Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Ken
After saying hello to everyone, once Dewi finished nursing the baby, Ken took Lyssa out to their guest cottage to bathe and change her and put her down for a nap.
Gillian had stocked everything the various new parents would need, like portable cribs, baby monitors, diapers, and other supplies, so they didn’t need to haul those things with them on the plane.
And then Ken took himself a desperately needed nap because this wasn’t his first rodeo with this family. While he hoped the birth of Asia’s baby would be the most exciting event to happen before they returned home, life was seldom that simple.
Rather, life with the Targhee Pack was seldom that simple.
At some point, he startled awake and arose to find Dewi nursing the baby out on the couch in the cabin’s living room.
She smiled up at him. “Sorry we woke you. I was hoping to let you sleep.”
“That’s okay. How long was I out?”
“Couple of hours. And she’s almost done.”
“Wow. I was really out of it.” Ken settled next to her on the couch.
“Yeah. Sorry about the rushed travel plans. Good news, though—Asia’s in labor. She started having contractions, but her water hasn’t broke yet. That’s why I ducked out. I’ll head back when this one’s full, if that’s okay? Just text me if I need to come nurse her.”
“Sure.” His stomach rumbled. “What about dinner?”
“I don’t think anyone’s thought that far ahead. We can put out a call for people to bring stuff.”
“No, don’t do that. I’ll cook.”
Dewi’s right eyebrow gracefully arched. “For wolves?”
“Hey, you have to admit my carnivore culinary skills have come a long way. Plus, I’m sure Tamsin and Nami will help. Let me do this for the family. It’s not like I’m doing anything else right now, except taking care of Lyssa. This way I’ll feel productive.”
“Okay. If you’re sure?”
“Yeah, absolutely. I already know my way around their kitchen. So do Nami and Tamsin. We’ve got this.”
“Well, Nami’s taking a nap, I think. But I’ll check when I leave and pass the word to her and Tam for you.”
“Cool.” He kissed her. “I’ll grab a wake-up shower while you’re still here.”
Thirty minutes later, a freshly showered Ken headed to the main house with Lyssa, who was once again asleep and tucked into her carrier.
He set her carrier on a chair in the kitchen, where he could keep an eye on her, but she was safely out of the way.
As for meat, there were plenty of fresh steaks in one of the two fridges, so that would be the primary protein.
He was in the process of putting together three different casseroles for side dishes when Tamsin joined him in the kitchen, a portable baby monitor in hand, one with a video screen.
She was staying in the main house, in the room she’d occupied during her earlier stay.
“Oh, would you like me to put Lyssa in my room?” she asked. “We can keep an eye on them with the monitor. There’s plenty of room for both of them in the crib.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
She did that, leaving the monitor behind. He paused, watching and listening as Tam returned to her room with Lyssa and got her settled in the large portable crib with Maisie.
“There we go, my little lovely,” she said. For a moment, he imagined Aisling standing next to her, the two of them watching the babies sleep.
And he desperately wanted that happiness for both women. Wanted to tell Tamsin and nudge the two of them together.
Except he knew he had to keep his mouth shut. Not only because he’d promised he would, but also because he knew it was an issue fraught with highly charged emotional complications that made his own situation look boring in comparison.
They were in the middle of cooking prep when Nami joined them, Tahlia asleep on her shoulder, and Tamsin took the baby to her bedroom.
Nami turned to Ken when Tamsin left the kitchen, and Ken didn’t need to be a Prime Alpha to read her thoughts.
“I don’t know how long I can keep this secret,” she mouthed to him.
“Do the best you can,” he mouthed back.
Nami prepped trays of biscuits, and they were nearly ready to start grilling the steaks when Ken stumbled across an old, well-worn cloth-bound binder in one of the cabinets while looking for spices.
Taking it out, he paged through it when he realized what it was. “This was Chelsea’s,” he said, flipping to the front. Inside the front cover, in unfamiliar handwriting, was the woman’s name in blue ink.
Nami and Tamsin crowded close. While dividers separated it into sections by type of dish, the front section held sheets of lined paper with handwritten recipes, many of the pages marred by splashes from dishes cooked long ago.
Those twenty recipes were apparently her favorites, based on the condition of the pages.
“Look at this one,” Nami said. “That looks delicious.”
“‘Crowdpleaser Casserole.’” Ken read, scanning the ingredients. “I don’t think we have everything to make it, though. I’ll run to town tomorrow and shop.”
“If you’re volunteering to take charge of cooking,” Nami said, “then bless you, my son. Beck’s family is arriving tomorrow. We really want to spend time with them. They’re all staying with a cousin, so we’ll be over there for most of our visit.”
“Oh, sure,” Ken said. “I’ll be happy to. Hey, it’s something I can do.”
“I’m happy to help as well,” Tamsin said, smiling and draping an arm around Ken. “We’ve got this. You enjoy your visit.”
“Don’t be afraid to grab Malyah to help, too,” Nami said.
Before he returned the binder to the cabinet, Ken snapped a picture of several recipes so he could compile a shopping list. Dinner that night wasn’t a sit-down gathering, more like controlled chaos where word was spread between the two households that food was to be had and people cycled in and out of the kitchen to grab their share.
Ken shooed Nami out after dinner because she looked exhausted, and he and Tamsin took care of the clean-up.
By the time Ken was ready to collapse later that night, Asia and Trent had welcomed little Malina to their family.
Dewi had to sit in on an overnight conference call with Peyton and several of their Enforcers, but Ken didn’t have to be there, so he opted to go back to sleep while Dewi sat on the couch in the cabin’s living room with her earbuds in so she wouldn’t disturb him.
The next morning, the time change meant Ken awakened before everyone else.
Knowing further sleep was out of the question, he headed to the main house to start breakfast preparations.
He left the baby sleeping in her crib, knowing Dewi would awaken if the baby did.
While he worked, he consulted his phone and compared recipe ingredients to everything they had on hand to finish compiling his shopping list. He was about to start making biscuits when a sleepy-looking Nami entered through the back door.
“Perfect timing,” he said. “Coffee’s ready.”
“Bless you, my child.” She headed to where he’d pre-staged mugs and coffee fixings for anyone who might arrive.
“I thought you were spending time with Beck’s family?” he asked.
“We are. I mean will. I left Beck with the baby after I nursed her. He was up talking late last night with Peyton and Dewi and them, and wanted to sleep in a little. We’re going over later this morning.
I know Malyah and Joaquin were up late visitin’ Joaquin’s family, so they should be here later on.
I already talked to her and she said she’ll be happy to help you with the cooking. ”
“Yeah, I bailed on the call,” Ken said. “Thankfully, they didn’t need me. Even with my nap, I was barely vertical.”
“You and me both,” Nami said. “Are you still going to the store this morning?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Can you pick me up a few things while you’re there, if they have them?”
“Sure. Just text me a list. Want to go with me?”
She laughed. “No offense, honey? Our last shopping trip together here ended with us driving off the side of a mountain. I know it was an unavoidable and last-resort option, but I’m good staying behind.”
“Ah. No offense taken, as long as you take over making the biscuits.” He smiled. “Mine never come out as good as yours, no matter how hard I try.”
She smiled back. “Deal.”
They worked in companionable silence, looking up when Gillian entered the kitchen with the baby in her arms.
“I hoped I smelled coffee,” she said, looking bedraggled and barely awake.
“How you feelin’, hon?” Nami asked.
“Okay, I guess. Exhausted. Asia warned me the first couple of weeks are the worst while I recover and develop a new routine.” She started fixing her coffee one-handed, cradling the baby with the other arm.
“Shouldn’t you still be in bed?” Nami asked.
“I’m going stir-crazy. I’m not used to taking this much time off, and I need to move around.”
“Where’s daddy?” Nami asked.
“After he was up late last night talking with the others, he received an early morning phone call.” Gillian scowled. “I think it was Trevor. Sounded serious, too, but he headed to his office and I went back to sleep.”
Ken shivered, catching him by surprise. Nami apparently noticed and gently nudged him. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I hope. I’m paranoid, that’s all.” His gaze skittered across Gillian’s, who met it for a moment before glancing away.
I feel like a co-conspirator. On multiple levels.
But Ken also knew that even if he wasn’t sworn to secrecy, much of what he knew shouldn’t be revealed to Nami. Not right now, anyway. It would do her no good to know and would unnecessarily stress her.
There were valid reasons for keeping the secrets he held, but it didn’t mean Ken liked keeping them.
Much as with dinner the night before, people drifted into and out of the kitchen for breakfast. Including Peyton, who was still on his cell phone, his body language tense when he emerged from his home office.
Keeping the cell phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, he grabbed a plate of food and a mug of coffee, kissed Gillian and the baby, and retreated to his office, where he closed the door behind him with his foot.
Ken stared after him. That can’t be good.
Peyton looked like a man on a dark mission, and it unexpectedly triggered a bunch of related thoughts in Ken’s mind.
Tamsin scowled, her head cocked as she studied him. “Are you all right, Ken?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Just thinking about my to-do list.”
He was also thinking—or rather, trying not to think—about images that had suddenly burst into his mind.
Pictures Endquist had taken when he attacked and murdered Dewi’s parents.
The pictures Ken had briefly glimpsed on Endquist’s laptop after hacking into it for Beck and Badger, and then searching for the last file opened.
Scans of old Polaroids the psychopath had taken during and just after the attack on their parents before escaping.
Boy, how Ken wished he hadn’t seen them. The gruesome images were seared into his memory, an attack that happened in this very house. From where Ken currently stood, he had a partial view into the large living room, where he knew the attack had occurred because of where the fireplace was located.
According to Dewi, the house sat vacant for several years before Peyton remodeled it and moved in after meeting and mating with Gillian.
But Ken couldn’t help replaying that night just a few weeks ago, standing in the backyard at Carl and Mateo’s house, where Beck’s emotional meltdown over Dewi’s scooter chase in Miami shook Ken to his core.
Beck’s visible anguish as he talked about how he’d cried while cleaning up the couple’s blood that night.
That where Ken stood right now came to happen only because Charles and Chelsea Bleacke were brutally murdered, and Dewi savagely injured.
Tamsin laid a hand on his arm. When he looked down, she stared into his eyes with concern painted across her features.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I sense them, too.” Her gaze shifted up, then around, before meeting Ken’s again.
“I feel them here. Guarding everyone. I dream about them when I’m here.
Chelsea more than Charles.” She sadly smiled.
“Chelsea always scolds me to eat more. When she’s not cooing over Maisie, that is. ”
Ken finally laughed, his fugue broken. “That sounds about right, from what I’ve heard from everyone.” He had a thought. “Wait, have you told anyone else?” He was beyond trying to argue points such as ghosts couldn’t be real, because a year ago, he would have argued shapeshifters were impossible…
Yet here I am.
She nodded. “I talked about it with Gillian and Asia when they traveled to Florida for Dewi’s baby shower.
I realized I never dream about them when I’m not here.
Then they showed me a picture—I suppose I was too upset during my first stay to notice the family portraits—and they told me they’ve also dreamed of them quite frequently. Especially once they were pregnant.”
Whenever Tamsin was here, Peyton and Gillian always put her up in a bedroom in the main house. “Have you dreamed about them this trip?” Ken asked.
She smiled. “Yes. Last night. I must say it’s a comfort, in some ways. That echoes of them remain behind, watching over everyone. I wish I could have met them.”
He sadly sighed. “Me, too.”