by T. S. Joyce
“Uh oh,” Leah muttered as Ma settled in with Aaron and Tate across the table. “Incoming.”
Up at the line, the woman Cody had been with at the pizzeria approached and pulled him off to the side. Boone snuck a glance behind him, probably to check if Rory was seeing this, and she definitely was.
Ma smiled sympathetically as Rory forced herself to look away. “Shayna is partly our fault. We were encouraging him to date, and she has been relentless for a couple of years now. If it makes you feel any better, I think he was just going out with her to appease me.”
“It’s none of my business who he sees,” Rory said low. “We’re just friends.”
“Lies,” Leah said lightly. “We can hear them.”
Rory puffed air from her cheeks and rested her chin on her forearms before she tried again. “It’s none of my business who he sees because he said we should only be friends, and he wants us to date other people.”
“Truth,” Leah said darkly. “That sucks. Why?”
“Because she scares him, that’s why,” Ma said. “And honey, wielding the ability to scare Cody isn’t a bad thing. Give him time.”
Time she didn’t have. In four days, Rory would be going back to her life. She just hoped the friendship they forged this week would be enough to carry their little team through until the next time she could visit.
Rory glanced up just in time to see the woman kiss Cody on the cheek and slide a narrow-eyed glance her way. Something green and ugly slithered through Rory’s veins as she watched the woman walk out the front door.
When she looked back at Leah, the woman was grinning from ear to ear. “You look pissed.”
Lifting her chin, Rory said, “I’m unaffected.”
“Mm-hmm, I told myself that about Gage for an entire year, and now look at me. Raising his little mini-mes and utterly smitten.”
“It’s different for Cody and me. We don’t really know each other, and if we don’t find a way to get along, it’ll be Aaron who suffers for it. Cody was right. The safest way to do that is to be friends and focus on our son.”
Cody walked back with Boone, but a man stopped him and shook his hand. “Thank you for your service,” the man said.
Cody nodded and smiled, then made his way back to the table and slid in beside her, folding his long legs under the table.
“What was that about?” she asked.
Cody shook his head, apparently uncomfortable, but Ma spoke up. “Cody served our country. Two tours.”
Rory stared at him. “What? You’re military?”
“Was, and I hate talking about it, so let’s don’t.” His voice was hard and cold, snapping like a rubber band, but whether that leftover chill was from his encounter with Shayna or from a haunting experience overseas, she couldn’t tell.
“Okay,” she murmured as embarrassing heat crept into her cheeks.
From the edge of her vision, she could see him watching her with an unsettled expression, but she didn’t care. If he didn’t want to talk, and if he wanted to lock her out of that part of his life, fine. They were just friendly strangers anyhow, and it was obviously none of her business.
His hand slid over the top of her thigh, and she tensed, then scrambled over his lap. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she muttered as she stumbled off the end of the bench seat.
He didn’t get to touch her how he liked after talking to her like that in front of his family. Shocked, she’d asked an honest question. It wasn’t like she’d asked him anything too personal. For chrissakes, a stranger shook his hand and thanked him for his service, yet the mother of his child wasn’t allowed in on the secret? She felt like grit.
She slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She didn’t really have to pee, but for lack of anything else to do, she gave it the ol’ college try, then washed her hands. She could do this. Just friends. She wasn’t allowed to ask him about his life until he was ready to bestow his history upon her. Really, that was fair, because she hadn’t talked about her parents with him when he’d asked, and he hadn’t pushed her to share. She hadn’t rejected his question in front of her family, though. Gah, her head was beginning to ache. Puffing air from her cheeks, she turned and unlocked the door.
Cody’s giant torso filled the frame, and she squeaked, startled. Without a word, he pushed his way into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.
“What are you doing?” she raged in a whisper. “This is the women’s bathroom. No dicks allowed.”
He crossed his arms over his chest until his arm muscles bulged. “You’re mad.”
“I’m not.”
Cody shot her a look that called her out on her bullshit and stepped closer. Rory’s back bumped the sink as she tried to maintain space between them.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he whispered, placing his arms on either side of her, trapping her. “I’m proud of serving, but it wasn’t my choice to go to war.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t your choice? There is no draft.”
“There is for my crew. The government knows about us, Rory. We have to do what they want. At the time they asked me to serve, my instincts were screaming to stay with my people. They recruited my brothers, too. They separated all of us while it was my responsibility to protect them.”
“Why is everything your responsibility?”
“Because I’m alpha. I’m the leader of the Breck Crew. When my dad died…” Cody swallowed hard and straightened his spine, releasing her from his blue-flame gaze. “When he died, the title went to me.”
Rory inhaled deeply. “So people do know about bear shifters.”
Cody nodded. “For now it’s just the people who want to use their knowledge of our existence as leverage.”
“That sucks,” she muttered, stunned.
He ran a hand over his short hair and laughed. “You have no idea.”
“You know what else sucks?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“What?”
“Shayna.”
His golden brows arched high as a slow smile took his face. “You jealous?”
“I mean, it’s hard watching someone else kiss the father of your child. I don’t care how unattached or mature you are, it’s an awkward situation. Even if we’re just friends.”
A soft knock sounded against the door. “I have to pee.” It sounded like Leah.
Cody shot the door a troubled look, and then leveled Rory again with that intense gaze of his. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”
“Don’t worry, Keller. I’ll be out of your hair in four days. Then you can go back to banging whoever you want.”
She stepped around him and reached for the doorknob, but he grabbed her arm and spun her to face him. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Call me by my last name and talk about leaving.”
His lips crashed down on hers. Inhaling in shock, she balked against him, but he cupped her neck and dragged her waist closer. And as his lips softened and moved against hers, she closed her eyes and melted against him. He angled his head as she ran her hand up his chest. Opening her lips, she allowed him to taste her. A mortifying, helpless sound wrenched from her throat as his fingers turned gentle and the pace of his kiss slowed. He plucked at her lips once. Twice. Resting his forehead against hers, he said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Don’t,” she drawled out. “Don’t take away from this. What you meant to say is, ‘I shouldn’t have given you our first kiss in the ladies bathroom of a donut diner.’”
A tiny huff of laughter sounded as he swayed them gently from side to side. “Technically I gave you our first kiss in a bar.”
“Yeah, that’s not any better, Keller.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Don’t gripe at me in front of your family.”
“Our family now, Dodson.”
She narrowed her eyes, readying for a retort when he leaned forward and gave her the sweetest, softest kiss. Th
e kind that ended with a quiet, sexy smacking sound and made her go warm from her mouth to her knees.
“I knew you were trouble from the first time I saw you in that bar, woman.”
Leah sang through the door, “I still have to pee.”
Cody grabbed Rory’s hand and led her out of the bathroom. All she could manage was a drunken smile for Leah.
“What happened to you?” Leah asked, wide-eyed.
She’d been kissed too thoroughly, that’s what. Cody looked back at Rory with a wicked grin, then waited for her to climb across the bench seat.
“Where’s Aaron?” she asked, panicking when she looked around and he wasn’t there.
Ma pointed under the table, and Rory ducked under. Aaron, Arie, and Tate were all playing near her feet with chocolate smiles that said they’d already inhaled their breakfasts.
She huffed a sigh of relief and apologized for bolting.
“No worries,” Ma said with a smile as she poured syrup over a pancake so big its edges flopped over the side of the plate. “He’s been playing with his cousins and has been perfectly well-behaved. Besides, I’d never let anything happen to him.”
“It’s true,” Boone said. “Ma is scary protective of her grandbabies. She barely lets us hold them.”
“Oh, shut up,” Ma said with a grin that said she liked being teased.
“Here you go. This is the last of it.” A man wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon donut printed on it set two plates stacked high with pancakes, bacon, and eggs over easy in front of her and Cody.
“Oh man, this is too much,” she murmured.
“You said to get what I’m having,” Cody said with a shrug.
“I didn’t realize you required the food of six people.”
“I’ll finish what you don’t eat.”
Rory stared at the twin stacks of overflowing food. “Seriously?”
“Just wait until Aaron hits his first growth spurt,” Gage said from across the table, his plate stacked as high as Cody’s. “He’ll eat you out of house and home.”
She glanced at the half eaten donut that still sat on Aaron’s plate and shook her head. Getting him to eat had always been a challenge. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Chapter Seven
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Rory asked.
Stomachs full of breakfast, they were in line at the train depot, waiting to take a long track around the countryside. The old-fashioned engine behind them hissed steam around their ankles, and Aaron clapped and cheered with the other waiting passengers. He was sitting on Cody’s shoulders, high above everyone else, sporting a beaming grin.
Cody, on the other hand, looked utterly exhausted. “I have four more days with you guys, and I don’t want to miss anything.”
He pulled her against his side with one arm, holding Aaron’s legs steady with the other. He leaned closer and murmured, “We had a lot of calls come in last night, and I didn’t get any sleep. Usually after the two-day shifts, I go home and sleep the first day away, but I’d rather be with you right now.”
Rory wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his sternum. “You’re a good man, Cody. And a strong one. You aren’t invincible, though.” She looked up at his tired eyes and the two-day blond stubble on his jaw. “I could go for a nap after this, and Aaron will sleep like a log after the morning he’s had.”
“Woman, are you seducing me into a family nap with you.”
“I am. Is it working?”
The smile dipped from his face, and tenderness filled his eyes as he looked down at her. “I like that you worry about me.”
“I like that you forgive easily.”
He frowned. “What do I have to forgive you for?”
“For waiting five years to come back.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled her toward the loading platform with the other passengers in line. “Ma gave me an earful when I tried to complain to her. Said you were just the right kind of woman for being that protective of your cub.” His eyes widened, he looked around, and then lowered his voice. “I mean child. I thought on it, and she’s right. You struggled being a single parent for his safety. You’re a good mother to my boy. What matters is you came back.”
“You aren’t mad you missed his firsts?”
“Not mad, Rory. Sad. There’s no use cryin’ over spilt milk, though. It’s done. I can punish you and me both for what happened, or I can try to enjoy the time we have together. And that’s what I aim to do.” He pressed his lips against her temple, then pulled the train tickets from his back pocket and handed them to the conductor.
Inside, they picked a bench seat in the last car. Cody’s hands never left Aaron’s back as the boy jumped up and down on the seat by the window. Rory could tell he liked his son by the way he looked at him with a soft smile between amused laughs. He didn’t act forced around him or uncomfortable. It was as if he’d been a part of them all along. And it was clear Aaron adored Cody, too. Already, he’d said he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up.
She was digging through her purse, looking for a package of trail mix she’d put in there in case Aaron got hungry, when an older woman with kind eyes patted her hand. “You sure have a good lookin’ family there,” she said.
“Thank you,” Rory said, feeling breathless.
She stopped her snack search to watch Cody point to someone working on an adjacent track and explain what he was doing to Aaron, who was waving frantically. Life felt so normal here. And sure, part of that was the atmosphere. It was because she was finally back in the place she’d adored so much growing up. And some of that was from Cody’s family going out of their way to make her feel so comfortable. But most of it—almost all of it—was from being here with Cody, feeling like a team. Like she wasn’t so alone in every single decision about Aaron’s future anymore.
What Cody was giving her was more precious than he’d ever know.
****
Rory was so damned beautiful in this light, it was hard to look away from her. He had to, though, or he’d wreck his truck, and today he was carrying precious cargo.
Every minute with her was perfect. She had opened up something inside of him he’d been scared of, and Rory didn’t even have a clue she was doing it. This was effortless for her, settling his bear and making the animal inside of him feel manageable for the first time in as long as he could remember.
Lodgepole pines and towering spruces blurred by, creating a green canvas behind her dark red hair and making her smiling eyes look even brighter when she looked at him. He’d only felt this strongly for one other woman, and Sarah hadn’t deserved his devotion. Rory was different, though. She was good and honest. Hardworking and a good mother. She was funny as hell, even when she wasn’t trying to be, and sometimes when she looked up at him, her beauty stunned him. Even exhausted, the hum of excitement in his blood had been constant today.
Six years ago, he’d told himself he’d searched for her to thank her, but that was bullshit. He’d searched for her because he’d been desperate for moments like this.
The road forked, and he explained, “We’re in Blue River now. Ma lives up that road, and that middle one leads to my brothers’ cabins. This one goes to mine.” He took the left vein and turned onto a switchback.
“Aw, it’s like a werebear commune.”
“Bear shifter commune,” he corrected as he pulled in front of his cabin.
“Oh wow,” Rory said, staring out the window. “It’s beautiful.”
Okay, he hadn’t gone for beautiful when he’d drawn up the plans and hired a contractor to help him build it. He’d gone for man-cave chic, but he could see the appeal for Rory. Set against a snow-peaked mountain backdrop and out in the middle of nowhere, this place was a safe haven for shifters like him and Aaron.
The cabin had been constructed of logs, and the roof was steep and dove all the way to the ground to ward off massive amounts of snow in the wintertime. He pulled Aaron from his car
seat and grabbed the little blue backpack he took with him everywhere he went, then led Rory down the flagstone sidewalk.
For the first time today, nerves kicked in, and he struggled to get the key in the lock. It mattered if she liked his den or not. She was the first person, outside of family, he’d ever invited up here.
Aaron looked around with a sleepy, slow blink as Cody hugged him tighter to his hip and led Rory through the living room. There were only two bedrooms and a kitchen for the main touring rooms, so not five minutes later, he was standing back in the middle of the master bedroom, holding Rory’s hand and imagining her all tangled up in his sheets.
He settled Aaron down against the thick green comforter, and the little boy curled his legs to his chest immediately. Rory pulled a brown fuzzy blanket from the backpack and placed it in Aaron’s arms.
“Cody, meet Bebe—Aaron’s comfort item since birth.”
Canting his head and resting his hands on his hips, he watched Rory slip under the covers with their son. Her auburn hair fanned over the pillowcase as she tucked Aaron up against her and made room for Cody to take the other side.
How had he gotten this lucky?
“You look mushy,” she said with a smile in her voice.
Cody rearranged his face as hard as he could and deepened his frown. “Better?”
“Yes. You look much tougher now.”
He kicked off his shoes and hit the switch for the ceiling fan, then closed the curtains until the room was dark. A trilling noise came from his pocket, and he shimmied his phone out and looked at the screen.
Unknown, the caller ID read. Shit.
He cast Rory an apologetic glance, then let himself out of the room and shut the door gently behind him.
“Hello?” He bit the word out, already aware of who was on the other end.
“Keller, we need to talk.”
“Why?”
“Can you meet me in an hour?”
“No, Krueger. I’m busy, and I have nothing more to say to you.”
“I need you for another mission.”