Enchanted: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella

by Lexi Blake

  Damn Jared for making her think about this. She’d been detached and it had been a comfortable place to be. As comfortable as she was going to be. Now she had to think about it and talk about it. She’d had a damn plan and Jared had screwed her over.

  Kori let the dogs off their leashes and Gideon and Lahki started their routine sniff of all the things. It was a ritual she usually found amusing, but now she couldn’t focus on anything but the fact that everyone was going to know.

  They would know she wasn’t whole. God, even thinking the words made her angry with herself. She knew this didn’t make her less of a woman. She was a nurse who’d had this talk with so many people. Losing a piece of yourself didn’t make you less, but now it was happening to her and she couldn’t quite make herself believe it.

  It was precisely why she wanted time without the pity she knew she’d get from the people around her.

  Kori sighed and stared at her. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with this.”

  “Didn’t Kai tell you?” Sarah moved to the coffee maker. They would need some if they were going to hash this out, if she was going to make it through without breaking down completely.

  “He has no idea how to handle this. He loves you. Sometimes he’s just a man, you know. Sometimes he’s blindsided, too. I know I should be all about taking care of you right now, but you don’t seem to want that so I’m left with the aching idea that we’re not the friends I believed we were. I thought we were sisters.”

  “I don’t want to break down, okay?” Had she been wrong to leave Kori out of it? Kori had an actual sister and a mom. Her sister was a piling heap of garbage human, but her mom was awesome. More than once, she’d thought about calling Kori’s mom to ask her advice, but then she’d realized there wasn’t any advice to be given. She was taking the only path she could.

  Or she could maybe hope for the best. She could be brave and try to have what she wanted. She hadn’t even thought about it until that moment Jared had knelt in front of her and said words she never thought she’d want to hear.

  I dream about seeing you pregnant. I think about how I’ll take care of you, how I’ll rub your feet and hold you while we wait for our baby.

  What if she waited? What if she gave them a chance?

  She shook her head. Any child she had would likely be in the same place she was in. She’d struck out in the genetic department and she wasn’t going to pass it on. She knew other women might make different choices, and she respected the hell out of them for it, but she’d made hers.

  She’d made it and she’d been okay with it, and then Jared had to walk back into her life and now Kori was here and it didn’t seem as cut and dried as it had before.

  Kori shook her head as she stood in front of Sarah. “I am trying my best to figure out if you kept this from me because you don’t remember how family works or because you thought we wouldn’t want to be bothered. I don’t give a shit that we don’t share an ounce of blood. You are my sister. I will always be here for you even if being here means yelling at you when you’re sick because you didn’t give me the option of being kind. It doesn’t matter what options you give me, I’ll still be here and so will Kai.”

  She flicked the switch to turn the coffeepot on. “I know that. It was never about that.”

  “Then what was it about?”

  She didn’t want to have this conversation and she finally realized why. She’d been avoiding this in her head. “I told you. I didn’t want to bug anyone about it.”

  “That can’t possibly be the reason,” Kori insisted.

  “I didn’t want you to tell Jared. I knew if he found out that he would show up to save the day, and I don’t need to be saved. I’m too busy saving myself.” That’s what she was doing. She was making the decision to save herself. She knew Jared. He would have immediately shown up with flowers and promises. It was part of his nature.

  “I wouldn’t have told him if you asked me not to.”

  “But you would have told Kai.”

  “I would have,” Kori agreed. “I wouldn’t have been able to get through something like this without him, but if I’d asked him to, he would have kept it secret, too. God, Sarah, you can’t expect the rest of us not to care about this. I don’t understand.”

  Anger flared through her. Irrational rage was suddenly a wildfire in her system. “I didn’t tell you because you never wanted kids. I didn’t tell you because you would have laughed it off and told me to get a couple of dogs and they would be better companions anyway.”

  Kori’s face went white and tears shone in her eyes. “I would never have said that to you.”

  “You joke about it constantly.” Her hands were shaking.

  Kori took a deep breath and seemed to steady herself. “I made the choice and I have to face it every day. I face it from every single person in the world who thinks they should have some say in how my husband and I choose to live our lives and express our love. Do you know how many people ask me when we’re having kids? Like every single one of them. When I tell them we’re not they smile smugly and say I’ll change my mind. I never wanted kids. I’m not wired that way. Does that make me less a woman? Because there are a whole bunch of people out there who tell me it does. I joke about it because if I don’t I’ll choke out the next person who tells me I can’t live a complete life without procreating. But Sarah, I always thought you would. Kai and I have joked about how much we would spoil any babies you had with Jared. Do not think for one second I would mock your pain. I feel it.” She touched her chest. “I feel it with you. I feel it for me because I wanted so much to see another Sarah in this world. I wanted that for my sister. I wanted that for my brother-in-law. God, I wanted that for me.”

  Something broke inside her, some wall cracking at the sight of her friend’s tears. All these weeks she’d been a rock. She’d told herself it was for the best. She’d told herself she’d never really wanted kids anyway and that she was happy with her life. How odd it was to want something so badly only when it was no longer a possibility.

  Tears slipped from her eyes. “I wanted it. I wanted kids. I told myself I didn’t, but deep down I always thought I would get married and have a family.”

  “You have a family,” Kori insisted through her tears. “It’s weird, but it’s real.”

  She looked down and Lahki was staring up at her, her doggie eyes wide and filled with sympathy. The pup couldn’t possibly know what she was feeling, why tears were streaming down her face, but it didn’t matter to her. The only thing that mattered to Lahki was someone she cared about was hurting and she wanted to help.

  And wasn’t that the most human thing of all?

  She got to her knees and held the dog close, letting her tears flow. She hadn’t cried once, not even when she’d opened that envelope and seen the results. Not when she’d sat in the doctor’s office and looked at the statistics. Not when she’d made the decision to have surgery.

  But she cried now. She cried because she’d finally opened herself up. Open to the possibilities she’d lost. Open to the idea that she didn’t have to go through this alone simply because she’d lost her parents. Open to the idea that this didn’t have to be her whole life. She could survive. She could find a way to have a life.

  All the things she’d said to those patients were true. A womb didn’t make a woman. Children weren’t the ultimate essential to every happy ending. There were choices to be made and paths to be found when those choices were taken out of her hands. The world didn’t guarantee her anything—not even a chance sometimes. But she did have a choice in how she faced the bad things that happened.

  She could face it with her friends. Her family, the ones she shared blood with, they were gone and they wouldn’t come back. There would be no more Thanksgivings where her mom made her special pie or Christmases where her father woke her with hot chocolate. Those days were gone and she realized she’d been mourning them, waiting for a time when she could recreate them.

&nbs
p; She couldn’t. It wouldn’t ever be the same, but she could start anew. She could choose to find new traditions, a new way to celebrate a life that wasn’t even close to being over.

  Lahki licked her face and Gideon came to help. Kori sank to her knees beside her and reached out.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Kori whispered through her tears. “I won’t let you go through this alone. I love you.”

  They stayed there for a moment, the scent of coffee wafting through the house, something normal to ground her. After a long while, she’d cried until her makeup ran and the dogs were calm again.

  There was a knock on the door and Sarah started. “Is that Kai?”

  Kori winced. “No. I think I know who it is and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  She got to her feet, feeling lighter than she had before, though she wasn’t free of her sorrow. There was still Jared to think about. “Who is it?”

  Kori opened the door. “The sisterhood knows.”

  Charlotte Taggart stood in the doorway, a covered casserole dish in her hand. “Dumbass. I’ve known for a while. You could have had this sweet, sweet pancake casserole days ago. Ladies, let’s get going. Brunch isn’t going to make itself.”

  Grace Taggart followed her, a brilliant smile on her face. “Sean sent me with very specific instructions for this frittata.”

  Erin was carrying a big box. “I don’t cook, but I can buy donuts. You’re hard core, Stevens. I respect that. You almost made it. You got soft and told the man. That was your mistake. You could have avoided all of this. Better luck next time.”

  Erin was an odd one. “The next time I find out I’m probably going to get cancer?”

  Erin nodded as though she totally understood.

  “I don’t cook either,” Serena said, following Erin in. “But I do know the most important part of brunch. Mimosas. Now let’s get this party started and get down to business.”

  “There’s business?” She held the door open as every sub at Sanctum seemed to be joining her this morning.

  “Of course there is.” Charlotte started to turn her little kitchen into a brunch wonderland. “We’ve got to organize. You’re going to be in the hospital for a couple of days, and then you need to be off your feet for a while. You can’t expect us to ignore that. You’ll need meals and people to check in on you. Kori’s going to stay with you when she’s not working and when she is, we’ll take shifts for the first couple of weeks.”

  Erin shook her head. “See, you could have avoided this. You could have spent the next couple of weeks in perfect silence.”

  “And pain,” Grace said with a shake of her head. “She would have been alone and in pain.”

  “Exactly how I like it,” Erin retorted. “Now all these bitches will be up in your business and they’ll bug you about taking your meds and doing the therapy things. I’m going to have this baby the way God intended—alone in my house, and no one will know she’s here until she’s two or three.”

  “You need help,” Serena said with a shake of her head.

  “She’s pathological,” Charlotte corrected. “There’s no helping her now, and Theo won’t let her give birth in solitude, so it’ll be okay. And we know she secretly loves the attention.”

  Sarah stood and stared as her previously quiet apartment erupted in good natured arguments over whether or not Erin liked being fussed over.

  “You can’t be mad at me for telling your family,” Kori said, stepping up to her side. “You might not think they are, but try explaining to the Taggart wives that they aren’t supposed to take care of you.”

  The Taggart wives all had guns. Well, Grace might not be carrying, but she made her point nonetheless.

  She reached out for her sister’s hand. “What do I do about Jared?”

  Kori laced their fingers together. “We sit down and have a lovely brunch and talk it out with some women who might know how to handle a man.”

  “I know he’ll say he loves me, but he wants kids.”

  “And he can have them,” Kori said. “You can have them. Maybe not the way you planned, but we’ll figure it out. Together.”

  She took a deep breath because she didn’t have to do this alone.

  She had her sisters.

  * * * *

  Jared glanced at the clock. Another few hours and he would see her again. He’d given her the night to cool off. He hadn’t wanted to, but Kai had talked him into it. Hell, he’d spent a good portion of the night talking Kai down. If Sarah worried she was an annoying third wheel in that relationship, she wouldn’t have if she’d seen how freaked his brother had been.

  He turned his gaze back to the big TV monitor that dominated the Man Cave in Sanctum’s men’s locker room. A college football game was already playing, but he couldn’t have said who the teams were. It was on so he had something to stare at while he stewed.

  And waited.

  The doors came open and his brother walked in, carrying a big box of what was probably donuts. He wasn’t alone. It looked like most of McKay-Taggart was spending the day in the cave.

  It was good because he needed to talk to the big guy. He probably didn’t have any right to screw up everyone else’s plans for the evening, but he was going to ask anyway.

  “Hey, how you holding up?” Kai asked.

  “I’m fine.” As fine as he could be when the woman he loved was having life-altering surgery in a few days. He’d spent much of the previous evening studying everything he could about ovarian cancer. Though it made him sick that she would be in pain, he also kind of wished the surgery was today because he wanted that time bomb out of her body. Like now.

  “Some of the ladies are having brunch with Sarah this morning so the guys thought we would hang with you,” Kai explained.

  “And watch football,” Big Tag corrected. “The ladies are brunching and very likely plotting and planning, but we’re guys and we’re going to watch football.”

  “Unless Jared wants to talk about his feelings.” Kai sent Tag a look like they’d already discussed this topic. “Adam and Jake’s wife had a similar procedure, though for different reasons.”

  “Serena’s good,” Jake offered. “Sarah’ll be good, too.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?” Adam asked before turning to Jared. “It’s complex. I would be more than willing to talk about it, man.”

  “I don’t need to talk about it.” He really didn’t. He was good.

  Big Tag dropped down into the recliner next to Jared’s. “Seriously? Is this because you’re not going to pursue a relationship with her? Because she can’t have kids?”

  “Of course not,” he shot back. “I love her. I don’t give a crap about anything right now except getting her through this and healthy on the other side. I don’t need to talk about my feelings because I know what I’m going to do about them.”

  Tag’s lips curled up. “And what’s that?”

  “First I’m going to take over your club, and then I’m going to trick her into coming and I’ll do exactly what I planned to do tonight. I’m going to chase her down, tie her up, and fuck her until she knows who her Master is.” He thought it was a good plan.

  “Boys, we’re playing at the house tonight. Make arrangements.” Big Tag sat back, looking utterly content. “You’re my favorite, Johns. Now let’s watch this game.”

  Kai shook his head but offered him a donut. “You always surprise me, brother. The set is already built and ready to be put together if you want the whole experience.”

  “Absolutely.” He wasn’t holding anything back.

  Kai nodded. “I’ll help you get everything ready.”

  Jared took one of the chocolates and sat back.

  It was good to have company. He settled in and though he watched the game, his mind was on one thing—her. After tonight, they wouldn’t be apart again.

  Chapter Eleven

  In which our heroine is chased by the big bad wolf and he takes a bite…

  Sarah walked into Sanct
um with a hole in her heart. It had been lovely to spend the morning with the ladies and she was so grateful to have them in her life. But she already missed Jared.

  She was going to have to talk to him. That was what had come out of today’s long session with the women of Sanctum. Most of the women believed he would want to stand by her, but she couldn’t let him do that. He needed time to think about what it would mean. Although he hadn’t called, so it might be a moot point anyway.

  She turned toward the door where Kori stood. “I won’t be long. I don’t have much in the locker anyway. When did Big Tag decide to remodel?”

  It had been a bit of a shock when Charlotte had announced that the women’s locker room was getting a redesign and everyone needed to clear out their lockers before the weekend was over. It seemed a little sudden, but then they were the king and queen, and they could be a bit capricious at times. If they wanted to give the old locker room an upgrade, who was she to argue? But she was going into the hospital on Monday, so she had to get her stuff out now.

  Kori shrugged. “You know Big Tag. He works in mysterious ways. I’ll be over at the office. Come by when you’re done and we’ll call Jared.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know that I should.”

  “I thought we settled this. You have to talk to him.”

  “He hasn’t called. He hasn’t texted. I think maybe he got the message last night. I will absolutely talk to him at some point, if only to apologize. I shouldn’t have told him that way and I shouldn’t have led him on. I should have laid the cards out and given him time to think about it.”

  A brow rose above Kori’s eyes. “Think about whether he wanted to stay with you?”