Becca Comes Home
Yours, Mine and Howls
The Nanny Years, Part 1
Cade MacDougall made his way through a crowded Colorado Springs Municipal Airport accompanied by the eardrum-shredding howls of a hungry, exhausted, stressed out, six-week-old infant.
He knew exactly how she felt. With a fully packed duffle bag in one hand, a car seat full of screaming, squirming baby in the other hand, and a backpack stuffed with baby gear, he wondered at all the females he’d seen doing this by themselves. It wasn’t the physical load that bothered him, of course. He had many times the physical strength and stamina of a man. It was the noise. The lack of sleep. The smell. The noise.
The last time he’d gone so long with so little food and sleep and so much trauma to his nerves, he’d been twenty-one and in Army Ranger training.
This was worse.
His flight from Savannah had been held on the runway for over an hour. Then the airline fucked up and made him miss his connecting flight in Houston. He’d given Rebecca the last bottle he’d packed three hours ago. They would have to stop at CVS on the way home to grab some formula.
He was surprised at the smiles, nods and sympathetic grimaces of passersby as he strode through the terminal, gently swinging Becca’s car seat to and fro in a useless attempt to rock her to sleep. He assumed they were all parents, acknowledging his membership in a club he hadn’t known existed until she was born.
The people on the flight from Houston hadn’t been as understanding, at least not at first. Some asshole way in the back of the plane had muttered, “Where’s the kid’s mother?” Cade had answered, very loudly, “Your guess is as good as mine, buddy,” which accomplished two things. It elicited an immediate chorus of “awwwwwe” from every woman on the plane, along with a lot of advice on newborns and quite a few phone numbers as well. It also alerted everyone onboard to the fact that the sleep deprived daddy in Row 7 was a werewolf, and they were trapped in an enclosed space at thirty-two thousand feet. He didn’t hear any more complaints.
Michael Wargman, his best friend and second in command, was waiting for them in baggage claim. The normally stoic wolf’s eyes widened in shock as he saw Cade and heard Becca descending toward him.
“Jesus. I can feel that in my jaw,” he observed as Cade stepped off the escalator in baggage claim. “The kid’s got some lungs on her.”
Cade flashed a tired grin. “Hell yeah she does.”
“You look like shit.”
“I feel worse.”
He let Michael take the duffle bag. They headed for the carousel. Cade didn’t break stride as he hoisted the baby carrier up between them. “Michael, Rebecca. Becca, Uncle Michael.”
“Uncle Michael?”
“What, you don’t like?”
“Nah, it’s fine. Uncle Michael’s okay.” He glanced down at Becca. “Well, you wouldn’t have needed the DNA test to know she’s yours. Look at that hair. Does she have green eyes?”
Becca’s face was scrunched up, her eyes shut tight, as she continued to scream. With their superior hearing, her high pitched wails discomfited them even more than humans, but they’d be damned if they let it show. So while every human in the vicinity winced and twitched and rushed to grab their luggage and get far, far away, Cade and Michael chatted casually and waited for his luggage to go by.
“It’s too soon to tell about her eye color. She could be as old as three before it’s locked in.”
“You been reading Dr. Spock again, haven’t you?”
“Shut up and watch for my suitcases.”
“You notice all the females in here checking you out?”
“Yeah. Same thing happened everywhere we went in Savannah. And the women on the plane couldn’t stay away, either.”
“I told you – babies are chick magnets. Not that you need one.” He paused. “You just know the guys’ll be begging to borrow her when they go into town.”
It was bizarre, Cade thought. Guys ran from women with babies. Women flocked to guys with babies.
Michael insisted Cade wait for him to take the luggage to the car and then come back for them. Feeling like a pussy, but too tired to care, Cade sat down on a stone bench and placed Becca’s car seat on the ground between his feet. As he gazed down at her, she paused to take a breath. He fancied she could see him smile, even though he knew he’d be blurry to her (Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, “Birth to About Three Months.”)
“Hang on, sweetheart,” he murmured, rocking the car seat by its handle. “We’ll be home soon.”
She promptly let loose with a fresh barrage of noise.
“If you fall asleep on the ride home, I’ll buy you any car you want when you turn sixteen.”
It failed to impress.
The Range Rover glided to a stop in front of him.
“You need any help?” Michael asked through the open passenger window.
“Nope. Just a sec.” He snapped the car seat into its base and collapsed into the front seat. “All right. Let’s get out of here.”
The Rover didn’t move. Michael stared out the windshield with both hands on the steering wheel. The car behind them honked.
“Hurry up. Let’s go.”
“Um.” Michael looked at him, an uncharacteristic hesitancy in his expression. “I’ve never driven with a baby before. What the fuck do I do? Do I drive under the speed limit? Stay in the right hand lane all the way home? What?”
More cars honked now.
Cade grinned. “Just drive, wolf. You’ll be fine. If you have a wreck, I’ll rip your throat out.”
With a huge sigh, Michael pulled out into the flow of exiting traffic. Becca continued to squall.
“Isn’t driving supposed to put babies to sleep?”
“It usually does.”
“Is she sleeping through the night yet?”
Cade laughed.
Michael groaned.
Becca fell asleep before they were out of the parking lot. Cade put his head back and closed his eyes. He only intended to relax for a few minutes, but he passed out almost as quickly as she had. When he opened his eyes again, they were on Highway 50. Fremont, the town nearest the ranch, was receding in the rearview mirror. They’d be home in minutes.
“Damn. I didn’t mean to sleep like that.”
“You looked like you needed it.”
He glanced back to see Becca stirring, though her eyes were still closed.
“I can’t believe she’s slept this long. When she wakes up she’s gonna need a bottle, stat.”
“No problem,” Michael replied. “We’re stocked up on formula, diapers, toys and clothes. We could open a daycare with all the shit we’ve bought. Roman’s girlfriend did the nursery. Apparently you have to have a theme in a baby’s room, so she picked Winnie the Pooh. I thought it should be something lupine, but she said there aren’t any fairy tales or cartoons where wolves are the good guys.”
Cade thought about it. “There’s wolves in The Jungle Book.”
“Yeah, but only at the very beginning. Then it’s back to bears. Bears are cuddly, wolves aren’t.”
Cade laughed. “Now all I have to do is learn how to take care of a kid by myself.” He’d watched Becca’s grandmother for the past six weeks. Doing it on his own would be completely different.
Michael waved a hand. “Sindri knows what to do.”
Sindri had helped raise Cade and Carson, and the boys’ mother before them. For all Cade knew, Sindri had raised generations of his mother’s ancestors as well. The brownie claimed to be four hundred years old, but Cade thought that might be on the low side.
“You know, if I didn’t have Sindri and a nanny,
I probably would’ve let Sarah Jane raise Rebecca. Speaking of the nan--”
“She doesn’t belong with Sarah Jane. She belongs with you.”
Cade turned to look at him in surprise. “Since when do you think so?” When he’d called home a couple weeks ago to say he was bringing Rebecca back with him, Michael had been distinctly doubtful.
“Answer me, wolf,” he asked again when Michael hadn’t replied. “What’s made you decide I should keep Becca?”
His closest friend shrugged again, clearly embarrassed. “I think it’s good for you,” he finally said. “Emotionally, I mean.” He threw Cade a sideways glance, then quickly looked back at the road. “I know how hard it was finding out about Carson. Knowing you had a kid out there, not being able to see her much, it would’ve torn you up. And what’s bad for you is bad for the pack. So, you know.” He cleared his throat. “How’d Mary Ann take it?”
“Take what?”
“Signing the papers, saying goodbye and all. How’d it go?”
“Oh. Shit.” He rolled his eyes. “She wasn’t even there. Stayed in Miami, had the papers notarized and Fed Ex’d them to me.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Nope. Had me wire her the money, started drawing on it an hour after the funds hit her account.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Not really.”
Michael shook his head. “I feel bad for Sarah Jane. She’s got to be wondering how Mary Ann turned out like that.”
Becca’s grandmother was every bit the stable, responsible, maternal woman Mary Ann was not.
“I feel for her too. And I promised she can visit whenever she wants. But she can’t raise my kid. That’s my job.”
“You think she might try to fight you for custody?”
“Hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me. That’s one of the reasons I need a full time nanny. So if I do have to convince a judge to let me keep my own daughter, I don’t have to tell him she’s being raised by a brownie and fifteen werewolves. Speaking of the nanny.”
Michael turned off the highway at the sign proclaiming RMP Nordics. As the Range Rover neared the compound, late afternoon sunlight filtering through the leaves of the juniper and cedar trees that canopied the gravel road, Cade felt the stress and exhaustion of the past weeks falling away. He was home where he belonged, with his pack and his child.
And with the wolf he trusted implicitly, the wolf who’d led his pack for six weeks as Cade thrashed out his personal life, his best friend of twenty years, the brother Carson had never been, the one who was now doggedly avoiding the subject of most concern to Cade at the moment.
“Michael, what’s the problem with the nanny? We do have a nanny, don’t we?”
“Yep. That’s an affirmative.”
They rounded the last bend in the road, and the familiar horseshoe of buildings came into view. Most of the guys had already gathered in the grassy area in the middle of the horseshoe to greet him. A couple of them were still trotting in from the barns. Sindri was standing on the front porch of the main house, expectant joy written all over his tiny, wizened face.
Rebecca woke up and began to fuss. Michael parked the Rover in the gravel circle among the other vehicles and motorcycles. Then he finally turned to face Cade.
“Look. I hired a nanny. Her stuff arrived today, she’ll be here in the morning. You can meet her, then we’ll talk. For now – those wolves need to see you. The ones who aren’t scared of babies are anxious to meet Rebecca. And Sindri’s going to actually come down off the porch and walk over here” – Sindri rarely left the house, and never ventured beyond the front porch – “if you don’t take her over there now.”
Cade was too tired to rip his fur, and Michael knew it.
So he pulled Rebecca from her car seat and walked into the welcoming arms of his pack.
NANNY NO. 1 — CELINE
Yours, Mine and Howls
The Nanny Years, Part 2
“Celine, this is Rebecca’s dad and my Alpha, Cade MacDougall. Cade, this is Celine George. She grew up in Durango and just finished the American Nanny Academy in Chicago.”
Cade raised an eyebrow at him, then leaned across the desk to shake the girl’s hand. Even though he’d gotten zero sleep last night – Rebecca must’ve known she was in new surroundings and cried for almost five solid hours – Cade managed to look relaxed instead of sluggish as he bestowed his lazy, self-assured smile on the young woman. Every female who stood in front of that smile for more than a second melted like butter under hot lights. Michael couldn’t smile like that if he tried.
Of course, Cade didn’t have to try.
Leaning against the frame of the open French doors, waiting for his cue to leave, Michael turned at the sound of the front door opening and closing. A knot of young wolves shuffled past and continued down the hallway, very pointedly not looking at the group gathered in the office.
“Michael, why don’t you give us a few minutes here.” Cade was still smiling, but Michael recognized a warning, a hint of imminent fur-chewing, in the clear green eyes: you’ve got some explaining to do, wolf. “But stick around so we can talk afterwards.”
“Sure thing, Boss,” he smiled, meeting Cade’s gaze head on. Yeah, that’s what I expected.
He waited till Celine was seated in front of Cade’s desk. The scent of her nervousness permeated the office and wafted out into the entry hall. Cade would have her at her ease and chatting comfortably in minutes.
Michael headed for the kitchen, where the three young wolves had gone.
They were pulling sandwich fixings out of the fridge and discussing Celine’s place on the hotness scale.
“Dude, she’s way hotter than Dee Ann. Did you see that ass? Dee Ann doesn’t have an ass like that.”
They were right – Roman’s girlfriend had a nice ass, but nothing like Celine’s.
Still.
“Hey, dicks for brains? Females can’t hear as well as we can, but they can still hear. And you got no business in here anyway, so hit the fridge in your bunkhouse. It’s got just as much food as this one does.”
“Michael, bro, we just wanted to—”
“You just wanted to get a look at the nanny. And now you have, so get the fuck outta here.”
“Aw, come on! Can’t we even meet her?” Josh was a brash young alpha with an attitude that made Michael itch to punch him. Which he did, whenever necessary, but it was like Cade said – you couldn’t punch the young ones every time they did something to deserve it. They’d all be brain damaged before they were thirty. And it wasn’t like they were a bunch of geniuses to start with.
“Yeah, Michael,” whined Felipe, a beta who should’ve known better. “We just want to introduce ourselves, make her feel at home.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to introduce yourselves later. In the meantime you can think real hard about what I’ve already told you.”
What he’d already told them was: The nanny is off limits. No flirting, no dating, no touching, no fucking. Pretend she’s poisonous. Because if I catch you messing with her, you’ll die.
He had to remind himself they were barely out of their teens. A bunch of horny young werewolves, one beautiful young female…for the tenth or twentieth time he questioned his hiring of Celine. But he’d been working under a deadline and there hadn’t been a lot of alternatives.
“But Michael, what if she can’t help herself?” Josh grinned. “What if she sees one of us and goes crazy?”
“I’m not real worried about that.”
“What if she turns out to be someone’s mate?” asked Toby. “Huh? What about that?”
“Right. Because someone’s mate will just happen to turn up on the ranch.”
“But what if—”
“What if I chuck one of you out the window right now? What if I—”
“Michael!” Cade called from the office. “Would you come in here please?”
“Sure, Cade. I’ll be right there.” Where was
Sindri? He didn’t like wolves loitering in his domain, and Michael didn’t like annoying the brownie. Repercussions were usually felt in the food.
“Michael.”
He spun around to see Cade standing in the doorway, Celine hovering behind him. Her eyes widened at the sight of the three idiots lounging around the enormous kitchen table.
“Michael, would you please join me in my office? Now? Felipe, Toby, y’all show Ms. George around the barns. She rides, and she’s never seen an Icelandic. No, Josh, not you. Get back out to the woodshop. Michael?”
Michael felt the wolves’ amusement at seeing Cade totally override his authority, but one glare and a growl shut them up quick.
Cade was pacing behind his desk when Michael joined him in the office.
“What the fuck was that about?” Michael hissed under his breath once he’d closed the door. “Since when do you dis me in front of the pups?”
“What the fuck’s with hiring a twenty-two year old prom queen? Have you lost your mind?”
Cade broke off as Michael growled. It was completely involuntary, as was Michael’s balling his fists at his sides and baring his teeth at his Alpha. Cade stiffened in shock, Michael blinked in surprise, and then, at some invisible signal from each other, they each let out a huge breath and flopped down, Cade in his chair behind his desk and Michael in one of the chairs facing it.
A moment later Cade propped his elbows on the desk, running a hand over his face and through his long curls. “All right,” he said in an exhausted tone. “Talk.”
Michael heaved a martyred sigh. “Do you really think I’d choose your child’s nanny with my dick?”
Cade rolled his eyes. “Fine. No, I don’t.” For a Pack Alpha, that was an apology. “So why did you hire Little Miss Fuckable instead of, you know, a real nanny?”
“First of all, Ms. George is a real nanny. The American Nanny Academy is one of the top three training schools in the country. And Premier Professional Childcare is the most expensive, highest rated placement agency in Colorado. I didn’t just pick her at random. I’ve talked to several families who’ve used PPC.” He didn’t need to add that none of the families were headed by werewolves. Cade was the only wolf in Colorado with a kid.
Werewolves in Love 1.5: The Nanny Years Page 1