Heir To The Pack (The Cursed Pack Book 1) (3 page)

Annie’s phone woke her and
she struggled to crawl out of bed, dig through her clothes and purse, and
eventually locate it on the desk near the television. Disoriented, she glanced
at the digital alarm clock. Six a.m. Urgh. Daisy and Jack slept on.

“Hello,” she whispered
into the phone, tiptoeing to the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

“It’s Dash.”

“I should have guessed. It’s
early.” So much for being emotionally prepared when she spoke to him next. She
struggled for composure.

“Sorry,” he said. “I
couldn’t sleep. Wanted to talk to you. I went for a run first.” His voice
sounded hoarse.

“In the dark?” She glanced
at the window. Yes, dark. He sounded tired, strung out. Their conversation had
exhausted her emotionally, and must have had some of the same effect on him.

“There was a moon.”

She sighed, too hazy at
this hour to argue with him. “What do you want?”

“You said we'd talk today.”

 
She sat down on the toilet lid, rested
her head on her free hand. None of this had gone the way she had originally
planned. “I do want to talk to you. Yesterday was...suboptimal.”

“How about breakfast? You
can bring Jack.” He paused. “Or not.”

Annie heard something in
his voice. Sadness? “You have a right to see him.” She sighed, giving up on any
idea of doing this her way. If they could talk it through, she might get him to
give her a family history and agree to genetic testing. Upsetting and humiliating
as the previous day’s encounter had been, she had to focus on the goal. Which
meant talking to Dash. “Why don’t we get together alone? It will give us a
chance to sort things out.”

He agreed and they made
arrangements to meet at a diner a block from the hotel. Annie showered and dressed
in jeans and a plain white blouse. Before she left, she put a hand on Daisy’s
shoulder to wake her.

Daisy started, and opened
her eyes. “What time is it?”

Annie filled her in on
arrangements. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Can you get Jack some breakfast,
and I’ll call you when I know what’s happening?”

“Of course.” Daisy caught
her hand. “Good luck, sweetheart. I hope you can get some answers.”

“I hope so, too, Mom,”
Annie said. After kissing Jack’s still slumbering head, she slipped out of the
room and walked along the street.

Dash had beaten her there.
He stood out front, leaning against a dark blue SUV. He wore running clothes,
his arms folded over the front of the tight white t-shirt, accentuating his
broad shoulders. At least he was dressed this time. He smiled at her, his face
open and friendly.

“Hi,” she said. She waited.

“Can we start over? Yesterday
didn’t go very well.”

Dash’s scrutiny made her
itch. “I’m listening,” she said. Yesterday’s storm of emotion had drained away,
leaving her tired and washed out. She resolved to keep an open mind, against
her better judgment.

“Let’s go inside, and you
can tell me about Jack.”

She sighed, staring back
up the street toward the hotel, and walked into the restaurant. They found a
table in a corner, and Annie ordered coffee. “You said, tell you about Jack. What
do you want to know?” She could brag about his achievements all day, or talk
about his illness. The latter had eclipsed the former in her thoughts lately,
but he was a bold, adventurous kid.

“If he’s mine, everything.”

 
If
he’s mine.
He’d said that wasn’t possible. But why had he come unless he
thought it was? Totally illogical, but it might help her get what she needed
for Jack. She focused back on the conversation. “What do you mean, everything?”

Dash gave her a half
smile, dimpling one chiseled cheek. “I mean what does he like to eat? Is he a
happy kid or a grumpy one? Does he love Elmo? Does he sleep at night? What
games does he like?”

Annie closed her eyes. She
wasn’t ready to make it too easy for him, not yet. “I thought you said he
couldn't be yours. What changed?”

“I've had time to think. I
believe you think I’m his father, even if I didn’t think it was possible.” He
paused. “What I don’t understand is why you waited to come find me. Why not right
away, when you knew you were pregnant?” His voice deepened as he spoke, his
pupils growing huge and dark.

She knew she’d been in the
wrong, not seeking him out, but his initial reaction yesterday had validated
her assumptions. “It was a fling.”

“It felt like more than
that to me.”

His gaze accused her, and
guilt ran through her once again. She’d laid awake thinking about this many
times, rationalizing, as she did best. “We barely spoke. We didn’t even know
each other’s last names. There was no intent to start a relationship, no intent
to tie each other down. If either of us had wanted that, we could have
exchanged numbers, addresses, made arrangements to meet again.” She'd thought
about it, and regretted not having done it a thousand times since. But she'd
had a career to get back to, and no intention of pursuing a relationship with anyone
at the time. “Admit it, the last thing you wanted was a baby.”

“I didn’t think I could
have one with you.” He shrugged. “It never even occurred to me that it was
possible you could be pregnant. But you knew. And you never contacted me.” His
mouth turned down at the corners. The irises of his eyes grew paler, if that
were possible.

She didn’t know what she’d
expected, but it wasn’t this. Guys who accidentally got someone pregnant after
a fling were supposed to run screaming from an unwanted burden. At least that's
what she'd seen with her college friends. But logically, not all men were the
same, and she and Dash weren't undergraduates.

Regardless, she hadn't
expected to hurt him. “I’m sorry.” Her hand moved to her mouth of its own
accord. Damn it, she hadn’t meant to apologize. “I’m here now, contacting you.”

“All right.” He nodded. “I
guess there’s no point in hashing that to death.” He shook his head, the
expression on his face changing fast as mercury. “I’m still confused about how
Jack can exist. But I’m not going to treat you badly. I want to help you. I’m
sorry about yesterday.”

It took her a few seconds to
catch up with his change of mood and topic. Relief flooded in, but she put the
emotion aside. They could bond later, deal with recriminations and whatever. If
he held no anger over it, even better. Right now she had to focus on making some
progress on Jack’s behalf. She could change topics in mid-stream along with
him. “Apology accepted. So tell me, do any genetic conditions run in your
family?”

Dash’s face went very
still, and she could have sworn he was trying not to laugh. She really needed
more sleep, or at least another coffee.

“Please, just tell me.”

“I’ll tell you what,” he
said, frowning. “Much as it pains me to suggest it, my two aunties are back at the
house. They know everything about everyone in my entire extended family. Not
that they like to gossip, you understand, but...let’s say they never met a
family anecdote they didn’t like. If there’s anything like this in the family,
those two will know about it.”

Anecdotal evidence. Terrific.
But it was better than what she had now. “Can I convince you to go for genetic
testing?”

“Let’s go talk to Elaine
and Marjie. That’s by far the easiest solution.”

She frowned at him,
feeling the lines between her brows draw into the start of a headache. “You do
realize how serious this is, right? We’re talking about my son’s life.”

“If you’re right, it’s our
son’s life,” he said, grimly. “And even if you’re wrong, he’s a child. I’d have
to be pretty callous not to care. I want answers, too.”

This was why she’d come to
find him. Not because he was Jack’s father, but because she’d thought him kind
and decent. If he’d been less nice as a person, she would have sent lawyers
rather than turning up on his doorstep. Although, she supposed, if he’d been
less nice she probably wouldn’t have had an affair with him in the first place.

“Were Elaine and Marjie two
of your guests yesterday?”

“Guests?” He looked
confused. “Oh. My family. Elaine, Marjie, and a bunch of my cousins. We all
live together.”

“Really?” What was he now,
twenty-nine? And he lived with his family? That seemed…odd. “My mom lives in
the next suburb over, and I sometimes think that’s too close. Of course, she’s
a great help with Jack. She brought me up alone, so she gets it. She watches
him while I’m at work.”

Dash shrugged. “We’re a
close family. I can’t imagine living any other way.”

How did he have any kind
of personal life? She shuddered, thinking of sharing her condo with a gaggle of
cousins. Of course, her cousins wouldn’t dream of it. Neither were they a
gaggle. In her family, women had a maximum of one child. It was hard to cram in
more around a career. Jack was the first boy born in the family in living
memory, so his few relatives had dutifully turned up to see him when he was
born, said something vaguely disparaging about Annie not being married, and
vanished again. Most of them had assumed she’d used a sperm donor, for heaven’s
sake. The idea of spontaneity was as foreign to them as China. Except Daisy, of
course, and she was the black sheep of the family.

 
“So,” Dash continued, “Do you want to
grab something to eat and come over, after?”

“I have some other
questions, first.” She ground her teeth, thinking. She needed answers before
she would commit to taking Jack back to the house. The house with the pack of
dogs in the yard and the pack of family in the living room. “What was going on
yesterday? Do you own those big dogs?”
And
why were you naked?
The vision of his unclothed body floated into her mind
once again, ruining her concentration.

“The dogs are part of the
family. They’re, um, very curious. They didn’t mean to scare you, just wanted
to get a good look at Jack. I told them to knock it off.”

Annie was positive he
wasn’t telling her something. But she could figure that out later. “Can we
focus on what’s important here? I need your help to get Jack better.” She was exhausted.
The last couple of months had worn her down, and this whole confrontation was
the last straw. She couldn’t fight any more.

 
Dash watched her intently. “Why don’t we
go get Jack and your mom and go out for breakfast? You need food, not just
coffee. My treat.”

Her head nodded of its own
accord. She was too tired to argue and she needed to eat. If he spent some time
with Jack, maybe he’d be more willing to help. She stood, and swayed, the world
going gray around the edges.

Dash caught her, putting
his bare, muscular arm around her. “Don’t faint,” he said, tightly.

“I’m not fainting. Just
tired.” He left that arm loosely around her waist and escorted her out of the
restaurant, like he would a fragile grandmother. She smarted with resentment. He’d
found her sexy enough before, hadn’t he? She was only three years older now.

They walked the short
distance back to the motel, where he followed her up the stairs to the room.

“Mom?” Annie knocked once,
not wanting to bring in a visitor if Daisy was still in her pajamas. No one
answered. She slid the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door. The
room was empty. “They must be down at breakfast already,” she said, turning
back to face Dash.

He stood in the oddest
pose, head lifted, eyes closed, and he sniffed deeply. His lips curled, forming
into a snarl.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

He snapped out of his
reverie. “Let’s go check the breakfast room.”

“I feel like you’re not
telling me something,” she said. An irrational shiver ran down her back. Daisy
would have said a goose walked over her grave. Annie herself didn’t see any
need for that level of superstition.

“Let’s go to the breakfast
room,” he repeated, and almost ran away from her and down the stairs.

His urgency frightened
her, and she followed as fast as she could, tripping over her own sneakers as
she went down the outside stairwell.

He flung open the door to
the main building, bolted down a further three stairs and rounded the corner. When
Annie came up behind him, she could see Daisy and Jack were not there. Where
were they?

Breakfasting families
stared at Dash. He turned to her, hunched up, eyes wild, buzzing with an energy
that itched at Annie’s skin. “I don’t smell them,” he said. He ran back past
her, out of the building and back to the stairs.

Where were they? If not
for Dash behaving like this she would have assumed they were somewhere nearby. But
his reaction was contagious. A sick feeling lodged in her stomach, and she
jogged out behind Dash.

She’d never seen anything
quite as odd as a grown man getting down on his hands and knees to sniff the
dirt. In some tiny corner of her mind a voice suggested there was something
seriously weird about Dash’s behavior. She pushed it away.