Page 53 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

“Something like that.” Before we got in the car, he turned and eyed Caleb, who was still clutching my hand as we walked. Marcus suddenly stopped and got to his knees in front of him. Caleb immediately jerked, turning to bury his face in my lap again.

“Look at me, son,” he said.

Caleb didn’t, at first. He simply held his stance, but Marcus was patient, staying there for several seconds until my son finally, slowly, inched over to peek at him from the corner of his eye.

“Nothing will ever touch you again, you hear me?” Marcus uttered, a quiet menace in his tone. “I don’t care who I have to take down or who I hurt. If anyone ever comes after you or your mom, I will destroy them. Do you understand?”

I jerked a little at the harshness of his tone and wanted to tell him not to talk to Caleb like that, but then something happened.

My son blinked once, then twice, and some of the fear slipped from his expression.

Then he nodded.

* * *

The next fewdays were a little rough, but then they got surprisingly better.

It seemed that in revenge for the doctor’s visit, Caleb refused to talk much at all and started resolving to ignore us.

Marcus insisted on coming over every day and would have breakfast with us. I wanted to tell him to stop and give Caleb some space, but I noticed that Caleb didn’t actively avoid Marcus the way he did with most strangers.

In fact, I once came out of the bathroom and saw them sitting together on the couch. There was a lot of space between them, but the fact that Caleb allowed Marcus to even be that close to him meant something.

It meant he was slowly trusting him.

Neither person was talking to the other, and they both seemed focused on the TV, where a pretty scintillating episode of Blue’s Clue was playing.

It struck me how similar they were, how similar they looked. Even the way they sat, leaning a little to one side, and furrowed their eyebrows when they were concentrating hard.

It tugged at my heart.

Marcus saw me watching and winked.

I smiled back.

Maybe he was right. Maybe everything would be okay.

TWENTY

MARCUS

After that day, we quickly fell into a pattern.

It started with me coming over every single day in the morning before I went to work. Allie was surprised to see me on her doorstep the day after the visit with Dr. Hammond.

Her eyes flashed with surprise when she opened the door.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” she asked, looking somewhat startled.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Breakfast.” I knew she probably thought the fact that I left yesterday evening meant whatever we had was over, but it wasn’t.

And I wasn’t going to consider her ridiculous offer for co-parenting either. She’d texted it to me while I was on the way home.

“Hey, I think it’s best if we keep our relationship strictly friendly and co-parent amicably. We can discuss the timetable when you get back.”

I smirked when I saw it. Yeah right.

There was no way I was going to agree to see my son only on designated days, and neither was I going to let her go either.

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