Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(68)

He reached over with his big hand and squeezed her thigh in a way that made her shiver with interest. “You only have to ask.”

“All right. Well, I want to get a pregnancy kit, and I don’t want anyone else in your pack…”

“Our pack.”

“Our pack knowing about it. They might get the wrong notion.” Like it was Jake’s child, if she were pregnant. She swallowed hard, hating that she’d have to admit if she was pregnant that it was Ferdinand Massaro’s child.

Jake ran his hand over her thigh in a tender caress meant to console. Then his mouth curved up and his hand slid to her belly. “When Mary called from the gallery with the news you were pregnant, I was angry. I thought you had another man in your life and hadn’t told me. But I couldn’t be more pleased if you’re having a baby.”

“Most men wouldn’t like it if it was some other man’s baby,” she said, trying not to sound so disconsolate.

He drove into the parking lot of the strip mall and parked, then rested his hand beneath her chin and lifted and turned her to face him, his eyes pinning hers with resolve. “I love you. And if you’re pregnant, the baby’s ours. I’ll raise her as my own.”

“Her?”

“Werewolves in our pack statistically have fewer females. So we’re always hopeful we’ll have a few more females—keeps the males from getting too rambunctious.”

She chuckled. “I never thought I’d hear a man say he’d rather have a little girl than a boy.”

“Having two brothers probably had something to do with it.” He cut the engine.

She knew he was teasing. By the way he spoke to his brothers, she could tell he was really close to them. She had barely opened the truck’s door when Jake hurried around the front of the vehicle to help her down.

“I’ll have to add running boards,” he said, as he held her hips and helped her hop down to the pavement. “If you are pregnant, you’ll never be able to climb up into the cab.”

“Not without a forklift,” she teased, trying to feel better about it.

He smiled down at her but then said, “Would you agree to see Doc Weber? He’d be discreet.”

“And what would people think who saw me join the pack, then immediately see the doctor?” She shook her head.

Peter drove up beside them and parked, and Alicia suddenly was aware that he and Tom were watching them both. She hoped the guys couldn’t read lips or hear their conversation through the Suburban windows.

“Be just a minute,” Jake said to Tom as he rolled the window down.

“Sure you don’t want us to watch your backs?” Tom asked, his expression concerned.

Alicia was touched by the way he genuinely seemed worried about her, but she quickly shook her head. “We’ll be right out.”

Tom gave Jake a look, and she couldn’t tell if it was because she was making the decisions without allowing Jake to have a say or because Tom suspected something else was going on. But it made her even more self-conscious, and she hurried Jake into the drugstore before her whole heated body gave her away.

***

Tom watched Jake and Alicia head into the drugstore as Peter leaned back against the driver’s seat of his Suburban and said, “Wonder what that’s all about that she didn’t want us to see what she had to purchase.”

Tom didn’t want to speculate, but he couldn’t help it. Alicia was definitely anxious about something. He’d never seen a more expressive woman, unable to hide her feelings like his kind normally could do. He supposed it was because they’d been born as wolves.

After seeing how much Alicia had gotten under Jake’s skin, how much he really cared for her, Tom was damned worried she was going to get herself killed over this situation with Constantino and his thugs, though.

He couldn’t help worrying about both Alicia and Jake, and how Jake would deal with losing her again, if it came to that. He’d been unable to focus on work or anything in the pack during the last several weeks after he’d lost Alicia. But Tom assumed Jake had continued to believe she was all right. Then there was that damnable business of chasing after her without any pack backup when she was in trouble in Crestview. Hell, Darien had curbed his anger, wanting everything to turn out for the best, but he’d been furious with Jake for not waiting for Tom and Peter to catch up to him. Jake wanted her to be safe, sure, but Darien didn’t want to lose his brother in the process.

If anything happened to her now, Jake would be devastated. And Tom couldn’t let him down.

“I’ve never seen Jake allow a woman to order him around,” Peter said, his tone solemn. “I’ve never seen him fall so hard for a woman. She’s something special.”

Those were Tom’s sentiments as well.

Peter glanced at him. “You seem awfully quiet, Tom. What are you thinking?”

That the woman had gotten under Tom’s skin, too. How could she not when Jake had fallen in love with her? Lelandi had found a new friend in her also. Alicia’s sadness concerned Tom, and he wondered whether she’d be happy with their pack. It didn’t even matter that Alicia was new to being a werewolf. They’d make sure she felt she’d been with them forever. But something was the matter, and he suspected there was more to the story than just the trouble with Mario and his gang.