“You wouldn’t say that if you knew—”
“I don’t know, you’re right. All I can go on is the man I knew before and the man who showed up tonight. If you can’t be some version of him, then this shouldn’t go any further. Atticus deserves more.” Her tigress roared at her, but she stayed firm. It’d hurt—oh, it’d hurt—but she’d rather give up early than let Wyatt back into their lives only to lose him all over again.
He canted his head, keeping his profile to her. “I don’t know how to be a father.”
“Learning to be a mom didn’t happen overnight. You seemed off to a good start tonight.”
“I’m going to be shit at this. My talents are basically building bikes, cursing, and drinking.”
“One of those is a useful skill, one will win him points with his friends and detention from his teachers, the last you can hold off teaching until he’s old enough to buy his own booze.”
Wyatt huffed a laugh. “So that hasn’t changed. You’re still a glass half full type.”
“It’s pure spite at this point. I’d rather be happy with what I have than let what I don’t drag me down.”
He sat back and turned his face to her. Something flickered across his features and in his eyes as a slow smile hitched up a corner of his mouth. Her blood simmered under that look, and even more when he dragged a finger up his beer bottle, then touched the wet tip to the back of her hand.
“And that’d make you happy? Me sticking around?” he asked, tracing a slow circle over her skin.
Oh, devil. Devil indeed.
“I’m not saying we head on down to the courthouse and register as a mated pair.” Her tigress flopped to the ground and rolled around like she’d been drugged with a metric ton of catnip. Wyatt’s eyes churned with silver, but Alanna dragged a steadying breath into her lungs and pushed on. “Let’s just see where this goes. Are you free for dinner tomorrow?”
“Are you asking or telling this time?”
Alanna shrugged up a shoulder. “Asking for me. Telling for our son.”
“Our son.” Wyatt stood and offered her a hand. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“Does that mean you’ll be here? To get used to it?” She slid her palm against his and shivered at the warmth that whipped through her. Her tigress let off a relaxed rumble.
She distracted herself by pushing open the balcony door and leading Wyatt back inside. He stayed quiet until they reached the front door. His hand closed on the knob before hers, and he opened the door and turned to her in the same smooth movement.
“Tomorrow,” he agreed. “We’ll see how this goes.” He shoved his hair back from his face, ducked his eyes, then raised them back to hers. “Thank you for dinner and letting me meet him.”
“Thank you for showing up.” Alanna’s stomach fluttered with the wings of nervous butterflies. Feeling bold, she stood on tiptoe and leaned in to kiss his cheek.
He turned his head at the last second and caught her kiss with his mouth.
Wyatt pressed her back against the wall and let his hands fall to her hips. One little squeeze of his fingers blasted fire through her with such intensity that she gasped. With that small sound, that tiny opening, Wyatt swept between her lips for a kiss that curled her toes.
He stroked her tongue before teasing every inch of her mouth. Tasting her. Baiting her into matching him stroke for stroke. His hands didn’t move from her sides, but he tightened his grip as she slowly spun out of control.
His kisses always left her dizzy.
Wyatt broke away as a whimper crawled up her throat. He pressed his nose to the column of her neck, lips still tasting her skin. “I’m still bad, kitten. I want to do bad things to you right now. I’m going to make you want it bad if you keep opening that door for me, all because I can’t keep my hands off you.”
Then he released her and stepped to the other side. Smirk lifting his lips, eyes swirling with silver, he reached for the knob and closed the door between them.
Alanna sagged against her side. Her hand rose to her throat and stroked the skin there. She could still feel Wyatt’s mouth, his breath. Her pulse raced as her tigress padded restlessly through her.
Going to? Fuck, she already wanted him. She felt strung out with need.
“Mom!” Atticus shouted from his room. “Is there any ice cream left?”
Alanna peeled herself away from the door with a groan. Being a mother never stopped, even when she wanted a moment to be just a woman.
“You have legs, don’t you?” she griped. “Check the freezer yourself.”
Chapter 8
Alanna finished wrapping the trays of cookies and sealed them inside the case for the next day. “We should make an extra batch of snickerdoodles for tomorrow,” she said to the quiet bakery. With all the customers gone for the day and the closed sign on the door, the place felt too empty. Or maybe it was her and the sudden, clawing need to get out of there and to the man who made her heart pound. Alanna swallowed hard and flashed a smile to Charles counting the till under Ginny’s watchful eye. “Those seem really popular right now.”
Charles harrumphed and exploded in a quiet, calm disapproval that consisted of a furrowed brow and gruff voice. “I don’t think you should trust this boy. He had years to come back, and didn’t.”
Ginny swatted his arm. “I think it’s romantic. And sad. Sad and romantic make for the best endings.”
Charles harrumphed again and grumbled his way into the back of the bakery.
“Did you kiss again?” Ginny asked in a hushed tone.
“I heard that!” Charles yelled from the back. “And I don’t want to know!”
Alanna bit back her laugh and nodded. Ginny clapped her hands over her mouth and danced in a tiny circle.
They’d kissed. And laughed. And bonded both with Atticus and alone. They’d spread their cards on the table and let each other sift through the hands dealt to them over the years. Then at the end of the night, he kissed her.
Three nights in a row, he’d showed up, impressed her, and left her as hot and bothered as the first kisses they’d shared when they’d barely been older than Atticus.
And now?
She had no idea.
She knew what she wanted. Oh, that dream had been there the moment her tigress really noticed the tough boy with his loud mouth and dangerous eyes. She even had a little taste of what life would have been like with Wyatt looking at her like she was the only one that mattered.
Then life happened and smashed her dream. Alanna didn’t know how to pick up the pieces. They’d been apart for far longer than their little teenage tryst bound them together. Heck, almost half the time they’d been alive.
But the draw to him still made her heart pound and her tigress take notice.
Alanna leaned against the counter and tilted her head to rest on Ginny’s shoulder. She smelled like cookie dough, soft and comforting. The woman was like a mother to her and she needed some motherly advice. “What do I do?”
Ginny wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “You’ve been given a second chance for a reason, my dear. Go in with your eyes open, but don’t go making trouble where there isn’t any.”
“He’ll make enough trouble for the both of us, I’m sure,” Alanna said with a smile.
If he proved good for Atticus. Her son had become her primary focus on the day he was born. Her wants came second to his needs. She’d kick Wyatt to the curb fast enough to make his head spin if he dared hurt Atticus, and her inner beast could just deal.
For all his wild nature, she doubted Wyatt would ever intentionally hurt their son. Tough love, sure. But the type of hurt her own father caused her? Or the neglect Wyatt’s dealt him? Atticus didn’t need to fear those.
She hoped.
“Go on.” Ginny gave her shoulder another squeeze. “Get your apron hung up and your butt out the door. I’ll do the mopping while Charles finishes the paperwork.”
She’d barely passed through t
he doors to the kitchen when Ginny called for her again.
“Alanna? Can you come out here before you leave?”
She hung her apron on a hook and touched her fingers to the plaque above it. Her name was engraved on the metal and had hung there for years. The sign of permanence made her wonder what twists life would have taken if Wyatt had stayed in Redwater. Would he have wound up serving liquor at the bar like he did now? Or would he have done something else, like work as a mechanic? Would she have gone to school and maybe even moved them out of the small town?
The man on her mind once again, she drifted through the door to the front of the store.
And froze.
Harris Ayers stood on the other side of the counter.
“May we talk?”
Alanna nodded. He asked. Asked! Maybe he was dying. Or had a brain tumor. That no demand came from her father’s mouth utterly astonished her.
Ginny eyed him hard while she flipped one lock on the door to keep any other latecomers from entering, then disappeared into the back.
What did she even call him? Daddy had been phased out by the time she was eight or nine. He lost all rights to Dad when he screamed about the bastard in her belly and kicked her out of the house. Father gave him too much respect. Harris was too familiar; Mr. Ayers too formal.
Alanna rounded the counters in silence. The chairs hadn’t yet been upturned on the tables to mop the floor, so she gestured for her father to take a table in front of the window.
“I was hoping for someone more private.”
“This will do.” It was after hours, but he had to have known that between the closed sign on the door and Ginny unlocking the door for him.
Something dark flickered in his eyes and kept her on edge. Still, he maintained a pleasant tone when he asked, “You are well?”
“I can’t complain. The bakery does a steady business. There couldn’t be better bosses than Ginny and Charles.”
A diplomatic way of saying they were better parents, too. They’d fed her, clothed her, and got her back on her feet. They were there when she needed advice or an extra set of hands. The Millers treated her as a real person instead of an object to be managed.
Her father was quiet for a moment as Ginny approached with two drinks. Alanna nodded her thanks, but Harris only flicked a glance to Ginny, down to the mug with a vague tightening of his jaw, and pushed the drink to the side.
Alanna’s hackles rose at the clear dismissal of a kind gesture. She was less interested in hearing him out than before.
“I have been following your cub’s scholarly progress. I’m worried about this latest outburst.”
Well, that sounded like a privacy violation of mega proportions. She planned to march into Principal Rhodes’s office the very next Monday with demands to seal up her leaky ship.
“It’s handled,” Alanna said. And wouldn’t it just burn him up if he knew Wyatt was involved?
“Even so, I believe it’s time for this exile of yours to come to an end. I want you back in the streak where you both belong.”
Alanna felt her eyes bug out of her head and roll across the floor like marbles, then snap back like the return flight of a yo-yo. “Excuse me?”
“I have received some interesting prospects for your hand. You could rise above your station and repair the damage that’s been done to the Ayers name. Additionally, I think the boy should come live with the streak permanently. It’s past time for him to learn his place in the world.”
She didn’t know where to begin. With her apparent arranged mating or the casual claiming of her son? Her tigress readied to strike with all the fury of a mother scorned, claws slashing Alanna’s middle with the ache to sink them into Harris. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I am his grandsire. I have rights.”
Alanna stared at him, then covered her face with her hands to hold back her scream. Did all the men in her life conspire to make things difficult at the same time? Atticus with his behavior problems. Wyatt with suddenly existing. Her father for deciding he’d gone long enough without directly being an asshole.
The initial reaction drained away into the tidal wave of fury rising inside her. Alanna pressed her palms to the table and leaned forward, voice low. “Let me get this straight. You want to take the child who you disowned before he was even born for being, quote, ‘some low-life wolf’s bastard’? At no time in the past thirteen years have you called me, written to me, hell, even nodded in my direction when we passed on the sidewalk, but you’re here now to exert your rights?” The last word spat out with all the venom and disappointment he’d filled her with.
“Do not act like a child, Alanna, or I will be forced to take action. I can make everything you have go away. Your home, your illustrious career as a counter girl.” Harris’s lip curled in disgust. “Think hard before you speak out of turn.”
“Ah, yes, because only by your grace can anything exist. You have provided nothing since you forced me from my home. You have no strings tied to me to force me to dance.” She sat back. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? You need something out of this. Why else would you be coming to me now with all these gracious offers?”
“Your selfish actions brought us here. Just because you couldn’t keep your legs closed to help further your family doesn’t mean the boy need suffer.”
Alanna growled. Her tigress beat a quick path to the front of her mind. Her nails darkened with the tips of claws slowly extending in her rage.
She wouldn’t have to deal with threats from her father ever again because she was about to murder him right in the middle of the bakery.
“We can offer him the stability he’s lacking, along with opportunities for his future. He may even be heir. I find myself without one since my previous choice perished during the trouble two months past.”
There it was. The true reason for her father’s sudden interest wasn’t a desire to reconnect with his family. No, he just needed another pawn on his board.
“No.” Alanna forced the word past her lips. “You won’t take my son from me. You won’t go near him. He won’t be your heir or learn anything from you. He won’t turn into the kind of man who will put his own ambitions above the thoughts and feelings of his child, and he sure as fuck won’t grow up seeing women as a commodity to be traded away. Fuck the streak, and fuck you.”
Harris’s dark eyes flashed with gold as anger worked across his cheeks. His jaw set in a hard line and his words, thick with his inner beast, rumbled out of his chest with a clear threat. “Mark me, daughter. You are making a mistake. Others will suffer for your choice.”
Alanna shook her head. She’d grown up since he banished her from her family and tiger streak. Nothing in the world would make her submit herself to his rule.
Not even removing other influences in her life.
“Did you frame Wyatt?”
Harris scowled. “My objection to that boy came from a loving place—”
“I doubt it. Did you frame him?”
“You would have been queen to your own streak by now. Any cubs born would have been given the best upbringing money could buy.”
“That’s still not an answer. Did you. Frame. Wyatt?”
Harris rose and straightened his tie. “I won’t stand for these accusations.”
Alanna narrowed her eyes and watched him walk away. As soon as he cleared the bakery’s threshold, someone jumped out of the SUV parked on the street and opened the door for him.
As quickly as he arrived, he disappeared from her life again.
Alanna sagged against the table and watched the vehicle pull away from the curb. Anger coursed through her. She rolled her shoulders to cut the tension, but her tigress still prowled just under her skin. The beast wanted to chase down the SUV and rip it apart like a tin of sardines. She’d happily eat the men inside, too.
Two thoughts circled her brain.
One: she needed to hold Atticus tight. There was no telling what Harris would do to get his way.
<
br /> Two: he hadn’t answered her question.
Chapter 9
Wyatt stared at the office building across from him. His wolf prowled under his skin, ready to take the leap and end Harris.
The white-hot fury that raged inside him for so many years had cooled to a slow burn. His anger wasn’t about him anymore. Not entirely. Alanna and Atticus factored in and stoked the flames.
Harris had taken something from them all. He’d stripped Alanna of her streak, her family, and the father of her child. He’d condemned Atticus to growing up on the outside. Wyatt lost a chance at a normal life.
The fucker needed to pay, but the reasons had shifted something in his chest.
He wasn’t the only one that mattered.
His son—skies above, he doubted he’d ever get used to those two words sitting together in a sentence—was a little punk. A trying, baiting, annoying little punk that made him grin like a fool more times than he could count during their little dinners.
Atticus needed some guidance, sure. But no one offered any to Wyatt and he’d turned into a fucking failure, so what good could he do the boy?
And Alanna. Fuck, Alanna. His cock throbbed at the memory of those damn kisses. What the hell had he been thinking when he laid them on her? One head had certainly snatched control from the other in those final moments.
He’d meant every word he said that first night. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself if she kept opening the door. He wanted to feel her around him, screaming his name, with glassy eyes and bruised-kissed lips. He wanted to fall asleep with her draped over his chest and wake up to do it all over again.
She was incredible. She’d been through so much and came out swinging on the other side. Alanna hadn’t allowed him to opt out of their lives. Hell, she probably would have tracked him down and dragged him to the table if he refused.
Tequila and Tigers: Book Two: Shifters and Sins Page 6