Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
T he holidays were a blast.
Hayden was careful not to work during their break time, and there were hours and hours of snuggles in the blankets, pillows piled up all around them, Jacks rolling and laughing and singing to them.
Daniel was over the moon.
He was still puking his guts up every morning, but that was a small price to pay. He was starting to believe he really was pregnant and not just having the stomach flu, so he had skipped the champagne over New Year’s Eve and went sparkling grape juice instead.
Jacks seemed a little worried about him when he did do that—the puking, not the juice—and there was lots of cooing and cuddling afterward.
Now he was ready for the rest of the winter, to get back on schedule, to spend some more time outside playing and helping Jacks thrive.
Babies required active play.
And Daniel was loving the snow. He had worried that it would be too much, but he adored it. He wanted to be out in it all the time. Hayden thought he was nuts.
Jacks seemed like an all-weather kind of baby. He liked the inside. He liked the outside. He liked the sand pit. Didn’t seem to matter.
They were building snowmen together—laughing and rolling snow back and forth. Jacks giggled at him as he stacked up balls to make snow babies just Jacks’s size.
Suddenly Jacks frowned, a bit of steam leaving the baby’s nose.
That was when he heard a wild snort and turned to find himself face-to-face with a full-sized bull moose who was obviously not where he belonged.
Daniel knew not to shoo the beast and agitate it, but he needed to grab Jacks and get him to safety. They were far enough from the lee of the house that this was going to be a problem.
Then the huge antlers were lowered to the ground, and he just had time to call out for help when he realized the moose was going to charge.
There was nothing he could do about it.
“Dan Dan!”
“I’ve got you, little one.”
He wasn’t sure how, but he knew he did.
This was his son.
The entire world seemed to sparkle, for a minute, and the air turned so cold, it seemed to burn.
Jacks called for him again, sobbing softly. He nodded, grabbed the baby in one hand, and then flew.
The moose missed him by inches, but then he gained speed and he zoomed to the house without really knowing how he managed to get there. It happened in a blink of an eye. Jacks was holding on to him, hiccupping, and he struggled to get the door open so he could get inside.
He could hear the sound of a high-pitched snarl coming from Dusty and he called to him. “Get your ass in here.”
“Da Da Da Da Da,” Jacks was crying.
He finally got the door open, and the mountain lion bounded in ahead of them. He turned around and sent a wave of frost into the air, just in case the moose was following them.
Hayden came down in a rush, all fire and smoke and big bad danger. He handed Jacks over to Hayden. “Here you go. He’s fine. There was a stray moose. I’m not sure who’s in charge of getting rid of moose, but whose ever job that is, they should get on it.”
Hayden looked confused for a second, and then Jacks just started to cry harder. “A moose.”
“Yeah, a moose. I’d make a moose noise, but I don’t know what noises moose make. They don’t really have those on a See and Say.”
“Fair enough. I’ll encourage him to move on.”
“Spiffy.”
“Maybe I could encourage you two to stay indoors where it’s not so cold.”
He just shook his head. “I cannot be made responsible for random moose sightings.”
“No one said you were responsible, silly. Just that maybe it’s not safe to be outside in the bitter cold at this time of year.”
He nodded. He could see that.
“Sorry, little dragon. Do you want me or your dad to go take you out of your snow suit?”
Jacks clung to Hayden. “Da!”
“Okay, cool. I’m going to go get changed.” Daniel hurried upstairs, not really wanting to face anyone right now. He slipped out of his clothes, grabbed some khakis and a sweater and a pair of briefs, and then went to take a quick shower. He willed his heartbeat to slow.
It had been scary, sure, but he’d gotten Jacks in and safe, and that was what was important.
At least it wasn’t another mountain lion— that might have made Dusty grumpy.
He got out of the shower, dried himself off, got dressed, and headed back out to see if he needed to put Jacks down for a nap.
Hayden was lying on the couch with Jacks on his chest, and they were so cute together. Hayden was singing Jacks some little song about a moose that he thought was totally made-up, and Jacks was singing along, kind of going, “da da da da da.”
“Hey, did you want me to put him down for his nap?” Daniel asked.
“I think that sounds great,” Hayden told him. “And then I’d like you to meet me back down here.”
Daniel tilted his head. “Are you going to yell at me about going outside to play in the snow? Because if you are…”
“No, I’m not going to yell at you about anything, but I do want to talk to you, and maybe we can go outside for a minute.” Hayden just held his gaze, those eyes burning bright for him. Hayden wasn’t angry, he could tell. So that was good. There was not going to be any shouting.
“Sure, but I thought we weren’t going outside anymore.” He winked. “I just took a shower anyway.”
He grabbed Jacks up and took him upstairs.
“Luff luff Dan Dan.”
He smiled, sitting down in the rocking chair to hold him a bit. “Of course, baby boy. I will always love you. Everything’s okay, no stress. That was a big ole moose, wasn’t it?”
The baby’s eyes went wide. “Mm-hmm. Moose.”
“That’s right! Moose! Very good. Moose.”
He rubbed their noses together and grinned for a second. “You were very brave,” he said. “Such a good dragon.”
Jacks patted his chest as if to comfort him.
“That’s right, everything’s fine,” Daniel said.
He rocked and hummed, letting himself calm down, breathe.
From the window, it looked like there was a storm coming, but they were safe and sound, and it could just rage and rage. It didn’t matter.
This house was as solid as a rock—warm and cozy, for all its vast size.
The baby finally started snoring softly, snuffling a bit, so he stood and eased him down into the crib.
He waited just long enough to make sure Jacks wasn’t going to wake up again before he covered him lightly with a blanket and then headed out to go downstairs and see what it was Hayden needed from him.
Not that he minded meeting Hayden downstairs. It wasn’t like Hayden was his boss and was going to yell at him for putting Jacks in danger or anything. They were mates now, and Hayden was always easy with him.
“Hey.” He found Hayden in the living room, still stretched out on the couch, contemplating his toes. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“I did. I was going to take you outside and do this, but it looks like it’s coming up a storm. So how do you feel about going to the sandpit with me?” He hauled his ass up off the couch to drop a kiss on Daniel’s forehead.
“Sure, just let me get my special shoes.” He could spend a lot more time in the sand pit if he put those shoes on. He did love to gather up buckets of sand and polish his mate’s scales, even if he did need another shower after that was over.
“I’ll wait right here.” Hayden grinned, shooing him away, and Daniel made his way back to the mudroom, where he kept all of their shoes in a cubby.
Daniel put on his little booties, which made him sort of feel like a dog who was going out in the heat of the summer or something, before walking back out to meet Hayden who grabbed his hand.
They went to the basement level, wandering together, bumping shoulders, which was good. It meant Hayden wasn’t in any kind of a great big hurry. There was no real urgency to it.
Daniel stripped out of his clothes when they got down there, finding the little robe that they tended to keep hanging on an iron hook near the sandpit.
When Jacks came down to play, Daniel wore a little pair of shorts, but when it was just the two of them he didn’t just because there was no reason to have things chafe.
Some properties of sand were universal.
“What do you want polished today?” He wasn’t sure, but he thought today it was going to be the base of Hayden’s thick tail.
He grabbed a bucket or two and started the process of filling them up with sand.
He’d found out that it worked way better if he just attached them to a rope and dragged them up the side of Hayden’s body.
It was easier than going down himself over and over. Although Hayden would always bring some up, which was quicker.
But, he had to admit, the best part was the way the metal buckets clicked and clanged on Hayden’s scales on the way up and the way back down. It was like the most fascinating music ever.
Hayden was watching him with a fond look on his face.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “What part of your scales do you want polished today, love?”
“Mmm. I think maybe we should try something different.”
Daniel felt his eyebrows fly up. “I am not having sex with you here in the sandpit. I will not get sand in sensitive places like that. Not going to happen.”
Hayden’s laughter was warm and delighted. “I wasn’t thinking about having sex in the sand pit, love.”
“I’m also not getting down in the sand and making sand angels. It just has too much volcanic glass in there or whatever.” He was the one teasing because he really couldn’t imagine what Hayden had in mind if it wasn’t polishing or making with the dragon love.
“When you were with the moose today…”
Hayden sort of trailed off, and Daniel shook his head. “No, being with the moose implies that I was one with the moose or that I was pleased to see the moose. I was running from the moose.”
“Right, when you were running from the moose today, what did you do?”