Jason scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s the only word she knows, and believe me, she wears it out.”
“All babies start with dada,” I said.
“Yeah, but, you know. Jase. Juh-juh-jase. How hard is that?”
Eric stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “Face it, man. She just likes me better.”
“I’ll show you who she likes,” Jason muttered.
I laughed and the nerves slid away as if they’d never been.
Eric and Jason’s bedroom was next. It was huge, taking up the space between Willow’s bedroom and the living room and then some, as far as I could tell. A king-sized bed with a plain, midnight blue comforter occupied the right half of the room. A door set to one side of the bed opened into a bathroom. Two doors on the left side of the room, one on either side of a mirrored bureau, appeared to lead into closet space.
“This used to be two bedrooms.” Eric pointed to linear scuff marks running the width of the ceiling. “We knocked out a wall, closed in that side, and turned it into a walk-in closet.”
“We were aiming for three bedrooms to keep up appearances,” Jason said. I raised an eyebrow and he added, “So people could pretend the three of us weren’t in a polyamorous relationship. After… Well, after, that seemed kinda pointless.”
“One bedroom is all the three of us will ever need.” Eric’s voice was firm, uncompromising. “When your control is certain, you’re moving in with us. I’ve already told Elizabet.”
That was news to me. “Maybe I like living there.”
Jason snorted. “Yeah, right. You really enjoy being away from us?”
No, I didn’t. Even before I’d known about Willow, I’d grown tired of being apart from my husbands. Now, with her a reality and not a haunting memory of what could’ve been? I couldn’t imagine remaining at Elizabet’s for one second more than I had to. There was just one problem with that scenario.
“What about feeding?” I asked.
Eric smiled, slow and sensual. “We’ve got that covered.”
Jason nudged my arm with his. “Come on. Lots more show and tell.”
The closed door in the living room led into a small study containing two desks, each loaded with books and papers scattered around powered down laptops. Shelving ran the entire length of the far wall, filled to the brim with books. A playpen was set up in the middle of the floor between the two desks, a fluffy yellow blanket draped over one side, balls of various shapes and makes scattered across the bottom.
Eric jerked his head toward a door on the left that should’ve led into the master bedroom. “Through here.”
He opened the door, and I was surprised to see a set of steps leading down into a basement.
“Playroom,” Jason said, and from the eager note in his voice, I didn’t think he was talking about a place for Willow.
Chapter Two
Eric flipped on the stairwell light and led the way, excitement vibrating from him. “Soon as little bit there starts to walk, we’re putting up safety gates on all the doors, including this one.”
“We keep it locked most of the time, but if she were to open it…” Jason shrugged. “Better not to take a chance.”
A knot of something, not resentment or anger, but dark nonetheless, tightened in my gut. “Y’all seem to have everything under control.”
Jason brushed a kiss over my forehead. “She needs you, too, Gigi. Trust me.”
He patted my bottom, scooting me toward the door. I followed Eric down, Jason close behind me, and stopped two steps away from Eric, who stood in a tiny landing in front of a closed, solid steel door.
He twisted the levered handle serving as a doorknob and pushed the door wide. “This used to be a bomb shelter. That’s why we bought this house. Safest place here, if you need to hide.”
“Why would I?” I asked.
“We’re vampires, sweetheart,” he said gently, as if that were reason enough.
He disappeared through the opening. I stepped down onto the landing and into what looked like an ordinary bedroom, except for the starkness of the plain concrete walls and floors. As in the master bedroom, a king-sized bed occupied most of the space, its comforter blood red. Small black area rugs covered the floor on either side. A single nightstand was placed to one side, its spare surface holding a baby monitor. The only other furniture in the room was an antique armoire that was nearly as tall as Jason. It was wooden, wormy chestnut maybe? The sides were made of one plank each, no seams, no joints. I ran a hand along the edge, testing the smooth finish.
“That’s where we keep the toys and, er, supplies.” Eric’s hands had found their way into his pants pockets again. He glanced at Willow. “For, um, you know.”
I jiggled her, shifting her to my other arm. She was heavier than she looked, but I wasn’t ready to give her up, not just yet. “I think I get the drift. So this is where I’ll bring Nathaniel?”
“Us first.” Jason stepped up behind me and nuzzled my neck, his breath warm on my skin. “Us first a lot.”
I turned around and smiled at him, and noticed a door in the wall beside the steps. “What’s that?”
“Emergency storage.” Jason reached one long arm out and opened the door. “Diapers, formula, extra food and water, clothes. A playpen, just in case.”
I peeked inside and goggled. A narrow room lay beyond the doorway, appearing to run the entire length of that side of the house. Another door was placed in the left-hand side of the wall. Sturdy wire-rack shelving ran down both sides of the room beyond the door. The side on the right was mostly full and held everything Jason had named and then some.
“Are y’all planning on hibernating down here?” I asked.
Eric’s body bumped into my side, sandwiching me and Willow between him and Jason. “It’s just a precaution.”
“Some precaution,” I murmured. “What are you expecting?”
“A war. Plus, it’s handy when we find something on sale.” Eric kissed the side of my neck, lingering a moment. “Come on. Still have to show you the kitchen, and then supper for everybody, bath for little bit, and maybe a movie, if you’re up to it.”
Family time. I was up for that. God, was I ever.
The kitchen was a sadly outdated square with a breakfast nook attached to one end and a sliding glass door in between. A tiny, round table barely big enough to seat four was positioned on that side, three chairs and a highchair squeezed in around it.
Jason grabbed the high chair and hefted it high. “Soon as we can, we’re expanding the kitchen into the breakfast nook, updating all the appliances, and getting rid of the fake paneling.”
“Not to mention this poor linoleum.” Eric toed a piece of duct tape holding a ripped section together. “It was like this when we bought it. Since the kitchen was functional, we started on the bedrooms first.”
“Bedroom was definitely more important,” Jason said, grinning.
I rolled my eyes. “You mean s-e-x was more important.”
He dropped a kiss on my forehead as he passed by, heading into the formal dining room just off the kitchen. “Same thing.”
Eric patted my bottom, scooting me out of the way, and I retreated to the breakfast nook. Willow stuck her finger in her mouth and grabbed a handful of my hair. “Da da da.”
I winced and pried her fingers away. “No, Willow. No hair pulling.”
“No,” she said, short and clear, then she giggled and pulled my hair, her chubby face stretched into a wide grin. “No no no.”
Jason stepped back into the kitchen and shook his head. “Great. She learned another word.”
“Y’all don’t tell her no?” I asked.
“Oh, all the time.” Eric pulled a cling-wrapped plate of raw hamburger patties out of the fridge and nudged the door closed with his hip. “She pretty much ignores us.” He slid past us and out the sliding door into the backyard.
I sidestepped out of the way. �
��You have to be firm.”
Jason snickered.
“Not like that, dingbat.” I snagged Willow’s hand and looked her straight in her impossibly blue eyes. “No, Willow. Pulling hair is bad.”
She let go and stared back. I tugged her hand gently away from my hair, and was unsurprised when her lower lip trembled and fat tears welled up in her eyes. Jason stepped forward, his expression concerned, and I put my back to him. Willow and I had to work this out now. I had no intention of allowing my daughter the upper hand where discipline was concerned.
“Cut it out, Willow,” I said, keeping my voice soft and even. “Come on now. Crying won’t get you out of trouble.”
The tears dried abruptly, replaced by a mutinous glare, as if she’d understood exactly what I’d said. I chuckled and pressed a kiss to her tiny, upturned nose. “That’s the spirit, sweetie. Mama loves you.”
Willow buried her face in my throat. A wave of emotion poured over me and I staggered into Jason. He caught me around the waist, steadying me as the emotion faded.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “What was that?”
“Willow.” He rested his chin on top of my head and wrapped his arms around both of us. “She seems to understand everything we say, or at least everything we feel. It’ll get worse when you bond with her, but you’ll get used to it.”
I twisted around and gazed up at him. “You’re not talking about the mother-child bond, are you?”
“No, Gigi, I’m not.”
I turned back around, nestling in Jason’s embrace, and patted Willow’s back. “So she picks up on our emotions and reacts to those, not our words.”
“That’s what we think. She’s really…” He drew in a breath and exhaled it on a noisy sigh. “There’s not a lot of precedence for her. It’s not like we didn’t look. Eric’s a whiz at research and vampires loyal to the queen and Elizabet searched their personal libraries for months looking for anything that would help us care for her.”
“But you didn’t find anything,” I guessed.
“Not a lot.” He rubbed his chin over the top of my head and tightened his arms around us. “We were kinda hoping for another kid, but if we can’t figure out how to take care of her, well.”
My heart stuttered to a halt, then thumped into a racing gallop. “Another child? With who?”
“You, baby. Who else?”
“But I’m…dead.”
He threw his head back and laughed, long and hard. Willow drew back and said softly, “Da da da.” I knew exactly what she was talking about. Jason had definitely lost his marbles this time.
He finally calmed down and pulled me into a smacking kiss. “You’re not dead, Gigi. Your body’s just different.”
“But I’m a vampire.”
“It’s physiological. You’re still very much alive. You still ovulate, though it’s harder and…complicated.” He shook his head. “Eric knows more about it than I do.”
The sliding glass door slid back, carrying with it the scent of grilling hamburgers. Eric stepped inside and closed the screen, leaving the door open. “Eric knows more about what?”
“Girl vampire stuff,” Jason said.
Eric scowled. “You weren’t supposed to tell her we wanted another child until we were all together.”
“But that was the original plan,” I said. Or it had been, back before Selena’s attack. “Maybe I want to try, when Willow’s older.”
Jason and Eric exchanged a long look, and I sighed. I hated it when they did that, talking to each other mentally as if I weren’t even there. Sometimes, I could catch what they were saying, but a lot of the time, like now, I didn’t catch a thing. I clamped my lips together into a thin, hard line and stared them down. Either we were a family or we weren’t, and if we were, they needed to start including me.
“We’re not shutting you out, Gigi, not on purpose,” Eric said. “It’ll just be a lot harder for you to have a healthy pregnancy now, that’s all, and we’re not sure we want you to risk it.”
“We’ve got time to think about it,” Jason added. “Years and years before we have to make a decision.”
“And Willow needs to grow up some.” Eric opened the oven door and peered inside, closed it tight. “Supper won’t be much longer, if y’all want to get her started.”
Jason slid a glance at me and waggled his eyebrows. “This should be fun.”
While Jason heated food for her, I settled Willow into her high chair at the table in the formal dining room and played with her toes, counting piggies. She giggled and wriggled and pointed them at me, her wide smile showing the tiny nubs of two front teeth, the tips barely breaking her gums.
Jason brought a plate of food in for her filled with mashed potatoes, green peas, and diced carrots. He set it on the tray of her high chair and straddled a chair across from us.
I grabbed a bib from the stack on the hunt board placed along one side of the room and snapped it around Willow’s neck. “No meat?”
“We’ll give her a little of ours. Pediatrician said we could, as long as the portions are small and soft enough for her to gum.” He nodded at the tray. “Eric refuses to give her baby food. Says it’s full of processed crap, even the organic stuff that isn’t supposed to be, so one of us cooks for her when we’re not having something he thinks is nutritious enough for her.”
Willow banged her feet against her high chair, her gaze on her plate. She picked up a single pea with thumb and forefinger, and placed it carefully in her mouth.
Was she even old enough to feed herself? Did they mix blood in with her food to satisfy her need for it, or did they feed it to her separately?
I had a million questions, all of them tumbling through my head so fast, it felt like a whirling dervish was spinning around inside my skull. One thought parted the sea of questions, making its way to the forefront of my mind.
I’ve missed so much of her life, so much.
Supper went better than Jason had hinted it might. We ate the hamburgers and sweet potato fries Eric had fixed, and chatted aimlessly about Jason and Eric’s school progress, the upcoming basketball season, and Willow. She chattered happily as she ate, offering each of us treasures from her plate, held between tiny, not quite nimble fingers.
Later, Jason cleaned up the meal, and Eric and I stripped Willow down and bathed her. Well, I bathed her. Eric sat on the closed commode and read to her from, of all things, one of his physics journals.
“She doesn’t understand that,” I pointed out.
“Not yet,” he agreed mildly, and continued to read, his words low and even and soothing.
By the time Willow was clean and dry and redressed in pink pajamas, Jason had put Monsters, Inc., into the DVD player and had it ready to watch. We settled onto the sofa together, me holding Willow in my lap, Eric and Jason on either side of us, with the lights turned low and a light blanket over Willow. Half an hour in, she crawled out of my lap into Jason’s and fell asleep, her head resting on his abdomen.
I leaned my head on his shoulder and watched her chest rise and fall with each breath she took, measuring them the way only a mother does. Eric’s hand found mine and he leaned into me. “She’s beautiful, Gigi, just like her mama.”
I squeezed his hand and sighed happily. “Y’all have done a great job with her.”
“We’ve tried,” he said, and we watched the rest of the movie in silence, content to be a family while we could.
Chapter Three
Jason brought my overnight bag in. With him and Eric around, I could easily stay two to three days without needing additional sources of blood, so Elizabet had encouraged me to extend my visit as long as my control held. It would hold. The shadows would simply have to wait until another day to torment my mind.
I stood next to Willow’s crib, watching her sleep, storing up each sighing breath for the days ahead when I would inevitably leave.
Eric slipped his arms around my waist and rubbed his cheek along my neck. “She’s not going an
ywhere.”
“I know.”
“Contrary to what Jason might’ve said, she’s not gonna sprout horns or anything either.”
I laughed softly and turned in his embrace, facing him. “He didn’t mention horns, though there might’ve been a reference or two to evil physics geniuses.”
“Hey, I resemble that remark.” He pulled me in close, bumping our hips together, and his eyes dropped to my mouth. “So. The kids are in bed, the moon’s out.”
“We only have one kid.”
“Shush. You’re ruining the moment.”
I grinned. “Ok. Jason can be the other one.”
Eric’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “And here I was, about to suggest a ménage.”
“In that case…”
He lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me softly, hesitantly. “You taste so good.”
His breath feathered over my mouth. I tangled my fingers in the soft ends of his hair and pulled him back down, molding my lips to his for the first time in days. Years, maybe. Each time he and Jason left me, I missed them more and more. God, how I wanted to be with them all the time, every day, caring for them and Willow, loving them the way a woman was meant to cherish her family.
Eric backed me slowly through the doorway and into his and Jason’s bedroom, kissing me as his hands yanked my t-shirt out of the waistband of my jeans. I need you, Gianna.
I know, Eric. I know.
I needed him, too, needed him so much.
The backs of my thighs hit the edge of the bed and I toppled, taking Eric with me. He rolled, breaking the kiss, and landed on his back with me sprawled over him. I pulled my knees in and straddled him, leaning over him, my face inches from his. My hands sunk into the mattress on either side of his head. The room was dark, the thin moonlight streaming through the open windows the only relief from the shadows. I studied his features, the soft glow emanating from his eyes, the hollowed planes of his cheeks, the unruly strands of hair that never, no matter what he did, stayed where he wanted them to.
I traced a finger along his temple, brushed his hair off his forehead. “Thank you for letting me come.”
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