by Lola Gabriel
She shrugged the thought away. It was too late to go back and change things now, and she no longer cared one way or the other whether Bastian had ever called her. And when she did occasionally think of him now and felt the butterflies swimming in her tummy at the thought of his piercing green eyes, she told herself it was just nerves, nothing more. And who knew? One day, she might even start to believe that.
8
Bastian answered his cell phone when it rang. It was Oscar. He had been expecting his call. They discussed some pack business and then Bastian asked Oscar if there was anything else.
“Actually, yeah. Are you still looking for that Rachel girl?” Oscar asked.
Bastian felt his stomach turn over. He had been looking for Rachel for two years. He had had the pack search the state, then the country, and then he had even started to send pack members into Canada and Mexico. After eighteen months of searching for Rachel, he had called the search off. As much as he wanted to find her, and perhaps more importantly, find his child, he knew that he was using a lot of the pack’s resources on finding her, and he knew that his senior pack members were starting to get restless about the search. Reluctantly, he’d called it off, telling himself that if Rachel and he were meant to meet again, fate would intervene. Was it possible that was what had happened here?
“Not actively, but I’d still like to find her,” Bastian said. “Why?”
“Right. Hang on,” Oscar said. “I’m going to email you a photo. This woman matches Rachel’s description and a source told me she moved here to Dallas two years ago. That would all line up with when she disappeared from Fredericksburg, right?”
“Right,” Bastian said, hardly daring to hope it could be her after all of this time.
He turned to his computer, anxiously waiting for Oscar’s email to arrive in his inbox. He knew he was likely getting his hopes up over nothing. What were the chances of the girl in the photo actually being Rachel? Still, his senses were jangling and as much as he tried to tell himself not to get his hopes up, it was already too late for that. His hopes had gone up the moment Oscar had said Rachel’s name.
Bastian’s computer gave a soft ping sound and he saw an email drop in from Oscar. His heart racing, he opened it and clicked on the attachment. He waited impatiently for it to open. As it did, Bastian felt his whole body jolt. There was no mistaking the girl in the picture. It was his Rachel.
“It’s her,” he said.
“Do you want me to track her down?” Oscar asked.
Bastian thought for a moment and shook his head.
“No,” he said.
If Oscar approached Rachel, he might spook her and she might flee again. He figured his best chance of meeting his child was to get on a plane and go to her himself.
“I’m going to fly out to Dallas and talk to her myself,” Bastian told Oscar. “When and where was this photo taken?”
“The picture was taken earlier on today. It’s in a small park not far from where Rachel lives. She works in a doctor’s office just up the road from home and unless it’s raining, she walks to and from work, cutting through that park. I’ll send you the address of the park once we end the call,” Oscar said.
“Oscar, how long have you been watching Rachel?” Bastian asked.
Oscar seemed to have a lot of intel on Rachel and Bastian was afraid she would work out that he was following her. He was also kind of pissed off that Oscar had sat on the information for a long time.
“I haven’t been watching her,” Oscar said. “One of my sources brought her to my attention yesterday. He gave me the intel on her route to and from work and I went to the park this morning to snap that picture. Don’t worry. I made damned sure she didn’t see me. I would have called sooner, but I only got back home an hour or so ago and I knew we had this call scheduled anyway.”
“Okay. Thanks, Oscar,” Bastian said.
He ended the call and instantly got online to book a flight. He booked a late morning flight for the next day that arrived Dallas around lunchtime, which would be perfect. He would have time to get checked into a hotel and then go to the park and wait for Rachel to walk through it on her way home. If it was raining, he would wait until a morning or evening when it wasn’t raining and go back again. As much as waiting would kill him, he had waited two years for this moment. Another few days were doable, especially now that he had hope again.
He waited for Oscar to send him the address of the park and then he went online and looked it up on Google maps and booked a hotel close by. He knew the time between now and seeing Rachel again was going to feel like the longest day of his life. God, please don’t be raining tomorrow, he thought to himself.
* * *
Bastian knew he was early as he sat down on a bench in the center of the park, a spot he was sure Rachel would have to pass as she was moving from one gate to the next, but he figured it was better to feel like he was doing something and come to the park now than spend any more time pacing across his hotel room. He had begun to be afraid he would wear out a path in the room’s carpet, he had paced so much.
The park was fairly busy, mostly occupied by parents or nannies of small children. Everywhere he looked, someone was pushing a stroller or clutching the hand of a chubby toddler. It made Bastian wonder where his child was. Did Rachel have a nanny or was the child at daycare somewhere?
A woman with a stroller sat down on the end of the bench Bastian occupied. The stroller faced away from him and the young woman fussed with a blanket inside of it for a moment. Bastian looked at her. She looked young, but not too young for the baby to be hers. She smiled when she saw him looking at her and brushed her red hair back from her eyes.
“Nice day to just sit and enjoy the sun, huh?” she said.
“It sure is,” Bastian smiled.
He turned away, not wanting to get drawn into a conversation and risk missing Rachel. He found himself watching a boisterous group of young boys running around chasing a ball while a harried-looking woman looked on.
“One of them yours?” the woman on the bench asked him, nodding to the small group.
“No,” Bastian said.
He wasn’t going to say more, but the woman frowned at him and he suddenly realized that it might seem a little strange for a childless man to be sitting in a park occupied by so many children, watching a group play like this. He smiled at the woman.
“I’m meeting the wife here from work and then we’re going to pick our son up. The little blond kid over there reminds me of him,” he lied.
The woman smiled and seemed to relax a little bit and Bastian knew he had made the right call.
“How old is yours?” he asked, nodding toward the stroller.
“Oh, she’s just over a year, but she’s not mine. I’m her nanny,” the woman said. The baby inside the stroller began to fuss and the woman flashed him another smile. “Duty calls.”
She leaned down into the stroller and spoke to the baby for a while, but the fussy sounds soon became cries. The woman unclipped the safety harness and lifted the baby out. Bastian glanced across and saw that she was a beautiful baby girl. And that she had his piercing green eyes. He shook his head. It couldn’t be. But somehow, he just knew she was his baby.
His bear stirred inside of him, giving a protective growl, and Bastian knew for sure then that this baby was his daughter. His bear wouldn’t respond like that to anyone who wasn’t either his mate or his own flesh and blood. The baby stopped fussing when the redhead sat her on her lap.
Bastian pulled his gaze away from the baby, but he kept glancing back at her, drawn to her. He smiled when the woman caught him looking.
“She’s beautiful,” he said. “She looks a little older than a year.”
“She’s actually sixteen months,” the woman said.
Bastian nodded and did the mental calculation, confirming what he already knew. This was definitely his baby. His bear was going nuts, demanding he take the baby from the nanny and keep her safe with him. He
pushed his bear down, but the feeling of wanting his baby in his arms remained. He smiled at the woman in what he hoped was a charming manner.
“Can I hold her?” he asked.
The woman looked at him like he had gone mad, and then fear flickered across her face. She jumped to her feet.
“Umm, actually, we’re running late. We really need to go,” she said.
She turned away before Bastian could respond and she practically ran from him. He debated going after her. He could catch her easily enough. He hadn’t meant to scare her and he realized now, too late, that it had been a bad move asking to hold the baby. He wanted to reassure the woman that he meant neither her nor the baby any harm, but he reasoned that if he went chasing after her, he was only going to scare her more. He would never hurt the baby, or indeed anyone who cared for her. He had just wanted to hold his daughter in his arms.
He consoled himself, telling himself that Rachel would be along soon, and then he would be able to meet the baby officially and she would be in his arms soon enough. He glanced at his watch. It was just after five and he figured that Rachel would be along at any moment.
He knew he would have no trouble recognizing her. Even without the photograph Oscar had sent him, Rachel’s face was as clear in his mind as it had been the first day he had met her. Her face was never far from his mind and the mere mention of her name brought it forth every time with startling clarity.
He wondered if she would recognize him. It hardly mattered. She would remember him when he told her who he was. No one would forget the name of the father of their child, even if they chose not to tell him about the child.
Bastian looked in the direction he thought Rachel would come from. After a couple of anxious minutes that felt like hours, hell, weeks, he spotted Rachel. As he saw her, it was like time stood still for a moment. Even in his memory, he hadn’t done her beauty justice. She was as gorgeous, as mesmerizing as ever, and the second Bastian set eyes on her, that feeling that they were connected rushed back to him.
Rachel spotted him at the same moment he spotted her, and he now had no doubts that she recognized him. She stopped walking, her eyes on his, and for a moment, they just stared at each other. Bastian felt a hundred emotions flood through him as he looked into her eyes. He was as much under Rachel’s spell now as he had been two years ago.
The spell was only broken when Rachel turned and ran from him. Bastian recovered himself quickly and jumped up from the bench and began to weave through the crowd. He had lost her once and he wasn’t about to let it happen again.
9
Rachel was walking home from work. She was in no particular hurry. It was a nice, warm day and she was just enjoying the feeling of the sun on her skin, warming her beneath the short sleeves of her blouse. She reached the park and stepped through the gates, wondering if Lena would be here with Stephanie. Sometimes Lena went to the park in the morning and other times, she timed it so that she would be there as Rachel walked through on her way home from work and then they walked the rest of the way home together.
She looked around but she couldn’t spot Lena or her stroller. As her eyes scanned the park, she did a double-take when she spotted a familiar face on a bench. Familiar and yet a face she hadn’t seen in two years and had hoped she never had to see again: Bastian.
For a second, Rachel froze. Her eyes met Bastian’s and despite the fear that flooded her, she couldn’t help but notice the striking color of his eyes, a color she saw every time she looked into Stephanie’s eyes, and the intensity of his gaze. Even after all of this time, she felt as though when Bastian looked at her, he really saw her. It was like he saw through everything and viewed her very soul. Beneath the dread at seeing Bastian sitting there, Rachel felt her body flood with warmth as her mind automatically went back to the night they had spent together.
Rachel wanted to believe so badly that Bastian being here was just a coincidence and this was just a chance encounter, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. She knew why he was here—he was here for her, for Stephanie. He had to be. Why else would he be sitting on a bench in the park she walked through every day? It made no sense that he would be here for any reason other than to wait for her to pass through.
Rachel forced herself to tear her eyes away from Bastian’s and the second she did it, the spell he held her under was broken. She turned and ran blindly, not caring where she was headed, only knowing she had to get away from Bastian. She was flooded with emotions, all of them fighting for her attention, as she ran down a path that wound through flower beds and trees. Rachel hoped the path didn’t lead to a dead end.
She could hear feet pelting the ground behind her and she knew without having to turn around that those feet belonged to Bastian. She had to shake him off, lose him somehow so she could get home without him following her. It wasn’t going to be easy, though. He was already gaining on her.
Rachel tried to push herself to run faster, but her calves were burning and her lungs were screaming already. She managed a burst of extra speed as she realized just how close the footsteps behind her were. She tripped as she ran and she felt herself falling toward the ground, her arms pinwheeling wildly around. Before she reached the ground, strong hands grabbed her around the waist and scooped her up, breaking her fall. Instantly, she felt tingles spreading out through her body where those hands—Bastian’s magic hands—touched her.
She shook her head. How can I feel like this about someone so vile? she thought to herself. She got her feet back beneath herself and began to slap at Bastian’s hands. He pulled his hands from her, but before she could flee again, he grabbed her arm above the elbow. She turned and tried to slap him, but he caught her wrist and held it.
“Rachel, stop it. I only want to talk to you,” Bastian said. “You remember me, don’t you?”
“I… yes, of course I remember you,” Rachel said, stunned into honesty as she caught Bastian’s eye once more. “Let go of me.”
“Promise me you won’t run,” Bastian said. “You’re only going to end up falling and hurting yourself.”
Rachel could see the amusement in his eyes when he said it and she felt anger spark within her. She snatched her arm from Bastian’s grip, but she didn’t attempt to run this time.
“What do you want? Why the hell are you here?” she demanded, forgetting her fear for a moment as her anger burned inside of her.
“I want to talk to you about our child. I’ve been looking for you since the moment I learned you were pregnant,” Bastian said.
Rachel felt her heart starting to race, and this time, it had nothing to do with Bastian’s close proximity to her. How did he know about her pregnancy? How had she let her guard down so much that he had actually been able to track her down after so long? They were questions she didn’t think she’d be able to get the answers to anytime soon. And they weren’t the important question. The important question was how the hell she could get rid of Bastian now and disappear again.
“She’s not your child,” Rachel said. “I was already pregnant the night we hooked up.”
“We both know that’s not true, Rachel,” Bastian said with a smile. “Firstly, if you had been pregnant when we met, I would have sensed the life inside of you. It’s a bear thing. And secondly, you can’t get pregnant by a human and the bears in the state are all part of my pack. Do you really think I wouldn’t have found out by now if one of them had fathered a child?”
“You’re wrong,” Rachel insisted.
Even to her own ears, her argument didn’t sound convincing. It wasn’t even an argument. It sounded like something a kindergarten kid would say when they had been caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing.
“I’ve seen the baby, Rachel. I know she’s mine,” Bastian said.
That scared Rachel more than him finding her. How had he already seen Stephanie? What the hell was Lena thinking? Did he know where she lived, go to her door, and get invited in by Lena for a cup of coffee to be introduced to h
er daughter? Surely not.
She turned and started to run away from Bastian again, already planning her next move. She would have to leave the state, and this time, she couldn’t tell anyone where she was going. She wouldn’t be able to keep her job and transfer branches. She would have to find something else. Maybe she should leave the country.
The thoughts tumbled through her brain in a mishmash of worry. Her main worry right now, though, was more immediate. How the hell could she get away from Bastian? She hoped she had taken Bastian by surprise enough that she could put some distance between them and get back to the crowded park. Surely he wouldn’t try to grab her in front of witnesses. She had barely covered seven steps when Bastian grabbed her again. He spun her around to face him.
“Stop running from me, Rachel,” he said. “Why are you so afraid of me?”
Rachel thought she saw a look of hurt on Bastian’s face as he asked her why she was afraid of him. It softened her slightly, but she reminded herself that he was a monster who used women as breeding machines against their will and any sympathy she felt for him vanished.
He was looking at her, waiting for an answer. Rachel didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t try to deny that she was afraid of him. It was written all over her face and she kept trying to run from Bastian. But she couldn’t tell him what she knew. That would only give him a reason to get rid of her. In the end, she stayed silent and just shook her head.
“Listen to me,” Bastian said. He released her arm and touched her chin, gently pushing her head up and forcing her to look into his face. “You have nothing to fear from me, Rachel. And I have no idea why you suddenly doubt that. But we do need to talk. Have a coffee with me in the café back there.”