Accidental Alpha

by Laurel Curtis

  Unbidden, my next words jumped right out of my mouth. “You seemed a lot more serious the last time I saw you. Like, somewhat annoyingly serious.”

  A barely there smile curved the soft corner of his peachy-pink lips upward. “Last time you saw me I had the weight of my boy’s lost world on my shoulders. Now, because of your daughter—and you—he’s got it back.”

  I searched his face, avoiding the feel of my heart beating uncharacteristically fast in my chest.

  “Why’d you say you were here again?”

  “Vacation,” he said, the one word rolling off of his tongue like a curse as he turned back to the contents of the refrigerator.

  I raised one eyebrow in question, but it took him awhile to look back in my direction. When he did, he muttered an actual curse and closed the door to keep the cold air in.

  “I had a minor scuffle on the last job.”

  The last job? “The one with Danny?”

  The motion of his shaking head just barely unsettled the position of his short-cut, brown hair. “The one right after he left.”

  Geez. They sure didn’t waste time getting him involved in new stuff.

  “As a result, my shoulder isn’t at one hundred percent operation, and the higher ups would prefer that I gave it time to heal before returning to active duty. Pretty unnecessary if you ask me.”

  “Uh huh,” I murmured, all too familiar with how men could be about injuries.

  “What?”

  “Oh nothing.” I waved a hand. It was none of my business.

  “What?” he repeated, leaning his weight into the island counter and making the muscles of his arms stand out in stark relief.

  Normally, I would have let it go. Avoided confrontation. But something about this situation made me want to push it. Maybe it was the challenge in his eyes. Maybe it was just the day I’d had.

  “And what percentage operation would you say your shoulder is exhibiting currently?”

  “Eighty-five percent.”

  I glared, tilting my head with undisguised feminine suspicion.

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Thirty.”

  “Right.”

  His jaw tightened reflexively, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t like to be wrong. Of course, in my experience, no man did.

  He turned back to the fridge, jerked the door open, and immediately had to hide his wince.

  Busted.

  Pulling random food items out onto the counter, he made it obvious that he’d decided on a dish.

  “Can I help?” I offered, attempting to mend fences and give myself something to do other than stare at his jeans. It didn’t matter which side—ass or crotch—both lured me with the intensity of well thought out bait.

  “Do you know what I’m making?” he countered.

  I surveyed the contents of both his pile on the counter and my refrigerator, but for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with one complete meal out of all of them.

  “No.”

  He smiled, the tension vein in his temple finally ceasing to bulge. “Then no.”

  “I follow instruction really well,” I continued, not used to being told not to do anything.

  “Obviously not,” he shot back. “Since you’re arguing my direction to do nothing.”

  “Fine,” I huffed, circling the island and hefting my weight up into the stool on the other side.

  I was tired anyway. It had been a long day.

  Stress pulled my shoulders forward, settling them even further into a drooped curve. Dismissing every cotillion ever instructed, I set my elbows on the counter and rubbed at my temples with the tips of my fingers.

  If I was honest, it had been a long month.

  The road trip with Haley had been one of the best experiences of my life. New sites, new people, and a hell of an entertainer in my daughter.

  But I’d carried the knowledge that something wasn’t right the whole way, and the more I kept it from Haley and Hunter, the weightier it seemed to feel.

  Wanting to make sure I had something to actually tell them, I waited until I had answers. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected it to take this long. But the wait had finally ended. Today.

  Two little words, a much bigger burden.

  Cervical Cancer.

  Honestly, I was lucky. From what they could tell it hadn’t spread beyond that, and my life could go back to normal with the help of the removal of a couple of useless organs.

  Still, just the thought of cancer gave me the chills, a tingle settling in the very base of my spine. My last personal experience with it had taken the man I loved. Ripped him from mine and my kids’ lives without a backwards glance.

  And now it was after me. My uterus. The place I’d nurtured my kids for nine months. The place that protected their precious lives before they started.

  Now it was ruined.

  “You okay, Alli?” Wade called, no doubt noting my posture and annoyed breathing.

  I shook my head to clear it, settling a smile into my features by rote. It was fake as all hell.

  “No one calls me Alli.”

  He smirked like he liked that as he answered, “Well, now they do.”

  Attempting a genuine smile again, I came up empty. Resolving to snap out of it, I excused myself to go wash my face and catch my breath.

  I hadn’t been in my bathroom for more than five minutes when there was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Mom,” Hunter’s voice said through the door.

  When I pulled it open, I found him lounging against the bedroom wall, his ankles crossed casually in front of him, his phone up in front of his face.

  The light from the bathroom fell over his eyes, and he looked up.

  “There’s a dude in your kitchen,” he stated, his green eyes perusing my face. Nick’s eyes.

  I loved my son completely. But that didn’t mean that looking at him didn’t hurt. That it didn’t magnify an ache in my chest that never went away.

  Hunter looked so much like his father it almost took my breath away. So much that if I didn’t actively tell my mind he wasn’t, I’d find myself staring at him and seeing Nick. I was still just as in love with him as the day I fell into it. The day we married. The day we had each of our kids.

  The day he died.

  A lot of good it did me. I may have still loved his ghost, but it sure as hell didn’t love me back. I desperately wanted to move on. To get control of my life back. And I’d tried several times. It just never really took hold.

  The tips of my hair swayed against my back as I shook my head and tipped up the edges of my lips. “Why thank you, son. How observant.”

  He shrugged, nonplussed, the muscles of his biceps bunching the sleeves of his t-shirt unnaturally.

  “That’s Wade. Danny’s uncle, so to speak,” I explained, rolling a hand out in front of me as I searched for the best description.

  “Sweet,” he said on a nod.

  “Sweet? That’s it?” The point of my chin brushed my breastbone in surprise at the simplicity of his answer.

  Tucking his phone gently into his back pocket, he offered, “Well, I figured he wasn’t a murderer since he was cooking dinner.”

  I rolled my eyes, walking past him as he shoved away from the wall. “How many awards have you won for your excellence in detective work?”

  “I’m off the clock,” he argued easily, adding a wink when he offered his real reasoning. “I also met him when I went to Alabama.”

  Right. I knew that. The day had scattered my brain.

  “What are you doing here, Hunt?” I asked, pushing through the muck of small talk to the real question and watching my step as I descended the stairs. Clumsiness necessitated concentration. If I didn’t, I’d end up on my ass.

  “Can’t I just come to visit?”

  “No. And apparently you can’t lie well either. How are you making your way on the police force?”

  “The guys don’t have a mother’s intuition,” he responded as we ro
unded the end of the hallway and arrived back in the kitchen.

  “One more for dinner?” Wade asked.

  “We haven’t gotten that far yet,” I replied, skewering my son with a questioning look.

  Hunter didn’t give Wade a second look, instead keeping his keen eyes locked on mine. “There was an out of state car in your driveway. I’m just checking in.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wade nod in approving male solidarity.

  My judgement wasn’t quite that quick.

  “And how did you know this, son?” I asked, trapping him in my gaze with my best look of maternal skepticism. My driveway wasn’t completely visible to passersby.

  “I keep tabs on both you and Haley. You know it, and it’s not gonna change.”

  Now Wade was shaking his head in the negative, surely knowing that Hunter was headed down a dangerous road. He didn’t voice his opinion though. Obviously, he wasn’t suicidal.

  “Hunter Whitfield, I’m still your mother.”

  “Yeah, and I’m still the man of this family,” he shot back, shutting me up in a hurry.

  He was right. Hunter had carried the responsibility of protector nearly his entire life, and while it wasn’t something I would have chosen for him, it was a fact.

  He saw it as his job to protect his mother and sister, and with every breath I fought him, I was making his life harder. As his mom, that was obviously the opposite of my goal.

  Wading into the dark waters of awkward silence like an expert fisherman, Wade muttered about the one thing guaranteed to end any argument.

  Food.

  “So . . . dinner?”

  AT MY PROMPT, BOTH SETS of Whitfield eyes turned on me.

  Both were shrewdly assessing, but only one had to do with the food.

  “Um, what are you making?” Allison asked as I tucked one last Barbecue potato chip into the edge of the sandwich.

  “A cheese sandwich of sorts, I suppose,” I mused aloud, referencing her previously planned dinner.

  She stared back with unconcealed distaste. I clucked, wagging my finger scornfully. “You know, for someone who was going to eat a cheese sandwich anyway, you seem to be judging me awfully harshly.”

  “I’m not judging, I’m just—”

  “For your information, your fridge contains nothing,” I talked over her. “This is what you get. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the grocery store, make you a real dinner. But for now, don’t judge it until you try it.”

  “What’s on it?” she asked slowly as Hunter looked on at our volleying from his silent position in the corner.

  “It’s a grilled cheese with bacon and barbecue chips. Try it.”

  “Who eats something like this?” she asked under her breath, bringing the sandwich slowly to her lips.

  “People in Kennesaw, Georgia,” I deadpanned, having picked up the idea from a visit to Tom and Chee on my way through there one day. I’d been a single man raising a very hungry boy for nearly all of my adult life. I’d had to learn to make things work, and when I couldn’t, steal ideas from other people. Rethinking my answer, I amended, “And several other franchise locations.”

  Opening her mouth wide, she worked one side of the tall sandwich in, following it quickly with the other. At the sound of a small moan, I jerked my eyes to Hunter in self-defense.

  No way in hell, heaven, or earth was I going to let her adult son witness my depraved innate maleness. I wasn’t looking to start something with her romantically. Honestly, I kind of felt as though my opportunity for love in this lifetime had come and gone along with Melly. But that didn’t mean I didn’t find her supremely attractive or that my dick got the “Do Not Engage” memo.

  No, Wade Junior seemed to be the most free thinking he’d been in years, defying my orders and standing at attention at all the publicly unacceptable times.

  Clenching my jaw, I found my normalcy, turning back to the big-eyed beauty and asking, “Is it everything you thought it would be?”

  “Nope,” she disagreed around a mouthful of food. “I thought it would be disgusting, and it’s actually good.”

  I opened my mouth to gloat when Hunter interceded nonchalantly. “I could stay for dinner.”

  Allison rolled her eyes but shuffled her way down the counter and slid half of her sandwich in front of him.

  Totally mother hen.

  Immediately, I scooted toward the bread, took out another two slices, and started the process of making her another one.

  “This is good,” Hunter affirmed over half of his half. The first half had already been demolished. No joke, there one second, gone the next. It was like magic.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Allison chided hypocritically, a barely there smirk indicating that the irony didn’t escape her notice. It was that whole “Do as I say, not as I do” mantra.

  I felt my lips curve upwards in answer. Still though, I said nothing.

  Gooey cheese melted over the sides of the bread quickly, so I didn’t waste time adding the bacon and chips, pulling another paper plate off of the stack, and sliding the new sandwich down in front of her.

  “Oh,” she said in surprise, sitting up straighter and touching just the edge of the paper towel. “No, Wade. You have this one, I’m fine.”

  It was so easy to see that she was used to taking care of everyone, and that, for the most part, they let her. It was the natural order of things, her being a mom with a nurturing spirit. But when it came to me, I didn’t want that for her.

  Whether I was around for a day or a week, I wanted her to know what it felt like to have someone there to take care of her for a change.

  The reasoning of such a strong urge wasn’t easily explainable, but I decided not to look too deeply into it. Women tended to overanalyze relationships. Men did the opposite. In fact, taking a woman’s words at face value is what often got us in trouble.

  “Alli. Eat the sandwich, don’t eat the sandwich. Either way’s fine with me. What’s not fine with me is you not having the option.”

  Heat practically radiated across the counter from the blush of her cheeks, disappearing swiftly behind the veil of her cool, coppery-brown hair.

  Hunter’s mouth worked around the last of his sandwich, and his head swung back and forth between us.

  I studiously avoided his eyes. I didn’t know what the hell was going on either.

  The sound of a phone vibrating on the counter sliced through the tension.

  Reaching out to pick it up and swiping her finger across the screen, Allison read to herself, the soft skin of her lips mouthing along to the words as she read them silently.

  “Sometimes I really don’t understand her,” she said vaguely, setting the phone back where she got it. Thick, manly eyebrows stopped just shy of coating the ceiling as both of us tall men raised them in question.

  Understanding of our silent inquisition didn’t take long to dawn when her no longer downturned eyes met ours.

  “Haley. For some reason, she’s asking me if I’ve tripped over a whip or a flogger yet.”

  Bacon, cheese, chip, and bread chortled in a musical mixture as Hunter coughed on the shock of hearing his mother speak the words ‘whip’ and ‘flogger’ with no preamble. Though, I suppose he knew his sister. So it couldn’t really have been that big of a shock.

  I didn’t personally know what Haley was talking about, but I had no doubt that she did. And that she and Danny were somewhere in their house cackling like a couple of hyenas.

  “Right,” Hunter cleared his throat. “On that note, I’m out.”

  “Where are you headed?” Allison asked, a mother’s curiosity never dead.

  Shrugging nonchalantly, he answered, “Just out with some of the guys.”

  Either she accepted his claim at face value, or she was smart enough not to dispute it.

  As a man, I could tell he was, in fact, headed out, but it was only in an effort to end the night in—and not with the guys.

  Moving to Allison, he kissed he
r on the cheek, wrapped her up in one of the fiercest hugs I’ve ever witnessed (granted, I hadn’t exactly surrounded myself with overly affectionate people), and whispered, “I love you, Mama. You need anything, you call me.”

  She didn’t whisper when she responded, “Your father would be so proud of you.” Adding a wink, she continued, “And he’d still only be your number two fan.”

  “Always a competition,” he mocked with a chuckle.

  “Nope. There’s never any competition. I always win.”

  My thumb worked at the soft cotton paper towel crumpled in my free hand as I smirked at my own browning grilled cheese.

  It was interesting seeing Allison in this light. Honestly, I felt like I was spending time with a completely different woman than the one that had visited my house a couple of months ago. I liked both versions, but this one seemed more relaxed, at home—genuine even. Like maybe because I’d shown up out of the blue, she hadn’t had time to prepare to act like anything other than the simplest form of herself.

  There wasn’t extra makeup on her face, her answers didn’t seem staged or selected based on my preferences, and caring about what I thought hadn’t even entered her mind.

  It was supremely refreshing to see not only this change in her, but the redirection from the normal I’d gotten used to experiencing with every woman.

  The only honest relationship I’d ever had was with Melly, and years of time and reflection had led me to believe maybe even that hadn’t been the case. My feelings for her were very real, as I believe hers were for me, but when I look back all I can seem to remember is the way she embraced my life—not the way I embraced hers. Hobbies of hers got put to the side, pushed back to another time—cancelled all together. At the time, I never recognized it because she was so good at being with me. She smiled and laughed, embraced learning about new things and the knowledge I could provide. And I’d enjoyed teaching her. But I couldn’t remember letting her teach me one, single thing.

  She liked to make me laugh, take me to all the places I wanted to see, and she always had a camera in her hand, taking pictures of every single one of my adventures.

  When I looked back at everything—the sickness, the time I spent fighting to keep her, the time she spent fighting to stay with me, and the completely too short time we had together—what I regretted most is not flipping the goddamn camera around and pointing it at her more often.