Page 8 of Fated Secret Baby

Looking at me. I haven’t seen her since the pack was in Alaska. What are the chances she came to Oakwood, Colorado?

At that moment, I’m more than just shocked.

The world as I know it shatters.

Chapter 3

Calista

“Calista?”

I’ve never wanted to run away so badly in my whole life.

Of course I realized that there was a possibility I would see Orion when I came to the store. But it’s mid-morning. Normally, people with jobs are at said jobs by now.

I assumed that Orion would be included in that category. Instead, he’s… here. Standing in front of me, looking at me like he’s seen a ghost.

Well. To be fair, I feel the same way about him.

I have so many memories of him. We were together all through the two years of graduate school and a year after, when I lived with him in Alaska. I’ve seen him in a thousand different contexts, and I thought that because I have so many memories of him, it would somehow… make me immune to his presence. Like, if Orion is a virus, the fact that I’ve been around him so often inoculates me from feeling anything for him.

I was so wrong.

Now that he’s in front of me, my reaction to him is even more powerful than what I remember. I can smell his woodsy, citrusy smell, which is the same after all these years.

He’s… bigger. That should be impossible. Orion’s always been a tall, muscular guy. But any trace of softness or the happy-go-lucky guy that I knew seems to be gone.

He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt. There’s nothing groundbreaking about this outfit. Except for the fact that when he moves his arm back off of the box of cereal, I can not only see every muscle in his forearm work, but I swear there’s somehow more in there than there should be.

Like, I’ve never seen that many muscles on a man.

“Calista, is that really you?”

His voice is deeper, too. His blue eyes peer at me, and my heart clenches when I see them. They’re Juniper’s eyes.

It’s one thing to look at her and know that she got her eyes from her father. It’s another thing entirely to look at him and see the trait he passed on to her.

I clear my throat again. “Hi. Yeah. It’s me,” I respond.

I sound like such an idiot.

Yeah, it’s me?

“What… what are you doing here?”

Shoot. This is absolutely not the time or place to tell Orion that I’m here to tell him about his baby.

Instead, I do the worst possible thing, and I might hate myself a little bit for it.

I lie.

“I’m visiting Amara,” I say.

It’s a half truth. The part that I don’t say would make it actually real. I’m visiting Amara, and she’s watching the kid that you and I made five years ago. Also, you’re a dad. Surprise!

There’s a heartbeat where Orion looks at me like he’s going to say something.

I brace myself, ready for it to hurt.

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