Omega Moon Rising (Toke Lobo & The Pack) (28 page)

Abby sighed. “No. I’m trying to . . . find my place in the world.”

Luke didn’t say anything for another half a mile or so. “I have some of that issue myself.”

Abby studied his profile. “Tough growing up?”

“You have no idea. And why limit it to growing up? Werewolves are a structured society, and I’m lower than everyone else. Everyone’s errand boy and whipping boy.”

Something in his tone struck a chord in her. “I find that hard to believe. I’ve seen you in action.”

Luke snorted. “Seen what? Me losing my temper?”

“Assert yourself. Stand up for what you think is right. Browbeat me.”

“What?”

“You have great bullying instincts.”

“I have never bullied you.”

Abby fought an urge to echo his snort. “Then you and I have different definitions of bully.”

“Are you saying I forced you to have sex with me?”

“No.”

“So why did you get in the truck with me the night of the picnic?”

She’d asked herself that question several times every day since she’d gotten pregnant. The easiest answer was a mixture of lies. And one truth. “I find you attractive. You’re a famous musician. I wanted you to do something for me. Take your pick.”

“Not all of the above?”

“I guess I didn’t value myself enough.”

“That’s kind of insulting to me.” He sounded annoyed.

“Did you value my so-called virtue?”

“I didn’t know, not for certain. It’s not like I’m the most experienced guy around. And now? Yeah. I’m glad we were each other’s first and only.”

“I’ll bet that’s changed since you discovered your little blue pills,” she muttered.

“Actually, it hasn’t. I won’t disrespect you.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“What? Who told you different?”

“I heard you were trying to pick up girls in a bar less than a week after we got married.”

Luke took the next curve in the road a little too sharply. “I wasn’t trying to pick up girls. I might have flirted a bit. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Tell me, Luke, how would you feel if I upheld my reputation?”

“Reputation? You don’t have a reputation.”

“And yet you found naked pictures of me on the Internet. Or is notoriety different from reputation?”

“Are you saying you want to pose for more pictures?” Now he sounded angry. “Because if that’s what you’re saying, I’m telling you right now, no.”

“Bully.”

“Male in the throes of his mating instinct kicking in,” he corrected with a snarl. “Nobody else needs to see your . . . anything. In fact, I’m working with the feds to get both Gail and Beth’s Bedrooms deleted.”

“Beth’s Bedroom?”

“It took a while, but once I remembered Libby’s name is really Elizabeth, it was easy to find her site, too.”

Abby swallowed. Hard. “Did you . . . did you see it?”

Luke nodded.

“How bad was it?”

“Bad enough.”

“Doctor Holster told me Libby was . . . intact.”

“There wasn’t anything on the site to contradict that.”

“You visit a lot of porno sites?” The question had been bothering her for days.

“It’s my job,” Luke said. “You know that.”

“It’s your new job. You weren’t working for the feds when you stumbled across my pictures.”

“I’ve been working for the feds for a while.”

“Not on this. So do you visit a lot of porno sites?”

“Define a lot,” he said after a long pause.

Oh, she wanted to scream. “Weekly average of one a day.”

He didn’t say anything, which told her what she wanted to know. “Why? Especially given your werewolf blood and everything Granny told me that goes with it.”

“I don’t answer to you.” Sullen.

“No, you don’t.” She swallowed her anger. Her hurt. But she couldn’t simply shove aside his fondness for pictures of naked women. “Except when it comes to our child. Sometimes I have to wonder if you’re so gung ho on having a girl—”

Luke slammed on the brakes. The truck slid sideways for several feet before coming to a stop. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “That was low.”

“That’s my reality.”

He said nothing. A muscle in his jaw knotted and unknotted.

She had to ask.

”Did seeing pictures of me or Libby turn you on?”

“No. Well, not Libby. Ancient Ones, she’s a little girl. I’m not a pervert. I puke my guts out after I see some of the stuff I’m supposed to buy.”

“Me?”

“Mostly I got mad. Furious.”

“Why?”

“I thought you . . . did it for money, or kicks, or something. I didn’t realize you were being coerced. Blackmailed. Not until you told me. Then I went to Oak Moon to kill Gary. Except somebody beat me to it.”

They sat at the side of the road in silence for several moments.

“That you could even question my honor hurts.”

But she’d already said enough. “Aren’t we meeting your friends soon?”

Luke wasn’t done.

“I never thought about it before. About the girls in the pictures and the videos,” he said. “I assumed they were sexy and wanted to be sexy for other people. You were the one who educated me differently. Now I look at those pictures, and I wonder. I wonder who’s behind the camera. Who’s forcing the girls to pose? I wonder what vulnerability those girls have that’s being exploited to blackmail them. I wonder why Libby did it.”

Abby flinched. He’d poked one of her secret fears. “Every time I think about . . . maybe that she likes doing it, I get sick. And based on things she said the other day and other stuff—”

“That’s why we’re talking to a counselor today.”

“We?”

“Yeah. I’m married to you. You’re about to be named Libby’s permanent guardian. She’ll be living in our home. We both need to understand what’s going on. What we need to do. And, if we can’t handle it, we need to know what our options are.”

He spoke as if they had a future together. Poor, foolish werewolf.

“Options? She’s my sister. There are no options.”

“If you have to choose between Rosie Dawn and Libby?”

“Libby would never hurt the baby.”

“Libby expressed some major resentment toward the baby. I, for one, am not willing to risk my child’s safety. And I have rights with regard to the baby, Abs. I’m the father. I am delighted to be a father. I want our baby so much . . . I love our baby so much . . .”

He loved their child. Unconditionally. Abby had to focus on that. On Marcus and Colette, Granny and Gramps, and how they all adored the unborn baby. Her baby would have all that love, all those people taking care of it. Libby had only Abby, who’d promised Mama she would take care of Libby. Leaving the baby with Luke and packing up Libby and moving away was the only viable thing to do. Especially now that Luke was expressing concerns about the baby’s safety with Libby.

Cribs, highchairs, changing tables, port-a-cribs—Luke never realized how much stuff a baby needed. And clothes. He thought he was going to cry over how cute the sneakers, hats, and dresses were. Then there were themes. Who knew baby nurseries were supposed to have themes? He tried to imagine what a daughter of his would be like, but he wasn’t that smart. Maybe he could create rooms with different themes for different days of the week. Too bad Abby acted so indifferent. He didn’t know what to do to snap her out of her lethargy.

He took Abby to a restaurant in the Oak Moon Mall and made sure she ate a healthy meal.

“Great change from your grandmother’s squaw tea,” Abby said as she sipped lemonade. Without strawberries.

He remembered buying the strawberry lemonade for Abby the day of picnic. Not because he wanted to give her berries, but because the color really did match the valentine dress she wore.

The only thing he would have done differently that night was later. In his truck. At the lake. He would have tried to keep his head so he would know whether or not he’d marked her. And maybe they both could have avoided a lot of heartache. But that wasn’t a conversation they could have in the middle of a mall restaurant even if the booth gave the illusion of privacy. So they talked about baby furniture and boy names. Or rather, Abby insisted their son be named after her father. Joseph Grant. He couldn’t make her understand that boy names didn’t matter. Abby was going to have a girl, and her name was going to be Rosie Dawn.

“What time are we meeting your . . . co-workers?” Abby finally asked.

“Six. They’re arriving in town in a little bit. We’re meeting at their hotel room.”

Abby paused, a strand of pasta curling from her fork. “Hotel room?”

“What?” Luke asked.

“Strange place for a meeting.”

“It’s a meeting, not a porn shoot,” Luke snapped. “These people live in hotel rooms because they travel so much. Quit being so paranoid.”

Abby dropped her fork. “There was no need to snipe at me. I’m not the porn aficionado or secret agent.”

“I’m sorry. We’re always sniping at each other, aren’t we?”

“Another sign I’m not your mate.”

“I disagree. I’m starting to believe you are my mate. Wiser people than I have pointed out—”

Abby averted her face. “Don’t. Please, don’t. We’re together by circumstances. You got what you wanted, and it turns out, so did I. I’m free of Gary, Toke Lobo bought one of my songs—we’re good. After the baby is born, we can reexamine our situation, but—”

Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d finally gotten around to analyzing what all the signs meant, and now she was brushing him off? “If we’re mates, there’s no reexamining anything.”

“And if we’re not? I’m not a werewolf, remember? I’m not even sure I want to be a werewolf’s mate.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Abby’s expression grew incredibly sad. “I never do, do I?”

And Luke felt like scat. “Abs, we haven’t given each other a chance. I know I’ve been acting like a vampire, but this marriage slash mating thing is new to me. I do know I think you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever known, and I know I really like having sex with you. But between my house being under construction and all Gary stuff, we haven’t tried normal yet.”

“You would like anyone you’re able to have sex with. Let’s be real, okay? I don’t trust you. That’s the bottom line. You’ve been less than honest with me from the beginning.”

She sounded as if she’d made up her mind about something he wasn’t going to like.

“I will make it up to you. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Not that I believe your promises anyway.”

Luke felt as if she’d kneed him in a vital place. “That’s not fair.”

“If anyone ever told you life is fair, they lied,” Abby said. “If life was fair, what did I ever do to deserve what happened to me? Not trusting you is so minor in the grand scheme of things—”

“You’re wrong. I am the embodiment of everything you should trust,” he insisted.

She looked as if she wanted to laugh. “Luke, you are the personification of everything I can’t trust. There’s not a single thing you’ve done since we’ve known each other that inspires faith in you.”

“One thing. Name me one thing that I’ve done that makes you distrust me.”

She didn’t even blink. “You never told me about the werewolf stuff.”

“Hey. It was immaterial until you got pregnant.”

“You should have used a condom the first time we had sex. Instead, you told me you were sterile.”

“How was I supposed to know I could get you pregnant? As far as I believed, you were a pretty girl, not my soul mate.”

“You took pictures of me while I was sleeping, after I asked you not to.”

“At the time, I thought we might need evidence to keep Libby away from Gary. And if anything happened to the baby, I was going to have him charged with endangering the welfare of a child or something.”

“You always have an excuse, don’t you? But they still all add up to the fact that I can’t trust you. That you do what you think is best without considering the consequences of your actions, and everybody else can fall off the face of the earth as far as you’re concerned.”

He noticed she didn’t mention the porn thing again. “I married you, didn’t I?”

“Do you want a medal or a chest to pin it on? I think the vows said something about ‘til death do us part, and yet you signed the license with a temporary stamp. Come on, Luke. Give it another shot. Oh. Wait. I have one for you. I trust your driving. You drove us to Fort Collins and back, and today you brought us here without wrecking your truck, so I trust you to drive me.”

Wow. He didn’t realize how much contempt she’d accumulated. More than his honor was on the line.

“I trust you to make your family keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach—at least until the baby is born.”

“All right,” he snapped. “You’ve made your point. And now I’m going to make mine. You are my wife. Probably my mate. I am going to take care of you and our children—because Rosie Dawn is only the first of as many as we can conceive —forever. You’ll have your own roof over your head as soon as the addition is done.”

“Whatever.” Abby pushed away her plate, her meal not even half-eaten. “I’m ready to leave.”