AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ethan chuckled and held the bottle up to my lips so I could take a drink.
“You know how cats always gravitate to visitors who don’t like them? That’s what this is,” I said as I motioned to the baby.
“Probably don’t let my sister hear you referring to her daughter as a cat,” he said as he shifted so he could lean against my side. His eyes fell on his niece. I never got tired of seeing the love in his gaze when he watched her doing something even as simple as sleeping.
“You want this, don’t you?” I asked.
Ethan straightened enough so he could look me in the eye. “Do you?” he asked, carefully.
I glanced at the baby. Yes, it had scared the hell out of me early on when I’d held the baby for the first time, but I was getting used to her gentle weight and squirming little body. And the way she looked at me with her big blue eyes…it was indescribable.
I’d never lied to Ethan and I wasn’t about to start. “It scares me,” I admitted. “This,” – I motioned to the baby – “I kind of like,” I said. “But it’s different when it’s your kid. I don’t want to mess that up.”
Ethan reached up to stroke my face. He did that a lot these days. And of course, I loved it when he did.
“I know you’ll make an amazing father, Cain. I’ve seen the proof. But we can wait as long as you need for you to see that too. And if all you ever want to be is the favorite uncle who’s the only one who can get the babies to sleep, then I’m good with that too.”
I leaned over to kiss him softly and said, “I’ll get there, Ethan.”
“I know you will,” he whispered against my lips.
I smiled and pulled back. “You nervous about tomorrow?”
He nodded. “But ready, too.”
That didn’t surprise me. Ethan wasn’t the kind of guy who should be sitting around doing nothing. He needed to work…he needed to save lives and heal people.
Things hadn’t been easy after we’d left Eric on the floor of that farmhouse. Not that night and not in the weeks and months that had followed. To say Ethan had been mad at me for going after Eric like I had, was an understatement. He hadn’t spoken to me at all on the drive back to the hotel, nor as we’d packed up our stuff and headed to the airport so we could fly back to Seattle. He’d let loose on the plane though, and I’d let him because I’d realized his anger had stemmed more from fear than anything else.
I’d also loved the fact that he hadn’t been afraid to stand up to me and say what was on his mind.
I couldn’t regret going after Eric that night, despite what I’d put Ethan through. My fear of losing him had just been too great to ignore. After I’d called Vincent to ask him to stay with Ethan, I’d used the time to scope out where I wanted to bring Eric and the cronies I knew he’d be bringing with him for our little get together. It had been easy to search for properties nearby that had been foreclosed on and the farmhouse in Helenville had fit the bill. Once I’d gotten there, I’d turned Lucy’s phone on, called her piece of shit stepfather and told him that if he ever came near Ethan again, I’d rip his fucking throat out. Then I’d just waited for the man to track the phone and predictably, within a couple of hours, Eric and his flunkies had pulled up, not even trying to hide their arrival.
I’d waited outside until the men had gone inside. After that, it had just been a matter of taking them out one by one, the silencer on my gun making it easy to get the drop on them. I hadn’t killed any of them since I couldn’t have been sure why they were there. Eric was a master manipulator. He could have just as easily convinced some of his cop buddies that he was going to rescue his abducted stepdaughter and needed help.
So I’d hobbled each man instead of eliminating them and then I’d gone in search of Eric. I’d found him in the room where I’d left Lucy’s phone. He’d been armed, of course, but it had taken next to nothing to disarm him. Then I’d tossed my gun on the single piece of furniture in the room, a worn out looking bed, and I’d shown him the same exact amount of mercy he’d shown Ethan.
None.
Eric had gotten a few punches in, but my guess that his bulk had been the result of weights at the gym and nothing more had been right because the guy hadn’t been able to fight for shit. Sure, he’d been able to throw a punch at someone like Ethan who hadn’t known how to block it or fight back, but the first time I’d slammed my fist into his nose, breaking it, he’d screamed and covered his face, forgetting to block his body from the next punch. I’d let him experience the pain for the amount of time it had taken him to take another swing at me, then I’d slammed my fist into his gut, knocking the wind from him. I’d played with him for a lot longer than I should have, but it hadn’t been until he’d stayed down and started spewing filth about how I’d just made things worse for Ethan that I’d grabbed my gun off the bed and pointed it at his head.
