“You can trust a witch.”
“I know that.” He winked at her and she smiled and wiggled on her chair. “Ten months after that hookup I get a knock on the door and the surprise of my life. She didn’t want a baby. Didn’t need one messing up her life. And she got the African assignment. So she said it was my choice. She could put the baby up for adoption, or I could take him.”
Mireio’s jaw dropped open. Then she closed it. “Wow. Tough choice for a young, single man.”
“Not really. I took one look at this little peanut and knew I had to have him in my life.”
“Really? Have you always liked kids? Babies? Usually men aren’t so paternal.”
“I have never been around kids much. Never even held a baby before this guy.”
“How did you even trust that he was yours?”
“She does ask the questions, doesn’t she?” Lars said to Peanut. “I just knew. But also, his mom said I should get a DNA test, and she even had the forms and details on how to do it, along with all the info she’d written down for Peanut’s feeding schedule. She was an orderly woman. And she said she knew he was mine because she hadn’t had sex with a guy after me for months.”
“Did you do the test?”
“I did. Peanut is one hundred percent mine. But I knew that before I got the test results.”
“How did you know?”
He beamed at her. “My heart told me he was mine. But also, could you imagine putting this little sweetie up for adoption?”
“He is a sweetie. But he might have made some other family happy too. Adoption isn’t horrible.”
“I know that.”
“Oh, but wait. Is he werewolf?”
Lars shrugged. “Not sure. His mom is human, but human women can give birth to our babies, and they can be werewolf. But I won’t know until Peanut hits puberty. Another good reason not to put him up for adoption. Could you imagine human parents discovering their adopted son, once he hits puberty, suddenly shifts to a wolf?”
“So his mom didn’t know you were werewolf?”
“No need for me to tell her. You know it’s not wise to share stuff like that with humans. How many people do you tell you’re a witch?”
“Zero. Unless I get a feeling about them. Like you. Aw, look, he’s sleeping. Sweet little Peanut. You really should give him a name, though.”
“I’m working on it. I have to go to the county office and do a name change. I’m already on the birth certificate as the father. Peanut’s mom had the foresight to do that, so he’s got my last name.”
“That was smart. Oh. Can I hold him?”
“Uh...” Lars set the bottle on the table and studied her pleading yet smiling look. When he’d walked in at Dean’s place to find her holding Peanut, he’d initially felt angry. What right had she to barge in and take hold of his child? But then he’d realized she hadn’t even known who the baby was then.
Now? He was being foolish. Possessive. And with every right to be so.
“Oh, sorry.” She sat back. “You’re his daddy. I’m sure he needs you to tuck him in.”
“He sleeps through most of the night after his final bottle. I’ll put him down.”
Once he’d tucked Peanut in, and left him uncovered because it was warm tonight, Lars then rinsed the bottle and dried it while Mireio got up to admire the lamp base on the table beside the couch.
“This is beautiful,” she said of the carved pine column. “It’s so intricate. I can see deer and squirrels and that looks like a swan. Did you do this?”
Lars shrugged and nodded. “There’s a lot of wood out here. Sometimes I see something in the wood that needs to come out.”
“Like Michelangelo and his marble sculptures. You’re an artist.”
“No, I’m just a regular guy who amuses himself with a hammer and chisel once in a while.” He set the bottle on the rack above the sink and then approached her. He shoved his hands in his back pockets. “So, I know this is a lot of baggage I’ve unpacked here. And I’ll understand if you don’t want to see me anymore. I wasn’t even in the market for dating, but then Sunday said I needed to get out, have some fun. And after that morning at your place, there were the lilacs. It was almost like I had to find you. Then I did. I think it’s better you know right away.”
“Lars, don’t worry. There are a lot of single parents nowadays. And we’re not serious. Just having fun, right?”
“Right.”
“Oh, and if Sunday can’t babysit, call me. I adore babies. Would love to have a couple, or twelve, of my own someday.”
“I’ll remember that.” He sat on the couch and she sat next to him, which he took as a good sign that she didn’t want to leave right away.
“That is, if you can trust me with Peanut. I have babysat a lot.”
“Oh, I trust you.”
“Yeah? But you didn’t want me to hold him just now at the table.”
“Sorry. He’s my boy and...well, you’re new.”
“I get it.” She clasped his hand. “You’re a protective alpha wolf. Do not apologize for that. Ever. Now. I want to see this strange but interesting bathroom. Can we slip out with Peanut sleeping?”
“Yep. I’ve got a baby monitor in the bathroom so I can hear him if I’m taking a shower. But I promise you, it’s nothing to get excited about.”
“Any outhouse that isn’t two holes in a slab of wood is exciting.”
* * *
Through the crisp darkness, surrounded by cricket chatter, they followed a plank path back to the outhouse. The bathroom was indeed a small room with a toilet, shower and tub, and vanity. Plain but serviceable. But Mireio decided it would be a bitch in the winter if a person woke in the middle of the night needing to answer the call of nature.
“No holes dug in the ground,” Lars offered as they stepped out into the night air.
He pointed out the wildflower field that backed onto his property behind the outhouse and the beehives he kept. He had eight stacks right now and would divide them in the fall and probably gain three more in the process. He’d promised to take some of Valor’s bees when she divided the hives that she tended from the rooftop of her apartment building in Tangle Lake.
“So you’re a keeper,” Mireio commented, loving herself for the pun.
“I am? Oh. Uh, yes. A beekeeper.”
She felt sure he blushed in the darkness. The man certainly was a keeper.
After the grand tour, Mireio suggested they call it a night. She’d felt bad he’d had to take Peanut out of his crib, but the infant had slept through being buckled into his car seat and the twenty-minute drive back to Anoka, and even her accidental slamming of the truck door when she got out at the sidewalk before her house.
“Can I call you?” Lars asked as he stepped down from the sidewalk to stand on the tarmac, which put their heights a little closer.
“I certainly hope so. Hey, how about an afternoon with Peanut tomorrow? I have to go in to work for a few hours in the morning. Valor and I are kegging the stout. But I’m free after one. We could go to a park and have a picnic?”
“I’d like that. You sure you’re okay with this, Mireio?”
She