Seducing Their Wayfaring Souls [3xtasy Lake 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (7 page)

“Because of Zack.” She nodded. “It’s only fair, I guess.”

Cris reached out and placed a hand on her arm. She jumped at the contact, but he couldn’t back away. His inner animal had the contact it wanted and wasn’t finished feeling her skin. “Not only because of Zack. I want to get to know you, Tara. We have a hell of a connection for two people who don’t know anything about each other.”
If you only understood the connection
.

“I don’t want to tell him about you being his father. Not right away. It’ll confuse him.”

Cris almost howled his happiness. A chance, all he needed was a chance. “I promise I’ll abide by your decisions about Zack. I know I don’t have a right to force my opinions on you after all this time. All I’m asking for is the opportunity to get to know you both and tell you a bit about me as well.”

“All right.” She nodded and met his gaze. She had the brightest green eyes and he remembered being enchanted by the colour. Those beautiful eyes had haunted his dreams for the last six years. “Maybe once we get settled in Manitoba, I’ll see about getting the Internet and we can Skype or Facebook or something.”

“Why don’t we worry about it when the time comes?”
And I’ll try my best to make sure it never does.
“You’ve been rubbing your neck as we sit here. I can go get River to see if she can work on any knots you might have in your muscles.”

The patio door slid open and Marcario stepped in. “Tara, your son’s going to play professional soccer by his next birthday he’s so good.”

Zack giggled and ran past him carrying a soccer ball to his mom. “I kicked ath, Mom.”

Cris covered his mouth with his hand and tried not to laugh. Tara’s eyes brightened and her expression softened as she looked at her son. “Zack Brewer, that’s not a polite word.”

“Sorry, my bad,” Marcario confessed. “It slipped out when we were playing. Cris, I’m going to fire up the barbeque. Are you staying for dinner?”

Cris wanted to with every fiber of his being, but he didn’t want to make Tara any more uncomfortable. “Thanks, man, but I have plans with Lars.”

Marcario nodded. “Tara, is it okay if Zack helps me cook?”

“Really?” Zack bounced on the balls of his feet. “Pleath, Mom.”

“Are you sure?” she asked Marcario, who assured her he would love the help.

“Jelani always burns the food and we don’t let Jessica touch the barbeque ever since she set it on fire.”

“I heard that!” Jessica’s voice travelled from the backyard as Zack ran for the door.

“Well, I better get going.” Cris walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed a pen and a pad of paper sitting by the phone. He flipped past a couple pages of messages and what looked like love notes until he got to a fresh page. He felt a kick of envy toward the people who lived here. This was what he wanted, little notes left for each other over mundane things highlighted with sensual promises and doodled hearts. He wrote down his cell phone number and address. After a second of deliberation he wrote down a second number. “If you need anything at any time then I want you to call me, okay?” He handed the sheet to Tara. “I wrote Lars’s phone number on there, too. I know he wouldn’t mind.”

She glanced down at the number and folded the paper and put it in her pocket and nodded. “Sure, um, I’m staying at the hotel for the next day or two at the most. Maybe we can meet for a coffee or something.”

“I work at the radio station across the street from The Shack. It’s a couple of doors down from the hotel. We could meet there tomorrow, say about noon?” This way he could buy her and Zack lunch. Jelani’s earlier comment about Tara needing a good meal haunted his thoughts. “I’ll call Lars and see if he wants to meet us, too.”

Colour rushed into Tara’s cheeks and she fidgeted, avoiding his gaze. “No it’s okay. I don’t want to bother him or anything.”

Interesting reaction.
Cris was looking forward to seeing Lars’s reaction when Tara’s name came up. “We’ll see then.”

She was back to not looking him in the eye, so he cupped his hand under her jaw and leaned forward, pressing his lips against her cheek, near her temple. He inhaled slowly, taking her scent into his lungs, which went a long way to settling down the animal restlessly pacing inside of him. He wasn’t dumb enough to push the issue right now, but he had no intention of letting her run away from him.

“I’m very happy you found me, Tara,” he whispered against her skin. “You might not believe this, but I’ve thought about you every day wondering what happened.” Before she could voice what was no doubt disbelief, he swooped down and pressed his lips against hers. Gently and softly, he tasted her skin and fought back the urge to seduce her mouth open so he could deepen the kiss.

She gazed up at him with a slightly unfocused look, and lifted her fingers against her lips as if to hold the memory of his kiss there.
I hope that’s what she’s thinking
. “The universe has given me a chance to get to know you again and if the accident hadn’t happened, you would’ve driven past and we might never have crossed paths. Think about it. I’ll see you both tomorrow, Tara.”

Walking away from her was one of the biggest challenges he’d ever faced. He lifted his arm and waved at the group playing soccer on the back lawn, but didn’t stop. If he had, he wouldn’t have left and right now he wanted Tara to be comfortable and relaxed. He knew his presence wasn’t conducive to that at the moment.

He pulled on his helmet and straddled the bike. It rumbled underneath him. The sound should’ve drowned out Zack’s laughter, but Cris heard him. He looked up in time to see Zack run around the corner, jumping up and down and waving.

Cris laughed and waved to him. Tara stood in the front window, her fingers still resting against her lips. He blew her a kiss and winked. A ghost of a smile curled her lips and he counted that as a step forward. There were so many challenges to face if he was going to convince her to stay there. The greatest of all would be getting her to accept that her son wasn’t completely human.

Lars sat in a Muskoka chair at the end of a long dock, looking out over the shimmering surface of his lake. The stars glinted on the water like diamonds and the crescent moon rippled every time he tossed another stone out in front of him. He loved swimming deep on nights like this and looking up at the reflections from underneath and then diving down deeper and deeper until he couldn’t see the sky, only the still perfection of the deep. The pressure of the water on his skin was a comfort to his senses. So much happened up on the surface, he relished the deprivation the bottom of the lake offered.

The rumble of Cris’s bike disrupted his memories and pulled him back to the present. He took a sip from his beer before resting the bottle on the arm of the wooden chair. He could sense the emotions vibrating off Cris as he practically ran down the dock.

Lars reached into the small cooler beside him and twisted the cap off a cold bottle. He raised his arm and Cris lifted the bottle from his fingers. He took a long swallow and looked out over the lake before he spoke. “I found out tonight I’m a father.”

“Zack?” Lars nodded. He had wondered about the boy’s resemblance to Cris when he looked at him earlier today. Lars fought the urge to hit the water and hide from the truth. Tara was the other half of his soul. He could never ask his friend to give her up. Nor would he ask Cris to share her. He’d had his chance.

“Please tell me you felt something toward her.”

Lars looked up at Cris, hoping he understood correctly what he was asking. “She’s your Mate, the mother to your child. Why would you want me to feel anything toward her?”

“Because, you’re my best friend, Lars. We’ve shared everything with each other since the day I arrived here. I can’t imagine not sharing Tara with you as well.”

Lars felt a large weight lift from his chest and he took another draw out of the bottle in his hand. “She might not want to be shared.” He played the devil’s advocate. “We might both lose her by trying to claim her together.”

Cris gave him an amazed look. “Then we convince her.” He flopped down on the chair next to Lars’s. “Do you remember the day I came here?”

“To Ecstasy? Yes.” Lars laughed at the memory. “You almost ran over Poppy McGuigan and then when you got out of your car to apologize, she hit you with her umbrella.”

Cris laughed along with him at the memory. “If I hadn’t stopped that day, I don’t know where I would’ve ended up.”

Lars remembered what Cris had told him about his past. He’d lost his Mate and had decided to wander around the country until he found her. Poppy McGuigan had hit him with her umbrella and then told him the best way to be found was to stay in one spot. At the time, he didn’t have a clue what the cryptic comment meant.

“Do you know what she said to me last week?” Cris pulled a small knitted toque out of his pocket and held it up. It was in bright primary colours with a fluffy pompom at the top. “She gave me this and said I was going to need it. At first I thought perhaps she was confused because it’s way too small for my head. How much to you want to bet it fits Zack perfectly?”

“Never underestimate the McGuigan sisters.” Lars laughed. “Lavender cornered me today and told me to stay out of the lake for a while.”

“Why would she say that?”

Because she knew I was thinking about hiding away again
. Lars had hid in the lake for years when he lost his family the last time. He’d lived with the residents of Ecstasy for a few decades now and the loneliness was getting to him again. With River safely ensconced in the love of her Mates, Lars didn’t feel as needed anymore.

“Maybe because she wanted me to keep my eyes on dry land?” he replied.

“Do you think we’ll ever learn their secrets?”

Lars had his suspicions, but he wasn’t going to voice them. “No, they’ll never tell us and we’re better off not knowing. Ecstasy has to keep some of its magic secret.”

He and Cris sat in the dark looking over the lake, each of them lost to their own thoughts for a moment. Never would he have imagined when he woke this morning that today would mark such a drastic change in his life.

“Tara was a virgin when I met her,” Cris blurted out. “I told her tonight I wanted to have a chance to get to know her and Zack. I wasn’t certain why it flustered her so much. I didn’t smell another man on her. She isn’t married or in a relationship.”

“When I held her today, she felt as if she was made to be in my arms. I felt a peace I haven’t known in a long time,” Lars replied. He wondered if she felt the connection earlier today. That might be why she was so flustered tonight. “Hopefully, it didn’t damage our chances.”

“She’s thinner than she used to be. I don’t think she takes good care of herself.”

“Agreed, we’ll have to be the ones to take care of her.” Lars smiled as a feeling of camaraderie washed over him. “She’s very focused on her son and her future. We can’t simply march up to her and make her decisions for her. She’ll fight harder.”

“She’s having dinner with the Bennetts tonight. When I left, River and the McNamaras were there, too.”

“How did she react to them?”

“From what I could tell, it didn’t faze her too much.” Cris finished the beer in his hand and put the empty bottle on the deck next to him. “What about Zack? Could you accept him as your son as well?”

“When I claimed Beatrice, she had three children I would’ve accepted as my own if she’d have let me. I lived with them as their father figure for years and in all that time I didn’t feel the connection to them as I did to Zack today. The moment I lifted him from the back of the car and he wrapped his arms around me, I knew I wanted him to be mine.” It was like his heart had shifted and expanded. He had loved Beatrice and cared deeply for her children, but Beatrice had always reminded him they weren’t his.

“You realize we have a bigger issue to face than her simply accepting us both into her life.”

“Why do I think she will have an easier time accepting the idea of a polyamorous relationship than the truth about shape-shifters? We can’t let this drag on. The sooner we tell her the better.”

“Could you love her the way she deserves to be loved, Lars? Could you finally put aside all the guilt you still carry around from your past and build a future with her?”

“She’s the other half of my soul, Cris. I knew the moment my hands touched her.”

“Then we have our answer and we have a lot to plan.” Cris pushed to his feet. “And I for one cannot plan how to claim our Mate on an empty stomach. Didn’t you say earlier you were bringing steaks?” Cris wandered back down the dock toward his trailer.

Lars took another look over his lake. The deprivation he longed for earlier was gone. Now he was desperate to feel Tara’s soft skin under his fingertips. He wanted to see her body fill out with their child and be there for every moment. He wanted to claim her for life and nothing else was going to do.

* * * *

Despite all the revelations of last night, Tara had slept like a rock. Zack slept in, too, which was almost unheard of for him. She’d lain in bed this morning trying to calm her panicked thoughts. She looked out the window at a large tree covered in leaves in various shades of colour as she reviewed the night before. Seeing Cris again had been a shock, even more so than being surrounded by ménage couples. A few times she’d wondered if she hadn’t survived the accident, or maybe had dropped into some dimensional divide, because everything had felt so surreal. She’d met more kindness in the last twenty hours from complete strangers than in the twenty years she’d lived with her family and their narrow-minded community.