Khan (Bowen Boys, #2)(36)
“Take me to bed, Khan. Please?”
Chapter Thirteen
Khan hated to leave her again, but Walker had said he needed a run and asked him…no, had begged him to go with him. He had been stomping around the house for hours before hand, and when Caitlynne had asked Khan as well to go with him, he finally had.
They’d gone to the very back of the property. Neither of them wanted to be caught with their pants down or as a panther, so this was the best place to be. By the time they’d driven the Jeep out on the pretense of checking out the land, Walker was looking less stressed. Khan didn’t want to pry, but he was wondering what had made him so pissy. It wasn’t until they were running that his brother reached for him.
“She has to go on an extended trip.” It took Khan a second or two to wonder who when Walker continued. “They want Caitlynne to go to California for a month to see to some training out there that isn’t yielding the numbers they had hoped it would.”
“When does she have to leave?” Khan leapt over a log and stopped by a large walnut tree to wait on Walker. “Are you going with her?”
“No, I can’t. Damn it all to hell. I have to be here in the event Warren needs me.” Walker stood beside him for several seconds before he took off again. “The man is healthier than I am.”
Khan doubted that and said so. “You took this job, as did she, knowing this might happen. You yourself said that it was best for her not to be put in a kitchen where there were sharp items if you even suggested that she be a nice little housewife.”
Walker growled and Khan laughed. The two of them ran for another twenty minutes before they came to a lake. As they leaned into the water and began lapping at the coolness of it, Walker spoke again.
“She is having a great pregnancy and hasn’t really needed anything from me at all.”
Khan didn’t comment, knowing just how his brother felt about not really being needed.
“She said that she thinks it’s a boy. Mom said that there hasn’t been a girl born in this family in nearly eight generations. That’s a lot of boys.”
Khan thought it was longer, but knew that a little girl would probably be very welcome in this family. Overprotected, yes, but well loved. As any child would be.
“This morning when I got up, I was going to make breakfast for Monica and myself and bring it up to the bedroom. But when I rolled out of bed as quietly as I could, she was gone. She’d already gotten up and shooed the cook out of the kitchen so she could make it for me. She’s getting much better at cooking. I was really disappointed, myself, in her not needing me.” He glanced at his brother as he continued. “But, her being gone for a month without me? I’m not sure I’d be in any better mood than you. Of course, you do have your own plane. No reason you can’t fly out there for a day, then come back.”
Walker’s head shot up so quickly that Khan felt his heart leap in his chest. He looked around the area, sure there was a threat. And when his brother attacked him, Khan knew that they both were dead. But Walker only stood over him with his huge f*cking paws planted on his chest, then leaned down and licked his face.
“Get off me, you overgrown idiot. What the f*ck it wrong with you? I thought we were both dead cats.” Walker rolled off him and sat down. “You want to explain what the f*ck that was all about?”
“You’re right.”
Khan told him he was always right, but what this time?
“You’re right. I can go and visit her anytime I want. She may not be able to get away as much as I’d like to see her, but I can go and be with her when I need to be. So, thank you.”
Khan stood up and growled low at his brother. “Next time, a simple handshake will do. You lick me like that again and I’ll break your jaw. And you’re welcome.”
This time, when they moved through the forest, it was much more relaxed. They spoke about all kinds of things, mostly their mates and how glad they were that they put up with them. Then they talked about Barr and what his next move might be.
“Caitlynne said it’s hard to tell with a man like him. She told me that he’s been in and out of institutions for nearly all his life. He was first put in a home when he was five when his sister had been found dead in her crib.”
Khan stumbled and stopped moving. “Did he kill her? Crib implies that she was tiny, less than a year old.”
“She was four months old. The report that Caitlynne was able to find said that he was in a catatonic state when his parents came in the nursery to check on her. Apparently, they were concerned that she’d not cried at all through the night, but had whimpered once. When they entered the room, I guess it was carnage. Someone, they said, had broken into the house and had murdered the baby, and little Tony had witnessed it.”
Khan heard his brother’s words, but he also heard more. “But she doesn’t believe it. And neither do you.”
Walker shook his head. “The autopsy report said her head was crushed, and the bruising around her throat and on her chest was consistent with small hands. When she asked me to look at the report and pictures, even I could see that the hands were tiny, about the size of a five-year-old. He had…Christ, Khan, he’d beaten her with a plastic bat that was found later and then had stood on her little chest at some point. Her death was ruled strangulation.”