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She bounced him rhythmically while she spoke to whoever she'd called for help—her face looking more and more harried with every second. When she finally hung up, she turned a smile to her son and shushed him before she spoke to him.
With every second she waited, her body slumped more and more. The weight of her two-year-old exhausted her, and I could practically see the way her back pained her when she tried to straighten out.
At 5'3", she was far too small to be holding Axel for lengthy periods of time like that. Yet she did it anyway, never even trying to set him down as he snuggled into her side desperately.
With a muttered, "Fuck," I knew I couldn't watch her suffer. Knew in that moment, I'd do anything to make her life just a little easier. It would end badly, there was no way approaching and talking to her would end well for me or her.
But I did it anyway.
I stepped out of the shadows of the trees, making myself visible as I walked along the path more noticeably. "Excuse me," I said, and even to me my voice sounded rough. I didn't talk much, avoided it when I could. When I was on a hunt or doing surveillance, I could go days without ever speaking a word.
I tried not to wince, tried to give her the friendliest smile I could manage. But I wasn't friendly. I didn't know how to be. I'd lost everything that made me human a long time ago.
I cleared my throat. "Do you need some help?"
She spun around, fixing that deep blue gaze on me so suddenly it was like a punch to the gut. My body stilled as my world spun, focus narrowing down on the flush that spread over her pretty cheeks and the way her pursed little mouth tipped into a blinding, ever-so-slightly crooked smile. She sucked back a sharp intake of breath that seemed to echo the raging in my blood. As if she could feel the same inexplicable urge I did, the need to claim and take and make her mine.
Those blue eyes glittered in the sunshine, my world narrowing down to the way they felt on mine. To the reminder of the kick to the teeth she’d provided from the very first moment I laid eyes on her through her living room window the day before.
"You don't mind?" she asked, but her body sagged with relief.
"Let me take a look," I agreed, going to the stroller and squatting down. Her eyes felt warm on my back, heating the chilled skin like the rays of the sun itself. I didn't imagine Calla saw many men like me in her sheltered life.
It should stay that way.
She averted her eyes as her teeth bit into her bottom lip with another flush of her cheeks. "Thank you so much for this," she sighed. "My husband is on his way, but it can be hard for him to get away from work," she explained. I resisted the urge to laugh at her attempt to let me know there was a husband in the picture. Under normal circumstances, it would have been smart. Dissuading interest early on could only benefit her, but she should have known that a man like me could take whatever he wanted. Married or not.
"It's no problem. Your boy looks like he's having a rough go of it," I grunted, finding the part where the tire had come off the rim.
"He's teething," she responded. "These teeth will be the death of me. He's usually a calm boy, but something about this time has him miserable." She wiggled her nose on his, making him squeal with laughter even as he clung to her. "Don't they, Cookie Monster?" she asked him.
I snapped the tire back onto the rim, grateful the solution came so quickly. I needed to get away from her, put distance between us before it was too late to turn back. The sound of her laughing in response to her boy's joy was something I couldn't handle. Not if I wanted to have any chance of leaving her alone.
I straightened, and the position put me closer to her than I meant to be. As my eyes slid down over her face, my gaze settled on the thumping of the pulse in her delicate neck as she stared up at me.
Axel broke my moment of fixation when he reached out his arms, straining toward me while Calla tried to contain him. "I'm so sorry," she laughed. "He isn't usually so friendly."
A boy after my own heart.
I held out my hands, lifting him under the armpits and out of Calla's arms. She looked panicked for a brief second, but then relief crossed her face as the weight left her back. I stared at the little boy in my arms, at the chocolate brown hair he'd inherited from his father, but his mother's blue eyes shone back from his face. His little hand reached up, touching the scar through my eyebrow in confusion before he laughed and punched my nose.
"Axel!" Calla scolded.
"He's alright," I said, hearing a smile in my voice for the first time in as long as I could remember.
A beautiful woman in front of me, a boy who somehow looked like me in my arms. It was everything I'd wanted once upon a time, before they took it all away.
When Axel lost interest in using me as a punching bag, Calla took him back and settled him into the seat of the stroller.
Once she’d gotten him buckled, she turned her attention back to me, smiling happily. "Thank you again. So much. Can I give you some money or—"
"You've already given me more than you know," I whispered, reaching out a hand to touch her face. "Have a good life, Tesoro." Treasure.
She gasped again the moment I touched her, my hand cupping her cheek as she stared up at me in confusion. I could never speak to her again, never touch her, but I'd never be able to walk away from her either.
The moment my thumb touched her high cheekbone, something in me shifted.
I was found.
