out of the car and carried a duffle bag and a purse inside. He waited a few minutes, shifted into human form, and crept up along the side, peaking in the windows.
Six cubs in human form, all accounted for. Tobin checked the pictures the sleuth had sent to his phone just to double check. They didn’t look like they were in any kind of duress. They looked healthy and happy and one of the boys was hugging Jessie.
All found alive. That meant another thousand dollars for him.
Tobin grinned and ran off into the woods to make his phone call.
48
Cody
By the time Cody left the cabin, he had all the cubs’ shoe and clothing sizes typed into his notes app. He didn’t know when he was actually going to have a chance to shop for them and he thought it would be better if Jessie went with him, seeing as how he knew nothing about what children actually required.
He got home late that night. He helped Jessie tuck the cubs into their beds and the strangest part was how it had not felt strange at all. Jason and Chris seemed to be enamored with him and Chris, seemed especially fascinated with the idea that Cody had three brothers. Somehow he’d let slip that he was rich, although he had not put it that way. He supposed that bringing them several hundred dollars worth of new stuff out of nowhere had put it into their heads anyway. But Jason kept asking questions even as Cody stood by, making sure he brushed his teeth, because Jessie said he fibbed about it all the time. Jason wanted to know if Cody had ever been on an airplane and if he lived in a mansion and rode around in a limo every day and Cody had entertained his interest.
But once the children were in bed, Cody sat down on the couch along with Jessie. They’d talked for a long time, their voices soft with only one dim light left on to save energy from the generator. They inched closer and closer and finally the conversation had devolved into an intense makeout session, Jessie beneath him as they groped like horny teenagers. It had gone no further than that. It was too risky with the kids so close by.
But Jessie had been smiling when Cody left and he knew the next day they’d be texting back and forth and that he’d bring her lunch. He was already excited as he drove home that night.
That evening, when he walked into his residential suite, it felt somehow very different than usual. The place was cluttered. He was a little embarrassed that Jessie had seen it that way when she’d come over. He shared a maid’s services with his brothers but he always managed to mess his place up in between her visits. Yet Jessie’s cabin had been in a similar state... except that she had six children. He would have expected it to be much worse. That either spoke very well for the children's’ behavior or very poorly of his. He chuckled to himself thinking about it as he threw away old take-out boxes and threw dirty laundry into his hamper.
He should’ve been going to bed, except that he never managed to get to bed very early. He’d never required a whole lot of sleep. If being a little messy, except in his kitchen which was immaculate, made him a potentially questionable father figure, he considered a point in his favor that he didn’t need a lot of sleep.
Instead, he found himself restless, leaning on the kitchen counter and watching his phone charge. He wished he was in bed with Jessie, spooning up behind her... and if one of the cubs woke up from a nightmare or needed something, he’d be there. He didn’t even have a doubt about it. It was odd how much he was willing to jump into the caring for the cubs. It was Connor who was the one who seemed a little melancholy lately about wanting a mate and cubs of his own. But here they potentially were for Cody, and he wanted that life and that woman and those cubs in his life so intensely and so suddenly, he thought he might die if he didn’t get it.
Cody was just about to turn in when he patted his pants pocket and found a picture Jason had drawn for him as they were all hanging around in the living room. It was a