Page 14 of A Hunter Turned
“And?”
The female raised a shoulder, continuing at a whisper so as not to wake the children, “Your daughter seemed rather pleased by the notion. I got the impression she thought it might be a date.”
That was news to him. He had told Cady that he planned to take Jamie for a walk, had explained that now that she could see, the woman was itching to get out and have a look around and that he felt it best if he were the one to give her the tour.
Cady had asked if she could come too – nothing unusual there – but had nodded thoughtfully when he had suggested that for Jamie’s first time outside since her injury that it might be best not to overwhelm her with too many people.
She hadn’t asked him if it was a date. Nor had she said anything that would lead him to believe that that was where her thoughts had gone. Cady had simply accepted his explanation before changing the subject to ask if she could watchThe Princess and The Frog.
“How did she give you that impression?”
Another lift of that shoulder. “She said you were going walking with Miss Wilson and then spent a good thirty minutes telling everyone how she had met the woman earlier and how great she seemed.”
Archer squinted. “And from that you inferred date?”
“So it wasn’t?”
Ah. A fishing expedition, then. He should have known. After all, Marceline wasn’t just a maternal figure to the pups but also the pack busy body. She called it living vicariously through the young ones, Archer called it just plain nosy.
Chuckling, he shook his head. “It wasn’t.”
“Good.” She shook her head, her lips pinched. “The last thing we need is for those creatures to stick around.” She let out a disgusted huff and mumbled something under her breath that he didn’t catch before her eyes brightened and she asked, “Now, are you hungry? Might as well let her continue to sleep so you can eat in peace.”
Archer shook his head and offered a distracted, “No, but thanks,” his mind too busy mulling over that derogatory ‘creatures’ comment. Not too long ago, he would have called any vampire that and worse, now suddenly, it left a bad taste in his mouth.
As did the thought that Jamie might even now be packing up her things to leave with her team since he’d ordered Kane off pack lands. She’d stay in the area for a while, he was sure, they’d even been planning to build a base of operations nearby last he had heard, but that didn’t mean he’d see her again. New Orleans was a big place, Louisiana even bigger.
The thought caused his breath to hitch in his throat and he quickly shook it off. He needed to stop this. As Marceline had pointed out, vampires had no place in a pack and Jamie Wilson had no place in his life. His attraction to her was a temporary madness that would fade once she was gone, he was sure of it, and as such, he should be celebrating their imminent departure and a return to normalcy, not mooning about over her loss. She was not his to lose.
Clenching his teeth with determination, Archer bent and carefully disentangled his daughter’s limbs from those of the other children and scooped her up into his arms to cradle her against his chest. Her eyelids fluttered open just long enough to see who was holding her before she fell back to sleep with a contented sigh, her fingers burrowing into his beard.
This, right here, was all he would ever need. His Cady. Jamie Wilson was a distraction. Pleasing to look at, fun to rile, but still a distraction. He should be saying good riddance.
Dropping a quick kiss to the top of his daughter’s head he gave Marceline a departing nod and strode for the door.
The next morning, he sat next to Cady at the kitchen table, digging into the mound of pancakes in front of him. His daughter’s pile was smaller, drowned in her favorite blueberry syrup but as yet untouched as she stared with seemingly rapt fixation at his beard.
Swallowing the bite in his mouth, he tilted his chin to his chest to try to get a look at his beard and what had her so fascinated. “Did I dribble?” He asked with amusement.
“Does your beard catch on fire?”
Archer grinned at the unexpected question, but honestly, his daughter’s mind never followed any expected path, her questions always seemed to come out of the blue.
“If I lean too close to a flame it will. Why?”
“Marceline says beard burn is the worst.”
Archer blinked at the statement, his amusement choked off. “What were you and Marceline talking about that that came up?”
“Marceline and Grace were having some juice in fancy glasses, talking real quiet and laughing. Then I heard Marceline say beard burn is the worst.” Cady’s eyes flicked to her pink plastic cup of apple juice. “Do we have any of those fancy glasses?”
Grace, a young packmate newly home from college, who was currently being courted by one of Archer’s enforcers, must have stopped over to Marceline’s for some wine and gossip. His pack did tend to congregate there more often than not, the smell of food drawing them like bees to honey. While he was happy to hear they’d kept the conversation too low for little ears to pick up considering what they were most likely discussing, he wanted to groan at what other tidbits might have been overheard and what other unexpected questions might pop out of Cady’s mouth in the near future. For now, he focused on her most recent. Clearing his throat, he stood and went to the cupboard above the sink and pulled down a wine glass that hadn’t been brought out since before Cady was born. “Something like this?”
His daughter bounced excitedly in her seat. “Yes! Can I drink my juice out of that?”
Archer bit back a grin at her excitement and shot her a look of exaggerated skepticism. Rubbing his chin through his beard he said, “I don’t know… It takes a pretty big girl to handle one of these.”
More bouncing in the chair as his daughter informed him, “I am a big girl!”
