“I’ll help you move the seat forward so you can reach the pedals.”
“Do you trust me?”
He pressed his head against the baby’s head and kissed his nose. And Mireio suddenly realized that the man probably trusted her more with the vehicle than he did with his child.
“Hand me the keys. I can do this.”
* * *
The path through the woods had been there for decades. Lars knew that the very first pack members had built the compound and the cabin where he lived. He liked having his own place and had lived there alone since he was fourteen. But also, when the pack had been larger, he’d liked being close to friends, whom he also considered family. Now, it was nice for the two-mile distance between the places because babysitting was just a wander through the woods.
Sunday had been the one to suggest he get away from the cabin and go out and have a little fun. Lars had been cooped up with Peanut for months and generally walked around with baby spit on his shoulders, and who knew when he’d last washed his hair?
Yet in the process of “getting out” he’d hooked up with a pretty woman.
“I sure hope she likes us both,” he said as he strode the beaten path over fallen leaves, cracking branches and crops of mushrooms that edged the lane. “What do you think, Peanut?”
The boy was awake and alert, taking in the surroundings, even though it was dark. Lars pressed a kiss to his bushy crop of thick hair. He loved that stuff. It was soft and black and smelled like nothing he’d ever known but everything he wanted to have forever.
Had he done things wrong tonight? Should he have kept Peanut a secret until he felt sure that he and Mireio might have a real thing between them?
No, better to give her opportunity to run now before they did get to know one another. And better for him. He’d hate to fall in love with her and then lose her because he had a baby. Much as she had claimed to enjoy babies, being a parent was different. It required dedication and sacrifice. And love.
Lars had never been in love. Until now. He hugged Peanut and strode swiftly toward the truck lights that approached his cabin.
He arrived at the truck in time to help Mireio down and tell her how to turn the lights off. The truck really was a monster in her hands, but she’d gotten here safely.
“Whew!” she said when she stood on the ground beside him. “That thing is huge and the road is narrow and winding. I think I just passed some kind of endurance test! Hey! Don’t laugh at me, you little giggle butt,” she said to Peanut.
Lars high-fived her and nodded that she should follow him in. “The road is crazy twisty. I’ve considered getting a smaller truck, but I haul a lot of wood and well...” He opened the front door, which he never kept locked and gestured she enter before him. “I do like a big truck.”
“Men and their toys.” Her heels clicked across the clean wood floor. “Wow, this place is cute. It’s all just the one room?”
She turned, taking in the living area with the blue-and-green-plaid couch and low table made from half an oak trunk. The kitchen offered a small fridge, a porcelain sink and an old gas stove. A round kitchen table sat at the end of the foyer, which was right before them. Immediately to their right stood the queen-size bed hemmed in by a clothes rack against a wall. Peanut’s crib was wedged between the clothes and the end of the bed.
“This is it.” Lars grabbed a diaper from a shelf above the clothes rack and laid Peanut on the bed. “I gotta change him. I hope you don’t mind. There’s beer and water in the fridge.”
“Sure. Looks like he’s wide-awake now,” she said as she rummaged around in the fridge.
“Peanut loves walking through the woods. Don’t you?” He toyed with the baby’s bare toes as the infant stretched out his legs. He always did that once diaper-free. Like, oh, yes, Daddy, let me dry out and be a nudist for a while. “Soon you’ll be running through the woods and putting your daddy through the wringer of keeping up with you.”
“What is his name?” Mireio asked as she sat before the kitchen table with a bottle of water.
“Peanut.” He secured the diaper tapes and replaced his son’s onesie snaps. He tossed the diaper into the bin, which he emptied every night, and then got a bottle of milk he’d poured this morning from the fridge. He set it in the pot on the stove half-filled with water and turned on the heat. It took only minutes to get a nice warmth to the milk.
“You named your son Peanut?” He could sense the dismay in her tone. “That’s...unique.”
Lars sat next to her before the table. “I don’t know his real name. His mother didn’t tell me it before she ran off. And the name on the birth certificate simply says ‘baby boy.’ I thought he sort of melded against me like a little peanut when I held him against my chest, so...it works for now.”
“Peanut. Sure. But you are going to give him a name?”
Lars shrugged. “When the right one comes to me. I have up to a year to fill it in on the birth certificate.”
“Sounds fair enough. Oh, don’t get up. I’ll check the milk.” She tested the milk against her wrist, then sat down and handed it to him. “Cool, but just about right. So...do I get to ask you about Peanut’s mom and where she is and why you’re doing the single-daddy thing? Oh. Did she die?”
“No, she’s not dead, and yes, ask me anything you like.”
Because that meant she was open to the conversation, and maybe he might still have a chance with her.
“I want to know whatever you’re comfortable telling me.” She pointed to the baby sucking voraciously at the bottle. “Explain that little bundle of sweetness and wild rock-star hair.”
She hadn’t made an excuse to leave yet. And she wasn’t standing by the door, eyeing the escape. So Lars marked himself as lucky. So far, so good.
“All right, here goes. I spent a few nights with Peanut’s mom last year. It was a two-night stand kind of thing. We met in a nightclub in downtown Minneapolis. We weren’t drunk, but you know how sometimes you just want to get close with another person?”
She nodded knowingly. “Oh, yeah.”
“And the feeling was mutual,” he continued. “So, you know, it happened. She stayed the day and a second night, then told me it had been fun, and she was moving on. She traveled a lot for her job as a photojournalist. Was hoping to get an assignment in Africa that would last for years. I marked it off as a fun couple of nights and life went on. Human women, you know...”
He shifted to tilt up Peanut a bit so the baby wouldn’t get gassy from sucking in air from the bottle.
“What about human women?” Mireio asked.
“It’s hard for we werewolves to have a relationship with someone who is going to freak out the minute she sees you shift. We can’t trust that secret with just anyone.”
“You can trust a witch.”
“I know that.” He winked at her and she smiled and wiggled on her chair. “Ten months after that hookup I get a knock on the door and the surprise of my life. She didn’t want a baby. Didn’t need one messing up her life. And she got the African assignment. So she said it was my choice. She could put the baby up for adoption, or I could take him.”
Mireio’s jaw dropped open. Then she closed it. “Wow. Tough choice for a young, single man.”
“Not really. I took one look at this little peanut and knew I had to have him in my life.”
“Really? Have you always liked kids? Babies? Usually men aren’t so paternal.”
“I have never been around kids much. Never even held a baby before this guy.”
“How did you even trust that he was yours?”
“She does ask the questions, doesn’t she?” Lars said to Peanut. “I just knew. But also, his mom said I should get a DNA test, and she even had the forms and details on how to do it, along with all the info she’d written down for Peanut’s feeding schedule. She was an orderly woman. And she said she knew he was mine because she hadn’t had sex with a guy after me for months.”
“Did you do the test?”
“I did. Peanut is one hundred percent mine. But I knew that before I got the test results.”
“How did you know?”
He beamed at her. “My heart told me he was mine. But also, could you imagine putting this little sweetie up for adoption?”
