He loosed a ragged sigh. “The night I found out, I lost it. I asked her if she’d done it on purpose. To trapme.”
“Liam!”
“I know. Not my finest hour, but I was scared, Ness. A baby? Do you see me with a baby? I can barely take care of a pack of grown men.Anda woman.” He added that last part with a wry smile that dismantled some more of the tension between us. “Know what she said? She said that if I didn’t want the baby, then she would raise him on her own, that she wouldn’t even ask me for handouts, that she wouldn’t ask me for anything until our son reached puberty and would need to be brought into the pack. And even then, she would turn to Matt or someone else if I didn’t want to be involved.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine that she thought I’d want nothing to do with my ownson?”
“I don’t think she thought you wanted nothing to do with your son. I think she was giving you a way out.” Cornering a man, who was part wild animal, was never a good idea, and Tamara knew this. “Which leads me to think she’ll make a goodmother.”
“Iknow.”
“And you’ll make a goodfather.”
He let out a brusque exhale. “I’m not so sure aboutthat.”
“Well, I’m sure for the both of us. You’re protective and generous, but you do have to work on your fuse. It’s a littleshort.”
A streak of sunlight cut across his face, illuminating his brown eyes, making them glow more amber than brown. “I can’t believe we just had a heart-to-heart.”
“That’s what friends do,” Isaid.
“Is that what weare?”
“I think we’re getting there.” My lips flexed into a smile that he returned. “You’re not going to phone up Cassandra and schedule the duel for tomorrow, areyou?”
“I’mnot.”
“Good. Now about that Sillin. They took their stock. But we still have ours,right?”
His features hardened again. “We stored it in the sameplace.”
“Shit.” The word popped out of mymouth.
“Yeah.” He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “Not my brightestdecision.”
“Well, I still have some.” In truth, I hadn’t checked, but since I hadn’t spotted any breaking-and-entering, I assumed as much. “Thirty-twopills.”
Liam nodded. “Can you shiftyet?”
I frowned but then realized he was talking about the injection. “Greg didn’t tellyou?”
“Tell mewhat?”
“I’m not the one heinoculated.”
Liam’s eyebrows tipped toward hisnose.
“August volunteered. And no, he can’t shiftyet.”
My news thinned Liam’s mouth. “You should’ve run this byme.”
“August didn’t give me a choice. Besides, I didn’t want to bother you. I knew you had other stuff to dealwith.”
“The pack always comes first, Ness. No matterwhat.”
I felt a twinge of regret for Tamara, because she would always come second to the pack. Perhaps it would be enough for her, but for me, it would never have been enough. And this made me appreciate August more, because I knew with complete certainty that he’d always put mefirst.
40
As promised,August arrived with lunch. But he didn’t leave afterward. He rolled up his sleeves and stayed through the afternoon, lending the walls of our house his time and expertise and sneaking me kisses when my uncle wasn’tlooking.
