by Shannon West
“But wait...”
Logan's big, blacked out SUV pulled up beside us then, and he rolled down the window to yell at me. “Get in.”
“No.”
“Get the fuck in or I'll put you in.”
I sighed, because this was getting to be a habit, it seemed. I ran away, he came and found me and yelled at me to get in the truck. It was like our own stupid mating ritual. I pulled my arm away from Diego. “I gotta go, man. I'll see you soon.”
“But Kade, wait.”
“I have to go, but I'll be in touch.” I went over to the passenger side of the SUV and got in, because I knew Logan would do what he said. I'd rarely seen him so pissed off. Besides, I was so tired of fighting him.
The heater was blasting, just like it had been that last time, and it felt good, but I was too nervous to relax. Right on cue, he turned to me and started yelling.
“Who the fuck was that? Are you fooling around with another omega on the side? Does your so-called alpha know about it?”
“What?”
“Your fucking alpha. That asshole in there.”
“Who, Joe? No, he's not... oh shit, Logan, he's not my alpha. He's my boss. He runs the club. And Diego is just a friend I work with.”
“But you have an alpha, don't you? And he lets you work in a place like that? Half-naked?”
I sighed again. “It's complicated.”
“Doesn't sound too complicated to me. Where is this guy? I'm taking you home and having a word with him.”
“No!” I shook my head frantically. “No, Logan, just leave it alone. Please. What are you even doing here? How did you find me in Atlanta?”
“I wasn't looking for you. I knew you were here somewhere because of the credit card charges, but I had no idea of exactly where you were. I came after one of the young females in the pack. She ran away from home a couple of days ago and called her mother from here. Her family's worried about her, so I came to find her in that club of yours, because she's a little wild and likes to go to the omega clubs. I was having a drink when I looked up and there you were, shaking your naked ass in that skimpy outfit.”
“Damn it, Logan.” I huffed out a long breath and decided not to argue that I had been neither naked nor shaking my ass. “Look, just give me a ride home, if you must, but I'm doing okay. I lost my job, thanks to you, but I can get another one. There's no need for you to worry about me.”
He sat there for another moment, looking like he wanted to say something, and then finally, he started the engine. I sat beside him, feeling kind of numb, and quietly gave him directions to my apartment. It was a long, silent ride, with him gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. We finally arrived and he pulled up in front, leaving the motor running. He wouldn't even look at me, and I had no idea what to say to him. I glanced over at him, and the love I still felt for him hit me hard.
“Thanks for taking me home, Logan,” I managed, getting a little choked up at the thought of never seeing him again after this.
He nodded, and I began to get out of the car. Just then, my front door opened and there, framed in the doorway, was Natalie. And she was holding my little Carrie. Carrie, whose hair had darkened once the baby fuzz was gone, and who now had pretty brown curls, with streaks and highlights of auburn, and beautiful, vivid green eyes. For a human, whose eyesight wasn't nearly as keen as a wolf's, she would have been much too far away for Logan to notice little details like that, but not for a wolf. That wasn't how my luck worked.
Logan gasped, gave me one quick, stunned look, and then surged out of the car and over to the door. I took off after him, noticing that Natalie gave a long, strange look at my bare legs and short shorts. She backed quickly away from the doorway as Logan got nearer.
“I'm sorry, Kade,” she said, looking past him at me. “But she heard the car and wanted to see if it was her daddy. I told her that her daddy didn't have a car, but she wouldn't listen to me until I showed her. I guess you got a ride home a few times instead of riding the bus, and she remembered that. Anyway, I didn't know if you'd actually be there or not.” Her eyes raked me up and down. “And what in the world are you wearing, boy?”
Logan ignored both me and Natalie and had come to stand in front of our baby girl. He leaned down to look at her, and as he did, she looked up. He got a full blast of those gorgeous Grady green eyes.
I heard his sudden intake of breath before he flashed me that accusing look again, and with so much shock and anger in his face, I took a step backward. He looked back at her though and put out a finger toward her. She grasped it, smiling up at him with that beautiful face. Then she looked past him at me and grinned. “Dadda.”
Logan's face was stormy with emotion. I went to take Carrie in my arms, but he blocked me with a hand on my chest. It was trembling a little.
“Ma'am,” he said to Natalie in a strangled sounding voice. “Could you take the baby out of here for just a few minutes? Just take her into a bedroom. Please. Kade and I need a minute.”
Natalie's eyes flew to me, and I nodded, too choked up with emotion to speak. She left and as soon as the door to the bedroom closed behind her, he took a slow, menacing step toward me.
“Now, Logan, I can explain,” I said, backing up.
“Can you? You can explain why you lied to me about knowing who the father was? Why you didn't tell me she was mine and kept her away from me for the last year and a half? You can do that? Because I don't think you can.” He took two handfuls of my leather jacket, jerking me toward him. I gasped and grabbed his wrists. Then as he leaned toward me, his breath hot on my face, I closed my eyes and waited for him to rip out my throat. Instead, he picked me up and held me up in the air in front of him.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hurt you. Go on, try!”
“I-I can't! I'm sorry!”
He took a couple of steps and slammed me into the nearest wall. Hard, but not nearly as hard as he could have. I knew he was holding back, though I didn't know why. I bumped my head and got a little dizzy for a minute, but he didn't hurt me, really. I knew he had to be restraining himself because he could have put me through the wall if he'd wanted to. I didn't even try to fight back, because it was beginning to dawn on me how wrong I'd been.
It wasn't that I was stupid. Or I didn't think I was anyway. But I'd been so blinded by my own feelings of rejection--Logan wanted me, but only as a friend--that I projected all that on how he'd probably feel about the baby too. I'd taken all my hurt and resentment about not only my own new situation and not accepting who I really was, added in the bitterness and fury over Logan not wanting me the way I wanted him, shook it all up, and made a poisonous cocktail of crazy that had made me not only run away from him, but think I was justified in doing so.
And yes, it had to be admitted, I was punishing him for not loving me by taking his daughter away from him. Not consciously, of course, but that had to have been a part of it, if I was being honest, even though it was pretty damn despicable. But I also blamed it, at least partially, on the liberal dose of post-partum craziness I'd had. That had to be thrown into the mix too.
“Now this is what's going to happen,” he said through clenched teeth. “I'm only going to say it once. You're going to go in there and pay that nice lady for tonight, then when she leaves, you're going to start packing. You have ten minutes to get all her stuff and all of yours.”
“Ten minutes? Logan, be reasonable.”
“Oh, I'm being reasonable. More than you can imagine. My inclination is to take the baby and leave your selfish ass here alone. The only thing stopping me from doing that is knowing how much it would upset her. And I won't do that to her.” He took another deep breath and continued. “After you pack, you're going to load up your shit in the truck, get the baby a warm blanket, and get your ass inside it too. Do you understand?”
“Um, yes? But Logan...”
“Ten minutes. Don't test me.” He set me back on my feet, then turned to go inside to the bedro
om, the only door down the short hallway leading from the living room, and knocked on the door. Natalie answered his knock with Carrie still in her arms. Both of them had wide, scared eyes, so I hurried to reassure them.
“It's okay, Natalie. This is my, um, my good friend, Logan.”
Logan held out his arms to Carrie, and she looked up at him trustingly and then, to my amazement, she leaned toward him. He scooped her into his arms and held her close. He put his nose down to her hair and breathed in her sweet scent, and I melted. I came over to stand beside her, and Logan glanced down at me.
“Ten minutes. Nine, now.”
I jumped and then ran past him like a startled deer. I heard Natalie call after me, and Logan's soft, smooth baritone answering her. “I've come to bring Kade and the baby home to their family. We're on a tight schedule.”
“Oh,” she said, laughing a little in what sounded like relief. “Well, that's real good. I'm going to miss them like crazy, but Kade's not doing so good here in Atlanta. Barely makes enough money to keep body and soul together, and he spends all he does make on this little place, paying me, and buying for this baby. I don't think he eats more than about half the time, and he never spends money on himself.”
My face was burning as I heard all this while I was grabbing my suitcase and madly throwing Carrie's things into it. I did manage to snag an old pair of jeans from my closet and slip them on over my shorts, but most everything else I had room for was hers. Natalie called goodbye to me from the other room, and I looked up in a sweat to see two identical sets of Grady green eyes staring at me. Carrie was in Logan's arms, with her arm trustingly wrapped around his neck.
“Six minutes,” Logan said.
“Damn it, Logan, don't be such an ass. I need more time!”
“Oh yeah? I need a lot of things, Kade. I need to know this baby's name, for example, but I don't even know that. My own baby. The one you couldn't be bothered to mention to me. And if you dare try to lie to me and tell me she's not mine, I'll...”
“I won't. She is yours.”
“I know. Now I need to know when you became such a fucking liar. When you became so cruel. I'd like to know that.”
Goddess, he was killing me. Cruel? And okay, I had my own agenda too, but I honestly didn't think of it as cruel. At the time! I thought he'd be relieved in a way. I'd tried to get out of his way, but that wasn't at all how he saw it.
“But Logan, you don't understand. She's probably an omega. If we had stayed...”
“If the next words out of your mouth are going to be that you'd have only been in my way or a burden to me, I would seriously advise you to shut your damn mouth right now. I won't be responsible, Kade, if you do. I swear on everything that's holy, I will beat your ass.”
Since I had no doubt he would, I kept my mouth shut, felt my face burning like it was on fire, and kept on packing. In another few minutes, he said, “Enough. Time's up. Get your ass in the truck. I'll buy her anything else she needs.”
I went over to him, a little hesitant and afraid of him for the first time in my life. I held out my arms for my daughter, but he turned her away. “Don't even think about it. Just get in the truck.”
I went past him and went outside, lugging the bulging suitcase. I threw it in the back seat and climbed in. Logan followed me a moment later, holding Carrie wrapped in a blanket. He opened the passenger door, and barked, “Get behind the wheel,” at me. I slid over and he tossed me the keys.
“Drive and don't talk. Go to the nearest Walmart or whatever. She needs a car seat.”
I nodded. I glanced over at her, and she was happily riding in his lap, her eyes alight at this new adventure. She was happily babbling at him and patting his face. I started to choke up.
“Her name is Carrie,” I told him, and he glared at me.
“I told you to keep quiet.”
“Damn it, Logan!”
“Shut. Up. You tell me her name, like I'm supposed to say something. Like I had any choice in that name or anything else whatsoever, and that doesn't seem to bother you in the least. I'm trying really hard not to shift into my wolf right now and scare this baby. It's taking all of my concentration—that's how angry I am at you. And if I do shift, I seriously wouldn't want to be you when my wolf gets hold of you.”
I gulped and mashed down on the gas pedal, speeding a little to find the store that I knew wasn't too far down the road. I pulled into the busy parking lot, and he said, “Get out. From now on, I control everything you do, do you understand? I'm tempted to put you on a leash.”
I opened my mouth to argue but shut it again. He was too unreasonable to argue with at the moment, so I'd have to bide my time. I was still reeling from the idea that he'd found me—and found out about the baby. I really didn't know what to expect from him next so a leash wouldn't necessarily be out of the question.
We went inside Walmart and Logan put Carrie into the buggy. I led the way over to the baby aisle and he picked up some diapers and a car seat. “Does she need food?” he asked me, his voice cold and implacable.
“She mostly eats regular food now. Sometimes I supplement it with that kind.” I indicated a row of junior sized baby food jars. Carrie occasionally still ate those when I didn't have time to cook.
“Get some,” he said. “Whatever she likes,” and I scrambled to put a few jars in the buggy. We went through check-out and then back out to the SUV, where he spent a few minutes making sure he had the car seat installed properly. This time he drove, and I sat in the passenger seat, reaching back to squeeze Carrie's hand and murmur to her that everything would be all right. She seemed fine, though, still happy to be riding in this big vehicle and going on an adventure. It made me feel guilty that I didn't do more activities with her, but I spent most of my time either working or sleeping, and when I was awake and at home, I had to take our clothes to be washed or clean the apartment. There never seemed to be time for walks in the park or even a lot of play time.
Logan drove to a big hotel in downtown Atlanta and left the keys with the valet. He took the baby, leaving me to get the suitcase, and he took us up to his room. It had two queen-sized beds, and one hadn't been slept in so I took that one, the one closest to the window. I sat down on it and glanced up at him as he handed me the baby.
“What now?”
“I haven't found the girl I came for yet. I have one more lead to follow, and then if I can't find her there, I'll have to leave without her and come back later on.”
A little silence fell, and I opened my mouth to fill it. “Logan...”
“No. Don't talk. I've almost calmed down, and there's literally nothing you can say to me that will explain this.”
“But...”
“No buts. I'm thinking seriously of having your head examined when I get you home. I think you must have lost your mind.”
It was my turn to glare at him, but he ignored me and started getting ready for bed. I sat for a while longer, fuming, and then I pulled back the covers and got Carrie settled. She had finally started to droop a little from all the excitement, and she didn't give me any trouble about going to sleep. I took off my boots, my jeans, and my jacket, and started to slip under the covers with her when Logan spoke up from the bed beside me.
“No, you don't. Get in here with me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I don't trust you not to try to slip out during the night, and I'm too tired to stay up and watch you. Lie down here beside me.” I started to, a little sullenly, and he stopped me again. “Take off those damn slutty shorts.”
“But I'm not wearing anything under them.”
That apparently didn't even warrant a reply, because I didn't get one. I guess it was pretty stupid, considering how many times he'd seen me naked. I slipped them off, got in bed, and lay rigidly beside him until I heard his breathing even out. I thought he was asleep, but then he spoke up in the dark beside me.
“I hate this.”
“What?” I answered softly. “What do
you hate? Or should I say who?”
“I don't hate you, Kade. Not exactly. It would be easier if I could. I hate this distance between us. I hate the fact that I thought you were my friend and you betrayed me. It never used to be like this. I used to tell you everything. Growing up, we were so close—I relied on you for everything.” He turned and looked at me. “You were my best friend, damn it. I trusted you.”
“I-I could still be your friend.”
“No, you can't!” he whispered fiercely at me. “How can you ever be just my friend again after what's happened between us? After you ran away from me and lied to me over and over again. After we made love?” He turned his face toward me then and even in the dim light coming from the city lights outside the window, I could see him. His eyes were smoldering with resentment and pain.
“I believed you when you said she wasn't mine. How could you leave without telling me the truth? Without giving me a chance to claim my own child.”
Miserably, I shook my head, “I thought I'd ruin things for you if you knew. If I stayed. You made it really clear to me before this all started that I wasn't what you wanted in your life. Not as your mate. I didn't want you to feel trapped. I was doing what I thought was best at the time.”
“By taking away my child?”
I covered my eyes with my forearm. He was killing me with this. “I know now that it was wrong. But I didn't even think you remembered that night she was conceived.”
“Nobody gets that drunk, Kade.”
I wondered if I should tell him that I had. Then I decided I’d better keep my mouth shut.
“Of course I remembered you shaking your ass by the fire as you danced under the stars,” he continued, “getting way too drunk and giggling like some kid. You were all over me, begging me to make love to you.”
I turned to him in surprise. “I didn't know. And you never said!”
“You didn't either. I thought you didn't want me to say anything. I thought you were too embarrassed.”
Fuming now, I began trembling with anger. “You'd made it clear to me that you thought us being together was a mistake. I had already made the decision to leave. To get out of your way.”