Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)(76)
Dante watched him go, and then turned to see Bailey walking back toward him, her duty done. He squinted his eyes and watched her legs carefully as she walked. She was not yet used to the somewhat clunky cast, and it slowed her down a little, but as he had said to Mary, she wasn’t limping at all.
Thoughts of Mary made him pat his leg.
“Come on. Let us go check on our Mary,” he suggested and turned toward the house.
Bailey immediately turned toward the house and began to move more quickly. In the end, she reached the door before he did and waited patiently for him to open it so that she could rush inside and up the stairs, eager to see her mistress.
Mary was woken up by more than eighty pounds of dog leaping on top of her. It was accompanied by angry whispers in Italian that could only be Dante, she thought with amusement, as she reached out to pet her dog and try to calm her.
“Oh, Dio mio, do not pet her, Mary. Go back to sleep. She is being bad waking you, and you are rewarding her,” Dante said with exasperation.
Chuckling, Mary rolled onto her back to see him approaching the bed.
“I know. I guess I’m just a bad mother,” she said with amusement, absently stroking Bailey’s head as the dog laid it on her stomach.
“Your fangs are out,” Dante said rather than respond to her comment.
Pausing at the side of the bed, he opened the hidden refrigerator and grabbed a bag of blood and then climbed onto the bed on the other side of Bailey. He passed the bag of blood over to her and then curved around Bailey so he could lay his head on the pillow next to Mary’s.
Gripping the bag of blood, Mary sat up and ran her tongue cautiously around her teeth. Yep, there they were, long and sharp and apparently hungry again, she thought with resignation and slapped the bag to her hungry fangs. They did seem to constantly be popping out on her. Every time she woke up she seemed to have to consume the red liquid, and usually several bags of it.
“How is your head?” Dante asked as they waited for the bag to empty.
Mary raised her eyebrows at the question, wondering how he expected her to answer. But then he asked, “Does it hurt?” and she was able to shake her head in answer.
“Good,” he murmured, toying with the top of the blanket covering her. “And you are a wonderful mother, Mary. Bailey is lucky,” he added, finally responding to her comment of a moment ago. “And our children will be too. I have no doubt you will spoil them at times. But you will discipline them too, and they will always know they are loved.”
Mary stared at him silently. She had been smiling around the nearly empty bag at her mouth, but now that smile faded and tears glazed her eyes. Mary immediately turned her head away from him so he couldn’t see the tears. She was relieved when she could tear the bag away from her mouth a moment later.
When Dante immediately took it, she began to fiddle with the edge of the blanket covering her and muttered, “What’s this talk of our children? I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, mister. Heck, I’ve only known you for a couple of days.”
Dante caught her chin and turned her head toward him. He peered at her silently for a moment, taking in her glassy eyes, then said solemnly, “It was a week yesterday that you ran me over. True,” he added quickly, his fingers tightening to keep her in place when she started to turn her head away again, “You have slept through most of the week.”
For some reason, that brought a wry laugh from her, and he smiled, but continued.
“However, it does not matter. We are life mates, Mary, and I do not intend to lose you. We will love each other, and we will be together for however long we both shall live, and we will have many, many babies. It was meant to be,” he assured her.
Mary swallowed, trying to shift the lump suddenly lodged in her throat. She suspected that, despite the little time they’d been together, she was already half in love with the big idiot. How could she not be? He was sweet, and strong and caring. The fact that he was beautiful didn’t hurt either, but it was just gravy.
After years of counseling people, Mary had become adept at judging character, and Dante was a man of substance. She had loved her husband, Joe. Once they’d worked through their issues, theirs had been a caring and contented relationship of friendship and love. It had been hard won and appreciated all the more for it. But with Dante, Mary suspected she could have that special, once-in-a-lifetime love many of her patients had talked about yearning for, and she’d always thought was just fantasy. Mary didn’t think it was fantasy anymore, and she was quite sure she could have it with Dante, and that it would actually last as long as they lived, whether that was another twenty years, or two thousand. But, she could not have children. She did not mind for herself. Mary had long ago got over the fact that she couldn’t give birth. The moment she had held her adopted son in her arms, he had been hers as surely as if she had carried him for nine months, and when her adopted daughter had followed, it had been the same. She had her children. But she could not give Dante children.
“Dante,” she said softly. “I told you. The accident caused a miscarriage. I was six months pregnant. I lost the baby and . . . there were complications. I can’t have your children.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and Mary was holding on to her composure by a very fine, very short thread, so was a bit taken aback when he smiled.
“And as I told you, Mary,” he said gently. “The nanos return their host to their peak condition. You will be able to have children, and I cannot wait to watch your belly grow with my child.”