by Amira Rain
CHAPTER NINE
Chief Alexander was huge. A real brawny brute of a man, I thought, though not overweight at all, just pure muscles and broad shoulders and washboard abs that I could see the outline of through his fitted, navy blue t-shirt. He stood at least six-foot-three or four, and was probably somewhere around two hundred and twenty pounds, I guessed, maybe even more. Standing beside the island in the kitchen, he held a glass filled with some kind of amber liquid, whiskey I figured, and in his large, long-fingered hand, the glass looked about the size of a playset teacup.
His size actually wasn’t what I noticed about him first, though, or even second. I noticed his size kind of in my periphery, but what directly struck me first was his piercing blue eyes. They were the same exact vivid bright blue as Sam’s.
The second thing I directly noticed was his all-around devastating good looks. Strong-jawed, and with deep-set eyes, a wide forehead, and a perfectly straight, perfectly proportioned nose, Chief Alexander was handsome, although that might have been the understatement of the year.
He was stunning, in a virile, potent, entirely masculine sort of way. In the sort of way that made my heart hammer even faster than it already had been before I’d stepped in the front door of the cabin and into the kitchen.
In the back of my mind, I’d kind of been hoping he’d be ugly. Hideous, even. It had just seemed like it would make everything easier. The very last thing I wanted, or needed, was to be physically attracted to a man who was apparently a violent monster with no compunctions about chasing and killing innocent wolves, or having women kidnapped.
However, just based on how beautiful Sam was, I’d almost had a feeling that Chief Alexander would be very attractive. Now, with my hunch confirmed, I supposed I’d just have to deal with it. I’d just have to continually remind myself that sometimes monsters came in beautiful packages.
I had no doubt, though, that I’d be able to resist any kind of a romantic relationship with the chief, if that was why he’d had me kidnapped and what he wanted. I’d always liked men with good hearts and kind souls, and I was pretty sure he’d be continually reminding me with his actions and words that that wasn’t him.
When I entered the kitchen with Sam in her carrier, shutting the door behind me, Chief Alexander stood up straight from his lean against the island, vivid blue eyes widening. His gaze went from my face, to Sam, who was still sleeping, and then back to me.
Clearly rendered speechless for some reason, he then swallowed, setting his glass on the island, and then repeated what he’d just done, looking from me to Sam and back to me, before finally speaking in a low, deep voice. “She’s so beautiful. She’s absolutely perfect.”
This wasn’t exactly what I’d been anticipating he’d say. I’d been expecting a gruff “This her?” or something similar. And now I didn’t know what to say in response. After a second or two spent feeling thoroughly awkward, I simply said thank you in the cool sort of tone I’d become used to speaking to everyone in the village with.
Gaze going from my face to Sam and back to me once again, Chief Alexander took a few steps closer, swallowing, then came to a stop and raked a hand through his thick, dark hair, which was so dark it was nearly black, just like Sam’s. “Do you mind if I take a closer look at her? I’ve been waiting for her so long I just want to see her.”
Again, this was not what I’d been expecting. Not politeness. Not the words of a possibly-loving father.
Whether from the sound of the closing front door, the warmth of the interior of the house, or Chief Alexander’s deep voice, which had somewhat of a booming timbre even when lowered, Sam had started to stir from her nap, and now, still facing forward in her carrier, she suddenly startled awake with a little squawk. Eyes widening, the chief took the smallest of steps back, as if he had been startled by her, or if he was afraid of her. I could tell by the way he was looking at her that she had her eyes open, and he was looking into them.
“They’re so beautiful. So blue.”
Sam made a soft little coo, as if pleased by his assessment.
“May I try to hold her? Is that okay?”
The chief was thoroughly confusing me. Thoroughly throwing me off-balance. I just didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t seem like a human trafficker. He didn’t seem like a murderous psychopath. At all. On any level. However, I reminded myself, men could be different with their children than they were with the wider world. Men could be different with children, period.
Ballpoint Pen Man was a good example, or at least an example, how he’d surely committed murder before but apparently drew the line at causing any harm to kids under eighteen, as evidenced by what he’d said about beating up my dad and Kevin only if I tried to escape from his car. From what I’d heard in the media, all mob men weren’t like that; some of them drew no lines at all.
I also reminded myself that the chief had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to have Sam brought into the world. He’d spent a quarter-million on the whole process, at least, with my two payments of a hundred grand each, and the fifty grand he’d paid Ballpoint Pen Man to transport me and Sam to Greenwood.
And that didn’t even count what he’d paid all the middlemen for their parts, money that I’d gotten the idea from Ballpoint Pen Man that had eventually made its way down to his “organization.” I guessed that that total amount might have been in the hundreds of thousands itself.
So, the more I thought about it, it started to make more sense that the chief was acting how he was. He’d obviously wanted to become a father badly, for whatever reason or reasons, and he’d paid a fortune to make that happen. So now, it just stood to reason that he’d be enthralled with his “purchase.” I thought it was possible that that was all it was. He just saw Sam as a very expensive, precious acquisition.
In response to what he’d asked about trying to hold her, I responded with my well-practiced coolness, now pretty sure that he at least wouldn’t fly off the handle and beat me or kill me in front of Sam. “You may hold her, but you should know that when it comes to holding babies, there is no ‘try.’ You either hold them or you don’t. If you try and fail, it’s very bad. So, just take her out of her carrier and hold her. Don’t ‘try.’”
To my complete astonishment, I thought I actually saw the tiniest bit of amusement briefly flicker in the chief’s eyes. A flash of anger wouldn’t have surprised me one bit. Possible amusement did. However, I couldn’t be sure that I’d actually seen what I thought I had. I supposed it could have just been a glint from the track lighting in the kitchen, or an amber-colored Tiffany lamp hanging semi-nearby. I really wasn’t sure exactly what I’d seen.
Solemn-faced once again, the chief said okay, that he wouldn’t ‘try’ to hold Sam, he’d just hold her. Then, with clear extreme carefulness, he took Sam under her arms and began lifting her out of her carrier very slowly. “Hi, sweetheart. There you go.”
For the second time in the span of a few seconds, I was astonished, because other than at the clinic after her birth, Sam had never been held by anyone but me, and now she was letting the chief lift her out of her carrier without a peep. When he got her fully lifted out and gently laid her back to rest in the crook of one of his large arms, she didn’t make a peep, either, just looked up at his bright blue eyes with her own matching ones.
Gazing at her with clear affection, the chief gave her a small smile, beginning to ever-so-gently rock her back and forth. “Hi, sweetheart. I’m your daddy.”
Sam frowned, but just briefly, as if thinking, before breaking into a wide, gummy smile, followed by soft cooing. This made the chief break into a wide smile of his own.
“What a beautiful smile. You like Daddy, don’t you?”
Sam giggled in her tiny baby half-laughing, half-cooing sort of way, suddenly kicking furiously and waving her arms.
The chief smiled broadly again. “Yes, you do. You like Daddy. And, wow… what a strong girl you are. Strong kicking legs. Strong waving arms.”
This sent Sam into overdrive, making her giggle in a funny, half-choking-sounding sort of way she usually only did when I played peekaboo with her.
Still rocking her gently, the chief smiled at her again, then turned his gaze to me. “Mary said you call her Sam. Is it short for Samantha?”
I nodded, really not at all sure what to think about the chief anymore. “Yes. Samantha Hope.”
“That’s a beautiful name. I really like it.”
“Well….” I paused, not knowing exactly what to say and starting to feel uncomfortably hot in my jacket. “I’m glad.”
I soon removed my jacket and hung it up on one of several wooden pegs by the door. When I turned around, the chief was trying to take Sam’s coat off one-armed, and I reflexively began helping him, catching a faint hint of some heavenly, woodsy, masculine scent as I got closer to him.
While Sam fussed, apparently not wanting her coat off, the chief glanced up at me. “I’m Warren, by the way. It’s nice to finally meet you, Tara.”
Warren was certainly doing a good job hiding the fact that he was a murderous psychopath, if he really was one, which I now wasn’t sure that he was. I was beginning to feel like I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. In response to what he’d said, I just said likewise as cool as could be. One thing that I was still sure about was that he’d ordered me to be taken from my home state and my family against my will.
Once out of her coat, hat, and little peach-colored mittens, Sam continued to fuss, kicking so hard she kicked off one of her tiny, fleece-lined baby boots.
I took her back from Warren, saying that she’d had a long day. “We were just out for a walk, and I think it really tired her out.”
I was beginning to feel really tired out, primarily mentally, just from trying to get a handle on who Warren was, exactly.
He said he understood, and asked if he could get anything for me or Sam. “Is there a bottle I could get for her? And would you like something to drink, or anything else?”
“Well, as for Sam, I breastfeed her, which I’ll do soon, and as for me, I’d love something to drink. Whatever you’re having is fine.”
I was pretty sure the amber-colored liquid in his glass was whiskey, and I felt like I could use a couple of sips myself. Sam’s pediatrician in town, Dr. Bailey, had said that she felt confident telling breastfeeding mothers that “one drink on the smaller side” once or twice a week would have no ill effect on a nursing baby; so I felt confident that having maybe something equivalent to a scant shot of whiskey wouldn’t harm Sam. Even before I’d become a mom, a scant shot of something was all it ever took for me to feel myself unwinding in a pleasant sort of way anyway.
With my back toward Warren while he fixed my drink, I bounced an increasingly fussy Sam. “Just one second, baby. Mommy’s going to grab her drink, then we’re going to head upstairs to your room, where Mommy’s going to feed you your dinner.”
I bounced her for just a little while longer, turning around when Warren said, “Here you go, Tara.”
He was holding a clear glass like his own, except that instead of holding just an inch or two of amber liquid, mine held several. Maybe even like, five. I wondered just what kind of a drinker Warren thought I was. I wondered if he thought the job of motherhood was so stressful that the average mom required getting absolutely wasted every night just to cope.
Even if he did think that, I wondered why he wasn’t concerned about an extremely high volume of alcohol passing from my breasts directly into our daughter’s mouth.
A bit incredulous, and trying not to openly frown at him, I took my glass from his extended hand. “Thanks.”
Now not in the mood for a few sips of whiskey anymore for some reason, I figured I’d take one polite sip, then sit the glass on the counter, saying I’d finish the rest later and just never do it. However, my first sip of the amber liquid in my glass immediately made me take another, because the liquid didn’t taste like any whiskey I’d ever had before. It was sweeter and smoother, with absolutely no burn going down.
Immediately suspecting Warren of putting some foreign substance in my drink, like a rape drug or something, I glared at him. “What is this?”
He just looked at me for a long moment, frowning. “It’s apple juice.”
I looked from him to my glass and back to him. “It’s not… it’s not whiskey?”
Looking perplexed, Warren shook his head. “No.”
“But I asked to have whatever you’re having.”
“Well… I was having a glass of apple juice before you and Sam came in.”
“Oh.”
I wasn’t sure quite why I’d automatically assumed that the amber liquid in his glass was whiskey. I guess that had just made sense in my mind at the time. It had just seemed like the only drink an extremely masculine, muscular man like Warren would be having around dinnertime. Then, once I’d gotten it into my head that that was what he was having, and what I would be soon sipping, it had just kind of all thrown me for a loop. Then, suspecting some sweet tranquilizing drug, I really hadn’t recognized the apple juice as apple juice.
Now I could not possibly have felt like more of an idiot.
With my face flushing pink I was sure, I took another sip of juice, then set the glass on the island, unable to look Warren in the eyes for some reason. “I guess I just got confused for a second. I must just be really tired. I walked a pretty long way with Sam on my chest today, and she’s thirteen pounds now, so she starts to feel really heavy after a while.”
“Well, how about if you go on upstairs and rest a bit and feed her, and I’ll cook dinner in the meantime. I’m no gourmet chef, but I can handle sautéing some chicken and boiling some potatoes and vegetables. Does that sound all right?”
I nodded, still feeling slightly embarrassed about my whiskey mix-up. “That sounds fine. Thank you.”
Sam was still fussing, so I soon took her upstairs to feed her, not knowing that the next time Warren and I saw each other, things wouldn’t be quite so civil.
CHAPTER TEN
Once upstairs, I changed Sam, put her in snuggly, white fleece pajamas, and fed her in her favorite “dinner” spot, which was a heavy oak rocking chair in the corner of her nursery. After, I rocked and cuddled her to sleep while she made soft, barely-audible cooing noises that never failed to absolutely melt my heart. Before putting her in her crib, I kissed her round little cheeks about a dozen times, telling her that she was Mommy’s angel, which of course was the complete truth.
She was my angel, and I couldn’t imagine my life without her. In fact, when I sometimes thought about it, thought about what would have happened if Warren hadn’t ordered me to be kidnapped, I felt nearly sick, hardly able to contemplate the scenario of me not getting the chance to be Sam’s Mommy, of never even getting the chance to meet her.
However, just because I was glad and grateful that something good had come from something bad, that didn’t mean that I’d changed my mind at all in thinking that what Warren had done was a heinous crime. Nothing could change my mind about that. I couldn’t think of any excuse or explanation that ever could. What he’d done was criminal and inexcusable, and I just couldn’t imagine anything that could ever make it right.
There was also the matter of what Brooke had told me about him. Clearly, when it came to people he considered his enemies, he was an incredibly cruel man who couldn’t manage to show any mercy at all.
The only thing was that I was beginning to have real difficulty reconciling this information with the obvious care he’d shown Sam.
However, like I’d thought when he’d been holding her, it was possible that he was a man who simply treated his offspring differently than the rest of the world. Which made me glad on one level, knowing that he’d probably never be outright cruel to her, but at the same time, I couldn’t be sure about this.
And I knew for certain that he was no one I’d ever want Sam to look up to as a role model. The thought of her ever thinking that committing cr
imes was okay, just because her father committed them, horrified me.
After tucking Sam’s baby monitor in my pocket and closing the nursery door near-soundlessly, I went in my own room next door, where in my master bathroom, I raked a brush through my long hair, because it had gotten a bit tangled from a stiff breeze blowing at times during Sam’s and my hike. Then, once I’d wound my hair into a loose, messy bun, I splashed my face with cold water, just trying to perk up my flagging energy before dinner. Once I’d patted my face dry with a plush towel, I stared at my reflection in the mirror, having the strange thought that maybe I should apply a little makeup before dinner.
I had no idea why I should want to do this. I normally did apply a bit of makeup daily, usually just a little concealer, bronzer, and mascara, though I hadn’t on this particular day, thinking that I’d just be spending the day with Sam. Now I wasn’t sure why having dinner with her father should make me want to apply any makeup. It wasn’t like I wanted to impress him. It wasn’t like I even liked him, and in fact, the opposite was true.
So, when I soon found myself dabbing a little concealer beneath my eyes, I kind of couldn’t believe I was doing what I was. It’s normal to want to look as presentable as possible when having dinner with another human being, no matter who they are, I told myself while applying a coat of mascara a short while later. That’s all.
Deep down, I knew that wasn’t all, and as I applied a dab of tinted lip gloss, I admitted to myself that I was applying makeup because I found Warren so incredibly attractive, and maybe I wanted him to find me attractive, too.
Studying my reflection in the mirror, I shrugged, snorting. “And so what? So what.”
Realizing that I was now talking to myself, something I hardly ever did, I snorted again. Just go down to dinner, endure it, and go back up to bed. I was starting to feel like the less time I spent with Warren, the better. I may have been very physically attracted to him, and I couldn’t deny that, but I knew I had the power to stop that attraction from developing further.
