by Terry Spear
"I'm going to take a swab of your DNA to send and process it on a rush order, and I'll order the birth certificates, same situation—police business."
"Thanks, Andy."
“Craig said he’ll take you all to the cabin as soon as you’re ready to leave. We need to do this before the men are released,” Andy repeated, sounding worried.
“All right. Let me tell Robyn. Do you want to come in?”
“No, I have to fill out paperwork at the office and get this other stuff going to prove you're the boys' father. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Thanks, Andy, for everything.”
Andy frowned at him and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t let her get away this time. You have a hard enough time finding a woman you’re interested in, and it’s all because of Robyn.” Then he chuckled under his breath and headed out to his car.
Edward locked the door and went down the hallway to the bedrooms. “Robyn, it’s safe to come out now. If you didn’t hear, Andy says my cousin Craig will take us to the snow leopards' cabin, where we can stay in relative safety.”
Robyn opened the door to the bedroom, looking concerned. “Now?”
“Yeah. We don’t want to wait for those men to be released from lockup. They might return here looking for you again.”
“All right. I heard Andy say he would take care of the verification concerning your relation to the boys.”
"Yeah, he can expedite it through law enforcement channels."
“We have to leave again?” Garrett asked, sounding dismayed.
“You’ll get to fly in a seaplane this time,” Edward said.
The kids brightened at the suggestion. Edward called his aunt and uncle to let them know what they were doing, and then called Craig to tell him they’d meet him at the dock where his cousin would take them up in his seaplane.
But they needed to go now before anyone else showed up to keep Robyn and the boys from going anywhere.
IT WAS about an hour’s flight to the snow leopards' cabin's location and the boys were really excited about flying. They'd never been on a plane before, let alone a seaplane. They finally landed on the frozen water, the seaplane wearing skis, and parked. With their enhanced polar bear night vision and a couple of flashlights, they could see the snow leopards' three-bedroom cabin situated in the trees, the roof covered with snow, the trees sheltering the cabin somewhat from the wind. Once they unloaded the seaplane, they trudged through the snow, carrying their bags, groceries—not wanting to eat all of the Wright brothers' food—and other supplies they might need, to the log cabin.
The whole time, Edward was thinking about Robyn and the boys and what he could do to protect them next. He was determined to learn what he could about her, her situation, and how he could rekindle her interest in him, so he could claim her for his own like he'd wanted to do six years ago. He’d tried to move on with his life and even dated several times, but his thoughts had always returned to her and wanting to be with her. Now that they had two sons together, there was even more of a reason for them being together.
Craig helped carry some of the groceries through the snowdrifts to the cabin, and then Edward walked him back out to his seaplane to say goodbye.
“Let me know if you need anything. We have some bad weather coming in, so it might be a while before I can return.”
“Okay, will do.” That was the thing about them being polar bears. The weather didn’t affect them. This kind of weather was perfect for running in their fur coats. He said goodbye, watched his cousin leave, then turned to trudge back through the deep snow to the cabin.
Edward even wondered how he could get some alone time with Robyn, if she was so inclined, now that they had the twin boys chaperoning them.
He opened the door to the cabin, walked into the foyer, closed the outer door, then opened the inner door, and stepped inside. The boys were in their bedroom, unpacking their bags, claiming drawers in an oak chest.
Robyn had removed her parka, gloves, hat, and scarf and was trying to start a fire. Edward came over to help her, crouching beside her, breathing in her she-bear scent that was all Robyn, like perfume to his senses.
“If you’ve got this, I’m going to put the boys to bed. After all we've been through today, and as late as it is, it’s way past their bedtime,” she said.
The boys came into the living room, rubbing their eyes and yawning and didn’t even object.
“That’s a good idea.” Edward thought of offering to help her put them to bed, to take on a more fatherly-role—he really wanted to be part of the boys' life in every way—but he didn't want to intrude after they'd just learned he was their dad, and after everything else that had happened in their lives today. He was sure Robyn had her own way of doing things. He hoped one of these days he would have some routines of his own with the boys.
He hoped Robyn would return to the living room to visit with him before she retired for the night also. But after all the stress and exercise she and the boys had today while trying to reach White Bear on foot, and the situation with the men from Yellowknife trying to track her down, she might be so worn out that she would be ready for bed too.
He watched her retreat down the hall to the first of the bedrooms and enter the room while he continued to make the fire. Then he removed his cold weather gear and put it away.
“Time for bed boys,” Robyn said.
This time they groaned, but they were opening drawers again. Boots dropped on the wooden floor, and he was sure they were removing their clothes and climbing into pj’s after that. The mattress squeaked and Robyn said, “I’ll read you a story, and then it’s time to go to sleep.”
Edward smiled, thinking back to his and Rob’s own childhood and how one story would never be enough. Unable to stay away, he headed down the hall to the bedrooms and peeked into the room where Robyn and the boys had gone, so that he could watch her read to them.
Robyn was sitting between the two boys on the bed, each of them looking at the book, until Edward poked his head into the room.
They all smiled at him. "Do you want to join us?" she asked.
"Yeah," the boys said, as if this was something new and different and they were excited about it.
Edward sat down on the bed with them, glad she had included him in the bedtime routine. He did wonder if Callahan had read to Garrett and Bryan too.
After she read "The Night Before Christmas" to the boys, they wanted her to read them another book. Only this time she gave Edward the honor.
He couldn't have been more thrilled. Once he had read them "Goodnight Pippin," they wanted them to read a third book to them. He knew the drill, keep asking for more stories until Mom, or Dad, said enough! What was it with kids wanting to put off the inevitable?
When the third request came to read another story, he smiled to himself. Was Robyn going for it, or would she stand her ground?
She smiled at the boys. “Nighty-night, boys. You can sleep in tomorrow, if you’d like. We don’t have anywhere to go for the moment. Don’t leave the cabin at any time though, unless either Edward or I am with you. We don’t want to lose you in the vast wilderness out here.”
“All right,” both boys said.
Edward hoped they were better at listening to directions than he and his brother had been at that age. If Edward and Rob had woken early, and to avoid waking their parents, they would have gone outside and explored the wilderness. He was a really light sleeper though. He hoped if they did something like that, he would hear them and would go with them to make sure they were chaperoned.
Robyn and he left the bed and then closed the bedroom door and headed to the living room where he took a seat on the couch. She sat on a chair facing him, showing she didn’t want to take up where they’d left off so long ago, snuggling together, loving each other. At least not right this moment.
Not wanting to leave it at that and hoping his encouragement would convince her to consider courting him again, Edward left the couch, took her h
and, and pulled her into his arms. “God, you don’t know how long I’ve wanted to see you.”
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t care anything about the grudges my family was holding against yours. The feuding went back generations over a goldrush claim and territorial rights. It had nothing to do with us. When…when I met you—”
“You fell in love with me.” She had to have. Edward had fallen head over heels in love with her. They had been inseparable. Until that fateful day that her brother had told him to quit seeing her and Edward wouldn’t do as he commanded. Though Edward suspected, Butch would have tried to kill him anyway. As bad as it had been, at least only Butch had come to fight Edward, and none of the rest of her brothers had been there. If they had been, Edward would have been the dead man in that fight. Robyn and Edward’s three-day weekend retreat had never happened, and instead, Robyn had left him behind—he had thought forever.
She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her tears away. “I…I didn’t want to cause discord for you again.”
“You came through White Bear for a reason. You could have taken a couple of different routes. Certainly, you went a long way out of your way by traveling to White Bear. After you arrived in town, you could have eaten somewhere else. Other restaurants were closer to where your truck broke down. You came to my aunt and uncle’s tavern because you hoped to get in touch with me. You didn't want to just tell me about the boys. You wanted to know if we could make it together.” He was hopeful that was the reason she had done so. He'd never stopped loving her and hoped she felt the same for him.
ROBYN WAS NO LONGER A SINGLE, carefree mother, but a widowed mother of two. But the boys were Edward's and she wanted to be with him in the worst way tonight. To see if they could make this work between them again like it did in the beginning. "Tell me we need to take this slowly between the two of us."
"Hell no, unless you need us to." Edward hesitated, waiting for her answer, but she only smiled, not wanting to wait, and he smiled back, then led her into one of the bedrooms and locked the door.
She hoped this wasn't a mistake, rushing into this, instead of taking it a little slower.
When he began kissing her, it was like no time had passed between them. The lust and love spilled into their lives all over again. He was kissing her like he loved her, and she was kissing him back with the same rampant, loving urgency. Only this time, they had two little boys in the other room and she didn't want to disturb them for anything! Thankfully, Bryan and Garrett were heavy sleepers once they fell asleep.
Edward quickly began stripping her out of her clothes as if he was afraid that he was going to lose her or that she was going to change her mind about this. Unless they had a siege from her brothers-in-law at the cabin, or their sons made a sudden appearance at the bedroom door, she wasn't stopping where this was going.
She was trying to remove Edward's clothes just as fast, not because she thought he might change his mind. She knew that wasn't about to happen. And she loved him for it. She couldn't help worrying about the boys though. They understood about Mommy sleeping with Daddy when it came to Callahan. Hopefully, they would realize it was all right for Mommy to sleep with their real daddy.
Edward stopped long enough to look over her naked body, her hips a little wider from childbirth, her body not as trim as it was before she had the children. His hands swept over her breasts with a gentle caress as he took his fill of her. "Beautiful," he murmured.
Likewise, she was looking him over, admiring the way his muscles were bigger, more ripped, really hot. "Sexy." She ran her hands over his hard abs. "Just for me."
"You better believe it." His voice deep and lustful, he pulled her in tight against him, sharing his heat with her, the contact between them making her body ache for him in all the right places.
And then he moved her against the blue and green, flannel-covered bed. But when she sank into the down-filled feather bed, he covered her with his body. She felt as though she was adrift in a blanket of warm clouds. And all his.
He began kissing her, rubbing his body against hers in a seductive way that had her body reacting with enthusiasm, her nipples tingling with the friction of his chest against hers, his cock making her wet between her thighs, needy, wanting his penetration in the worst way. His mouth latched onto hers with hungry desperation as if he'd been starved for this all along—this with her, not with any other woman. She had to admit she felt the same way about him. No one would ever measure up to him.
She kissed him back just as desperately, just as hungrily, wanting to taste and feel and smell him—to cherish the new memories, and the old, a reminder of how happy they had been before. But she was eager to make lots of new memories, years of new memories, though she told herself she needed to take it one day at a time. One moment at a time.
Their kisses slowed, their tongues touching and tasting, and enjoying each other. Their hearts were racing, and they were breathing hard.
He was still pressing his rigid cock against her when she lifted her leg around him and rubbed the back of his with the sole of her foot. He groaned and started kissing her again, ramping up her need to have him deep inside her. She felt cherished and desirable as much as she cherished and desired him. Then he moved his mouth across her jaw and his warm lips caressed her neck. She sighed with heady expectation, right before he latched onto a nipple and sucked. She about came undone. She groaned and he began to caress her other breast before he turned his attention to that nipple and took it in his mouth and tongued it with delicious strokes.
But when he moved his hand lower and began stroking the swollen, sensitive flesh between her legs, the tension inside her built, the need to find release escalating. "God, keep going," she breathed out, conscious of her sons in the room down the hall, tuckered out, thank goodness, and sleeping soundly, but she didn't want to push their luck either.
His eyes darkened with desire, Edward smiled and continued to stroke her as if he had no intention of giving up until he had her moaning with climax. Which was a damn good thing! His strokes continued until he dipped a finger into her and she was so close to the pinnacle she could scream. But she couldn't, or she would terrify the boys. Edward swirled his finger around inside her, driving it as deep as he could. She felt the release coming and grabbed ahold of his hips and held on as the climax crashed through her. She groaned out loud.
"Are you ready?" Edward asked, his voice husky and strained.
Robyn was nodding. "Yeah, yeah, yeah…go ahead."
"Good, because I can't hold off any longer." And that was a promise.
"Good, because I don't want you too," Robyn breathed out.
Edward began kissing her again, rubbing his cock against her, before he slid into her wet sheath and began to thrust. And began to kiss her deeply. God, he'd had dreams of being with Robyn like this forever, wanting to wake up to her in his arms, to sleep the rest of the night through with her head resting against his chest, her leg crossed over his in a possessive way. He still couldn't believe she was with him like this, wanting to renew their relationship without reservation. He thanked his lucky stars he hadn't ever found anyone else, secretly hoping someday she would leave her family and come back to him.
It was as though they had never been apart. He knew her every torturous-pleasurable sigh, the look she had when she was about to come, the climax when it hit, the way she would openly receive him, and thrust against him to participate, to love him like he loved her. Despite being swept away with being with her like this again, a nagging thought tried to enter his brain, and he was trying hard not to think about it—how did she get pregnant the first time when she had been on birth control pills? Still, she'd never had any children with Callahan the six years she'd been with him and that gave Edward some peace of mind. He concentrated on the pleasure he felt with being embedded in her. He hadn't lied about being so close to coming, just by rubbing against her initially, and then making her come. It had been too long for him
, and she did this to him. Turned the heat up and he was on fire. Every thrust brought him closer to the end. And yet, he couldn't help thinking of it being just the beginning for them. He just had to make sure that it was and that she didn't change her mind about being with him long-term.
He kissed her again, his eyes closed as he felt her muscles tightening around his cock, the scent of her sweet and tangy scent filling his senses right before he came. He groaned long and low and she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again. She was beautiful and sexy, and he wanted to claim her for his own now and forever.
He slid off her and pulled her into his arms. He hoped she stayed with him tonight and didn't leave to go to the other bedroom, worried about what their sons would think if they got scared and went looking for her and didn't find her in her bed.
She didn't make a move to leave, and he cuddled with her, glad the punch that her brother-in-law had given him hadn't bruised his ribs like he thought it might. He kissed her on the top of her head, loving the feel of her in his arms. He thought back to the business of her getting pregnant and he wondered again how that had happened. He didn't want to spoil the moment, and instead tried to sleep, but lying here with Robyn in his arms like they'd done so many times so long ago, he couldn't stop thinking about how he had to convince her to stay with him for good this time.
THAT NIGHT, Edward had worried so much about Robyn's family, her in-laws, and convincing her to stay with him, that he had been awake for a long time. Not to mention Robyn had stirred and he'd made love to her again. Because of that, he slept in later than he usually did in the morning. But he swore he heard something that had woken him. He lay in bed for a few minutes, listening to see if he could hear it again, to determine what it was. Robyn was still sound asleep after all their lovemaking last night.
This time of year, it was dark still. He realized it was after nine in the morning, but something had disturbed his sleep. He slipped out from underneath Robyn and the quilt and blankets, trying not to disturb her, opened the door, and walked to the guest room where the boys were staying. Opening the door, he discovered they weren't in bed. A bit of panic crept in and he hurried to check the room where Robyn had planned to sleep, just in case the boys had gotten scared and thought to join her in bed. They weren't in there either.