The Beast

“Mmm-hmmm.”

He kissed her head. “Why do all the best things happen when I’m blind? I met you when I was blind. Now . . . she’s here, and I’m blind.”

“Must be your version of a lucky horseshoe.”

Rhage stared up at the nothingness over their heads as Mary yawned so hard her jaw cracked.

Just before he was about to go to sleep, his lids popped back open.

“Mary?”

“Hmm-mmm.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For making me a father.”

Mary lifted her head up out of the crook of his arm. “What are you—I didn’t do that.”

“You most certainly gave us our family.” Damn it, he wished he could see her. Instead, he had to make do with his memory of her beautiful face—good thing he’d spent a lot of time staring at his shellan.

“You absolutely made me a father—I was dying on that battlefield, and you saved me. If you hadn’t done that, we never would have gotten Bitty, because we would have been up in the Fade, and she would have been down here, alone. You made this happen. And it isn’t just about me almost passing. You hung in with Bitty from the moment she lost her birth father, through the death of her brother and then of her mother. You worked with her in the aftermath, helping her come out of her shell. And then when we decided to try to do this, you set up the procedure and made sure it was done right. You coached me with my interview. You focused on Bitty. You . . . you made this happen, my Mary. You birthed my daughter, maybe not out of the womb, but certainly out of circumstance—you made me a father. And that is the greatest gift any female can ever give her male. So . . . thank you. For our family.”

The sweet scent of his shellan’s tears wafted, and he found her face in the darkness, bringing her mouth to his. The kiss he gave her was chaste and reverent, an expression of his gratitude.

“You have quite a way of putting things, you know that,” she said in a rough voice.

“Just being honest. That’s all I’m doing.”

When Mary resettled on his chest, Rhage closed his eyes. “I love you, my Mary Madonna.”

“And you’re always going to be my prince with shining fangs.”

“Really?”

“Mmm-hmm. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. You and Bitty.”

“That’s so sweet.” He sighed again. “Jeez, I feel sorry for Bits, though.”

Mary lifted her head again. “Why?”

“BECAUSE SHE IS NEVER DATING—”

“Rhage, seriously. You gotta give that a rest. . . .”

SEVENTY-TWO

Sitting in the back of I’ve Bean, Jo looked up as Bill came over to the table. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

The reporter laughed as he sat down with his latte. “So, good news.”

“You found the restaurant Julio was talking about downtown?”

“No, you got the online-editor position. They’re going to call you in about an hour and officially offer it. They wouldn’t tell me what the salary is, but it has to be in the low thirties.”

Jo pumped her fist. “Yes. Yes. That is awesome—I can start right after I finish my notice period at Bryant’s.”

“Do you know he called me?”

“What?”

Bill unwrapped another one of his scarves and draped it over the back of his chair. “Yeah. I think he’s obsessed with you. He wanted to know whether or not we were dating.”

“You’re married.”

“I pointed this out to him. P.S., Lydia wants to invite you over for dinner Saturday night. My cousin’s coming. Troy, you remember him.”

“Tell her I’d love to. What can I bring?”

“Just yourself and not Dougie.”

“Done.”

There was a slight pause, something she didn’t associate with the guy who had somehow become her older brother over the last week or so.

“What is it?” she said.

Bill looked around the crowded coffee shop like he was in search of a familiar face in the crowd. More likely, he was picking out words in his head.

“Employment is good,” she prompted. “Dinner is good. Soooooo . . .”

“I don’t want you to get pissed at me, but I looked into your adoption.”

Jo’s heart stopped. Then started thumping. “What did you . . . what did you find? And you had no right to do that, yada, yada, yada.”

If he’d asked her, she would have said no. But considering he’d clearly found something?

Bill reached into the pocket of his corduroy coat and took out a sheaf of papers that was folded length-wise. “Your birth mother was a nurse. Up in Boston. She left the hospital there when she found out she was pregnant. Back then, in the seventies, single mothers weren’t viewed the same, and she had a son that she gave up for adoption. She stayed, continued to work in various places. Fifteen years later, she gets pregnant again, by the same guy. She never married him, though. Not from what I saw. It was definitely the same man, though, according to diary entries that were copied and put into the file. This time, with you, she moved away, came here, settled in Caldwell. When she had you, she didn’t make it, unfortunately. It was a high-risk pregnancy because she was older by that time. She never disclosed who your father was, however, and there were no next of kin who came forward to claim you.”