Croc's Return (10 page)

“And then I smartened up.”

Yeah, her best friend had chosen stable and boring over sexy. Then again, who was Renny to criticize? She’d gone after the sexy bad boy and look where it had gotten her. “So are you telling me you didn’t smooch him back at all?”

“It was totally one-sided. I’m a married woman.”

“Who has to schedule sex with her husband.”

“It’s not Andrew’s fault stress at work is killing his mojo. No matter how hot Wes is, I won’t betray my vows. Now drop the subject, or I am going to start grilling you about Caleb.”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Liar. Spill.”

“Okay, so you’ll be ecstatic to know that I’m going to tell Luke Caleb’s his dad.”

“You haven’t done that yet?” Melanie screeched.

Renny winced. “I’m working on it. It’s not easy to announce to your kid, hey, Daddy’s back in town and says he wants to get to know you.”

“He does?”

At the little voice from behind her, Renny’s eyes widened. She whirled, but sure enough, her son was no longer in the other room watching television from like ten inches away from the screen.

Nope. He’d ghosted to a spot behind her and heard…how much?

“Melanie, I gotta go. Crisis to handle over here.” Renny hung up her phone as her son studied her.

“Hi, bug. How much did you hear?” In other words, could she chicken out of the truth for a while longer?

Nope.

“Caleb’s my daddy,” Luke announced. “I heard you say so to Auntie Mel.”

She could only nod.

“Cool. I’m gonna show him my room, too, when he comes over.”

And with that, her son turned around and wandered back to his spot just inches from the screen.

He sat still, legs in a lotus position, elbows on his knees, totally focused on the cartoons.

“Um, did you want to ask me any questions?” she asked.

For some reason, she expected the silent treatment, maybe a few accusations, but little boys handled things differently from adults. Luke turned to her and said, “What’s for supper?”

With those words, she felt a flutter of panic. She’d invited Caleb over, but never specified a time.

Or given him an address, but that he could find easily enough. Her traitor of a friend had probably programmed it into his GPS.

He could show up anytime, and given he was a guy, he’d want food. Heck, she wanted food. What a pity her kitchen held none.

Dragging a complaining Luke, she fled to the grocery store. She dawdled up and down the aisles, taking way too much time to decide what she wanted. Her budget could only stretch so far, but she didn’t want Caleb to think she’d invited him over to guilt him on how they lived.

She eyed the packages of meat in the refrigerated display. So expensive, but she couldn’t exactly expect him to be content with a salad and hot dog.

Steak it was, a big, thick one that cost more than she usually spent in a week on meat, and figuring what the hell, she grabbed a smaller one for herself and Luke to share. By the time she’d gathered some fresh vegetables and splurged on a premade dessert, it was almost five o’clock and closing time.

Small towns didn’t keep the same hours as the city. Out here, once the sun started to go down, which was fairly early in the late fall, businesses closed, traffic slowed, and people hid in their homes—so the animals could come out and play.

Bitten Point was a shifter friendly town. Sure, it had its fair share of humans—they were after all the dominant race on the planet—however, those that chose to live there knew the secret. And if they didn’t, they didn’t stay long. There were ways to convince people it was best to move on.

Having grown up among the shifters, Renny certainly didn’t fear them, even when they wore their animal shape. A shifter crocodile or bear was no more likely to attack than when they sported their human guise. Only nature’s unenlightened hunted, those who walked on two legs, and that was rare. Most wild creatures preferred to go after easy prey.

So when her son said, “Mama, there’s something hiding at the edge of the woods,” she didn’t pay too much mind. Children had vivid imaginations. Heck, Melanie took the doors off her sons’ closet so that the boogieman would stop hiding in there at night. As for Luke, Renny got him a bed with built-in drawers underneath so the monster under the bed wouldn’t grab him.

The grocery story just outside of town, with its heavy discounts and clearance bins, bordered the swamplands. While quieter this cool time of the year, the area, with its lush vegetation, still hummed with life, some of it probably intimidating for a little boy.

She tossed the groceries in her trunk and slammed it shut. Only once she slid in her car and spoke to an empty back seat, “Are you buckled in, buddy?” did she realize Luke wasn’t in the car. Out she jumped, heart hammering. “Luke? Luke? Where are you?”

“I see something.” The faint reply had her scanning the area until she spotted her son standing on the crumbling concrete curb meant to hold the bayou back.

The little bug had wandered. “Come back here. Right this instant.”

“Do I have to?” Luke turned with a sulk on his face. “I want to see.”

Time to go into mommy mode. Renny planted her hands on her hips. “Now.”

“Fine.” As he huffed the word, he took two steps, and Renny felt all her breath whoosh as something dark swung from the shadows behind him, just missing his little body.

“Luke! Run!” She screamed the words as she darted toward him, but someone else was faster. A big body barreled past her and scooped a frantic-eyed Luke.

Renny pounded toward Caleb and her son, eyes darting between them and the shadows that no longer moved.

“What was that?” she asked, holding her arms out for her son, and while he clung for a moment to Caleb, in the end, Luke reached for her.

For the moment, Mommy still came first.

She hugged him close to her, eyes closed, trying to calm her racing heart.

“I didn’t see anything. I heard your scream and came bolting around the corner.”

“I thought I saw something in the woods.” An admission that had her eyeing the shadows, and seeing nothing. Had she imagined it?

“Thought you saw…?”

“It was another one of the dinosaurs,” Luke confided in a soft whisper. “They escaped.”

“What are you talking about? Dinosaurs don’t exist.” Renny said it, and yet, it didn’t emerge very convincing, especially given how pensive Caleb appeared.

“Even if they did, I don’t want you to worry about any dinosaurs when I’m around, big guy. I was in the army, and we soldiers know how to take care of overgrown lizards.”

“Says the biggest lizard of all,” she muttered under her breath.

“The biggest, baby.” The low growl of his reply tingled her skin with awareness. She tossed her head, still determined to keep him at arm’s length.

But she couldn’t do the same for Luke, who wiggled free from her grip. Setting him on the ground, she couldn’t help a twinge as her heart swelled and at the same time shrank at her son’s instinctive move to stand by his father’s side.

Already he’s feeling that bond to his father.
It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Either Caleb had uncanny timing, or he was stalking her. Funny how neither option bothered her, not like the fear of losing her son did.

“I wasn’t sure what time you wanted me over, so I thought I’d grab some food before popping in on you. But…” He shot a look at the store and grimaced. “I arrived too late.”

She would have said just in time. What if the thing she’d seen had not run off at Caleb’s arrival? Would it have snatched her son like it had nabbed Melanie?

If it’s even the same thing, you ninny.

Still, what were the chances of two occurrences of supposed dinosaurs happening in the same day?

“I’ve got food in my trunk. If you want to follow me,” she offered.

“I don’t suppose I could ask for a ride. My brother dropped me off because he needed his truck tonight.”

“Sure.” She could handle the short ride from here to her place. This was a chance to prove Caleb’s proximity didn’t bother her. She could handle it.

Liar.

As soon as she slid behind the wheel, she noted her hands were shaking. Caleb noticed, too. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine. Just fine.” She sighed. “No. No, I’m not. Do you mind driving?”

He didn’t question her shakiness. Probably blamed it on her recent fright, and yet the truth was, she felt like a teenager all over again around him. Tongue-tied, hyper aware, and high-strung. She didn’t know if she’d scream if he touched her or would melt into a puddle.

Either way, was it perverse to want to find out?

As she switched sides, she peeked in to see Luke buckled in his booster seat, his gaze intent on Caleb.

Apparently, her son’s little mind had been churning with questions because one popped free. “Are you really a soldier?”

“I was.” Caleb glanced into the rearview mirror to look at their son. “I left Bitten Point a long time ago and fought in a war overseas.”

“Did you kill people?”

“Luke! That is not an appropriate question.” While Renny didn’t mind a healthy curiosity, she drew the line at morbid.

Caleb placed a hand on her knee, an intimate gesture that sucked away any further protest, especially once she realized Caleb wasn’t bothered. “I don’t mind answering. I did kill some people. It’s what soldiers do. We go to war and do what we’re told.” So grimly said.

“Is the war how you got hurt?”

Renny could have moaned in embarrassment. “Luke, you shouldn’t pry like that.” Even if he asked some of the questions she’d wondered.

“It happened during my last mission. I got burned in a fire, a big one in a place where I was held prisoner.”

“Someone captured you?” It was her turn to blurt out a query.

For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. His jaw locked, and his fingers gripped the wheel of her steering column so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Yes. I was a slave for a while to a…” Caleb trailed off as his eyes noted Luke’s intent gaze in the mirror. “A really bad person.”

“Did you kill them?”

“No.” Stark. Flat. “But fear not, that person won’t be bothering anyone else ever again. The good guys won the day.”

The building Renny called home loomed, and she derailed the serious talk by pointing and saying, “This is our place.” She waited for his derision, but Caleb simply pulled to the curb and turned off the motor.

Luke led the way up the outside steps to the apartment they had over the store.

Renny was empty-handed but for her keys, Caleb having insisted on bringing the groceries in. How domestic of him.

As a matter of fact, the next few hours were a surreal vision of what kind of life they could have had if he’d not abruptly left her.

While not a cook—unless catching a bass and spitting it over a fire in the bayou counted—Caleb was helpful in chopping up vegetables while answering questions from Luke, who it seemed had suddenly turned into a chatterbox.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Black.”

“Mine is blue. What’s your favorite chip? I like ketchup.”

“Barbecue.”

And on it went. Nothing as intense as the questions in the car, and a good thing, too, because Renny was having a hard enough time keeping her balance without getting caught up in Caleb’s past.

Sitting at the small table as they ate almost choked her.
This is what families do, eat together, talk, laugh.

She kept having to remind herself this wasn’t real. Not permanent. Caleb might be there for the moment, but there was no guarantee he would stay.

As the hour drew late, Luke couldn’t hide a yawn. Renny said, “Time for bed. Say goodnight to Caleb.”

Her son shook his head. “Don’t want to go. Wanna stay talking to my daddy.”

The moment froze. Renny couldn’t have said who was more stunned by Luke’s use of the word daddy. Actually, given the fact that Caleb’s eyes looked bright—
is he crying?—
she knew who.

It wasn’t easy—a part of her screamed,
No, he’s mine, how can you waltz in and steal him from me?—
but this wasn’t about her. “Caleb, why don’t you tuck Luke into bed? Make sure he brushes his teeth first, though.”

“I wanna story, too,” Luke demanded. Another ritual passed on to the newcomer. But it was only one night, and could she blame her son for wanting this time with his father?

Yes. I raised him.
And she was raising him right, which was why Renny pointed to her cheek. “Caleb can read to you, but I’m gonna need my goodnight kiss now then.”

Luke ran to her and threw out his arms. She swept him into her embrace and plastered him with noisy kisses until he screeched and squirmed. “Mommy!”

Setting him down, she watched as Luke then crossed to Caleb and snagged his hand. “Come see my room.” As their son tugged him away, Caleb tossed her a look over his shoulder and mouthed, “Thank you.”

She turned away, lest he see the tears in her eyes. Not tears of anger that her son had chosen Caleb over her, but over what could have been.

While a part of her desperately wanted to spy on them, she let them have their alone time. If, and that was a big if, Caleb was serious about becoming a part of Luke’s life, there would be plenty of opportunities to share bedtime and other things.

Supper dishes cleared away, she had time to sit on the couch before Caleb emerged from the bedroom. “He fell asleep before I was done with the story. I guess I was boring.”

“He always does when I read, too.”

“He called me daddy.” Caleb said it, not able to hide his stunned tone.

“Because you are.”

“But I don’t know how to be one. What if I fuck up?” No mistaking the fear in those words.

“Welcome to the parenting club. You can read all the books you like and listen to all kinds of advice, but what it comes down to is just plain winging it.”

That startled a laugh out of him. “Winging it?”

“It’s worked for me so far, so don’t be so quick to knock it.” A silence fell between them, and she couldn’t hold his gaze. “I guess you’re going to head out now.” Because Luke wasn’t there to act as buffer anymore. It was just him and her—and some excitable hormones screaming,
“Do something.”