Page 39 of Cold Foot Croc

His nostrils flared as he searched her eyes with equal parts rage, and horror. “What happened to the baby, Raynah?”

She shook her head and then buried her face in her hands, wishing so hard that she could get the vision of the day she escaped prison out of her mind. She dragged a hitching breath in and just said it. Just unleashed it onto this poor man. “The baby came early. Didn’t hear a cry. Prison doc took it, and that was that. I lost my mind. Just lost it, and needed my animal. I wanted to kill everyone. I didn’t know exactly what happened until later. They bred me again almost immediately, this time to a jackal who was crazy. And no, I don’t want to talk about the how or the why. Not ever. This one was less kind. He liked being a breeder. It took longer for this baby to take. Katrina had been moved into my cell by then, and I was leaning so heavily on her for support. I knew they wouldn’t let me keep this one either, so it was this heartbreaking thing to be growing a baby that I couldn’t protect. I got pregnant after a couple months, but I felt helpless. Every day was filled with fear over the future. And inthe back of my head, I was thinking I deserved it, right? It was karma getting me after what I’d done. But it didn’t feel fair that this baby was going to have to pay for my sins.” She heaved a sigh and slowed down her words. “And then Wreck came for us. He and the Fastlanders and Damon Daye came to save a few of the shifters in the prison, and one of them was Katrina, and she wouldn’t leave me behind. When I was escaping Cold Foot, Katrina kept dragging us deeper into the belly of the prison, just convinced she knew a way out. She’d been a breeder too. She’d been King’s breeding partner. They’d been paired, and he’d told her how to escape through this vent in the breeding room. We damn-near burned alive getting out, but we landed in this room with all these science experiments, and I saw her.”

“Her?”

Chills rippled up her arms. Was she going to say it? Was she going to finally talk about this out loud? Was she finally going to unburden herself? “Little premature baby girl with a crocodile tail, preserved.” The last word barely came out a squeak.

“Oh my fuck,” he uttered in the most broken voice she’d ever heard on a man. He rested his head in her lap and wrapped his arms around her back, just held there as she gripped the back of his hair and cried.

Garret moved his cheek to the swell of her belly, dragged his hands to the sides of her stomach, and just held the curve there. He rubbed his facial scruff back and forth on it. She could see his dark lashes were damp, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes, and she got it. She didn’t want him to see her like this either.

“So you see,” she whispered, “I’m scared something will happen to take this baby away from me too, because it’s what I deserve.”

And that man dragged her off that chair and held her in his lap, tight against his chest as he rocked her gently in the snow. “You’re wrong, Raynah. You’re wrong. You don’t deservewhat’s been done. Your mom didn’t deserve it, and you did good protecting her. Even if she stays mad, she’s safe. You made her safe. Fuck that guy. You made the world better by taking him from it.”

“I’ll never get to go back to the happy childhood—”

“And it’s awful. It’s awful, Raynah. That’s the part you mourn. Not your decision to keep your family safe. You did right by them. You paid your pound of flesh. You were punished beyond fairness. This baby will be that rainbow at the end of a storm.” He eased back and cupped her cheek, searched her eyes with such intensity. “No one will take this baby from you. No one will hurt you again. You’re safe, and your baby is safe, do you hear me?” Truth, truth, truth, and she was breaking down all over again because God, it was so beautiful to hear the truth in words like those after everything she’d been through.

“I’m scared to even get anything for the baby,” she said, pouring it all out now.

“That’s understandable.”

“It feels like I’m going to jinx it if I get excited for life with him.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t like my home because it’s too big, and it’s unfamiliar, and I feel like I deserve the prison cell.”

“You don’t. We have to fix your feelings on your home so the baby knows what home is, okay?”

“I got a lot of money.”

“What?”

“For what happened to me in the breeding program. Damon went after the prison and got big settlements for all of us. It happened really fast. They dumped money on us to keep us quiet. Mine is a stupid amount of money that I’ll never touch. Well I put a down payment on my truck so I could travel to myjob, but other than that, I won’t touch it. I am saving up to pay back what I took out.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s money that’s supposed to take away the pain of that little baby with the crocodile tail, but she’s worth more. And that would’ve never happened if I wouldn’t have done what I did. It’s money for my daughter, and I don’t want it.” She sniffed and wiped her wet cheeks. “I guess I’m a mess, huh?”

“Yeah,” he agreed softly, “but I’m not scared of messy. I’m scared of walls.”

A smile shouldn’t exist in a moment like this, but one stretched her face as she looked up at him with such hope in her heart. That’s what he’d wanted? Just for her to open up? It didn’t matter how fucked up it all was?

He saw her ugly damage, and was still looking at her like she was beautiful?

Garret leaned down and kissed her lips. It wasn’t some perfect movie kiss. It was tear-stained cheeks, and open hearts, and a rawness to both of their souls, as if they’d just really seen each other for the first time.

It was a kiss that said,I’m not running.

It was an emotionally-charged declaration that he didn’t mind reading the story she’d carved on the walls she’d built to keep the world out.

It was an I-still-see-the-good-in-you kiss, and for Raynah, it was the biggest moment of her life thus far.

She could see Garret so clearly too, and there was nothing but good in that man.

Chapter Nine

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