Page 7 of Bearly Taken

My knee collided with a wall of solid muscle, and my eyebrows shot upward when I looked past the car seat and found Reed there.

Sitting on his ass.

On the filthy concrete.

“What are you doing?” I hissed around my lanyard.

He grabbed the car seat from my hands, lifting our tank of a son like he weighed nothing. I plucked the keys from my mouth and angrily spun around to lock the door.

“You’re still working the morning shift at the diner?” he asked, his gorgeous golden eyes narrowed at me when I turned back toward him.

“Of course I am. I have to pay my rent somehow.”

I wasn’t going to tell him about the bookstore I owned, I decided. He didn’t need to know.

I tried to snag the car seat from his hands, but he stepped back. “I’ll carry him down. You looked like you were about to fall over.”

He wasn’t wrong. Parker was only a pound from being too heavy for the infant car seat, and I’d gotten the one with the biggest weight limit at the advice of another shifter mom.

Ifeltlike I was going to fall over, carrying the car seat. It didn’t help that the handles on those things were so uncomfortable.

But Parker was so young, I was terrified to put him in another kind of seat.

“Fine,” I gritted out, following Reed down the stairs. Because he could carry Parker’s weight more easily, he was able to be more careful with the car seat than I was. I could appreciate that, if nothing else.

Reed was quiet when we reached my shitty old car, his eyes lingering on our baby’s peaceful face for a long moment. When he handed me the seat, he watched closely as I buckled it in, pulling the belt out to make sure it was locked in place. I’d tried to use the base that came with it, but couldn’t make it steady enough in my car. So, the seatbelt worked.

When I closed the door and turned around, I found myself facing him. There were only two inches between us—and if I breathed in deeply enough, I might be able to erase them with my breasts.

I wasn’t going to do that.

Obviously.

But the temptation was still there.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, weariness weighing down my shoulders.

“I’m not leaving you again,” he said. “You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true.”

I scowled.

“You’re my mate, Wren. You know that means you’re it for me. I haven’t been with anyone else since we started sleeping together.I left because I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk away if I stayed any longer. If I’d known you weren’t on birth control, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said bluntly, stepping to my side so I could put more space between us.

It wasn’t necessarily true.

If I really believed that telling him wouldn’t change anything, I would’ve told him as soon as I found out I was pregnant.

But I didn’t want to admit that.

“I know. And you shouldn’t. But you will.” The confidence in his voice made me scowl.

“Bye, Reed.”

“Bye, Beautiful.”

The nickname brought back emotions.

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