Page 6 of Dragon's Midlife Secret Baby
Hearing it was just as intense as feeling it. Beck stared at Corbin. His son.Hisson, and he was only just now finding out. What had he missed? What had Chelsea gone through? “I…I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t, either,” she replied softly, “not the last time I saw you, anyway. In fact, I got so caught up in trying to find you that I wasn’t paying attention to my body at all. I had some symptoms, but I thought I was just exhausted because I’d been putting so much energy into finding you.”
His heart cracked. This woman, this gorgeous woman, had grieved for him. She’d put herself through so much strain and stress, and she’d been pregnant on top of that. Chelsea was practically a stranger, yet the news had him all twisted up inside.
Corbin was still the only one in the room who wasn’t bothered by any of this. He stopped patting Beck’s knee and held his hands up instead. “Up? Up?”
Beck looked at Chelsea. “Is it all right?”
But before she could answer, Corbin had takenthe matter into his own hands. Pushing against Beck’s thighs and using the chair cushion as a foothold, he hoisted himself up into Beck’s lap and giggled with pride at his accomplishments.
“I’d say it’s all right,” Maeve murmured with a smile.
Corbin squirmed around a bit on Beck’s lap, moving in closer. He reached up and touched Beck’s cheek, the soft palms running down the freshly shaved skin. “Beck.”
“He’s also your daddy,” Chelsea told her son.
At this, Corbin tipped his head slightly to the side. “Daddy?”
What small part of his heart that’d still been hanging on was now completely shredded. Tears burned the backs of Beck’s eyes, and he blinked furiously to keep them from coming. There had been so many nights when he’d let those tears flow while he was on that island. That much, he remembered with clarity. He’d cried for something, something he’d longed for and needed, something he couldn’t get back to. At the time, his mind had been too fuzzy for him to understand what it was. He’d only felt the deep emptiness that consumed him. Now, however, he had a good idea of exactly what it was. Beck hadn’t known he was a father, but thisthing inside him, this dragon that they’d told him about,ithad known.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely, tentatively putting his hand on the boy’s back. “I’m your daddy.”
Corbin grinned as he reached over Beck’s shoulder and took a gentle fistful of his hair. “Your hair long.”
A few muted laughs went through the room, and a shot of pure joy moved through Beck. “Yes, it is. I’ll have to get it cut, won’t I?”
“I cut!” Corbin moved his pointer and middle fingers together and apart like an imaginary pair of scissors. Without any hesitation at being so close to a man he’d never met before, he extended his arm and made that little cutting gesture all over Beck’s head.
Those warm little fingers brushed his forehead and his ears. Beck could feel Corbin’s breath, his heartbeat, his very life.
“All done!” Corbin announced after a minute.
Beck made a show of patting his hair. “I like it. You did a good job.” Could this actually be happening? Could he have dragged himself through the water and come upon a life and a family?
Done with the haircut, Corbin’s attitude suddenly changed. He’d been happy and curious, but now his little forehead and nose wrinkled. Hewiggled back and forth and scrunched his shoulders together, and he made a small noise that sounded like discomfort.
“Does your back itch?” Beck asked, suddenly realizing just how absolutely little he knew about being a father. It was one thing to sit still for a pretend haircut for a few seconds, but actually understanding what his son wanted and needed was a completely different issue.
“He might still be tired,” Chelsea explained, getting up from the sofa. “He hadn’t been asleep all that long, really. Do you want to go back to bed, Corbin?”
“No!” he said firmly as she reached for him, though he continued to squirm and wiggle. Then he pulled in a deep breath.
While Beck expected to see a temper tantrum, he instead saw the boy changing. Odd spasms took over his body, making Beck close his arms around Corbin to keep him from falling off the chair. Corbin’s fingernails suddenly grew long and sharp. His skin took on a greenish sheen that quickly deepened and cracked as little scales formed all over his body. With an alarming convulsion, a small pair of wings burst out of his back. The sweet little face twisted and morphed. Beck had been holdinga little boy only a few seconds ago, but now he held a tiny dragon.
Chelsea gasped. “He’s a dragon!”
Everyone was staring at Corbin, and Beck realized he wasn’t the only one who’d been completely caught off-guard by this shift. “You mean, you haven’t seen him do this before?”
“No.” Chelsea knelt down next to Beck’s chair and ran her fingers down her son’s scaly leg. “Good job, buddy. Mommy’s proud of you.”
The young dragon’s nostrils flared as he lifted his head and sniffed the air.
Maeve came to kneel on the other side of the chair. She laughed as her fingers brushed her grandson’s wing. “He’s getting to see what the world is like through his animal senses. I wish I remembered what that was like my first time. It has to be incredible.”
“He’s just gorgeous,” Erin gushed. “Congratulations, you guys.”
All that talk about Beck being a dragon suddenly felt far more real. That sensation inside him had grown, filling him up so that he felt like his body could barely contain it. It was like his own dragon was trying to come out to meet this one. Somehow,he managed to hold it back. He was holding a lot back right now. “He’s beautiful.”
