Page 201 of Somebody's Watching Me
Gingerly lifting Theo’s leg by her ankle, Samuel rubbed his nose to make sure it wasn’t broken. His daughter might be tiny, but she had a viciously powerful kick, and it hurt like hell when delivered directly to the face.
“I won’t say you didn’t deserve that.” Evie lay on her side, watching him suffer. “They can sleep in their own beds.”
“You just want me to yourself,” he teased. “My body is not a machine, Evangeline.”
“I don’t need your whole body.” She grinned, making his heart skip a beat. “Just one particular part.”
He checked the time. It was close to one in the morning, which meant—
“I’m hungry.”
This entire pregnancy had been wrought with every symptom imaginable. It started with morning sickness and went off in multiple different directions from there. Weird food cravings, extreme mood swings, and a sex drive that even he was having a hard time keeping up with.
“Ice cream or ham sandwich?” he asked. “Or both?”
“Both.”
“Daddy, can I have somes pickles?” Eyes open, Theo whispered her request so as not to wake Harper next to her. “And somes chocolate?”
“No.” Dropping a kiss on her head, he carefully got out of bed. “Go back to sleep.”
Thanks to Evie keeping the glass wall in their bedroom uncovered, the full moon provided him with enough light to see. She might not enjoy the beach, but she loved to gaze out over it, especially on nights like tonight.
However, he knew she would crash into a deep sleep after eating and decided to close the shades. “We don’t need the sun as our alarm clock.”
Evie yawned, drawing Harper closer for a snuggle. “Sounds good.”
By the time he finished with the curtains, all three of his girls were dozing again, and he took a second to stand at the foot of the bed, his heart and soul full.
Nothing on this earth would keep him from protecting them. Even if he would eventually lose moments like this. It had to be done. There was no going back.
When he married Evie under Haven’s oaks, they had made a promise not only to love and protect one another, but to give up the ghosts of their past, and all the regret that came with them. In the beginning, it had been easy. They had years to make up for and spent every second doing just that.
And then Harper came along.
Their brilliant baby brought a love into their lives that neither of them expected. The word terrifying didn’t quite cover the emotions of being a new parent, but they trudged through it together, and came out with enough knowledge that when Theo arrived, they didn’t freak out quite as much.
Where Harper was a mastermind in her own right, Theo came into the world with a wildness like none of them had ever known. A perfect balance to her sister’s seriousness, the two shared an unbreakable bond, and hardly did anything apart.
Except for when they entered Harper into a preschool program. Their daughter having social interactions with children outside the family had been important, and Harper had walked into that school with her head high and totally unafraid. It had been a big day for all four of them. Theo had cried hysterically when she realized they were being separated, and Samuel hadn’t blamed her. On the inside, he’d been doing the same, sitting in his car outside the preschool with Evie as they nervously waited for an acceptable amount of time to pass before checking Harper out.
It took a few weeks to adjust, but eventually, Harper was able to spend an entire day at school without a single tear being shed.
But then Zanmi got wind of a Fairweather out in the wild and sent one of their members into the school to work as a teacher. With only Liam knowing the real reason, they unenrolled Harper, claiming to need a more challenging program.
The regret he promised to suppress returned then, sinking its teeth into his consciousness. Toby should have died in the graveyard. If he had, Zanmi wouldn’t be more than a blip in a closed case file.
He was willing to admit that he had lost a piece of himself that day. Coming around the trail’s bend, and seeing the scene, Samuel Fairweather didn’t exist for a small speck of time. The darkness inside had taken the helm, ready to release its fury.
In the years since, it had thankfully lain dormant, the monster only whispering now and then.
Protect Evie.
Protect his girls.
No matter the cost to himself.
And now it was awake. The events at the doctor’s office freeing it from its cage. The image of an angry Evie, covered in someone else’s blood, burned a hole in his sanity, letting the monster loose.
