by Amelia Jade
Then she turned to face the door, fingers still shaking slightly as she undid the deadbolt and swung the door open.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said accusingly.
The big shifter stared down at her. She came up maybe to his pecs at best. He was tall, with the same thickness of muscle bolted onto his frame that Gray possessed. Hair that had once been kept so carefully trimmed short had grown wild and wavy, falling almost to his shoulders in a messy dirty-blond shag. A beard the length of some of her fingers fell from his face, scraggly and unkempt.
Eyes the dreary gray of winter skies looked out at her from under bushy eyebrows and a thick forehead.
“Well, I’m not dead,” he said, his strong jaw moving as he spoke, covered as it was by the hair.
“I can see that. But you’re supposed to be. How the hell are you here? Why are you here? What the fuck is going on?”
Jacen looked out behind him, casting his glance down the stairs and into the pathway that served as a street. Then he turned back to her. Only then did she see the dirt on his shirt and pants, the worn boots he had on with no socks underneath.
“Can I come in?”
She thought about saying no. About turning him out into the night, never to return. It would have been perfectly within her rights. She owed him absolutely nothing. Yes, he’d been polite and gentle during the few times it had taken her to get pregnant, but after that, he’d been distant. Not cold, but simply…distant, uncaring. Scared, maybe. It was tough to tell; everything had happened at what felt like lightspeed over those few weeks before they were rescued by the Cadians.
“How are you alive?” she asked, settling on neither letting him in nor telling him to go away.
Jacen looked around again, and this time she thought she caught a bit of a furtive aspect to it. Did he expect someone to come after him, emerging out of the dark to haul him away?
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “There was the fight, and then I was knocked out. Then I came to in a field. I started walking. Ended up on the outskirts of Cadia. Asked a few questions, a farmer joked that I was “one of them shifters who done got too drunk.” I said yeah, and pretended like I’d lost my memory too. He told me where to go in town. I scouted it out, overheard a conversation about all the women from the Institute being housed like this. So I came to find you.”
He waved his hands at himself. “And now here I am.”
Kelly considered his answer for a long moment. There were all sorts of holes in it. Pieces missing. Possibly even lies being told. She should close the door, call someone, maybe even Gray, and have them come take care of it. They would know what to do, how to handle this situation. She didn’t. Kelly was way out of her depth here.
If she closed the door on him though, he might get angry. It would be easy enough for him to break down the door and come after her, causing her harm. Even worse, he could cause her baby harm. Kelly couldn’t allow that. She would do whatever it took to protect her child.
The baby kicked in her stomach, a nauseating feeling this time.
Their child. It wasn’t just hers anymore. It was Jacen and hers.
She owed him at least that much.
“Come in,” she said, stepping back from the doorway so he could enter.
It wasn’t what she wanted to do. But it was what she had to do. He had the right to be heard, to say his piece regarding the child. One hour, then if she didn’t like what he was saying, he was gone.
Jacen stood around awkwardly, rubbing his hands together as if cold. “This is nice enough,” he said. “Though you deserve better.”
She snorted. “Yeah? Like being conned into helping make your kind extinct? Is that what you call better?”
He winced and shook his head. “It was never going to last, Kelly. You had to know that. We all did. We just did it for the money.”
“You killed your own kind, for money?” she asked, disgusted. “That’s even worse!”
Jacen snarled, but didn’t advance on her. “You people do even worse. I’ve read about the things you’ve done to each other. The things you’ve done to us, in the past. So don’t stand there and act all high and mighty to me!”
Rolling her eyes, Kelly opened the door. “Get out,” she said.
“What?!”
“There’s a huge difference between what humans do to each other, and what I would do. Don’t you get it? I’m not disgusted because of what your kind has done in the past. It’s about what you have done. The…ugh, I can’t believe it, but you are the father of this child. I’m not raising them to know that their father slaughtered his own kind for a few measly bucks!”
Jacen laughed. “You call millions of dollars a few measly bucks?”
“When it comes to life,” she said quietly, “yes, I do.”
He stormed out the door. “I want to be in their life, Kelly. I’m their father whether you like it or not.”
Kelly sagged at the reminder. She wished it weren’t true. Wished that he weren’t such an asshole. Why couldn’t it have been easy? Why couldn’t he have been dead?
Instant shame at her last thought flooded Kelly. It wasn’t a proper thing to think of anyone, even someone with as much blood on their hands as Jacen. After what she’d just verbally eviscerated him over, she’d gone and thought something very, very similar.
Maybe she wasn’t all that much better than him.
“Not until you accept that what you did was wrong.” She looked up at him, her tone firm, her body language unyielding.
“I’m not stupid,” he said softly. “I know that. But I made a choice. It was either be killed, or kill for profit. It’s not like I volunteered,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper by the end.
“So you took the coward’s way out.”
He looked away, his lips pressed into a thin line. Then he nodded. “Yeah. I did. But it wasn’t all bad.” Jacen’s expression softened. “I got to meet you. I got to be a father, in a weird sort of way.”
Dammit. He had to go and play the father card. Unbalanced chemicals within her welled up and played with her emotions, taking logic and rationale almost entirely out of the equation.
“Go get yourself cleaned up and on the right track,” she said quietly. “I’ll think about you being a part of their life.”
“I can be a good father, Kelly. I can be a good anything, if you just give me a chance.”
His meaning was clear. Jacen wanted more than just to be involved with his child’s life.
He wanted her.
Chapter Eleven
Gray
A week passed, with no changes. He continued to see Kelly after work, stopping by her place. Most nights he just stood at the door, and they talked. About inane matters most of the time. What they’d had to eat that day, how his work had gone, how the baby was doing. It was small talk, mostly, but it brought them together some. It became familiar. Gray started to look forward to the meetings, feeling less nervous about it each time.
Then, on the following Friday, she invited him in instead of making him stand at the door as had become custom. He felt his stomach coalesce into a solid lump, but it didn’t stop him from walking inside, closing the cheap wooden door behind him.
“Everything okay?” he asked, half-teasing, half-serious.
Kelly flinched, but shook her head. “Why do you think something’s wrong?” she asked, her voice artificially light.
“I’m inside your unit, not outside it, for starters,” he said dryly. “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t bumped your head or something.”
This time she looked over her shoulder at him as she moved into the kitchen, her eyes and face bunching up, all but screaming a “Ha ha ha, you’re soooo funny” face at him without the words. He grinned back.
“I’m hungry, and I was making an early dinner,” she explained. “It’s almost ready, and I knew you’d be here, so I made enough for both. If you aren’t too afraid to try my cooking.”
“Should I be?” he
countered.
“No.”
“Well good then, I’ll stay.”
“You should be terrified.”
“Well, maybe I’ll go then,” he said without skipping a beat, turning back toward the door and his shoes.
“Of becoming addicted to it because I’m so good,” she finished, deadpan.
Gray gave her a long, long look. “Done yet?”
Kelly glanced at the stove. “No, there’s about five more minutes left.”
He groaned, drawing a little giggle from Kelly.
“I thought you liked puns and the like?” she asked innocently.
“True. But I happen to like them much more when I’m on the giving end,” he said, flashing her a smile.
“Understandable. I’ll try to go easy on you then, so that you aren’t outclassed.”
He snorted. “If you say so.” Then, “What’s for dinner? Thank you, by the way.”
“It’s the least I could do, really. I wasn’t going to make you lean on my doorway and watch me eat. I’m not that mean.”
The oven dinged before he could respond. Spurred into action, Gray looked around, grabbing some plastic placemats and cutlery to set out on the little coffee table that must also serve as her eating area. He frowned as he did it.
“Something wrong?”
He glanced over to see Kelly looking at him.
“No, no,” he assured her with a quick shake of his head. “Just trying to make sure I get it right.”
There was a noncommittal noise from Kelly, but nothing further for a moment. “Nothing fancy, so don’t get your hopes up. I like to call it cheeseburger pasta.”
He perked up. “Burgers?”
“Not quite,” she said with a laugh. “But if you like cheeseburgers, and you like pasta, you should like this unless something is wrong with you.”
“Doc, something is wrong with me. But not when it comes to that!”
Kelly snickered.
“What is it? How do you make it?” He was intrigued; it sounded like an interesting combination.
“Ground beef, pasta, can each of condensed cheddar cheese soup and tomato soup. Mix, add a bit of water if necessary. Enjoy. You cook the pasta right in the soups and beef.”
His stomach growled loud enough to echo around the room.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I wouldn’t,” he teased. “My stomach thinks anything sounds good when it’s empty.”
“I have faith,” she said, spooning out large amounts of the pasta into two bowls. One was piled to the brim, the other about three-quarters full.
“Thank you so much,” he said, reaching for the full one.
Kelly just arched an eyebrow and gave him the three-quarters full bowl, keeping the other for herself. “Eating for two,” she explained, not waiting for a response before sitting down and digging in while he stared in shock.
Gray just laughed and went to take a bite. There had been more left in the pot if he was truly that hungry. He made sure to get a good mix of pasta and beef, giving it a quick chew as he evaluated both the meal and her ability to make it.
His eyebrows rose.
“Wow, that’s good!”
Kelly beamed, her face all but splitting in two she smiled so big. “You think so?”
“Yeah. That’s really good!”
“I’m glad you think so.” She sobered quickly. “They don’t give us all that much, so I have to make things go a long way. A big bag of pasta, a thing of ground beef, and some cans of soup allow me to make a lot of meals. It helps for stretching the budget.”
Gray nodded thoughtfully, filing that away for future reference. The pair ate in silence. To his surprise, they both ended up scraping the bottoms of their bowls at the same time. Say what you wanted about Kelly, but she certainly loved to eat as much as he did!
“Are you this good a cook at everything?” he asked.
“Umm, I think I’m okay,” she said, trying not to sound like she was bragging. “I’m not five-star restaurant chef, but I can make traditional family meals with ease.”
He smiled. “Your mother must have spent a lot of time teaching you.”
Kelly’s face closed down abruptly and she looked away, reaching across the table to clear his bowl along with hers. Gray frowned and caught her wrist, making sure to do so gently. Kelly still didn’t look up at him. He slid his hand up her wrist and through her palm, curling her fingers around his and holding it there.
“Hey,” he said softly. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m an orphan.”
Oh. Shit. Foot. Mouth. Good job, he thought.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, giving her hand what he hoped to be a reassuring squeeze.
“You didn’t know,” she said, her voice stronger now.
No, not stronger. Louder, but still shaky and uneven. Gray hauled himself to his feet swiftly, taking the bowls from Kelly and carrying them to the sink.
“Are you having any more?” he asked, giving her a moment to recover her wits by talking about something else.
“No, thanks. I’ll save the rest for leftovers, unless you want some more?”
Gray shook his head. His stomach disagreed, but he told it to shut up. They could get more food later. This had to last Kelly for as long as it could. He busied himself washing the dishes while she put the remainder into a plastic container. Then he washed the pot as well while she leaned back against the counter, arms folded across herself, deep in thought.
“Do you remember your parents?”
The question broke the silence suddenly and without warning, catching him off guard. Gray thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Are they still alive?”
He shook his head. “No. They both died in the war.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, one arm falling from where it had been crossed to reach out and hold his hand where he’d been resting it on the counter, his back to the cupboards facing out into the room.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the hand and linking his fingers with hers.
There was another period of silence that he judged was necessary. Talking wouldn’t help him, or her.
“I don’t remember mine. Not even a single memory to hold onto. No sensations, no emotions. Nothing. I think they gave me up for adoption as soon as I was born.”
Gray felt a stirring of anger completely at odds with the theme of the conversation. It didn’t surprise him, however, though he tried to keep his temper in check. More than once it had gotten him into trouble in situations where he needed to be calm and caring, not angry and frustrated.
Kelly looked at him, her eyes searching his, as if she could understand his thoughts. They narrowed sharply at one point, but as he got himself under control she relaxed, her eyes turning outward again as she spoke some more about her past.
“What I do remember is my foster mother.”
“Your what?” He wasn’t familiar with the term.
“Uh, so in human cities, if your child is put up for adoption, it’s cared for by the state until someone decides to adopt you, or you turn sixteen. Then you’re on your own. The state has a number of people who take in kids and look after them in order to receive funding from the government. That funding is supposed to go toward the child and expenses for it.”
Judging by the bitterness in her voice, Gray determined that was not always, if ever, the actual case.
“My foster mother wasn’t a cruel woman. But she was mean, and demanded that we do a lot around the house as soon as we were old enough to understand. It turned out I was a good cook. She spent time teaching me, but only so that I could do all the cooking by the time I was eleven or so, so that she didn’t have to.”
Gray wasn’t sure why, but once she finished speaking he gathered her up into a hug and just held her there, ignoring the blossoming warm spots on his chest where her silent tears soaked through his shirt. Sometimes, he knew, you just had to stand there and let someone cr
y. No matter what he said, it wouldn’t matter at that particular point in time. All that mattered was his presence.
Five, ten minutes later, he didn’t know or care, she stood up a little straighter and he let her go. She turned out of sight, wiping as discreetly as possible at her eyes.
“Sorry,” she said with a little laugh-hiccup. “Wasn’t exactly the way I intended things to go.”
“It’s okay,” he reassured her.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked abruptly, looking up at him, golden-brown eyes wide, but clear of tears for the moment.
“Of course,” he said, steeling himself for the worst.
“I have nightmares. Every night.”
“About what?” he asked, stunned and unsure of where the conversation was going.
“Of her. Greta, my foster mother. Of…of…” she swallowed and shook herself. “Of turning into her with my own child.”
Then he got it.
“You’re scared you’re going to be a bad mother,” he said, voicing her fears.
Kelly gave him a tiny nod.
His first instinct was to sweep her up into another hug, a large one. That was his instinctive move, to hold her and tell her that it wasn’t going to be like that. But something told him it wouldn’t be the right move with Kelly. Simple reassurance that she was being silly and would be a great mother wasn’t going to work.
“I don’t see the problem,” he said instead. “I think everyone feels that way. I’d be more worried if you didn’t have fears. Nightmares. If you weren’t terrified. That, to me, would be more worrying.”
“How the hell would that be more worrying?”
“Because then you’d be overconfident. You’d miss things that someone else wouldn’t. This is a huge, life-changing moment. You are going to be responsible for another living, breathing, bleeding human being, for the next eighteen years. Think of the commitment, of all the things that could go wrong. Of course that’s terrifying!”
He could see Kelly getting ready to shut down, but he forged ahead, unrelenting.
“Now think of all the other things. Of your child’s first laugh. Of when they begin to crawl, and then walk. The first time they call out for ‘mama’ and reach out their arms toward you. Of them going off to school, participating in sports perhaps, and other activities. Of the smile they give off when things go well. Think how they come to you when something is wrong, seeking your guidance, looking to you for answers, because you are that one figure in their life who can always be counted on.”
