But seeing her pink little toes as she smiled dreamily at me stirred something deep. A need I couldn’t exactly pin. I wanted to keep her safe and be part of her life. I wanted to love her until our dying day. I wanted to be the father of her cubs and the man she smiled at every morning. I wanted to be her everything.
Just like she was my everything.
“Thank you, Emmitt,” she said, as I brushed back a stray bit of hair from her cheek.
“Any time.” I reached over her and buckled her in. “Winifred said she’ll put the boys to bed. Would you like to take a drive with me?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been gone too long. I wanted to go home earlier, but Jim wouldn’t let me drive back.”
“All right.”
So I drove slowly.
By the time we reached the house, the lights were out.
“I think the beer’s wearing off,” Michelle said, reaching for the door. I moved fast to get there before she could step out. Good thing, too, because she almost fell out of the door.
“Or maybe not,” she said. “How could Jim drink so much and still be fine? I think I had maybe three beers.”
“Werewolf metabolism,” I said with a smile.
To keep her steady, I wrapped my fingers around hers. She leaned into my arm as we walked toward the house. The stars distracted her, and she stopped for a minute. Her profile, as she looked up, captivated me.
A sigh escaped her, and she turned and caught me studying her.
“They’re pretty,” she said, looking up again. “I wonder how many people actually stop to look at them each night.”
“Not enough,” I said.
“They don’t realize what they’re missing.” She started walking again. I led her up the steps then held the door for her. The house was still humid and warm from the day, so I kept the front door open.
Michelle stood in the entry, staring up at the steps. She had one hand on the wall to keep steady.
“There sure are a lot of stairs,” she said.
“Sure are,” I said, turning to look at them with her. “Want me to car—”
“Piggyback ride.”
That was all the warning I got before she launched herself at me. I turned and caught her, but her momentum brought us to the floor, with me on the bottom. She lay across me with loose limbs and an angel’s smile.
I laughed, and she did too.
“I think it would be wise to see her upstairs,” Winifred said from her open door.
Her look wasn’t playful.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Michelle, your brothers are both sleeping. They weren’t any trouble to watch, but they did wonder where you’d gone. We should talk in the morning.”
Michelle’s scent clouded with guilt as Winifred closed her door. It pissed me off.
Winifred.
What she did was wrong.
You sure about that?
I picked Michelle up and carried her upstairs. She didn’t look at me the whole way up. When I set her on her feet, she moved to go inside.
“Wait,” I said.
She turned to look at me.
“Do you promise you’ll talk to me tomorrow? About whatever you want; just so you talk to me.”
A slight smile lifted her lips.
“I promise.”
* * * *
I was already across the hall when I heard the boys. Not bothering to knock, I opened the door and called to them.
They stuck their heads into the hall, their hair standing up at all angles.
“If you get dressed without waking your sister, you can help me make her a surprise breakfast.”
They both grinned and disappeared again. A minute later, they reappeared in swim trunks and no shirts. That’s about all they’d worn since the heat wave struck.
“She’s still sleeping,” Liam said quietly.
They followed me across the hall where I had paper ready for them.
“I need you two to draw some arrows so she knows to come over here. While you do that, I’ll make you some breakfast.”
They got to work, happily swinging their feet under the stools I’d brought upstairs for them. When they finished, they ran off to place the drawings in the apartment, then came back to eat.
“Is Jim home today?” Aden asked with the hope in his gaze.
“Yeah, but I think Nana Wini’s having breakfast with him first.”
Jim had come home close to three a.m. Winifred hadn’t opened her door, and he’d winked at me on his way past the couch. Despite coming in so late, he’d still woken up at six with a loud yawn, all the warning I’d needed to beat him to the shower. When I’d