He turned to look up at Kaci. “Sing.”
Her expression melted and she bent to lift him onto her hip. “Okay, baby.” She patted his back, and as he laid his head on her shoulder, she began to hum a soft tune. His eyes closedimmediately.
A second later, his breathing slowed. The kid was passed out right there on her chest. And I had to admit, that looked like a great place tobe.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “You’re, like, the babywhisperer.”
She smiled. “It’s this new routine we have, since baby Ethan arrived. Little Greg’s feeling kind of…displaced.”
“Well, he looks like a lucky kid from where I’mstanding.”
Kaci’s focus snapped up to my eyes and her cheeks flushed. Her heart began to beat a little harder. Something in her scent changed, and I had to shove my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching forher.
She cleared her throat and regrouped. “Okay, I’m going to take this little guy back to bed, then we’re going to make a break for it. Gotit?”
“Just give me mycue.”
“I’m not leaving you for good, buddy,” she whispered into the sleeping kid’s ear as she headed down the hall. “I’ll be back before you knowit…”
I mentally followed her footsteps as Kaci took Greg back to the nursery. A minute later, she opened her bedroom door and grabbed her bag. But the true brilliance of her plan didn’t shine through until I heard music playing from the nursery and realized that whatever device was projecting stars across Greg’s room and filling it with a lullaby would also help cover ourfootsteps.
I followed Kaci past the closed office door, out of the house, and down the front steps, where she unlocked Chris’s car with a very conspicuous-sounding thump. She dropped her backpack onto the rear seat next to mine, but instead of sliding behind the wheel, she stared at the front of thehouse.
For a second, I thought she was saying a mental goodbye. Or having second thoughts. Then I followed her gaze through the window of Faythe’s office, which was still lit up at nearly one in themorning.
Our Alphas were making out on the desk, Faythe’s legs wrapped around Marc’s waist, as if they weren’t married with two kids and a whole territory to run. As if there were nothing more important in the world at that moment than touching eachother.
Kaci sighed, drawing my attention from over the car roof. She looked transfixed, not in a creepy peeping tom way, but in a wistful one. As if she were watching a fairytale play out in real life. Looking in from the outside at something she seemed convinced she’d neverhave.
Man-eater.
Suddenly I had the urge to delay my escape just long enough to go punch Brian Taylor in the face. It was his fault she thought she could never have that—his, and all the other asshole enforcers who treated her like afreak.
“You okay?” I whispered, and Kaci actually jumped. Her cheeks flushed again and she practically threw herself into thecar.
“Yeah. Get in.” She shifted into drive as I settled into my seat, then she pulled away from the house as if it were nothing. As if she escaped from the ranch everyday.
I didn’t exhale until she pulled Chris’s car out of the driveway and onto the road. “You’ve done that before,” I accused as I stared through the rearview mirror, half-expecting another car to come afterus.
“A couple of times.” The speedometer edged toward seventy, but she drove as if she’d been born with a steering wheel in her hands. “But never with both Faythe and Marc athome.”
“How much trouble did you getinto?”
“For leaving without permission? Hardcore grounding. But probably nothing compared to the trouble this will bring. Even now that I’m technicallygrown.”
“We can still go back,” I told her. Weshouldgo back. I should take her home and keep her out ofthis.
“Ha!” She dropped her phone in my lap. “It’s unlocked. Disable tracking, will you? I need to be someone else for a couple of days. Anyone butthe—”
Man-eater.
I heard it, even though she didn’t sayit.
“Anyone but me,” shefinished.
“I guess that means you’re serious?” I navigated through her phone settings to disable her location services, and when I looked up, I found her staring at the road with an ironclad determination, her eyes shining in the glow from passing streetlights. She looked fierce and stunning. “You’re really going to dothis?”
“We’rereally going to do this,Justus.”
