BrattI took Noah directly home after we talked things out with the police and faculty at the library. My rage had ebbed pretty quickly once I was holding Noah in my arms, but I knew I’d have to deal with some emotional fallout later.I needed to switch Noah over to another class, both for his sake and Marley’s. I didn’t want her to have to see me every day while we were both nursing broken hearts. I didn’t want to deprive Noah of having his dad drop him off at school, either.I considered that we might be better off getting a homeschool instructor for him and structuring a play-date schedule of some kind for him to help him get his socialization in.When we got home, I talked to Noah about the changes that would be coming down the turnpike for him—for us.“Listen, buddy,” I said to him as he munched on dino nuggets. “Marley won’t be coming over for a while after today, okay?”He stopped mid-bite and put his nugget down on the plate, his head tilting to the side like a confused puppy.

BrattThe week went from bad to worse. If it wasn’t the fight with Travis, it was little fires going on with my clients. If it wasn’t that, it was Noah giving me a silent treatment his biological mother would be proud of. If it wasn’t Noah’s silent treatment, it was the nagging feeling that I was missing something.I couldn’t tell if it was the general feeling of missing Marley or if I was just feeling off-kilter because my kid refused to talk to me. But I had the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there was something I was forgetting or not understanding.I’d had similar feelings before when I was with Noah’s mother. Feelings I’d ignored because I was so smitten with her. But they ceased as soon as we broke up, and she left our lives in a more permanent fashion. This was the opposite. The longer I was away from Marley, the more confused and agitated I felt.I stayed stuck in this muck of my own making until a few days after the incident at the library.Sylvia had just gone d

“Do you have everything?” I asked my brother as he got out of my car.“If I don’t, I’ll be back in a couple of months with Mom and Dad and get it then.”I grimaced for the umpteenth time, and he gave me a bland look.“Marley, I’m telling you. It will be good for the whole family. Mom and Dad need to see how they fucked up, and they need to see what it can look like when shifters and humans actually co-exist so they don’t just wind up on the wrong side of history forever.”“Yeah, yeah,” I relented. “But don’t you dare back out at the last minute and leave me alone in this.”“I would never dream of it,” he said before leaning in through my window to kiss my cheek. “Call me when you get home safe.”“That’s my line. Call me when you land.”“Will do. Love you, Marmalade.”“Love you!”I watched him walk into the airport before pulling away from the drop-off zone.It really had been a boon to go to the spa over the last few days. Between all the mud baths and eucalyptus scrubs, I’d done a wh

When I’d first arrived in New Middle Bluff, I’d talked to Lana about my panic attacks and nightmares. I was having the strangest responses to the panic—it was almost like I wasn’t experiencing fight-or-flight at all—I just became paralyzed. I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. “That’s because there’s more than just fight-or-flight,” Lana had told me. “There’s also fawn and freeze. It sounds like you’re freezing.” And that’s what I was doing now. Freezing up in this situation that had materialized right out of my nightmares. My stalker rounded the sofa and pushed my coffee table back until he could sit on it comfortably. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees with the gun sort of hanging from his hand casually. He captured my eyes with his black stare, and I swallowed hard. “This has been a lot of fun,” he said, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. “When my partner approached me to play this role, I was a little hesitant to take it on, but it’s be

I woke to slow, teasing kisses against the bare skin of my shoulder. Each one left a tickling wetness that made goosebumps rise on my arms as Bratt’s breath blew across it. I hummed softly, a little laugh escaping my mouth as my eyes remained closed. “Aren’t you worried about Noah walking in on us?” I said sleepily. “Uncle Travis just came to pick him up,” he said, desire heavy in his voice. We spent the first few days after the attack healing. We talked through all of our miscommunications, and we apologized properly instead of those clumsy, rambling apologies we’d rattled off when tensions were high. Finally, on the night we decided to really define what we were to each other, we made love. He’d wanted desperately to do it again. Hell, I had, too. But a five-year-old with super-sonic hearing down the hallway was a surefire way to kill any bedroom activity. “Ah, is this what we’ll be doing until we soundproof the bedroom?” I teased, my toes curling as he pressed a kiss to the s