HIS BABY TO BEAR - THIRTEEN

C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

Jerome yawned heavily, rolling off his back and kicking his feet over the side of the bed. His bare toes touched the cool wooden floor and he sprung up, rolling his shoulders back and trying to get blood circulating again. They'd been asleep for maybe an hour, if that. He was still mostly clothed and he wasn't even sure if he felt bad about it.

What he'd figured would be a night of guiltless fucking had turned into hours and hours of conversation that neither one of them wanted to put a stop to. She was probably the first woman who'd ever done that to him-made him want to talk to her as badly as he wanted to fuck her.

He stretched as he padded out the bedroom door, hearing a happy, sing-songy voice chattering on about something at the front door. Jerome was making a beeline for the bathroom when something caught his nose, making him stop dead in his tracks. He whiffed it in, letting it ruminate for a second. A deep frown cut his forehead and he spun on his heel, heading down the corridor.

Is that a...

Yup. In her arms-while Libby was busy trying to make a blonde leave who looked an awful lot like the friend she'd been out with the night before-was a baby boy with the most familiar blue eyes. The same eyes that looked at him every morning in the mirror. Clear, blue, pale and full of something more than simple human curiosity. The eyes of a werebear. The eyes of a Nicolas werebear.

He thought he'd stay standing in place, stunned, but his feet carried him forward. Before he knew it, he was smiling at the little boy and he was smiling back, reaching out his chubby hands for him. Jerome plucked him out of Libby's hands easily, and without paying any heed to the blonde, took the boy and moved toward a side room that turned out to be the living room. He caught sight of Libby staring at him blankly, a twist of worry making her lips curl in unease.

"Hey there, little man," Jerome said, grinning like a fool.

The moment he touched the baby, his heart swelled to twice its size, or so it felt like. A tingle ran through him and then retreated back, as if it was a wave that started and ended with the child in his arms. He had the same facial features as Jerome did, there was no doubt of that. Same high cheekbones, same straight nose and same determined chin, even if it was hidden under the plushy cheeks of a healthy, happy baby boy at the moment.

And he was strong. Reid Andrew grabbed Jerome's finger and there was real grip there, far more than a human baby would have. Not only that, but Jerome could smell it on him. The whiff of primal energy, a hint of the animal still dormant within him. Without managing to take his eyes off the boy, Jerome sunk into a wide-backed chair, settling Reid Andrew on his knees.

"Thank you again, Christine. Let me know if I can do anything for you," he heard Libby say.

"Jesus, Libby! He's hot. I mean, GQ hot. Like, hubba hubba Mr. Lifeguard hot!" Christine squealed, not bothering to hide her excitement.

Jerome was pretty sure he heard Christine hugging Libby, which he bet she didn't appreciate one bit.

"He sure is. Bye now!" Libby said, pushing the door closed and waving to Christine.

A second later, she practically ran into the room, her face pale as hell. She looked from Jerome to Reid Andrew and then back again and he could see how worried she was. How frantic, even.

"I think we need to play twenty questions again, Libby," he said calmly, tickling the baby and making him giggle and wriggle in his hands.

He couldn't take his eyes off of him. While Reid Andrew had his eyes, he'd definitely gotten his mother's hair and a slightly darker complexion. The fullness of his lips was also certainly from Libby's side. As far as Jerome was concerned, the boy had gotten the best possible mix, looking like the perfect outcome of both himself and Libby.

"I didn't want you to find out this way," she said, sinking onto the couch across from him.

"This way or at all?" he asked, not able to really keep the sharpness out of his tone completely.

She recoiled at that and he immediately kicked himself for it. Libby stood up, her lips pressed in a tight, thin line, with anguish burning in her hazel eyes. The pit of his stomach iced over. Shit, that wasn't how he wanted to start things off.

"I think you need to go now," she said, coldly.

"Hey, I'm sorry, okay. You can understand I'm a little bit on edge right now, right? Sit down, Libby. Let's talk about this."

She seemed to think about that for a moment but reluctantly agreed, sitting back down and resting her elbows on her knees. They dug into the soft, checkered fabric and he immediately wished she was in his lap too right now. The distance of a few feet between them felt like they were on the opposite sides of a chocolate hill, yelling things across that the other one would never understand.

"What's his name?" he asked, studying the lines of his face and the slightly protruding, proud arch of his Cupid's bow.

Jerome wanted to learn everything he could about the boy. Something inside of him told him that he didn't have a second to lose. If losing Libby had taught him anything, then it was that he always had to go for what he wanted. Even if it ripped his heart out every single time.

"Reid Andrew," Libby said, and Reid Andrew immediately echoed it, rolling the r and smiling bright.

"That's right, little man. That's you," Jerome said, his voice immensely soft every time he talked to him. "I can safely assume he's mine, yeah? One of my other brothers hasn't stalked you down and asked you to marry him between Manila and now, right?" he asked, chuckling slightly.

He had no doubt Reid Andrew was his. And even if he would have then the bear knew exactly. This was his flesh and blood sitting in his lap. His firstborn son. The crowning moment of any Alpha shifter's life and he'd missed it. Guilt pooled in his stomach and once again he had to wonder how the hell his instincts had been so right and he'd ignored them so completely. He had known that he needed to find Libby. That she would need him. That he would have to be at her side.

And he had failed. It tore a chunk out of him like no grenade or land mine ever could.

"He's yours," Libby admitted, a tremor in her voice.

Jerome looked up, seeing tears sparkling in her eyes. She was shaking a little, and when she noticed him looking at her, she quickly wiped those tears away with the back of her hand. That broke whatever last piece of his heart that had been intact before, crumbling it right into dust.

"I should have been here," he said, guilt dripping off of every syllable.

Reid Andrew put his hands around Jerome's neck quickly and gave him that happy, little kid hug that is supposed to fix everything. Jerome couldn't help but grin. Then, Reid Andrew sat down on his wide lap and easily slid off, practically clinging from his knee as he scooted to the ground and then waddled off quickly in search of a toy. The kid had some strength on him! Though that wasn't any surprise, of course, he caught himself thinking with pride. It was his kid after all.

"You didn't know. You couldn't have known," Libby objected, though her voice was weak.

Jerome heaved himself up and sat down next to Libby, gathering her in his arms and pulling her close. For the first time, she resisted him, staying rigid against his warm touch. His ears hummed, his mind working frantically looking for a way to fix this. But how could he fix a relationship that had never really begun? Who was he to her, anyway?

Some guy who'd used her when she was vulnerable. Some guy who pushed her up against the wall at a seedy bar and finger-fucked her. Some guy who didn't know a damn thing about her.

And yet, he wanted to do anything in his power to make her feel good again. To make Reid Andrew have the future he deserved-with a father, not some shapeless memory from the past who had shown up once, never to be seen again. His insides were in knots and his mind was storming a mile a second, trying to keep up with all the threads running through his head.

"I should have," he said, rubbing her arm, though she remained just as impassive, her sad eyes keeping track of the baby.

"It was a fling. A moment of weakness. I needed someone to distract me and you were there. It was one night. One night that didn't mean anything," she said, obviously struggling to keep the emotion out of her voice.

Jerome scoffed, shaking his head. He couldn't buy her claiming that it hadn't meant a thing to her. No way. Maybe without Reid Andrew it would have been a hot night to remember and only that, but it certainly wasn't nothing. He wouldn't believe that.

"It was one night, I agree. But it meant something to me," he started, looking at Libby and catching the way her lower lip trembled when he spoke those words. "You meant something to me, Libby. I told you I looked for you, and I wasn't lying. I tried to find you, but we keep survivors under lock and key. No one can know where you are or who you are now, and that included me. But don't for a second believe that I didn't care, or that I forgot about you. You weren't just some hot night."

He pressed every word, trying to make her understand, to make her see that he was being truthful. But the sadness remained steadfast in her eyes and she felt distant, like she was a lot farther from him now than when he hadn't even known where she was.

"I want to be part of his life, Libby," he said after a long pause, while both of them watched Reid Andrew stack some blocks in the middle of the carpet.

His tongue was sticking out and his brow was furrowed in concentration, like he was in the middle of the greatest architectural feat known to man. He looked up triumphantly as he set the last block, grinning at both Libby and Jerome expectantly.

"Well done, baby. Can you build something else?" Libby asked, her voice cracking and falling.

She was fighting against what her mind told her and what her heart wanted, he was sure of that. For the life of him, he didn't know how to make her understand that he wasn't pretending. That all she thought he didn't want, he really needed. That he needed her. And Reid Andrew. The thought of going a single day without them now that he knew what he'd been missing could have driven him to the brink of madness.

"Honey, look at me," he said, gently turning her chin to face him. "I want to be a part of his life. You can't deny me that."

As soon as he'd said it, he knew he'd said the wrong damn thing. Her eyes went wide and that mama bear that lived in the heart of every mother came tearing out, instinctively lashing out at anything and anyone that dared threatened her baby. In this case, it was Jerome implying that he had any control over what she did with her baby boy.

"I can't deny you that!? Fuck you, Jerome. We spent one goddamn night together," she hissed, keeping her voice low, her cheeks burning with anger. "You killed at least two people that night, maybe more. How am I supposed to know you weren't the one who fucking stabbed Jonah, huh? You grab me from my home and take me to a fucking cabin in the middle of the fucking woods! And then you won't even tell me what's going to happen next, but you have no qualms about screwing my brains out, huh?"

She ripped herself away from him, standing up. Reid Andrew paid them no attention, babbling a little song to himself and rearranging his blocks. Small mercies.

"I sat in a tiny little cell for a month. For a month, a new person came in every day and tried to get me to confess to something I knew nothing about. They asked me how I knew Jonah a million times. And a million and one times I told them the same thing.

"That I was his assistant. That he was a sweet guy. That he called me in the dead of night, begging me to help him. And that I didn't know a single thing other than the fact that this caring, nice man died in my arms, gagging on his own blood and telling me that I had to be safe."

She looked like she wanted to pace back and forth, but she didn't. Instead, she shook with rage, almost vibrating on the spot. Any other time, her bout of anger could have been cute for Jerome, especially while she was dressed in a big, fluffy robe, but right now he was in no joking mood. He clamped his hands together in front of him and resigned himself to listen. To concentrate on his breathing and not say another thing before she was done.

She needed to let it out and he needed to know.

I fucking hope I can fix this, he thought bitterly.

He wasn't sure he could. But one look at the blue-eyed boy playing on the carpet told him that he would do anything, anything to make things right.