Dylan (Bowen Boys, #3)(24)
Dylan looked at the room. They were so close. He grinned at his brother and picked up another slat. He pounded the piece in and Khan hit it with two nails while they each were in thought.
“You know that if we finish this today, we can take our mates somewhere for the entire day? We can go to DC and bug the shit out of Walker and spoil the baby, too.” Khan stopped working and grinned.
“And we can take Mom and Dad with us. You know how much they love seeing Baby George.” It was evil. Pure and simple, but he loved it and told Khan that.
In less than an hour, they had the floor finished, then another two to clean up the dust and put the things away. Khan even helped him move the two corner cabinets into place and anchor them. By six-thirty, they were both off to find their other halves, and Dylan had a plan.
He was going to show Jack how much he loved her body.
Chapter Eight
Jack walked along the trees and tried not to think about how stupid she felt about her conversation with Dylan. She leaned down to pick up a stick and toss it when something sounded behind her. She turned, thinking it was Dylan. Behind her stood a tiger…a big, f*cking white Bengal tiger.
“Nice kitty.” The tiger sat and looked at her. “Are you real or are you a were? I guess that would be weretiger. Are you one of those?”
He didn’t move. She started back toward the house, but when she took just one step, he stood up as well. When she took a step back, so did he. Jack was afraid to run, because she remembered what Corrine had told her about cats liking to chase, and Jack didn’t doubt that this one would run her down and have her for dinner. When he looked to his left, she looked in that direction as well.
“He wants to know where your mate is.” Jack looked from Monica to the tiger. “He said that they were supposed to make sure that he had a few hours on his own, and that you’re too tasty-looking to let go now. I think he’s kidding.”
“You think he is?” Monica laughed. She stopped by a tree and held onto it for several seconds before she moved toward her.
“I’m lost and a little disorientated. I think he’s been chasing me.” Jack looked at the tiger. “Not him. There was this wolf here earlier, and I think he was chasing me.”
“Monica, what’s wrong?” When she sat down hard and looked to be in pain, a great deal of it, she knew. “Are you in labor? Holy shit, woman, what the f*ck are you doing out in the middle of the f*cking woods in labor?”
The tiger came toward them. She looked at Monica and knew that it wasn’t just labor, but the hard stuff. When she put her hand on her belly, she felt the tightening about the same time that she started pushing. Mother f*ck. Jack looked at the tiger.
“Can you understand me?” He nodded. “Go to the f*cking house and get Khan. He’s at my house, Dylan’s house. Go there and make them…can they understand you like she does?” He took off.
“Jack. I think they’re coming. I think—” She screamed and held onto Jack’s hand. “Help me. You have to help me.”
“Yeah. I can do this. I had to take a class.” She helped her lay down on the ground and took off her pants. There was blood, but not a great deal of it. Jack looked up at Monica and smiled.
“How hard can this be, right?” The next scream had Jack wondering if she was religious enough. The third had her doubting the class, her ability as a woman to handle this, and her sanity at even trying it. Ten minutes later, she was holding the new baby in her hands.
The first panther came over the small hill a few minutes later, the tiger and the rest of them seconds after that. Monica bore down hard, and when Khan shifted in front of her, Jack handed him his son.
“Here, make yourself useful.” She knew the baby was all right and that the kid had nothing on his mother when it came to screaming. The next baby, a beautiful little girl, came about the time the rest of them shifted and were pulling on clothes.
She looked at Dylan as she helped Corrine clean up Monica. She couldn’t tell if he was mad or not, and right now she was feeling too good to care. Then she noticed that Khan was naked.
“Damn it, Khan, would you please put something over that thing? Somebody might get hurt.” She heard him chuckle, then a shuffle of clothes, and knew he was getting dressed. Jack decided she was going to neuter him sometime soon. “See if I help you out again when your wife is running around the woods in labor.”
He pulled her up off the ground and into his arms. He hugged her so tightly she was sure that bones would need mending. But it felt good, too. When she wrapped her arms around him, too, he looked down at her.
“You saved them. My family, you saved them for me.” He kissed her forehead and stepped back when someone growled. “I owe you more than I’ll ever be able to repay. Thank you very much, Jack Bowen.”
“I gotta know.” She pulled away from Khan and brushed at the tears, and looked at Marc as he continued. “I have to know where the name Jack came from. You are so not a Jack.”
“You dork, I haven’t always looked like this.” He flushed, and she felt bad so she told him. “I was born on the streets. My mother had been a druggie and had died while in labor with me. Two bums, Jack Morton and Duke Crosby, found her body and realized I was still alive…as drugged as my mother, but alive. While Jack had been sober, he’d been a doctor. Duke was just a man who I guess liked to get drunk with his box buddy. When they realized that I was going to be more trouble than I was worth, they took me to the hospital. When the nurse asked them if I had a name, neither man wanted to have anything to do with ‘the man’…what they called the government…and what he might bring down on them. So they named me for both of them. Jack Crosby. Years later, I came across Jack, and he told me the story. Duke had been killed when someone had wanted his box and he wasn’t willing to give it up.”