The Billionaire Dragon Shifter's Baby: BBW Paranormal Romance (Gray's Hollow Dragon Shifters Book 5)

by Zoe Chant

  Teddy looked around as if he felt her gaze, and he came to her side, tugging her close against his body. Amy couldn’t help smiling up at him, feeling the warmth of his closeness, the frisson of heat under that. He kissed her softly.

  “You’re awfully quiet. Everything okay?”

  “Just remembering,” she said, looking around the shop, but she yawned on the end of the words and looked up at him again with a rueful smile. “And tired.”

  Teddy smiled in agreement and rubbed his eyes. “I’m starting to see what all the fuss is about with babies and sleep, yeah. And Sophia’s a month old already—Cara and Gus both said the first few weeks were the hardest with Elena. We kind of got a head start with this one.”

  Amy nodded, not troubling to explain how tired she’d been for how long. Teddy leaned in, his lips almost against her ear as he murmured, “But I guess we’ll get the whole experience with the next one, huh?”

  Amy pulled back, feeling a rollercoaster thrill of excitement and scary anticipation.

  “I mean, if you want to, when you’re ready,” Teddy said quickly. “No rush.”

  But I’d really like to have one with you, he added silently.

  Amy smiled up at him and answered back the same way. One? You want a whole mansion-full, don’t you.

  Well, being one of six worked all right for me. And you have brothers and sisters, you like having a big family, don’t you?

  When I was young I wanted twelve, Amy thought before she could stop herself, and Teddy’s eyes lit up before Amy could add that she’d grown up since then and realized that she would probably never be able to afford—or find time for—more than one or two, when she was too busy taking care of other people’s babies to even find a guy to have her own with.

  But then along came Sophia and Teddy.

  “Let’s start with Sophia,” she said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  “Of course,” Teddy said immediately. “Of course. We’ve got plenty of time. Our whole lives.”

  “Speaking of time,” Gran said, making Amy and Teddy both look up sharply. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen my granddaughter. I think I’d like to have a little time to catch up with her. Teddy, why don’t you take Sophia and make sure she’s met all the Grays in town?”

  Teddy looked to Amy first. Amy nodded a quick agreement, touching the pendant that had been her gran’s gift from a dragon. There were things she wanted to talk with her grandmother about—wanted to ask—without Teddy listening.

  Teddy nodded and picked up Sophia. He gathered up the diaper bag and a little posy Gran had put together for the baby, and kissed Amy again. “Just call when you want me.”

  I’ll be here, he added silently.

  Amy nodded, going up on her toes to kiss him again. I know.

  He laughed a little against her lips and let himself out. Amy turned to meet her gran’s eyes.

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re doing on that side of the counter, Amy McCullough.”

  Amy grinned and hurried around to the working side.

  “I remember how I used to help you,” Amy said, looking around at the order slips tacked neatly on the wall, the stock ledger still written on paper in her grandmother’s hand, the cash register she had occasionally been allowed to operate. “Or—well, I don’t know if I was really any help, I suppose.”

  “Of course you were,” Gran said briskly. “Once you’d learned how. You always could do whatever you set your mind to. Your parents worried when you wanted to go into social work, and I told them, that girl knows her mind. When she sets herself to do something, she finds a way to do it.”

  Amy winced. “I, um. I actually...”

  “I have eyes, I know you’re not at work right now,” Gran said. “Your mother told me weeks ago about you taking some leave. And well you should—you’re no use to anyone if you work yourself into a grave. Doesn’t mean you haven’t done good work the last two years, and doesn’t mean you won’t do more when you go back to it.”

  Amy nodded, and touched the ring on her finger. She finally said out loud what she’d barely let herself think about. “If I go back.”

  Gran frowned. “Teddy wants you to quit?”

  Amy spread her hands. “This is Teddy’s home. He’s talking about house hunting, introducing Sophia to his family... I’m guessing there’s not a lot of call for social work in Gray’s Hollow.”

  “Mm, well, there’s work everywhere,” Gran said. “But not much gets done around here the way you’ve been doing it—folks go to the Gray for that, and Gus knows his duty. He and Cara manage things, mostly, or it gets sorted out before it goes that far because people around here know he’ll do it for them if they don’t.”

  Amy nodded. Cara had said a few things, in explaining that Gus used to be mayor like his father but wasn’t anymore—it’s like he’s the king, and the mayors are prime minister—that hinted at it. In a town like this, where everyone knew everyone and looked out for everyone—and was related to everyone—there was a lot of safety net. Add to that a local feudal chief who was literally a dragon, and there wasn’t much point in trying to formalize the work Amy did. Maybe she could help—but people here would know exactly how much of an outsider she was, city born and city trained. Teddy would never be head of his family, nor mayor, so Amy wouldn’t have the authority Cara and Hannah had.

  “Well, maybe I’ll work here, then,” Amy said, looking around the shop again.

  “Amy,” Gran said, and she reached over and touched the pendant hanging around Amy’s neck. “Sweetheart, you need to think about what you’re doing here. You need to know what it is you want to do before you can figure out how to do it.”

  “I love him,” Amy said helplessly. “I love Teddy—I love Sophia—I want to be with him. I want a family with him. I know that. I just—”

  Gran shook her head and tapped firmly against the pendant with one finger. “You think I don’t know how you feel?”

  Amy bit her lip. “Who... who gave it to you? What happened?”

  Gran sighed and turned away, picking up a trimming knife and plucking a rose from a bucket.

  “Laurentiu Dragomir—Laurie, I called him. He was the older son of Mayor Gray when I was a girl, and when I was sixteen I looked into his eyes, and I knew, and he knew.”

  Sixteen. Amy closed her hand on the pendant, imagining what it would have been like to meet Teddy—to know what she knew, feel what she felt—when they were both in high school. Her first-grade crush had been bad enough; at sixteen...

  “He was older,” Gran added, her hands moving steadily as she stripped thorns and trimmed stems. “He hadn’t been old enough to fight the Germans, but he went to Korea. There was a dance in town to welcome him home—twenty-two, so handsome in his uniform. That’s when we met. Of course I knew who he was, what he was. He was going to be mayor someday; his mate would be mayor’s wife, and rule over the town with him and have everything she wanted.”

  Amy nodded. “But you didn’t want that?”

  Gran shrugged stiffly, her hands never pausing. “I was just a girl, I didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t sure. He was a good man, Laurie Gray. Even though we both knew—even though everyone in town knew—he courted me. He was patient enough for both of us. Sometimes I thought—yes, of course, and I can’t wait another second. And sometimes I thought—I’m just a girl from a farm family, what do I know about being mayor’s wife, living in the big house up on the mountain? So I didn’t know, and I didn’t know.

  “It was hard on Laurie waiting, hard on his younger brother—they were at it hammer and tongs, both of them grown and neither of them mated. I kept waiting for someone to come and tell me, you must. And still I didn’t know whether I would agree or run away. In the end it was Laurie who ran away—well, went off exploring. He’d always wanted to see more of the world than a battlefield.” Gran nodded toward the necklace Amy wore. “He gave me that before he went.”

  Amy’s stomach sank. “He didn’t come back,
did he.”

  Gran shook her head. “Never did. There was word, eventually, somehow—he’d been traveling overseas, ran afoul of another dragon in some lonely place. They fought, and both died. We never even had a body to bury. His little brother Augie found his mate the next year, and he became mayor—Teddy’s grandfather, that is. Gus is named for him.”

  “Gran...” Amy thought of Teddy, always traveling, never finding a home. What if he went away, sailing or something, and just never came back? “I know I...”

  “No,” Gran said, looking up at Amy for the first time. “If you think I’m telling you that you must stay with Teddy to save his life, you think again. I grieved for Laurie—some days I still miss him now—but I still don’t know what I could rightly have done except what I did. I was just seventeen when he died, still in school. I still didn’t know if I could have borne to be what I would have had to be, to be his mate—and if I had been his mate, I’d likely have died there beside him, or broken my heart and died here. Instead I met your grandfather, and though he wasn’t a dragon with a pile of gold, I did love him—and if not for that, your father wouldn’t exist, and nor would you, miss.”

  Amy raised her hands helplessly, feeling as lost in impossibility as she had ever since she met Teddy and was swept up into his fairy-tale life. “Then what...”

  Gran caught Amy’s hands in hers, pressing them together. “I’m telling you, no matter what it costs him, he’ll wait for you to be sure. And I’m telling you, when you accept a dragon as your mate, everything changes. So you be sure you know what the changes are going to be, and that you’re ready for them. I wasn’t. I think maybe you are, or will be soon, but you just stop and take a breath. Make sure.”

  “Cara said it was one night, one day, and she knew.”

  Gran shook her head. “I met Cara on the morning of that day, and she’s right—for her, for Gus, it was an easy choice. There was no point dithering. They were both ready long before they found each other. For you—sweetheart, just take your time. Be sure.”

  “I just...” Amy could hardly think. Everything seemed right and clear and sure when she was with Teddy, even if nothing was familiar, or anything like what she had expected of her life a week ago. But when he was out of sight, so much of her certainty went with him, and the real world closed back in. “Gran, I’m just so tired.”

  “Well, then get some rest before you decide anything, for goodness sake. Come on—the apartment’s empty, you can lie down.”

  Gran didn’t bother to lock up the shop before she took Amy around to the apartment stairs around back. Memories rushed in on her of running up and down those stairs, or walking more slowly, holding her younger brothers by the hands while her mother carried her baby sister. Inside it was the same and different—new furniture, but the angle of the sun through the windows was the same, and the space smelled familiar.

  “Here, now, you just lie down.” Gran guided her to the couch in the living room, blue and soft and new-furniture firm under her as she stretched out. Gran tugged down a knit blanket and Amy cuddled under it.

  On the edge of sleep, she reached out without thinking. Are you there? Is everything okay?

  We’re fine, Teddy replied instantly. You sound tired.

  I am, Amy agreed, and then she slept.

  ***

  Teo had to force himself to push away his awareness of Amy through dragon speech. She felt sleepy and warm and not so far away that he couldn’t join her if he really wanted to. When he did look up, his brother Sunny was watching him with an amused look, Sophia cradled in his arms. Sunny’s twin, Radu, and their mate and co-mayor, Hannah, were leaning close on either side, but both of them were also looking at Teo right now.

  “So enough about the baby,” Radu said. “Tell us about your mate.”

  Teo grinned, feeling a different warmth at the thought of her. He was able to join in with the grownups of the family at last; he had a mate now, and a daughter. He wasn’t a kid anymore.

  “Amy’s fine, she’s great. She’s Mrs. McCullough’s granddaughter, she stayed there to catch up. She’s a social worker back in New York—she was taking some time off anyway, Sophia was her last case before she was done for vacation. Lucky for everyone.”

  Hannah and Radu exchanged a glance, and Hannah said, “How long a vacation, exactly?”

  Teo frowned, trying to remember if she’d said. Everything from the night they’d met was a blur of excitement and eagerness. “I don’t know, she just said that she was on leave? It must be at least a week or so, then, right? Maybe longer? Hopefully long enough to get everything sorted and get settled in.”

  “Settled in... in New York, then?” Hannah prodded.

  Teo frowned. “Yeah? I mean—I thought we should have some kind of place here, we’ll probably want to spend summers and holidays here, and I don’t want to be always crashing with Gus and Cara. When Sophia starts shifting we might need to come and stay for a while, just so she has room to fly. And Amy needs a break, so I figured we could stick around until she needs to go back to work—she’s got a place there, obviously, and I let Daniel at D’Or know to start fixing up a place for us there, so it’s not like we have to set anything up, it’s all covered. I just meant—settled together, I guess? We’re not—she hasn’t... We’re engaged, so far, but that’s all.”

  “So you’re not actually mates yet,” Sunny said. “And you haven’t talked with her about where you’re going to live or whether you expect her to quit her job and stay home with the baby, and you don’t even know why she’s on leave or for how long.”

  “She knows I love her, and we have Sophia,” Teo said firmly. “Everything’s happened really fast, but she knows I want her to be happy—we have time to figure out all the details.”

  “Well, take it from me,” Hannah said, glancing wryly at her two mates. “What you think is just details might be the most important thing to her, so don’t put off talking for too long.”

  “I won’t,” Teo promised, remembering the spectacle Radu and Sunny had had to make of themselves to win Hannah back after messing things up with her. “I won’t! We’ll figure things out. I’ll get this right for her. I’m not a kid, I can do this.”

  “Well, in that case,” Sunny said, holding Sophia out to him. “You can do this, too.”

  Teo caught a whiff and grimaced, then smiled as Sophia beamed at him. He could do this, after all, even the parts that weren’t much fun. “Yeah, I can do this, sweetheart. Right? We can do this.”

  ***

  Amy woke up and for a moment she was sure she was at her parents’ house, and had fallen asleep on the couch before dinner. She could hear her youngest brother, Jack, talking somewhere nearby.

  “Mom, it’s fine—no, of course. Of course. Everybody skips some classes! It’s—hey, Amy’s up. Ames, talk to Mom?”

  Amy blinked and pushed herself half upright, to see Jack holding out his phone to her. They were—they were in Gray’s Hollow, in the apartment above Gran’s shop. Amy looked around for a few seconds, wondering what was going on, when and why and—

  Jack was here, and Mom was on the phone. Amy closed her eyes and took it from his hand. Gran must have told her mother what was going on, and Mom must have called Jack at college, and...

  “Mom?” Amy’s voice came out small and uncertain.

  “Honey,” her mom said, “I think you should come home for a little while. We talked about that just last week, you were going to come and stay here on your leave. I didn’t think anything of it when you didn’t call yesterday, but then I talked to your grandmother.”

  “Mom, it’s fine,” Amy insisted. “I’m fine.”

  “Amy,” her mom said gently. “I’ve heard that before.”

  Amy squeezed her eyes shut tighter, remembering the perfectly ordinary phone call that had turned into Amy sobbing to her mom that she just didn’t know how she could keep going with her job. It hadn’t been that long ago, and it hadn’t been the only time Amy had wound up cryin
g to her mom lately.

  “Your grandmother says Teddy is a good man, despite—everything,” her mom said, and Amy thought of Teddy talking about regular people and the way this place became a fairy tale sometimes. She glanced up at Jack, who made a goofy face at her. He hadn’t been born yet when they lived here. She wondered if he’d happened to see any dragons in flight on his way into town.

  “I just—I think you’re under a lot of pressure right now, and it’s not a good time to be making big decisions. Just come home, get some rest, and then you can talk to Teddy when you’re feeling better.”

  “I’m...” Amy said, but she couldn’t manage to say fine again, not when she was just awake enough to remember that she was going to be staying here forever with Teddy. She was suddenly, fiercely homesick for her crappy apartment, all the noises of the city, for her wobbly desk and ancient computer at work, her heavy briefcase full of files. She felt tears filling her eyes again.

  She knew she loved Teddy, but her mom was right. She wasn’t in any state to be making decisions that would turn her whole life upside down. Not today, not right this second.

  “Okay,” Amy said. “Okay, I’ll—I don’t have a car, how—”

  Jack waved at her, leaning in to take the phone from her shaking hand. His eyes were averted, she noticed, and she quickly wiped the tears away. She was Jack’s big sister who had her shit together; she shouldn’t cry in front of him; he was just a kid. A college kid, admittedly.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Yeah, we’ll leave now, okay? We’ll be there before dinner, easy. Mom, nobody does the speed limit on the turnpike. It’s fine! Bye!”

  Jack hung up and slipped his phone into his pocket, pulling out his keys instead. “You ready?”

  “I should...” Amy said, but she knew that if she went up to the house to get her things, if she told Teddy while he was standing right in front of her, she would forget that this was crazy and she needed time to think. She would promise all over again to stay here forever as long as she could stay with Teddy and Sophia. She couldn’t leave them, not really, but she needed a little time to think.