One Bear and a Baby: BBW Bear Shifter Baby Paranormal Romance (Who's the Daddy? Book 1) (5 page)

“What happened?” she asked, imagining the pressure they must have been under, and beginning to understand how he could have fallen in love with his partner.

“We were very successful. We worked closely together, formed a bond. Not like a mating bond, but the bond two people who rely on each other for their lives has to make.” He shook his head. “We had to depend on each other. Really trust each other. That’s why Jenni gave Maisie to me. It’s not as if I am the fatherly type, but she knew I would look after her daughter and protect her, when she no longer could.”

“I see,” she said, although he still hadn’t given Isabelle a definitive answer as to who Maisie’s father was. “The case came to a close?”

He nodded his head. “Yes. We brought the drug ring down. Case closed, move on.”

“Different jobs?”

“Yes. I didn’t know her next job; she didn’t know mine. That’s how it works. You work a case, you move on. Almost a year went by.”

“So no contact until she turns up with Maisie? You didn’t know she was pregnant?”

“No contact. No, I didn’t know about the pregnancy. I also don’t know how she tracked me down. It was an embezzlement case; I had an apartment in the city while I worked the case. But it was impossible for me to carry on afterwards. I had to pull out, say I was stressed. I had a friend take care of Maisie while I went through the motions. Then I left the city.”

“And she said she had been set up?”

“Yes. She had worked a drug bust, but the evidence, drugs and cash, went missing, and she got blamed. In that time, she must have gotten pregnant. That’s how she was set up, someone knew and used it as leverage. So she ran. That’s all I know. I dug around, but nothing.”

“So she
isn’t
your child?” Isabelle asked, somehow more relieved than she should be.

“No,” he admitted. “Although Jenni said my name was on the birth certificate. Even before she had Maisie, she had been thinking of a plan. Perhaps if she had found me sooner, things would have turned out differently.”

“The burn mark?”

He winced, rubbing his hand across his jaw. “I’d like to get my claws into the man who did that to a child.”

“You think it might be the same person who set her up? Maybe the father of the child?” She heard how that sounded, and added, “Maisie’s father could have done it? He could have set this whole thing up. Get her to steal the evidence, then threaten Maisie. Jenni ran, or ran back to him. Could be she loved him?”

“I don’t know.”

“What if I ask around?”

“No. I don’t like it. I don’t want to rattle anyone’s cage.”

“Is there no one you trust there?”

“Maybe our handler. The guy who worked the case with me and Jenni. A Detective Michael Stanhope.”

“I’ll ask around,” Isabelle said, writing everything down.

He shook his head. “What if we make it worse? Jenni was scared. When she came to me, she was terrified. In any other woman it would have been natural, but in Jenni... She was a seasoned cop, she knew what she was doing. What if she ends up dead because we poked the hornets’ nest?”

“What if she ends up dead because we don’t?” Isabelle asked.

“She asked me to leave it alone. For all I know she wants things to be this way. All that matters now is Maisie. I need you to let this go,” he said. “I came home to bring Maisie up in a quiet town surrounded by people who will protect her and care for her.”

“I see that and understand completely.” It was an impossible situation. “What about you? You walked away from your job?”

“More or less. I told them I was stressed. That I needed some time off to get my head together. They understood. It happens. A couple of psych sessions later and I’m on medical leave indefinitely.”

“So now you’re telling me a mentally unstable man is the sole guardian of a small child.” She said it lightly, but she had to be sure. Nothing he said had any proof to back it up. If he wasn’t her mate, she would be on the phone now making inquiries, getting all the facts in front of her before she made up her mind to leave Cade in charge of Maisie’s health and well-being.

He laughed. “I had a buddy, Frank. Now, Frank did have a problem, and his handlers knew it, but every time they sent him to be assessed, he passed. I asked him one day how he did it, and he explained about knowing what they were looking for and making sure you don’t display that behavior. So I reverse-engineered what he told me … and they thought I needed a break.”

She got up, pacing the room while he watched. When she arrived back to the doorway, she opened it and said, “Go home, Cade.”

He got up, and came to stand in front of her. “Thank you.”

“Just make sure that little girl has a happy life.”

He reached out and brushed her cheek. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

“Cade, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Her bear did not agree, and roared in her head to make sure her feelings were known.

“Come on, it might make you feel better about it all. You can do your own independent psych test.”

How could she resist those big brown eyes, soft enough to melt her heart and soul? “OK. But that does not mean I won’t arrest your ass if I find out this isn’t the truth.”

“My ass is yours. Whether you want to arrest it or not is up to you.”

Then he walked out of the office, leaving her wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into.

A mixture of elation and remorse coursed through him. It was all out in the open; she knew he wasn’t Maisie’s biological father. What if she asked him to give the little girl he had sworn to protect up? If he had persuaded her Maisie was his own flesh and blood, Isabelle would have had no choice but to take her on as well as Cade.

Yet that lie would always have hurt her deeply. The thought that he had fathered a child with someone else would have always been a wedge between them, even if it had been before they met.

Thinking his blood flowed in the child’s veins meant Isabelle would never ask him to give her up. Maybe it wouldn’t make a difference to Isabelle, perhaps he underestimated the good sheriff. Was she the kind of woman who would simply accept Maisie anyway?

He didn’t know her well enough, and it wasn’t worth obsessing over: the decision was made, he had to live with it.

What a damn mess! That was all he could think as he jogged the short distance back to his parents’ house, glad to be outside in the fresh air. A run in the mountains was what he needed, and after his date with Isabelle tonight, that was what he would do, run until his legs ached and his lungs burned.

The streets of his hometown were comfortingly quiet; the people he did pass were relaxed and happy, calling across the street to friends who were out in their front yards. This was why he had brought Maisie here. There was a sense of community, made stronger by the fact a large number of the population of Tawny Valley were shifters. They watched each other’s backs and would protect Maisie, even though she wasn’t actually one of them.

One thing he knew: if anyone ever came here looking for Maisie, wishing her harm, he would kill them, drag their sorry carcass up into the mountain and bury them where no one would ever find them.

The tension inside him increased until it felt as if he was going to pop. “Cade?”

He opened his hands, shaking them to let the pent-up anger go. “Mrs. Delany?”

The old woman made to cross the street. He sprinted over to her instead, and gave her a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you. Your mom and dad have been worried. But I knew you would turn up. You always had a knack of being in the right place at the right time, rather than the wrong place at the wrong time, like so many of your peers.”

“Are you saying I was a goody-goody at school?” he asked.

Mrs. Delany smiled, looking every day of her ninety-odd years. “You are still one of my favorites,” she said with a wink. “I have fond memories of the school, and all of those who studied there.”

Mrs. Delany had been his teacher through 5
th
grade. But even before that she had been part of his life; she lived on the next street over, and when he was struggling with math, she would come over for an hour or two each week and help him. In return his mom would cook a wonderful dinner and the old lady would stay.

Only when he was older did he realize that he wasn’t so bad at math, and his mom knew Mrs. Delany was lonely but hated to admit it. Those two days a week gave her a family to talk to, to laugh with. Why his mom never just asked Mrs. Delany, he never could work out.

Pride.
He could see it in the old lady’s eyes now, pride and independence. “I still live on my own. Your mom comes over every day with a hot meal; she’s a good woman. And your dad does any chores I can’t manage, which happens more and more frequently these days.”

“You always did love that house,” he said.

“It has been in my family for five generations.” She looked sad, her eyes filling with tears, and she didn’t have to speak the words that were in her head. “But after me it will be sold to strangers. I have no one to leave it to.”

Cade placed his hand on her arm. “Is there anything I can get for you? I can run to the store for you want, save your legs.”

She swatted him out of the way. “I’m not that old.”

He grinned as she walked off down the street. It was good to be home.

Turning away from her, he walked home, feeling better about himself. He had been hard on himself for months. Ever since Jenni had arrived on his doorstep with Maisie. It was time to let the past die and his new future live, to watch Maisie grow up and help her make sense of the world around her.

“Hi, Mom,” he called as he went inside.

“We’re here.” He went into the sitting room, where his mom and Maisie were sitting on the floor surrounded by pots and pans and wooden spoons. “We need to get her some toys.”

“Hey, Maisie,” he said, going and sitting down next to them. She looked up and smiled at him, nearly overbalancing as she did.

“How did it go? At least she hasn’t arrested you,” his mom said hopefully. “She’s a good woman, from what I hear.”

He sighed. “Too good for me.”

“Don’t say that. She’s your mate and you are meant to be together. Maybe fate decided she was the best person to help you watch over Maisie.”

“I’m asking a lot of you both,” he said.

“That is what we are here for, you know that. To help you, with everything.” She smiled. “Although the next diaper change is on you. I’ll make you some lunch.”

“Great, I’m starving. And I have to keep my strength up, I’ve asked Isabelle on a date tonight.”

“Have you?” his mom asked excitedly.

“If you don’t mind babysitting?”

“I don’t mind at all,” she said, and went into the kitchen humming.

“Come on, Maisie, time to change that stinky diaper.” As he picked her up and felt the familiar weight of her in his arms, he wondered exactly what his future was. Only months ago he had been a well-trained undercover officer. Now he was on sick leave, and had no intention of going back. He might not be Maisie’s real dad, but he was the only parent she had and he was not going to abandon her. Ever.

“This is awkward,” Isabelle said as they sat opposite each other at the only restaurant in Tawny Valley.

He grinned and looked around. As he did so, dozens of pairs of eyes that had been fixed on them suddenly found something fascinating in another direction. The staring had begun as soon as they walked in, and would likely last as long as they were here.

“What are they staring at?” he asked as he closed the menu and placed it down on the table.

“Us.” She looked at him as if he was crazy not being able to see why.

“You or me?” he asked.

“Both of us.”

“Because they don’t recognize me, or because you don’t go on dates very often?”

She glared at him. “I do date.”

“Really? When was the last time?” he asked, a twinkle in those dark eyes she did not want to look at because it made her heart flutter in ways that were distracting to an officer of the law.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“Evasive, I like it.” He sat back in his seat, and looked around the restaurant again. “I haven’t dated for years. Being undercover: well, it is complicated. And then there’s the whole fated-mate thing. Don’t you ever find it hard to date men who you know you have no future with?”

“I do.” She looked down at the menu, studying it closely, while her brain whirred in confusion. “Do we have a future, Cade?”

“Yes,” he said without a pause.

She closed her menu and placed it on the table, and then took a sip of her wine. “Nothing ever turns out like we think it will. Does it?”

He sighed and shook his head. “It all seemed so easy. Good job, make a nice nest egg, and then it all changed. Even when I decided to come back here, I thought I would settle down and live my life alone.”

“You had no intention of looking for your mate?” Isabelle asked.

“Are you ready to order?” Isabelle wanted to tell the waitress to go away, but she knew it wasn’t her fault; she had no idea she was interrupting Cade’s confession.

“Yes, I’ll have the chicken please.” She looked at Cade and raised her eyebrow, suddenly worried he might take this chance to run out on her. But to her relief he ordered a medium-rare steak. She let out her breath as the waitress left with their orders.

“You thought I was going to make a run for it,” he stated, sipping his beer.

“I might have. You’ve had to answer some very awkward questions today.” She took a large gulp of her wine. “So I complicate things?”

He leaned forward and reached out to put his hand over hers as she fiddled with the stem of her wine glass. She shuddered, his touch inflaming her body, sending thrills through every nerve ending.

“Yes. I can’t lie to you convincingly.” He smiled his crooked smile. “Which I’m actually pleased about. I want us to be honest. My adult life seems to have been filled with lies and untruths. Working undercover left me waking up sometimes wondering which me was the real me.”