The Shifter's Catch

by T. S. Ryder

  I’m about to respond when, as if reading my mind, he says “It’s not a club or bar. You’ll like it.”

  I stare into my room’s sheet partition. Being here, I already feel stifled and embarrassed. “Ok.”

  We change back into our clothes quickly, then, taking my hand, Luke leads me out of the apartment.

  “I’ll drive, if that’s alright.” I nod because it’s not like I have a car.

  When will this dream end? Sure, I’ve missed Luke, spent nights crying over Luke – he’s the only man I’ve slept with and I’m carrying his child, for God’s sake. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to think that we could actually work together, that he has ever actually cared for me.

  No, these past few months I may have been stupid, but I’m still not stupid enough to think he may actually give a damn about me.

  Chapter Sixteen - Luke

  The car ride is more silence, which my fears are all too happy to fill: hissing at me that this was all a mistake, that I’m a fool, that this will never work. Once we pull into the now almost-empty parking lot and Emma sees where we are, she can’t help but smile.

  “You’ve been visiting the zoo these past few months?”

  I nod. “Yeah, well, I’ve already rewatched like every episode of Planet Earth four times by now, so I had to get my animal fix somehow.”

  At the zoo counter I nod to Sandra, who’s at her usual spot at the counter, before going through without paying.

  “I have a membership,” I explain to Emma, “They know me by now.”

  As we wind our way through the last of the zoo visitor stragglers and past huge cages and pens, Emma finally asks the question that’s been hanging over us since she saw me waiting at her door. “What’s this about, Luke?”

  “One second,” I say. And then, a few seconds later, I’ve sat down at a bench in front of a tall wide cage, patting the space beside it.

  “This is where I go to sit.”

  As Emma sits beside me, I continue. “These guys are my favorite.”

  And, as she sits there, her eyes lighting up at the sight, I think she can see why. The two golden lion tamarins are ridiculously adorable. With their bright orange shiny fur and little black-eyed faces, they would’ve been mesmerizing already. As it is, their being crazy in love makes even me fall silent as I watch. They walk hand-in-hand and are constantly grooming and licking and embracing each other. Even when they swing from one branch to the other, each monkey is only one branch behind the other.

  It’s a touching sight, but, judging by Emma’s now-falling face, she too finds it a bit depressing. Finally, my gaze on the little creatures’ big love, I say it.

  “I’ve been looking for you a long time, you know.”

  “What?”

  Now I turn to face her. “After that night and your dad showed up, you just disappeared. No note, no text, nothing. You just vanished and, no matter how I searched, I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  She avoids my intent gaze. “I didn’t think you’d go looking . . . I hardly thought you’d care.”

  “Me too.” My voice is low, filled with emotion. It almost doesn’t even sound like mine.

  “As it turns out, we were both wrong. Every day without you just going through the motions back in my old life drilled it in deeper. The undeniable gap that was there. No one to talk to, to laugh with . . . No one who really got me. Emma, I’ve never felt lonely in my life and, after you, I’ve felt more alone every day for the past six months. And that night . . . that night, you and I in my bed . . . I’m sorry, and yet, I’m not sorry. Because every minute of it, Emma, every second of it – it felt right. For the first time in my life, I don’t know why . . . Every part of it, of being with you, felt completely right.”

  “How did you find me?” she asks quietly.

  I laugh. “I had just about given up. I’d scoured the internet for you, the phone book, even risked asking a few friends who knew the commander better than I did. But everything turned up nothing. So, expecting nothing to come of it, I hired a private investigator.”

  As she gapes at me in disbelief, I laugh again, nod. “That was a few months ago. And, yesterday, he told me where I could find you.”

  As I grin at her, her face struggles with a smile she can’t quite allow. She still doesn’t believe what I’m saying. “But . . . why?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “You first. Why did you leave?” When she says nothing, I repeat the question: “Why, Emma?”

  She keeps her gaze on the tamarins, who are huddled in the corner of their cage in a hug-ball. Then, she gestures at her ballooned-out belly. “You’re looking at why. At first, I just left in a hurry to escape Dad’s rage. I planned to get in touch in a few weeks. But then, my period didn’t come and I took a pregnancy test . . . Well, then this happened. I had seen how you were with the other girls, and so I knew that I was probably just another fun lay that night. I knew you wouldn’t want the responsibility – that it would be better off if I just left you alone. So, I did.”

  I nod. “And what do you think now?”

  My sidelong glance at her impassive face reveals nothing. “Now, I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I mean, you went to all this trouble and everything you just said, but―”

  Now I turn to her, seize her hand. “But what? I’ve gone through so many girls that by now I’ve lost count? I’ve never had a girlfriend for longer than a few months? I’ve never been in love?”

  As she nods dumbly, I continue “All that is true but is missing the point. The point is you, Emma. You are the exception. You. You came into my life unexpected and unwanted – completely unprecedented. I never hoped for this, for these terrifying, overwhelming feelings that haven’t left me alone until now. Until I found you. And you want to know something? I still don’t want them. Yes, I want you, but I don’t want to want you with this desperate inescapable need that makes every new day without you feel empty and hollow. I don’t want Parker to keep asking me nonstop, “When’s Emma coming back?” I don’t want to think about that night we had every time I’m with a new girl . . . To have your delighted, rosy-cheeked face flash in my head every time I spot a cute animal. No, Emma, I don’t want any of this, but I’m stuck with it. I’m stuck with wanting you, with needing you. There’s no choice in any of it, not anymore. Emma, I’m stuck with loving you.”

  As she gapes at me, the fear roars up again. Grasping her in my arms, I spill out more words. “So, you’re right if you think I’m not a good prospect, not well-versed in healthy relationships or any real sort of relationship for that matter. You’re right to doubt that I’d be a good father or a good boyfriend or a good anything, really. But I can tell you this” – I put one hand on her belly and the other on her cheek – “I will love you and this baby until the day I die. And I will do anything for you and our child. Anything that it takes for you to be happy.”

  Still, she’s speechless, gaping at me with those blue moon eyes, the ones our baby might have too. Taking her hand, I lean in.

  “This is when you’re supposed to tell me your answer – to me, my love, this, everything.”

  It bursts out of her, in one delighted sort of laugh-cry: “Yes!” She throws her arms around me. “Oh, yes! Luke, of course yes!” She draws back to look at me with teary eyes. “I’ve missed you every day too, spent these last months trying to convince myself that we’d never work, that you’d never cared for me, that there was no point in even hoping, but now . . .” She smiles. “Now I think the least we can do is try.”

  As we stare into each other’s eyes, suddenly, her smile falls.

  “But what about the base and my dad?”

  My smile grows.

  “You haven’t heard? Last week he was transferred to another division. Apparently that crazy bitch wife of his exploded on another commander’s wife. So now we can do what we like.”

  She nods as if she’s unsure exactly what I said, so I make it clear for her: “We can start packing wh
en we get back to your place tonight.”

  A devious look creeps onto her face. “Oh really? And what if I like where I’m staying now?”

  I pat her face. “You can have a sheet partition in the attic too.”

  Laughing, she rises.

  “And for the baby . . . What if I’d already named him Damien?” I grin, pat her belly.

  “If Damien’s ok with it then I’m ok with it.”

  Now we’re both grinning stupidly at each other, so I ask her “What do you say?”

  Her gaze flutters down, then back to mine. Her smile grows. “Ok, I’m in.”

  I rise to whisper in her ear: “No, I’m the one who’s going to be in . . . you.”

  Her eyes dancing with an aroused fire, she pushes me back a bit. “Luke!”

  I step forward, kiss her, whisper in her ear “I can’t help it. I love you.”

  We kiss again and, when we break apart once more, she says “I love you.”

  *****

  THE END

  Daddy's Business Friend

  Description

  He’s forbidden territory.

  He’s much older than me. Not to mention my dad’s best friend and ... my boss.

  I know I shouldn’t want him, but how much longer can I resist?

  All I can think about is his experienced hands, his dark, intense eyes.

  He’s known me since I was a little girl. But I’ve grown up, I’m a woman now.

  Just once wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  Wrong... Here I am, pregnant with his baby.

  Have I lost him forever? Or is he man enough to handle the responsibility?

  Chapter One

  Laken Singleton blew the ash brown hair out of her face as she added whipped milk to a coffee. Tinsel decorated the counter she stood at in honor of the upcoming holidays. She’d been working at Coffee Hut for three years now. She’d just been fired from her second job a few hours ago. The diner she’d been working at was closing down due to decreasing revenue.

  She needed both jobs or she wouldn’t be able to afford to live and scrape a little bit into savings every month so she could go back to school one day.

  Her co-worker and friend, Jen, sauntered up beside her to grind beans. “Mr. Cranky-pants is throwing another tantrum. You know you’re the only one who can calm him down.”

  Sure, it was childish, but Mr. Cranky-pants was the name Jen had given their manager, Kevin. Laken rolled her eyes and sighed. She was too tired to deal with Kevin today. “I’ll see what’s going on. Be right back.”

  She followed the narrow hall back to Kevin’s office, wiping her hands on her apron. “Hey, Kev, what’s wrong?”

  “The cash register came up short again yesterday. If it happens again, I’m going to have to let one of you go.”

  Whoa, this wasn’t just a bad day. This was a big freaking deal. Neither she or Jen could afford to lose their jobs. Jen had a little boy at home, two years old, and no one to support them. It would be Christmas soon and Laken couldn’t imagine how awful it would be if Jen couldn’t buy her little boy any gifts.

  On the other hand, since Laken’s dad had died, she had no one to support her, either. Somehow, even though he’d been partners in a business and they hadn’t exactly been poor, her father hadn’t left a will. If he had, no one could find it.

  Her stepmother’s first action after the funeral had been to kick Laken out of the house and vow not to give her another dime, either for college or to live on. Laken didn’t mind so much being financially independent if you could call the frugal way she lived that, but her father had saved all her life for her to become a doctor. It’s all she’d ever wanted.

  She brushed her hair away from her espresso black eyes, where it had fallen from her bun. “Kevin, calm down. There’s got to be a logical explanation.”

  Kevin stood and scrubbed at his short beard with a hand. “If there is, I can’t figure it out. I don’t think either of you girls would steal from the till, but I’ve got to answer to the owners.”

  Laken sat down in a chair beside his desk. “Have you considered the register might be going wonky? It’s pretty old. It’s not out of the question that it’s not recording when we have to comp a coffee or invalidate a sale.”

  “I’ll see about getting a new one, but I honestly doubt the owners are going to spring for it.” He sat down behind his desk and picked up the phone. “You should get back to work.”

  Laken’s chest hitched when she tried to breathe. This was scary, for her and for Jen. Maybe she should start looking for a new job? She’d hate to leave this place, though. She knew her job, she was good at it and she liked Jen. She even liked Kevin, much as she hated to admit it. But something had to change. She just couldn’t afford to get fired. If she were going to leave, it needed to be on her own terms.

  ***

  Trevor sat across the table from Eleanor Singleton, his best friend’s widow of the last three years. This was one hell of a way to spend his forty-fourth birthday. He drummed his fingers on the table, eager to get this meeting over with.

  They didn’t have a board of directors or investors. There was only him and Eleanor.

  Before, when it was him and Frank, things had been easy. This company was their baby. Trevor had no kids of his own. When his wife was alive, he never gave up half hoping she’d take pregnant, but she never did. He supposed one of them had been infertile. She hadn’t been interested in pursuing any treatments. He’d accepted that, as he had many things going on in his life. It hadn’t been a happy marriage.

  He never intended to settle for less than the best life had to offer ever again.

  “Eleanor, you can’t really want to sell the company Frank worked so hard to build.”

  “I have no interest in this company, especially if it’s not bringing me any profit.” She scowled at him and lit a cigarette. There was an ordinance against smoking in public places, including office buildings. Eleanor could care less if they got cited, so she lit up during all of their meetings. It never seemed to worry her that Frank had died of lung cancer after a long-fought battle to survive.

  Trevor stood and shut the office door, so at least his employees wouldn’t be subjected to her secondhand smoke. “Goddamn it, how much do you want for your share?”

  She picked up a pen, grabbed a post-it and shoved it at Trevor. He picked it up. It was outlandish—the company, which she only owned half of, was nowhere near this much. “If we sold today, you’d never get this much.”

  “All the same, if you want my half, that’s what it’s worth.”

  He’d try reasoning with her. He willed his voice to come out calm and even. He couldn’t seem to help his jaw clench. “Why do you want to sell?”

  “I want to move me and my kids to Florida. I’m tired of living through these cold winters here in Ohio.” She fluffed her hair out and gave him a serene smile.

  “Ellie, be reasonable for a change. What if the company were turning a profit again?” Running the business without Frank and his ingenuity had proved more difficult than Trevor would’ve ever imagined.

  She stabbed her cigarette out in her empty mug of coffee. “I’m through being reasonable. I’ve waited and waited for you to pull this company together, and I’m done waiting.”

  “We’re finally out of the red. We’ll be profitable again within the next year.” Trevor had worked his ass off to bring the company this far.

  “You forget that I don’t still have Frank’s salary to support me.”

  That was just selfish lies—Frank had left behind life insurance, savings and this company. He’d heard through the grapevine that Eleanor and Laken, Frank’s daughter from his first marriage, had parted ways. He didn’t ask her about it. She held fifty percent interest in his company. If he could afford to buy her out, he would, but he doubted he could. He’d been keeping the company afloat for the last few years with his own savings.

  Eleanor jumped up. ”I’m done arguing with you, Trevor. Either make t
his company profitable in the next three months, or we sell. That’s all there is to it.”

  She stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her, and he sat down. Rage and helplessness sizzled through his veins, reminding him of the night when he’d asked his wife for a divorce.

  He’d never forgiven himself for what happened after, and now he was letting Frank down, too. He refused to accept that there was nothing he could do.

  ***

  Laken pushed her braid back over her shoulder and blinked at the man who’d just come into Coffee Hut. He looked familiar. Like, really familiar. And he was handsome, a little bit older. Thick brown hair came down in a widow’s peak on his forehead. Caramel brown eyes and full lips rounded out his features. Even though he’d probably shaved that morning, a trace of stubble shadowed his chin.

  He came up to her, in his business suit, and tilted his head. “Laken? Is that you?”

  “Oh, my gosh.” She would recognize that voice anywhere. She hadn’t seen him in three years. “Trevor Elliot. I knew that I recognized you.”

  “How are you? You doing okay?” He looked around at the dilapidated cafe then back at her, an eyebrow raised.

  “Let me get you some coffee and then we can sit and talk for a few minutes. What would you like?” She smiled, she couldn’t help herself. It had been so long since she’d seen a friendly face. And a handsome one, too.

  He ordered a plain black coffee and she grabbed a latte for herself, then led him to a table in the corner. “I’m taking my break, Jen,” she called out over her shoulder.

  “Cool,” Jen replied, helping the next customer. They were a hole-in-the-wall business, but they got by with plenty of locals coming in for coffee.

  They sat together and he just stared at her until she became so uncomfortable that she took a sip of her latte and gazed out the window.