Page 40 of The (Maybe) Murderer Who Knocked Me Up

Slade is motionless as he stares at Chime. I think he’s holding his breath. I don’t know what to do, so I hug Chime back. This isn’t how I wanted him to find out about her. It certainly isn’t how I wanted her to find out about him.

Silver steps inside the dining room. His mouth drops open when he sees Slade. “I thought she only needed to be gone for an hour and we were gone for two.”

I wasn’t clear enough when I texted him. We also took that detour to the Motel. How could I have been that stupid?

Chime straightens and looks at Slade curiously. “Who are you?”

The whole room becomes silent, as if time has stopped.

“Slade,” he finally stammers out. “I’m Slade.”

She tilts her head to one side. “Are you a whale shifter?”

“It isn’t polite to ask why type of shifter people are,” I remind her.

“Blue whales are the biggest animals in the world,” she explains, matter-of-factly. “And he’s the biggest person I’ve ever seen.”

Slade’s lips quirk up on one side.

“We also don’t talk about the size of people’s bodies, remember?” I say.

My omega mom elbows my alpha mom. “Yeah, remember?”

“It’s okay,” Slade reassures her. “I’m half grizzly shifter, half human.” He glances at me. Not with anger or confusion, but almost as if he’s asking permission to continue. Then he turns his attention back to her. “What’s your name?”

“Wind Chime. But people don’t say the ‘Wind’ part unless they call me their little wind chime. Mostly my uncles and my dad.”

“Chime,” Slade repeats softly. “That’s beautiful.”

She smiles. “All raccoon shifters are named after beautiful things. It’s because our parents love us.”

Slade smiles at her with a tenderness in his eyes that makes my heart stop.

“I think your dad needs to talk with Slade alone for a while,” Silver tells Chime. “Let’s go play Mario Kart.”

Slade’s smile fades. “Oh. Okay. It was good to meet you, Chime.”

“Bye!” She gives me a quick hug and bounds out of the room, clueless about who she just met.

The silence returns. All we can hear is Chime’s feet pattering through the house and a door shutting. Slade sits there, deep in thought. I don’t know how I expected him to react when he found out about Chime, but it wasn’t like this.

“She’s mine,” he finally says. It isn’t a question.

“Yes.”

He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again.

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to protect her.” The words come out hollow because I’m no longer sure I made the right decision. The way he looked at her…

I think he would protect her as fiercely as he protected his brother, if given the chance.

“I got my electrician license while I was incarcerated,” he says.

“What?” Did he just change the subject?

“I’ll find a job as soon as I can. If I pay child support, could I see her? The visits can be supervised, if that would make you more comfortable. And…you don’t have to tell her that I’m her alpha dad.”

I hate the anguish on his face as he offers up that last compromise.

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