Redemption: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 3) (11 page)

But then Janna came bouncing down the stairs, and Sarah ruined everything by snatching her hand away from Soren’s like she didn’t want to be seen touching him.

Why the hell not?
her soul screamed as Soren’s shoulders drooped.

“Morning!” Janna waved, oblivious to the tension that had suddenly sliced back into the room.

“Morning,” Sarah whispered, fighting tears that welled up out of nowhere.

God, she hated the emotional roller coaster of pregnancy. She hated tiptoeing around Soren when what she really wanted was to launch herself into his arms. She hated—

Her hand gripped the edge of the desk as she took in the mountains of unexplored paperwork. Bills, receipts, reminder notes. Soren must hate every minute he had to spend in that chair. Soren must have hated a lot of things he’d had to do to make a new start in life. If he could accept them, so could she.

“Listen,” she said to Soren, trying to bridge the gap she could already feel opening up between them again. “Why don’t you let me help you out in the office?”

“Don’t need help,” Soren muttered, getting to his feet.

Janna popped her head back in the doorway. “Oh my God, does he need help.”

“Janna,” Soren warned.

“Seriously, you need help,” Janna insisted.

Sarah could see the color rise in Soren’s face, but Janna plowed right on. Somehow, she managed the tightwire act of pushing Soren without actually making him blow up.

“Hey, I know you do your best,” Janna said. “But Sarah’s a total pro. You should see how fast she does the books for the café.” She rolled a wrist and snapped her fingers. “Like that. She’s amazing.”

Soren glared at Janna, but she didn’t seem to notice. She just pointed at his chest and tapped once or twice. “Just think. Lots more time for you to spend in the woodshop.”

Soren squeezed his lips, but Sarah caught the wistful glance he shot in that direction.

“Lots more time hiking or running or whatever it is you bear—” Janna coughed and sputtered on quickly. “Brothers! Whatever you brothers do out there in the woods.”

Sarah followed Soren’s gaze out the upper edge of the windowpane, where he’d be able to see the green blanket of the national forest that started not too far from town.

“I’m happy to help,” Sarah said.

“You’re doing enough.” He shook his head.

“A couple of hours sitting in a chair working a cash register hardly seems like enough.”

“Believe me, it’s enough,” he shot back. “Especially when you’re…you’re…” He waved his hand in the air, not quite able to produce the word.

Janna arched an eyebrow and filled in what neither of them was ready to say. “Pregnant?”

Soren opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything. His eyes churned and filled with pain.

God, there it was again. The one thing standing between them. The abyss.

“Which reminds me,” Janna said brightly, either ignoring or completely oblivious to the tension in the air. “Your appointment is at ten.”

“Appointment?” Sarah and Soren asked at the same time.

“Sure. With the obstetrician. Remember? Jessica made it for you.”

Sarah groaned. She’d been putting off a checkup, not ready to face those details of reality just yet, but Jessica had insisted.

“Oh!” Janna’s face fell as she remembered something. “We need to find you a ride.”

“A ride?”

“Jessica was going to take you, but the inspector is coming for a follow-up visit to the café today. Which reminds me, I need to get cleaning…” Janna trailed off. “Damn! That means I can’t take you, either.”

“No problem.” Sarah flapped her hands quickly. “I’ll take a cab.” She’d do anything to end the subject now, before Soren looked any more pained.

“Don’t be silly. Oh!” Janna announced. “Soren can take you.”

Sarah froze. Soren drew back.

“Um…” they both mumbled at the same time.

“Why not?” Janna insisted. “You’ve got the day off, boss.” She lifted an eyebrow at Soren.

“So does Simon,” he tried.

“Ha,” Janna said. “Do you really want him to take her to this appointment?”

Sarah worked up the nerve to drag her eyes from the carpet to Soren’s face, which was twisted with a look that said,
Do you really want
me
to take her?

But Janna insisted, and when Jess came down, she insisted, too.

“It’s not like you need to go in, Soren. Just drive her, for goodness’ sake.”

The sisters goaded them through the next hour and right into the car at a quarter to ten.

“See you later!” Janna called cheerily.

“See you later,” Jess waved.

“See you later,” Sarah mumbled from the front seat, studying her feet as Soren pulled wordlessly out onto the street.

Soren drove, thinking of all the different ways he’d kill Janna the next chance he got. He’d kill her, then Jessica, then move to some place in Alaska where he could shift permanently into bear form and never, ever have to deal with shit like this again.

Taking Sarah to a doctor’s appointment for a baby that wasn’t his?

His bear, however, was suddenly concerned. Deeply, deeply concerned. Biting-his-claws-nervously kind of concerned.

Doctor? Is something wrong with the baby?

There’s nothing wrong with the baby,
he growled back.

How can you be sure?

I’m sure,
he snapped.

But what if? Babies need doctors, right?
the bear fretted.

Mom didn’t go to a doctor. Grandma didn’t go to a doctor. Aunt Lucille didn’t go to a doctor.

The bear paced in the mental cage Soren kept him locked inside.
But Sarah is human. Humans need doctors.

She’ll be fine!
he growled back.

What about the baby?

The baby will be fine, too, damn it!

“Did you say something?” Sarah, who’d been awfully quiet, asked.

He shook his head and hurled a curse at his bear, but the damage had been done. Now he was nervous, too. What if the baby wasn’t okay? Sarah had been awfully thin when she’d first come to the saloon. That couldn’t be good for a developing baby. What if there was something really important that had to be caught right now?

He drove a little faster. And damn it, a parking space opened up right in front of the doctor’s office, so he didn’t have an excuse not to walk her in. And — double damn it — he didn’t have the heart to abandon Sarah in a waiting room full of strangers, either, so he ended up waiting with her, too. Eyeing the clock. Praying for salvation. Planning twenty different tortures he’d subject Victor Whyte and the Blue Blood leadership to when he finally got his chance, because they had set this whole mess into motion. They were the ones to blame. Jesus, he ought to be out hunting the enemy down, not sitting in an air-conditioned room praying for each stubborn second to pass.

Shit, shit, shit.

He looked out the window. Checked the laces of his boots. Stared at the ceiling then at the back of his hands. Jesus, how was he supposed to last five minutes there?

Somehow, he lasted fifteen and was about to make a hasty escape when an attendant came in and called Sarah’s name. When she led Sarah to one room and him to another, he relaxed a little bit, figuring they’d have mercy and leave him in peace for a while.

But no. The door popped open a second later, and in came Sarah with a cup of urine and the same attendant as before. The woman ignored him completely, put the cup on a tray, and took Sarah’s blood pressure and pulse.

“Um…” he tried, measuring the distance to the door with his eyes. He could go now, right? He wasn’t the father. He wasn’t exactly a friend. He was in that no-man’s-land in between.

“The doctor will be here in a second,” the lady said.

He didn’t want the doctor. He wanted out.

But it was too late, because the doctor hustled in — an older lady with a scary upswept hairdo and a very white coat — and shook everyone’s hand.

“Mrs. Boone? Mr. Boone? Hello.”

Boone? Boone was Sarah’s father, not him. He was a Voss, for Christ’s sake!

But Sarah looked so lonely, so lost, that he couldn’t help but clear his throat and whisper when the doctor turned away.

“Maybe I should go now.”

For a split second, abject fear crossed her eyes — an emotion his tough, übercapable girl never, ever showed — until she blinked and hid it away.

“I’m fine. You can go,” she said, straightening her shoulders in a move he knew was just for show.

“Um, I can stay if you want,” he offered — really, really quietly, so that maybe she wouldn’t hear.

“Um… That would be okay.” The forced nonchalance in her voice couldn’t cover up the note of hope. So, shit, his fate was sealed.

The doctor turned back to them and then the questions started, followed by the examination, and things got progressively worse, culminating in the moment when Sarah had to strip from the waist down and climb into an elevated chair surrounded by instruments of torture of some kind.

Soren made himself as small as possible — next to impossible for a bear — and tried really hard not to look, not to think, and preferably, not to exist. To clear his mind and think of anything, anything but this. Sarah naked and turned on was the most beautiful thing in the world. Sarah spread out in an examining room was…was… Well, it was just wrong.

“Now, let’s go back to conception,” the doctor said, snapping on a pair of gloves.

Sarah sucked in her lips. Soren ground his teeth.

“When do you estimate it would have been?” The doctor started spreading goop over Sarah’s stomach.

When? Sometime when he’d been two thousand fucking miles away.

“October third,” Sarah whispered in a sad voice full of infinite regrets.

His head snapped up.

Sarah looked him straight in the eye and nodded. “October third.”

His birthday. His fucking birthday. He rolled his foot over a power cord lying on the tiled floor.

“Now, it’s rare to know the exact date,” the doctor commented with a smile.

“It was the only time,” Sarah whispered. “The one time.”

If that was supposed to make him feel better, it didn’t. She’d slept with someone on his birthday? Great. The very night he’d been dreaming of her, she’d been with someone else.

God, the past couple of days had gone so smoothly, he’d started wondering if they might patch things up. But now…

The doctor looked at Sarah in surprise, then looked at him. “October third?”

See?
He wanted to yell.
It wasn’t me. It should have been, but it wasn’t.

“Well, well,” the doctor murmured, clearly wondering what was wrong with their sex life. Then she pulled out a penis-shaped contraption from her toolbox and brandished it under his nose. “The better to see your baby with.”

Not my baby,
he wanted to growl. But it felt wrong to even think such a thing. The baby deserved better. The baby deserved to be loved.

I love the baby,
his bear whispered inside.

“Let’s have a closer look,” the doctor said, turning on a screen.

Soren squeezed his eyes as tight as he could. Look? How could a guy be expected to look?

“So, there’s the head…”

God, he was starting to feel sick.

“The kidneys are developing well…”

Kidneys? He blanched. He figured this would be a girl/boy, five fingers/five toes kind of thing, not an anatomy lesson.

“This is quite a big baby for thirty weeks,” the doc went on. “Big hands, too.”

Soren looked at his own hand, scowling. His mom had always said that about him. It seemed like her favorite thing, sharing too much information about him as a baby. She’d laugh and smile and go all misty-eyed and babble on about embarrassing baby things.
My big baby bear with his big bear hands,
his mom used to say.

Yeah,
he used to grumble. She said that about Simon, too.

And wait a minute. Hadn’t his aunt said the same thing about his cousins?

He sat a little straighter, trying to remember the last baby to be born to the clan. It had been a good long time ago. He’d been about twelve and couldn’t have cared less. All he vaguely remembered was a group of excited women gathered around a cradle.

That’s a good bear baby,
one of the older women had said.
You can always tell a bear. Big body, big hands.

“Oh, what’s this?” the doctor said, sounding concerned.

Sarah looked up in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” the doctor said quickly. “It’s just that I caught a glimpse of something…”

Soren glanced at the monitor. The doctor turned the probe around Sarah’s private parts, panning the view. “Hmmm. Let me get my glasses…”

He clenched and unclenched his hands. Big baby, big hands…

Fuck. What if the father wasn’t human? What is the father was a bear?

He looked at Sarah, who was studying the screen in concern. The image didn’t resemble a human or a bear so much as an alien of some kind.

His mind spun. Surely Sarah hadn’t slept with one of the guys from his clan? His cousin Todd had promised to keep Sarah safe while Soren was gone, and Todd had never said anything about Sarah showing any interest in another bear shifter. Not that Sarah would know the difference between a shifter and human, but still.