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She looked into his beautiful green eyes and saw the truth there. It was hard to deny him anything when he wore his heart on his sleeve and bared his emotions to the world. “Oh, Henry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Come here.” Henry pulled her to him, wrapping her up in a hug where she felt safer than anywhere else in the world.
Henry pressed his lips to her forehead before she tilted her head up and caught them in a kiss. His lips were always so soft and supple, and she longed for him in new ways every time she felt them on hers.
He walked her to the bedroom, and they kissed along the way, giggling like teenagers as they touched each other. They fell onto the bed and into each other, undressing just to toss their clothes somewhere else, still kissing, and kissing, and kissing.
But something was still wrong. As she took him inside, as she kissed his handsome face, as she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, the doubts crept in again. What did Henry need? What did he want? She could have driven herself mad thinking about these questions.
She pressed her face to his and let out a purr. It was quiet at first because she had never purred for anyone before, but her sounds grew louder until Henry pulled back.
“What are you doing, Kirsten?”
She shrugged. “I just thought, you know, you like cats. So I could be a cat.”
He laughed and brushed the hair from her face. She leaned into the touch but felt hurt that he laughed at her.
“Come on. Don’t make fun.”
“I promise you, you don’t need to pretend to be a cat for me to love you.” He laughed again and kissed her. “You make a terrible cat. You’re much better as a human.”
“I’m a great cat,” she mumbled, knowing Henry would hear her clearly. Then he pushed in just the right amount to make her forget why she was ever sad in the first place.
TWENTY-EIGHT
HENRY
After they made love, Henry came up with a plan. He wanted Sher gone, and he would make her go. If this was the only way she would see sense, then he had to do it. Sher had no claim over their family anymore, and she pushed his boundaries by just being there.
He waited until Kirsten walked into the bathroom to shower before he put his clothes back on and checked on Zara. She was sleeping soundly. She slept a lot, surprisingly. Did all babies sleep that much? He touched a hand to her soft cheek and felt his love for her roar like a mile-high fire.
He pulled the door almost closed behind him and took off out the backdoor. He always kept the key under a specific rock, which not even Sher knew of. He kicked the rock over to make sure the key was still there: rusted as ever, he was satisfied at the sight of it.
He looked around at the crop of woods surrounding the house. As he walked the perimeter, he sniffed and listened intently in case anything happened that lay outside his peripheral vision. Even he could be surprised sometimes.
Nothing. Henry did not see, hear or smell anything from that short walk ... but this did not mean nothing was there. He took off into the woods at a fast walk, ready for anything.
Nothing jumped out at him as soon as he stepped foot over the boundary, so that was good. As he searched through the woods, he thought about the conversation he and Kirsten had before they made love. She was upset that Sher could not be with her family, but she did not see that Henry and Zara were not Sher’s family. They were their own family.
At best, Sher was Zara’s mother. At worst, she was an intruder in Henry’s happiness and Zara’s stability. He had just started to get his life together after Sher dumped him with the cruelest intentions, and now she apparently wanted something she never had, badly enough to ruin his life again. He was happy with Kirsten. If Sher tried to sabotage that, there was no telling what Henry would do.
He walked over fallen logs and brambles of bushes as he searched high and low around the perimeter of the house. He searched through the first crop of trees and found nothing. No smells, sounds, or sights anywhere within the first fifty feet. He ventured further, straying further and farther from the house and the place he was the safest. It felt wrong to leave Zara and Kirsten when he knew someone was out there, but he had to do what was necessary.
The full extent of what was necessary remained to be seen. Would he have to remind Sher of what forced her to run in the first place? Would he have to yell at her to make her listen? Would he have to get a restraining order? And what about that Sher would do? Would she continue to violate their privacy and boundaries? Would she continue to spy on them like she was doing then? Would she attempt to steal Zara or break into their house? The possibilities were endless.
He searched some more, going as far as a hundred feet past the perimeter of the house. Still, there was nothing. If someone had been here, they either did a great job covering their tracks, or they had been here so long ago their tracks had disappeared.
Wait ... it had started to rain just a bit ago. That meant that someone could have been there recently, and he would not know. Who, exactly? Sher or someone else? Kirsten told him about the bear shifter she met, who said Sher had hired a bear to spy on them. Had anyone else been spying on them?
He hit his hand against the nearest tree, splintering the wood. He did not need this. It was not fair that he had to deal with an ex who could not take a hint. Sher should know better than to come crawling back to him after she hurt him so badly and decided she wanted out of their lives. To make matters worse, she did not even have the courage to face him herself and sent other shifters to spy on them instead. Henry’s disgust and anger mixed into a dangerous combination. He searched for another five minutes throughout the woods, but again, nothing. He turned back to the house, and by the time he got there, he had simmered down.
When he reached the house, he found the back door open. His heartbeat ratcheted up at the thought of someone breaking into their home, taking Zara, or attacking Kirsten ... or worse. He ran into the house to find Kirsten calling out as he rushed through room after room.
“Kirsten! Zara!”
No one answered him. When he reached the kitchen where the daily maid Jana was cooking lunch, he stopped.
“Where’s Kirsten?”
