Santa Soldier Bear - Meg Ripley Page 0,16

look on Melody’s face as she gazed at Ruby. There had been an instant connection between the two of them, and Roman wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It was something akin to jealousy, but there was so much more to it. It was his own history that was affecting him, a history that was still too fresh for him to just brush off. He was crazy about Melody, but he couldn’t possibly give her what she needed. He scuffed his foot in the grass. They’d already decided that it wasn’t going to work out for him, and there was no point in lamenting over it now.

“Roman?” Jude stood at the back door, a cup of coffee in his hand. “The meeting’s just about to start. Amar said you’d probably want to sit in on it.”

“Thanks.” Roman’s lips began to form a protest, explaining that he wasn’t part of the Force and had no reason to be at that meeting, but his feet had a different plan and began walking across the grass toward the house. “I don’t want to intrude on anything, though.”

Jude lowered his chin slightly, his pale eyes penetrating as he looked into Roman’s. Jude had a certain sense of gravitas about him that suggested he knew far more than he said. “You’re not. Any friend of Amar’s is a friend of ours. Come on in, man.”

Roman followed Jude inside. He’d been on some crazy missions during his time in the service. He’d done things that most civilians couldn’t even imagine, yet sitting in on a meeting was making him more nervous than heading to war with a Glock 19 in his hand. That feeling was only magnified when he saw Melody step into the conference room ahead of him. It was one thing to sit in on the Force’s briefing, but it was only going to be harder now that he knew Melody was there.

The conference table was a long behemoth of polished wood with comfortable chairs arranged around it. With the fresh paint and a flatscreen television on the wall, the room looked like it belonged in a corporate office building instead of the headquarters of a shifter-based team of soldiers. Roman almost thought he should be wearing a suit to attend this meeting versus his t-shirt and jeans.

Amar took his place at the head of the table. “All right. I think we all know by now what’s happening, but let’s run through all the facts. We’ve got a child in our custody, and I want to get this figured out as quickly as possible. I’m sure the parents are worried to death. Melody, let’s begin with you since you were the one who found Ruby.”

She sat to Amar’s right with the baby on her lap, holding her as naturally as if she’d been taking care of the child from the day she was born. Melody had managed to find time to get dressed and pull her hair into a ponytail. The cinnamon curls burst from the back of her head, and several wild tendrils escaped the fastening and fell to frame her face. Roman thought her hair's unruliness was quite the contrast to the calm, organized way Melody had acted when it came to Ruby.

Lifting her eyes and glancing at him for a moment, Melody told her side of the story. “Just after I woke up, I was still lying in bed and heard a baby’s cry. I knew that it couldn’t have been Lucas. I mean, I’ve spent enough time with him that I just know. I checked his room anyway, but he was sound asleep. Then Roman and I found Ruby outside.”

Roman raised a brow at this last sentence, but he merely nodded in response. “Did you see any sign of another person out there? Any indication that someone might’ve been watching from nearby?”

Melody’s head had fallen forward to look at Ruby once again, her cheeks glowing. “Honestly, I couldn’t say. I was too focused on the baby to notice.”

“Roman?”

Looking to his old friend, Roman felt called out. He’d just slept with Melody right there at Force headquarters. It felt like a betrayal to Amar’s clan, but he knew he wasn’t being called to the carpet for that. They needed to find this child’s parents, and that was the only thing that really mattered. “After Ruby was brought inside, I took a look around. I don’t know your neighborhood the way you do, but I didn’t see anything that looked out