by MJ Compton
“And I’ll be paying for that omission for the rest of my life. And the rest of Rosie Dawn’s life. For seven freaking generations.”
He hadn’t meant to put it quite like that, but somehow it came out. A male lycan would never talk to a female like that. His grandmother and mother both raised their hands as if to cuff him, but Aunt Macy reached him first.
“No hitting,” Abby said. “No more hitting.”
Luke crossed the room to stand behind her chair. He rested his hands on the slat nearest her shoulder, and glared at each of the females in the room.
“Hey, I’m down with that,” Lucy said. “My father communicated with his fists. It’s not fun.”
Delilah nodded. “My father didn’t physically abuse me or my brother, but the mental abuse was horrific.”
Even Luke with his human blood couldn’t conceive of a child not loved and cherished. Not nurtured. His family had adored him. Without that adoration, he might not have survived the bullying as well as he had. Rosie Dawn was going to be worshipped if he had anything at all to say about it.
“I’ll get Libby. I need to get home, too,” his mom said.
“I want Libby to stay here,” Abby said.
Mom looked hurt. “She’s perfectly safe with us. Last night proved that.”
“I wasn’t thinking about last night. I was thinking about the next full moon.”
“All the pregnant females and post-menopausal females—and now the human females—have a full moon gathering in the Lodge,” Granny said. “With the pre-adolescent little ones. Until then, Libby is safe with Colette and Marcus.”
“Abby wants Libby with us,” Luke said.
“Luke, you know—”
“I’m head of this family,” he answered in a calm, matter of fact voice. “Abby wants Libby staying with us. Libby stays with us. Mom, you can bring her stuff over later this afternoon.”
“But—”
Luke raised an eyebrow. Colette might be his mother, but he was an adult male now, and an adult male had a responsibility to his own family. Besides, having Libby with them was going to make certain tasks easier.
His mother and the humans left. Granny went to make up Macy’s former bedroom for Libby, who remained in front of the television.
Abby started clearing the table. Luke sat and pulled her unfinished French toast closer and dug in.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“What was what about?” Luke didn’t know what she meant.
“The argument between you and your mother.”
“No argument,” Luke explained. “You want Libby to be with you. That makes you happy. It’s my responsibility to make sure you’re happy, and I haven’t been doing so great a job of that outside of sex. I’m head of our family. I make the decisions about what’s best for us.”
What was there to understand?
“And your mom backed down?”
Granny’s cooking was as delicious as ever. “What would your mother have done?”
“Mama was too sick to involve herself with the minutia of our lives,” Abby said after a long pause. “She did what she thought was right by marrying Gary, to have someone to provide for us.”
Rage flamed in Luke’s head. “If your mother had been paying attention, she might have figured out Gary married her to get access to you and your sister.”
Abby looked as if he’d slugged her in the stomach. “My mother was sick,” she said in a broken voice. “Dying. She was trying to take care of Libby and me.”
“Well thank the Ancient Ones you now have me. And the rest of the pack. And the FBI. Because now you’re going to find out what being taken care of really means. And that includes Libby moving out of my parents’ house since someone knows she was there.”
He hated that Abby wanted to excuse her mother, hated because she never should have had to take off her clothes and pose for pictures to be safe or to keep her sister safe.
And he had more bad news for her. He’d waited until the last minute so she’d have less time to be furious with him, but there were some things he couldn’t delay, no matter how hard he fought them.
“I had an ulterior motive. We need to go to Fort Collins today,” he said. “Me and Libby. I’d like you to come with us.”
Abby stiffened. “Why?”
Luke hesitated. Stalling was only going to upset Abby more, so he blurted out the reason. “It’s out of your hands. The FBI wants a physical examination of Libby. It’s a child exploitation case, and there’s nothing the family can do except cooperate.”
Abby snatched the half-eaten plate of French toast and Luke clasped her wrist. “I’m not done with that.”
“Fine.” She pulled free, turned her back on him, and started running water in the sink. The scent of green dish soap displaced the cooking odors.
“And we can lay in some supplies while we’re there. Things we can’t find in Oak Moon,” he continued. He was tired of seeing his wife in ragged jeans and butt ugly sweaters. And they were going to need baby furniture. He’d never paid much attention to that kind of stuff before, but the last time he’d been at Tokarz’s house, he’d noticed a special chair in the kitchen, brightly colored bouncy things in the sitting room—all stuff Rosie Dawn was going to need. And clothes. Diapers. Babies weren’t born housebroken.
“What are they going to do to Libby?” Abby finally asked.
“I don’t know. It’s a special kind of doctor. A lady doctor. She specializes in child abuse pediatrics. She’s the only one around in a several county area, but she supposedly has a good reputation.”
Abby’s face lost all color. “But why? Gary never—”
“I can’t talk to you about an on-going investigation, but—”
Abby’s chin dropped to her chest. Her shoulders shook.
Luke couldn’t take it any longer. He pushed away from the table and put his arms around her. Held her while the silent sobs wracked her body. He hated this, hated making her cry.
“Hush. We don’t want to upset Libby,” he crooned. “We’ll make it a fun day. Go shopping. Eat dinner in a fancy restaurant.” Weren’t those activities human females were supposed to adore?
And while Abby and Libby were at the doctor’s he needed to meet up with the FBI to pick up a laptop computer to use on task force business. He also needed to replace his personal unit. The one he’d smashed when Abby told him the truth behind Gail’s Bedroom.
Abby needed time away from Luke. Away from his grandmother. Away from all the people and werewolves whose advice not only didn’t help her, but confused everything she thought she’d figured out.
Very few of her clothes still fit her. They were tight across the bust and snug in the waist. But Luke had asked her to dress up pretty, and since he had his heart set on this outing—turning it into something fun when the underlying reason was anything but—she tried to accommodate him, if only to keep Libby in a pliable frame of mind.
She stared at her face in the mildew-speckled mirror. The tears of the past several hours had left their mark. Even if she were skilled with cosmetics, she wouldn’t be able to hide the sleepless hours visible in her eyes. And her face was thinner than it had been before she’d gotten pregnant, as if her expanding breast and abdomen were sucking everything they could from the rest of her body.
But Luke was trying, so she could, too.
When she emerged from the bedroom in the same dark skirt and sweater she’d worn to her mother and Gary’s funerals, Luke grimaced.
“It’s not Victorian England,” Granny said. “You don’t have to wear mourning.”
Luke’s scowl deepened. “I wish your pink dress still fit. Don’t you have something less . . . formal?” He gestured toward Libby, who wore a long-sleeved orange and brown striped T-shirt and ma
tching brown leggings.
He had on black jeans and a blue and yellow checked flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The golden curls on his forearms glinted in the sun.
Abby shrugged and went back to change. Her black leggings still fit. She helped herself to one of Luke’s flannel shirts—a teal and purple hounds tooth pattern.
Luke’s eyes glinted when she emerged. “You look real nice in my shirt,” he said.
Libby chattered for almost the entire ride to Fort Collins. Their father had been a long-distance trucker, so when he wasn’t working, he wanted to be home. Their mother didn’t drive. Gary didn’t like leaving Oak Moon with a family in tow, so neither girl had been outside of the county much, making a trip to Fort Collins was a big deal.
The first stop was a cute café, with sidewalk tables taking advantage of the last of the nice days before the brutal Rocky Mountains winter swooped down on them.
“Can we have strawberry lemonade again?” Libby asked. “Like we did at the Moonsinger picnic?”
Luke laughed. “If it’s on the menu.”
It was, but Abby stuck to milk. That much she knew about pregnancy. Too bad she couldn’t see a regular doctor, although now she understood why Luke entrusted her to Granny. But even werewolves had bones.
When they piled back into Luke’s truck, Luke broke the bad news to Libby. “I have some business I need to take care of, so I’m going to drop off the two of you at Doctor Holster’s office.”
“Is Doctor Holster going to be Abby’s baby doctor?” Libby asked.
“No,” Abby said. “Doctor Holster needs to see you, not me.”
“Why? I thought all my shots were up to date. That’s what Mama said. She said no more doctors unless I was sick.”
Abby looked to Luke for help, but he was pretending to watch the road as he drove.
“Doctor Holster isn’t that kind of doctor. I’m not sure what kind of doctor she is, but Luke made this appointment for you after you talked to him at Toke Lobo’s house the other night.”
That snagged Luke’s attention. She hadn’t lied.
“Remember Mr. Jasper?” Luke asked. “Doctor Holster is a friend of his.”
“Why do I need a doctor?” Libby wasn’t going to let the subject drop.
“Because Gary . . . was sick,” Abby said.
“Oh. Like Mama was sick?”
“No. Different sick. Mama’s sickness was cancer, so it couldn’t spread to other people. But Gary—”
“He was what they call a carrier,” Luke said. “And since you spent a lot of alone time with him, you need to be checked out.”
Luke’s gaze caught Abby’s. She hadn’t even realized how tightly her stomach was clenched until that moment.
They weren’t lying to Libby. Abby was never sure how much Libby understood. She was slow to grasp concepts. “You’re not coming with us?” Abby asked as Luke pulled to the curb in front of a tall office building.
“I have a meeting with Mitchell Jasper,” Luke said. “I’ll meet up with you back here in an hour or so, and we’ll hit the stores. Think about what you want for dinner. There’s a great sushi place—”
“I can’t eat sushi while I’m pregnant,” Abby said. The Internet research Macy had helped her with was paying off. And no wonder Macy had been so willing to help. She knew the truth. She was a version of the truth.
“Oh. That’s a shame. I love sushi.”
“What’s sushi?” Libby asked.
“Raw fish,” Abby replied.
“Yuck.” Libby said. “I can’t eat it, either.”
Luke laughed. “Okay. How about a steak? You can get yours as cooked as you like and I can have mine extra rare. Think about it. Now out with you, or we’re all going to be late for our appointments.”
“Don’t want to see no doctor,” Libby muttered as she climbed out of the truck.
“It’s this once, and it won’t take long,” Luke promised.
Abby noticed he waited to leave until he was certain they were inside the building. She couldn’t figure him out at all.
Chapter 18
Luke drove to the FBI meeting point. He couldn’t be seen entering the field office, so Mitchell Jasper had set up a clandestine meeting reminding Luke of a bad 1960’s Cold War movie.
Luke drove to a park, then followed the lazy road as it twisted its way through nature. He followed the signs to the swimming pool, now closed for the season. The service area behind the pool house was secluded; deserted except for a black Lexus SUV with windows so darkly tinted Luke thought they might not be legal.
Jasper climbed out of the vehicle. “Any problems finding the place?”
Luke stared at him. Humans, not lycans, had problems with directions.
“Where are the Grant sisters?”
“My wife and her sister are at Doctor Holster’s office, as ordered. Neither one of them is very happy about this.”
Abby was going to go through the roof when she learned the truth. If last night had been any indication of how fragile her self-control was, he was in for a couple of long days and nights. He might not ever get laid again.
“No one likes this,” Jasper said. “Using little girls to get your rocks off is as perverse as it comes. You sure you can handle going underground there?”
Luke clenched his jaw. “I’m an old hand at surfing the DeepNet.”
Jasper handed him a laptop case. “There’s a folder in the bag with your on-line persona. Make sure you stick to it.”
“Oh, I’m careful.”
“You can’t let this get too personal.”
“It’s already personal. And that’s what’s going to make me more careful than usual, because I want these guys. You have no idea how much I want these guys, and they are not going to get off on a technicality or anything else. If that happens, it won’t be my doing, and you’ll have a bloody mess to clean up.”
Jasper stepped back. Why they ever put someone who was afraid of werewolves in charge of treaty fulfillment was baffling to every werewolf who’d ever dealt with Jasper.
“DNA ID,” Jasper said. “I remember.”
Luke gripped the faux leather handles on the computer case. “You won’t be sorry you put me on this investigation.”
“I never thought I would be. Word is you’re as good on the computer as anyone else we have.”
“Believe it.”
“You can get dressed now, Libby,” Doctor Holster said as she snapped off her Latex gloves. "We’re all done.”
All done. Libby had had her first pelvic exam before Abby.
“That’s it?” Abby asked.
“That’s it.” The doctor smiled. She was a kind woman. She’d have to be, given her line of work. “I’ll forward my report to the agency. Have you been in touch with your local rape crisis center?”
Abby glanced toward Libby, who was busy with a colorful toy of some sort and not paying attention to the doctor.
“You said she wasn’t raped.” Neither was I. “That there was no sign of penetration.” Abby nearly choked on the word.
“Rape Crisis has other services for survivors of sexual abuse.”
There was that word again. Luke had said the same thing. She and Libby were not victims; they were survivors.
The doctor consulted the paperwork Abby filled out when she first arrived at the office. “Your mother was sickly and your biological father died when Elizabeth was five.”
Abby nodded.
“Sometimes when there is a bad home situation, a young child doesn’t understand what’s happening and can form an attachment to her abuser. Someone as young as Elizabeth was when your stepfather came on the scene might not realize what is happening is bad. She might even think it’s normal. And s
exual stimulation feels good.”
“Our home situation wasn’t bad. My parents considered Libby a miracle and treated her like one.”
“But that changed when your father died. Elizabeth went from being idolized to being abandoned. Even though she was five, she might not have understood why the man who adored her deserted her. So when your stepfather introduced a new man to adore her, a new father figure, you sister may have bonded to him.”
Abby didn’t know what to say. Dr. Holster was a professional who dealt with child sexual abuse on a daily basis. She must know what she was talking about.
“You both would benefit from counseling,” the doctor continued. “Sexual molestation is difficult for everyone in the family.”
So Luke hadn’t told the doctor about her own situation. Of course, Abby was an adult. She knew exactly what Gary had done to her.
“Thanks for the tip,” Abby said.
Abby and Libby waited for Luke in the lobby of the doctor’s office building. There were so many questions Abby wanted to ask Libby, but she didn’t know how to broach the topic. She never wanted Libby to be hesitant about talking to her, but this was something so . . . shameful. They hadn’t done anything wrong, but the shame belonged to them.
She draped her arm around Libby, who burrowed into her side.
“I didn’t like that,” Libby said. “The doctor touching me like that.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Why did Luke want me to do that?”
“Because of what you told him and Toke Lobo about your Uncle Dougie. Grown up men aren’t supposed to touch little girls. It’s wrong.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Libby asked.
“Not at all.”
“Uncle Dougie told me not to tell anyone. Will I get into trouble for telling Luke and Toke Lobo?”