,” she said soothingly. “It’s a dream, Kaci, just a dream.” Kaci didn’t quiet. Cerise lay down next to her and pulled Kaci into her arms, running her fingers up her arm. “Shhh, Lemon, you’re safe. I’m here.” This was a role Cerise had experience with; Kaci had nightmares often.

  Kaci didn’t quiet, her whimpers becoming louder, her lips thinner. Cerise spoke directly in her ear. “Stop, Kaci, dream about other things, feel better when you wake up. Forget Myles. You had to do what you did. Be strong, sweetheart.” Power rippled out of her in tiny doses, straight for Kaci, who quieted immediately. Cerise lifted her head from the pillow and stared into the darkness, eyes wide and horrified, not noticing the streams of diffused light from around the drapes, only feeling the inward tug of her realization.

  She had pushed Kaci. Without even realizing it, she had pushed her. She recognized the feeling of the flex, although at this low of a power level, it had felt like nothing more than a tightening of her mental capacity, like if her brain was a muscle and she had sent an impulse to it only strong enough to make it twitch once, then relax again.

  How many times had she done that before? Every time? Kaci had been having nightmares her whole life! She tried to remember what she had said to Kaci during other nightmares and couldn’t, tried to remember specific instances, but there was nothing. Could she possibly have hurt Kaci? Affected her in ways she never intended?

  She frowned in the dark and let her head drop to the pillow, sleep no longer a possibility, trying to consider every angle of what she had done. If only she knew why and how she had the power, the ability to influence someone’s actions! Did anyone else have it? If only she could talk to someone, be positive she was leaving no lasting damage.

  Cici’s face loomed in her imagination, limp, expressionless, blood leaking out her ears.

  Cerise’s shoulder muscles tightened in fear and shame. Was she dangerous to people around her?

  She ran her fingers through Kaci’s red hair, thinking about how small Kaci was for her age, how stunted emotionally, refusing to talk to people. They’d never eaten well, and Kaci had never been treated with anything but violence and disdain by their ‘parents’. She’d rarely had an opportunity to be around anyone but Myles and Sandra and Cerise, so her shyness and smallness weren’t too surprising.

  But what if Cerise had something to do with it, too? What if her pushes had changed something in Kaci’s brain? Was Cerise just as at fault as Myles and Sandra had been?

  She listened for that voice again, the one that had told her not to push Beckett again, but it was silent. She left her mind open, her thoughts whirling. Finally the opposite argument came to her. What if she could help Kaci? What if she could do more than stop Kaci’s nightmares? What if she could make her forget about everything that caused the nightmares in the first place? Or at least take away the pain of them? What if she could… encourage Kaci to be more emotionally healthy? She stared at the back of Kaci’s head. She could try it. Push Kaci right now. Put her hand on her and whisper, Talk to Beckett tomorrow like you talk to me, like he was your friend.

  She discarded the idea immediately. It didn’t feel right to push someone she loved, even if it was done with love. Maybe a shhh, sleep, was ok, but trying to change Kaci’s nature? No way.

  Besides, she wanted Kaci and Beckett’s relationship to be completely authentic.

  As she tried to think about why she would want such a thing, her eyes slipped closed and she fell back asleep.

  ***

  Beckett gasped and sat straight up in the strange bed, tangled in the white sheets, a cry held behind his lips. He’d had the nightmare again, the one that had actually happened. The one where his older brother, Cole, had pushed him out the back door and told him to run, that Cole and their dad would hold the intruders off, give Beckett time to get away. Cole had known he would die that night, Beckett had seen it in his face, and still he’d protected Beckett.

  Beckett ran a hand over his face and stared at the ceiling. That made three times this week he’d had the nightmare. After the incident had happened, he’d had the nightmare often, then it had slowed down, coming once a month, once a year, not coming at all for many years, but now it dampened his palms and his forehead in his sleep again. He’d told Wade and Wade had said that whoever had been behind the events of that night was thinking about targeting him again in some way, Wade could feel it, too. That had been before Jaggar’s revelation about Grey.

  Beckett had responded by openly flaunting his location at all times and leaving his doors and windows wide open at night, until winter came, but still not locking them even then. Let the bastards come. He was no child anymore. He’d come out on top this time, get his revenge.

  He stood up and prowled to the door between the two rooms, wanting to open it to make sure Kaci and Cerise were all right, but not quite daring to, knowing such a move could ruin the fragile trust he felt both of them trying to give him, against all their instincts.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, clad only in the scrub pants that weren’t his, staring at the door, running over everything that had happened in the past two days. The recall still was disjointed in places, not connecting like his memories normally did, especially around the times when he’d taken Cerise out of the hospital and then not called Wade to tell him.

  Beckett looked over his shoulder at the clock on the nightstand. 9:10. He was officially going on his second day of not showing up for work. He should call in, at least tell them he was ok. He picked up the hotel phone, held it in his hand for a second, then hung it up, retrieving his cell phone from his pocket, instead. He didn’t want anyone to be able to trace where he was. If he was in trouble for helping Cerise get out of the hospital, he didn’t need anyone coming to get them, not until he’d gotten her where she needed to be.

  He dialed Wade’s personal phone number by heart.

  “Beckett, where the hell are you?”

  Beckett looked at the ceiling. “Nebraska.”

  Wade’s voice was carefully still, betraying nothing of how he felt about Beckett’s actions. “She’s your one true mate, isn’t she?”

  Beckett dropped back onto the bed, phone pressed to his ear, glad Wade knew what he had done. Because he would not have been able to explain it without sounding like an idiot. “She might be,” he said, having no idea if he really thought so or not. He pictured her face, the bowed lips, soft cheekbones, wide-eyed innocent stare, the way she chewed on her lip when she was nervous. Her determination and grit and selflessness. She was no party girl, but he could give his heart to her, easily. He wanted her to be his mate more than anything in the world, except maybe getting her successfully across the country, helping her with her plans she was so desperate to fulfill.

  Wade began to speak but a knock on the connecting door had Beckett jumping to his feet and hanging up the phone. “Come in.”

  Cerise pushed the door open, grasping the door jamb, most of her body hidden as she looked at him shyly. “We’re awake.”

  M
ine! Every cell in Beckett’s body screamed for him to go to her, to gather her in his arms, to plant kisses across her face and collarbone, to swear to her that he would protect her with his life and do anything she needed. He swallowed and tried to get himself under control, not sure where the sudden intensity of the feeling had come from, and knowing if he did any of those things, she would bolt like a rabbit scared from its hiding place by a hungry fox, and she would take Kaci with her.

  He grinned, his automatic grin that had charmed hundreds of women in his life. But now only one woman mattered. And he had no idea what she thought of him, if she was attracted to him or felt some inkling of what he was feeling for her. “Breakfast?” he asked.

  She looked over her shoulder. “Maybe not just yet. Kaci’s tummy is upset again.”

  Worry coursed through Beckett, a feeling he was unfamiliar with, one he’d taken great pains to avoid in his life. “Is she ok?”

  “I think so. We’ll be ready to go in ten minutes.”

  “Let me grab a shower and we’ll go.”

  ***

  Beckett fiddled with the radio when the news came on, switching from his customary country station to a today’s hits station. The melodic beat from Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You filled the cab and he turned it up, glancing at Kaci. She perked up immediately and swayed in her seat, her pixie-ish freckled face brightening. They’d had to stop at the bathroom only once, but he could tell by the hand she’d kept pressed to her middle that all the food she’d eaten the day before was not agreeing with her. Cerise too, maybe, as she hadn’t asked to eat yet, and they’d been on the road for almost four hours. Beckett’s stomach wasn’t complaining too loudly. Yet.

  Cerise pressed her hands to the dash to look out the window. “Colorado,” she breathed, reading the signs. The snow had stopped, the roads were plowed, and they were making great time.

  “We made it,” Beckett said. “Next state is Utah, then Las Vegas, baby!”